[grey_whiskers]

Prout, in general a very good, fair, and thoughtful post.

However, I have a couple of nitpicky comments, about behavior:

Fourth, we do not have a "presumption of the 'truth' of evolution" if by "evolution" you mean (as do so many Creationists):

- that we believe we have absolute knowledge of the full sequence of changes in life from its pre-living origins all the way up to the present,/i>

- that we believe the theory of the origin of species in some way "disproves" the existence and participation of some supernatural entity

- that we believe that the current model is perfect

Some of the evo posters on these threads lean towards giving the impression of absolute knowledge--or at least close enough in principle. And some of the other evo posters seem to come across as athiests. My belief is that many of said posters just lose patience and so try to tweak the nose of anyone arguing with them.

"Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb" and all that.

[King Prout]

a lot of the, um, acerbity displayed by some of the evo posters is due, as you suggest, to sheer frustration. It grows wearisome to have to explain repeatedly the same answers to the same questions -often from the same people- over and over, ad nauseam et ad absurdum.

Some of the evos ARE atheists, some others (like myself) are agnostic. So far as I know, NONE of us would be so foolish as to advance the theory of evolution as a rational disproof of divinity. I would certainly hope not, since it ain't.