John Bice's column, "Evolutionary theory, science needed to vaccinate irrational beliefs" (SN 2/16), falls short on several points:

• Bice determines truth by popular opinion. Surely this is faulty. What if popular opinion happens to be wrong? Truth is not determined by polls, but by what corresponds to reality. What if the minority of scientists who do believe in God happen to be right?

• Evolutionists who completely dismiss God still have not adequately dealt with the issue of the complexity of life. For example, DNA strands in the human body hold 30,000-140,000 genes. The gene sequences can be hundreds to millions of pairs long. Why should people believe that this was formed by random, unintelligent chance?

Or consider the human eye. Could such a complex organism be formed by random chance over thousands of years? All of its parts must fit together and work together for it to have any working function. There are laws of physics, along with mathematical truths. How could such consistent laws come about without a lawgiver?

• He writes that he does not believe in God, an "invisible sky being." Is this a belief in only what our senses or instruments can discover? What about thoughts, ideas, a memory, the wind, love? None of these things are visible, yet they are all very real.

Christianity is based on the historical life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If one wants to use research and critical thinking to affirm or deny this, then one is free to do so. Bice writes that belief in God is irrational. But if Christ lived, died and rose bodily from the grave, wouldn't belief in Him be the only rational response?

John, a disciple of Jesus writes, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched — this we proclaim concerning the Word of life" (1 John 1:1 (NIV)).

Chris Hearn
St. Johns resident