Mark said:

"An interesting discussion, but I doubt time alone will fix the issue. We seem to be going backwards with numerous pseudoscience and wishful thinking arguments being presented as evidence counter to evolution. Reminds me of the global warming debate with even less rigor."

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It is much easier to have a rational debate over physical theories because physics involves a higher level of precision and is suceptible to clear experimental verification. Also the the theories of Einstein so transcend the fairytales of the Old Testament that religion is not really a big issue.

Biology is less clear cut. Obviously the Law of Natural Selection has been repeatedly demonstrated by the scientific method. However we all know that natural selection is a slow going process that can involve many generations. If one wishes to demonstrate a complex physical theory like the Zeeman Effect, it only involves a spectrometer, an electric discharge tube and a magnet with experimental verification requiring only a few minutes. Also with the Zeeman Effect, there's the advantage of having no reference to it in the Bible so no one feels their religion threatened. This of course is the root of the problem with the Law of Natural Selection, i.e. people feel (correctly) that their religious beliefs are challenged by it. IMHO, when people feel their religion challenged by the Scientific Method, that's a clue that they need to upgrade their religion.

I actually find it ironic that religious fanatics feel more threatened by Darwin than Einstein. Darwin's science was observational and subject to interpretation. Einstein's science is rooted in mathematics and very rigorous. If the science flowing from Einstein's theories shows no scope for a god then that leaves much less room for debate versus Darwin's theories.

Mark threw "global warming" into the discussion. The existence of Global Warming in past eras is a scientific fact. There is ample evidence that the world was significantly warmer and colder than it is today. Also the phenomena of greater carbon dioxide abundance in the atmosphere is also an established scientific fact. What has not been adequately established is how much of global warming and concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide are due to human actitivity versus natural cycles like the precession of the equinoxes, Milankovitch cycles, etc. The Earth's climate has gone through some fairly radical climatic changes in the last 5000 years predating industrialization that included significant changes in sea level. I do accept that human activity has had catastophic effects in some aspects of the environment, e.g. over fishing in the ocean. However I remain unconviced that human activity is nothing more than a pimple on an elephant's rear when it comes to the global climate. The sun pumps power into the Earth's atmosphere at about 127 million gigawatts. The power of all human industrial activity combined is utterly insignificant compared to ordinary Solar power.

Gary