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I noted that many in this discussion (and there have been excellent arguments on both sides) abandoned ship, fled for the hills, or diverted arguments when abiogenesis was mentioned.

Abiogenesis is their *weakness* in the discussion of creation vs. evolution.

If it were their strength, believe me, you'd be hearing more about it. But they can't tout it, because no one understands it.

(Again: Remember that Genesis says specifically that "the Earth brought forth life"--which implies evolution from abiogenesis. Judaic tradition sure describes the origin of all things better than Eskimo, eh?)

Say what you will, but the lack of progress with the abiogenic field speaks volumes about the limitations of our understanding of how life first formed. We simply *don't know,* but only a few honest biochemists will fess up to the truth. The rest remain guilty in their silence.

There's a huge amount of peer pressure to toe the line in science. If you want continued grant funding, you need a good word from your peers as a future reference. If you don't have it, you lose your livelihood. Few will dare to buck the establishment.

ID is new. There's no hurry. I think they're onto something, because they can't disprove Intelligent Design. In fact, many unanswered questions are hinting at, pointing at, Intelligent Design as the cause for why we can't answer a simple question: How did Life begin?

Why should there be something...rather than nothing?

While we cannot (and probably never will be able to) prove ID, the circumstantial evidence for it is overwhelming...but not quite proof.

Conversely, they cannot disprove I.D.

As for me, I view evolution and the entrenched cabal defending-it-at-all-costs as very close-minded. They're putting forth their own "just so" story.

For me, I view evolution as the Theory of Accidentialism.

There just hasn't been enough time elapsed here on Earth to generate life from inorganic materials, even by their own theories.

There's also the problem that life appeared the minute liquid water was able to form. In reality, that's the point where the countdown should have begun, and add many billions of years to that date. But that's not what happened. Life seemed to have been either introduced, or pre-programmed to introduce itself (Genesis, anyone?).

Either way, I think this univese was meant to have life in it. We have some bacteria that have more than a hundred times the genetic material you would expect for a bacteria...is it meant to be "seed material" to create other organisms?

Here we are, living on this Goldilocks world...right orbit, smack dab in the ecospshere...right inclination...right star...right part of the spiral arm...right age...a tiny fraction in change of temperature and matter wouldn't exist...quantum gravity "tuned" to be just right...even Hoyle said that it appeared as if Someone has "monkeyed" with the physics of the universe, that it was fine-tuned for life....

I'm sorry, but I think O.J. murdered Nicole because of all the circumstantial evidence, and I think God exists because of all the circumstantial evidence, too.

We're sitting here discussing the evidences for Design in biology. There's PLENTY, if you want to be honest about it.

But what's more important--there's even MORE evidence for Design in the cosmos. Some of the older Christians here can recollect when a select sect (cult, cabal...I'll use the word "sect") of slightly less-than-honest-to-the-general-public astronomers held out for far too many years for the Steady State Theory, held out beyond all reasonableness, and held out--by their own admission--because the thought of a universe with an "origin" carried too weight of an implication, and made them "uneasy." (Hints at the existence of a God to whom they might be accountable.) It all gets down to the desire to be libertine, rather than accountable.

If the universe is ultimately uncreated, eterally self-existent, or even accidental...then it has no purpose, and neither do we. Morality becomes irrelevant.

If, however, it was created, then morality becomes paramount. And this frightens some. But on the good side, it would mean that love, perception of aesthetic beauty, and the concept of altruism and mercy actually do have meaning, and our having them was by no means an accident.

I'm sickened by a few deceitful astronomers who clung tenanciously to the Steady State Theory (now on the ash heap), only to discard it and immediately jump onto the (minority) bandwagon of Brane Theory. They weren't held accountable. (Scolding would be sufficient.)

They'll simply do anything to DENY that this universe had an origin, a creation, in time.

(Brane Theory says that another universe "bumped" into this one, creating it. It conveniently begs the question of what created THAT OTHER universe. Another "just so" story we're supposed to accept. Oh, and there are 11 dimensions to it...did I mention that? We're supposed to lay back and accept this stuff, cut from whole cloth, unprovable, posited from nothing but imagination, and yet we cannot posit a Creator? Dudes, you guys must play by the same rhetorical rules. If you can make up your universes, we can posit God, for whom there's tons of circumstantial evidence.)

My $0.02, again. YMMV (your mileage may vary).

Let's all rest easy.

Sauron.