Mr. Rehberg, anyone with a junior-high understanding of evolution should know it is in the best interest of social animals to care who lives. Love and caring are powerful selective tools. Contrary to popular belief among the misinformed, the “fittest” does not mean those capable of ignoring everything around them while they “eat, drink and be merry.” Fitness comes down to the ability to produce viable offspring and raise them to the point where they can produce viable offspring. You seem to believe morals could not have evolved and cannot be defined by a society. Look at history: morals constantly evolve. Five thousand years ago, genocide was not considered immoral, not by your god. Until 150 years ago, slavery was not universally considered immoral. Forty years ago, segregation wasn’t considered immoral. All of these are now considered immoral. It is arrogant to think that if someone doesn’t believe in your god, they have no basis for being moral or for caring about others. You ask what defines good. There are many reasonable definitions, not all revolve around a genocidal deity. There are many good reasons besides “going to heaven” to help people. As a veterinarian, I strongly believe that creatures without a “soul” have a value that “would make all the effort worth it.” It is acceptable for you to believe stem cell research is immoral, but you have a problem if you define a person beginning when a cell can develop into an individual. In that case, you are killing billions of people daily. Every cell in your body (except sperm and red blood) contains a complete genetic blue print. Many of these differentiated cells are capable of becoming a separate individuals. It’s called cloning. Every cell you slough or destroy, by your definition, is a child. If you want to follow your philosophy, devise a binding agreement that you and your descendants will never benefit from stem cell research. That is what you are forcing on the all of us by banning it.Incidentally, it is Genesis that claims we are “all just energized dirt,” not evolution.Tim Morgan DVM

Graduate student

Veterinary pathology