Many thanks for allowing me, on February 20, to notify your readers about Think-Week 2012. Our nine separate offerings achieved average attendances of well over 130 per event – which, I guess, compares favourably with the great majority of church services throughout the county.

My thanks too, for printing Alan Bourne’s response – though I’m not sure why he should compare me to one of his previous bosses. It is a matter of considerable regret to most thinking humanists – including Prof. Dawkins – that so many of those census respondents who will, correctly, be counted as Christians in the 2011 census actually agree with the three Humanist-oriented bullet points I highlighted in my earlier letter.

Mr Bourne – and the rest of your readers – may be interested to learn that membership of Oxford (town) Humanists has tripled since they first elected me chairman in March 2006.

The popularity, among both Oxford and Oxford Brookes students, of last week’s two “Dawkins” events confirms the strength of religious scepticism among the younger generation of city inhabitants.

Further, I find it hard to understand why a man who clearly understands so little about the scientific method should seek to imply that a distinguished Oxford professor’s use of it is somehow related to his so-called “faith of atheism/scientism”. To resort to slurring those you don’t agree with is far more an attribute of Baroness Warsi, the Pope, or Alan Bourne, I’d have thought.

JOHN D WHITE, BSc (Hons Physics), Imperial College, London Chair, Oxford Humanists