BASIL Coates writes an entertaining letter (‘Fossils or just futuristic fakery?’ March 25) brimming with cartoon images of prelapsarian innocence.

He writes authoritatively of “evolutionists” or “evoillusionists”, as he likes to call them, and he writes of their “foolhardy” and “reckless” ideas.

I recommend he puts aside his crow-quill for a while and reads a bit more, not just the headlines distilled from (with respect) lazy journalism to spoon feed our infantile desire for a soundbite (“the missing link” and “ape-man” clichés are an example of the art).

Read the scientific papers or a decent text book at least, it might prevent another faux pas.

Re: the fossil jawbone, he writes that “the latest find could well be a genetic mutation.”

That, old chum, is evolution, QED.

Graham Rosewarne

Avening