Sham, I thunked you'd like that one. [img]smile.gif[/img] I got some more I'll give latter when I get home and can look them up in NGeo.
Lucern, no problem with the cherry pick, I figured some of my questions needed to be answered and It seems that their were not going to be.
You are correct on the differance of HOW vs. WHY. The are two entirely differant things with differing answers. I'll come straight out and say that the fossil record is correct on the HOW, What, and When life begain on this dust ball. I'll even say that the physists are correct on when the big bang happened(something that even they don't agree on. 6 to 10 billion years ago, last figures I read that's a 4 billion year differance, and this is from the best minds the world has.)
The problem I have with the No Hand of God crowd is they are looking at observations, conculsions, theories, plain old fashioned detective work designed to answer HOW(the physicial steps taken to get there), WHAT(Where there is), and WHEN(How long it took to get there). The observers agree on the WHEN, Mostly agree on the HOW, but vastly disagree on the WHAT. Has anyone ever watched the Discovery Channel, TLC, or the Science Channel? all three channels have excellant series on prehistoric life and the origins of said life. But if you spend any time watching their shows you will see a couple of famous noted men in the field of study, I forget their names off the top of my pointed head. One of the guys had a camio in one of the jurrasic park movies IIRC, he's the breaded,hat wearing fellow, he says one thing about the T-Rex, another of the experts, a tall skinny guy grey hair, mid to late 50's, says something entirely differant, a third expert, also wears a hat mustashed, pointy face, says something differant then the other two. They agree on 2 of the 3 things their observations are designed to discover, but their observations are not designed to dicover WHY this thing we call life started. Yet the No Hand of God Crowd takes that evidence designed for HOW, WHAT, & WHEN, conclusions of said evidence that are not fully agreed upon, and try to apply it to the WHY question, a question the observations are not even designed to answer.
And I, or those like me are the ones that are being illogical? Spank my rear end and paint it purple, that beats anything I have seen in my life.