Soggy:
I don't know how I look to anyone else but in the last couple of weeks I've gone way out of my way to read sources intentionally avoiding those with a creationist slant. Now, I'm simply stating that I do not see the "testability or observability" accross the entire scope of the theory.
Where did I change anyones answer?
As far as the behavior of an engineer, I made a pretty good living for almost 17 years , in part, by questioning and finding holes in the processes, theories and assumptions of others that had previously been accepted as fact...or as Thal put it, a closed case. If I had a nickle for everytime that I found one tiny detail that completely unraveled the strong assertions of the "experts" I would be pretty wealthy. While I'm not wealthy, several different companies did make millions of dollars directly as a result of my ability to do just that. There is one key trait and one ability that enabled me to do that. The trait is being lazy...I've never met a good engineer who wasn't lazy. If a solution is a lot of work it's almost never the best solution. The ability...it usually boils down to being able to come up with the right questions. Given the right question, any idiot can find the answer or find someone who can find the answer. The hard part is in comming up with the right questions. Without questions all you can do is believe what you're told.
Many of the problems and projects that I had to tackle as an engineer were in fields or technologies that I had no background or education in at all. The approach I've used here is really pretty similar. Do some really general research and come up with some questions. The answeres or lack of answers to those questions helps determine the nature of future research and the formulation of the next batch or questions. yep, you hit lots of dead ends but by the time you actually get up to do anything it's right to the point and works right out of the box.
Needless to say, the scope of this subject and the number of different disciplines that it envolves is to great for me to have the time or resources to mount a really good effort. If it were something that I could really go into though I could tell you where I would go next. I'm really interested in the methods used to date rocks and this "red shift" thing used to measure the distance and velocity of distant heavenly bodies. Both seem key and I probably have a little bit of bias there because of my background in measurement systems...light and color being one of the areas that I have some experience in. Genetics is of course another area but there again, it's a pretty big nut to crack. Now, any one of those areas of questions could lead to dead ends but maybe not. There are other areas that come to mind but I'm already spread a bit thin. LOL but another good one is my discussion with Andy about brain size. There seems to be more to it that just the size or realative size of the frontal lobe and if we could really define intellegence or what physical traits, if any, determines it and really had a correlation there, it might tell quit a bit.
You say that my questions have been answered. I think not. Lomont explained why it's ok to have missing matter and energy and Thal listed some procedures or technologies that he says confirms the evolution model. Lomont didn't produce the missing stuff and Thal didn't explain how those procedures or technologies confirms the model. On the job as an engineer, I certainly wouldn't be satisfied with either answer although, as I said, they might help direct further research and help formulate the next round of questions.
