Madam, - D. Vincent Twomey's letter of December 4th in response to Tom Moore's of November 23rd is, at once, objectionable and self-contradictory. Objectionable because he uses the reprehensible behaviour of the Nazis to, in the most irrational manner, attempt to denigrate science and self-contradictory because he writes of the "absolute claims" of science while, in the same letter, acknowledging that science is constantly correcting its claims. The latter is the right understanding. It is called the scientific method and it is what gives science its power and its beauty. A hypothesis is put forward, is tested and, if found wanting, is rejected in favour of a better theory.
No matter how much emotional capital has been invested in an idea, if it fails to stand up to rigorous testing, the scientist abandons it and moves on.
The letter involves seriously muddled thinking. How can the writer infer a tendency to descend into inhuman experimentation from Tom Moore's comments, which, it seems to me, are far more likely to lead to vegetarianism and a ban on vivisection than anything else? Vincent Twomey writes of the intuitions of common sense. Common sense tells me that men cannot come back from the dead (as opposed from recovering from a comatose state). Common sense tells me that if I kill infidels and take my own life in the process, there will not be 72 virgins waiting for me in heaven.
Common sense tells me that people cannot walk on water in depth in its liquid state and, if they are perceived to have turned water into wine, the explanation is far more likely to involve the techniques of conjuring and illusion (or simple misunderstanding on the part of reporters of the incident) than that the chemical composition of the liquid has spontaneously changed to create what would normally require the addition of crushed grapes and weeks of fermentation.
Lastly, it is way beyond time for individuals like Vincent Twomey to get over the conceit that religion is a necessary precondition, or some kind of a guarantee, of morality. A cursory glance at even recent history will reveal that this is not the case. - Yours, etc,
SEAMUS McKENNA, Dundrum, Dublin 14.