JUST like Neil Duckworth (LET Letters, January 11) I, too, was taught evolution was a fact. I remember the "monkey to humans" diagrams.

Then in Australia, I went to a lecture and was faced with questions like: "If a giraffe evolved from short-necked antelopes, how come its vein structure has one-way valves to stop blood pressure building up to blow its brains out when it puts its head down?"

"How come fossilised vertical tree trunks are all over the place spanning rock strata that are meant to be different in age by millions of years -- how were the roots fossilised millions of years before the rest of it?"

"How come every bird has feathers that must be lubricated to keep flexible to avoid the bird crashing, and they also have oil glands in their neck and shaped beaks to preen the oil on to the feathers -- but non-birds don't?"

"How did they decide which came first -- a useless oil gland without feathers, or stiff feathers the bird couldn't fly with?"

And now the Mount St Helens eruption has shown us a one-fortieth scale version of the Grand Canyon was formed and carved out in a week - the lava stream covered a glacier which boiled and formed a raging mud slide that removed all the material violently. In a week. Not millions of years.

We've been betrayed by irrational evolutionist teachers. Yes, natural selection within species obviously occurs. There are no transitional species.

But as an engineer and scientist, random evolution definitely goes against all the laws we've identified of physics and thermodynamics.

The world has all the hallmarks of an incredibly brilliant Intelligent Designer -- and one day, we shall all stand before Him. We'll feel a bit daft saying "Oi, You can't do this -- You don't exist! I came from monkeys You know!"

MARTIN SMITH, Langham Road, Blackburn.