Re: "Are the Darwinists afraid to debate us? – We want a discussion of ideas, say John West and Bruce Chapman," Tuesday Viewpoints.

Religion aside, such defiance of reasoned dialogue is an attempt to impose censorship.

The issue of human and cosmic origins is of sufficient importance that all thoughtful hypotheses should be openly considered. Some SMU professors' phobic intransigence against even allowing for another proposition suggests weakness; one can only surmise that they feel threatened by a studied challenge.

Evangelicals often are caricatured as intolerant, but we have just witnessed breathtaking prejudice and intolerance on the other side. Proponents of intelligent design only ask for a free, open discourse. Since these dissenting professors purport such confidence, they should make their case in a mature exchange of opinions.

The SMU administration is to be commended for affirming ongoing learning through dialogue, debate and discovery.

David Shibley, Rockwall

There is nothing to debate. The Discovery Institute is intent on pushing theisitic creationism under the guise of science into academic circles and into classrooms with a handful of shills.

SMU should rightly deny them blathering supernatural explanations of accepted science.

James Harvey, Mesquite

How is it that such learned men as John West and Bruce Chapman fail to understand that Darwinian theory does not address the question of the originating force behind life, only the process of change over time – evolution.

What is it they think there is to debate? A debate on God's creation of life would be with creationists, Hindus, Buddhists or Native Americans – who all have quite different views of how God created life – but not Darwinians, who have presented no theories on God's creation of life at all.

Peter Selph, Balch Springs