Defending real data

May I suggest that David Trim (Letters, THES , December 12) has overlooked the subtle distinction between the human devastation brought about directly by the pro-religious (crusades, inquisition, 9/11) and the misuse by others of genuine scientific data.

I suppose that Trim would be much happier if we precluded such misuse by suppressing information about evolution and so on. But then how does he suggest that we contain the creationists and fundamentalists who are striving for an unthinking and totalitarian theocracy? Or maybe he doesn't.

Trevor Stone
University of Glasgow