In response to Peter Thalhofer’s letter (“Schools should stop teaching evolution,” Dec. 24), I would like to say that evolution is one of the most important subjects that can be taught in school.

Mr. Thalhofer makes the assumption that learning the true facts of the origin of the human species is somehow harmful to students’ self-esteem. This notion is completely backward. It is tremendously important to know how we as a species came to exist as we are in order to appreciate just how incredibly improbable, and therefore miraculous, our existence is.

We are indeed the result of a mind-bogglingly unlikely chain of events, which some might call accidental, and this is not something of which to be ashamed. It does not detract in any way from the importance of every human being.  In fact, one can only marvel at how here, on a tiny planet circling a tiny, dim star in a remote corner of a tiny galaxy in an ever-expanding universe, we are all alive.

What could possibly be more affirming, and more important, than that?

— Lily Robinthal