[gore3000]

"If you can find a net drain from photosynthesis in there,'

Thanks for your continued help in debunking the silly statement made in post#673 by someone who calls himself Vade Retro (perhaps like Clinton you have an evil twin?):

"We can be sure that there was little oxygen in the atmosphere on earth until life got started, notwithstanding all the lightning."

[VadeRetro]

Actually, I should have said "We can be sure there was very little oxygen in the atmosphere until photosynthesizing plants got started and the iron deposits on the earth's surface were completed rusted."

Slowly, wandering over your posts, I think I see some elements of a point emerging, but if it's what I think it is, you don't understand current scientific thinking on the early history of life. (Say it ain't so, Gore! How can you know it's wrong if you don't know what it is?)

Rather than anticipate you, therefore, I will let you explain what the big deal is about there not being much oxygen until late in the game.

A word to the willfully ignorant: even now there are anaerobic bacteria.