[Nicholas Conradin]

In all this time, I've come to believe the creationists and the evolutionists habitually engage in gross errors of reasoning. Hence both sides are totally unconvincing to me. My guess is that common descent is real but that the mechanism has not yet been identified and the arrogance of the evolutionary advocates is thus misplaced.

My own sentiments largely sympathize with your views, particularly the phrase which I emphasized in the quote above.

However, being an atheist, I find nothing useful in the creationist fantasy. But there appears to me to be something lacking in rigid Darwinian schemas. I suspect that there is some mechanism for the inheritance of acquired characteristics (Lamarck).

[donh]

However, being an atheist, I find nothing useful in the creationist fantasy. But there appears to me to be something lacking in rigid Darwinian schemas. I suspect that there is some mechanism for the inheritance of acquired characteristics (Lamarck).

There probably are several, but when they are discovered, it won't make a dent in the evidence that the largest part of the story is variation and selection. Biological science apologizes for not knowing everything. Somehow, this does not seem to persuade most scientists of their rigidity.