Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: notesfiles Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!hao!hplabs!hp-pcd!hpfcrs!lief From: lief@hpfcrs.UUCP (lief) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Why Creation? Message-ID: <14600006@hpfcrs.UUCP> Date: Wed, 3-Apr-85 19:03:00 EST Article-I.D.: hpfcrs.14600006 Posted: Wed Apr 3 19:03:00 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 9-Apr-85 03:48:42 EST Lines: 526 Nf-ID: #N:hpfcrs:14600006:000:33524 Nf-From: hpfcrs!lief Apr 3 16:03:00 1985 As a newcomer on the net.origins, I was rather surprised with the polite responses sent to some of my obviously charged wisecracks! I really was expecting something more flamed. This speaks well for the caliber of folks contributing to this group (at least the evolutionists). I hope the same can be said of the creationists. Now that I've been initiated, onto serious business. I'd like to respond to the thoughtful questions posed by Sidney Markowitz. Please feel free to challange any of my statements -- but keep in mind also that I got to get my work done here too! WHY I BELIVE IN CREATION: So that you can know where I'm coming from, let me state that I was born and raised as a Seventh-Day Adventist, and still am. I attended private Adventist schools from the first grade until graduating from a private Adventist University. However, my graduate work was done at the University of California at Davis. All through school, I was taught Creation as based on the first 2 chapters of Genesis of the Bible. I was also taught the theory of evolution in school, but not to the degree as Creation. I would guess that in public school it would be the opposite -- with the main emphasis on Evolution, and then Creation thrown in on the side (or the front blank page as some wise man once said). Is it enough that I believe in Creation simply because that is what I have been taught all my life? Is it enough that I believe in Creation because my parents or teachers did? No! Every Creationist and Evolutionist must eventually come to the place where he must think for himself, and analyze his beliefs. I must have a reason for believeing in Creation just as the Evolutionist must have a reason to believe in Evolution. "Daddy said so" is not an acceptable reason. The scientific method requires that all ideas and theories be tested and tried. If the theory fails the test, then either the theory is in error, or the test is invalid. Surely one can not claim to be using scientific methods if he is unwilling to subject his ideas or theories to various tests and challanges -- or if he is unwilling to change his theory even though the tests conclusively show his ideas to be in error. There has been alot on the net lately about the unscientific methods of various Creationist's groups, and I would have to agree that the charges are sound in many respects. Another requirement for a scientific method is that all preconceived notions must be removed. In otherwords, the true scientist must be truly objective -- this is extremely difficult. A case in point: I believe in the all powerfull God of the Bible, a God who gives life and sustains nature. Thus, when I study nature, I will undoubtedly attribute many phenomenom to God's power. On the other hand, the athiest as he studies nature will attribute many phenomenom to some natural cause. It wasn't too many centuries ago that everything that could not be explained by natural causes was attributed to God. Of course, this had the effect of making God responsible for the good rain which helped the farmers as well as making God responsible for the lighting which struck church steeples and killed the bellman. There was a tragic side to this warped thinking. In the late middle ages, society commonly linked inclement weather and pestilence with witchcraft. Many believed that witches caused storms, destroyed crops, and brought on illnesses. When converted to Christianity, people began missusing such Bible texts as the one calling the devil "the prince of the power of the air", and the Mosaic instruction, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." We know the tragic results -- witch hunts, burnings, etc. In fact between 1550 and 1650 an estimated 100,000 victims were condemned and sacrificed in Germany alone. All of this the result of attributing to supernatural forces aspects of nature not readily understood. Then, as now, for many in their knowledge of the natural world, God was a God of the gaps. Dr. Harvey's work proved that blood circulates continuously in a single direction as a result of muscular contraction, and not by some supernatural force. His and many other following discoveries rang the death knell for a whole vocabulary of mysterious phrases such as "innate heat," "animal spirits," and "pneumatic force." Likewise, when about two centuries later the chemist Friedrich Wohler accidentally synthesized the organic compound urea, he exploded the notion that organic chemical synthesis was unique to life processes and was not open to explanation. These and other results were unsettling to many who viewed such processes as unique to living organisms under God's control in such a manner as to be beyond explanation. The result has been a swinging of the pendulum to the other extreme, where everything must be explained in terms of natural causes, without the need for God. So, after saying the above I must ask myself why do I still believe in Creation? My basis for believing in Creation is because I am convinced that there is a God who cares about me and everyone else. Why am I convinced? Because I have experienced direct answers to prayer, and have heard too many incidents of unexplained events happening to others also. The experience I like to relate to folks is one that happened a couple of springs ago. During the winter my little boy had taken the little bleeder valves off of each of my sprinkler controllers and scattered them around in the yard. Needless to say, in the spring when I went out to get my sprinklers going, I was missing all five bleeder valves. So what to do? I could have driven down to town a couple miles and bought some new ones for a few cents. But no, I decided to challange (or ask) God to help me find these little critters. That should be a decent challange, trying to find these tiny black valves in the grass. After praying right there in the yard, the most incredible thing happened. It was as though someone was leading me around and controlling my eyes, because in about 60 seconds, I had found all 5 valves in various locations, some even in the dirt under the deck. I was very impressed with a God who would be concerned with something so minute. How can I prove it wasn't a coincedence? I can't. However, sometime have your child take 5 small objects about the size of your little finger nail and scatter them in your backyard, or toss them out the window with your eyes closed. Then go out there and find them in 1 minute. I submit that belief in God must be based on some type of experiences such as answered prayers. If one has never experienced God in their life, I reckon it would be very difficult to believe in him. So until someone can give me a good explanation for what happened in my back yard on that spring day, or why my daughter's blood problem suddenly cleared up (much to the doctor's surprise) after my wife and I had a special prayer for her, or why my car which broke down and conked out along the side of the road (turns out it had a cracked distributer cap), decided to run again after my wife and I asked God to at least help us drive home, (I fixed it the next day at home), I have no choice but to believe that God is alive and definitely cares for folks. So do I believe that this God is the author of the Bible? The Bible is a collection of many different topics written by many types of people at different times. It is also a most intriguing book -- either folks love it or folks hate it! If you don't believe that, read net.religion sometime. It is also a book of puzzles. Beware of anyone who claims to understand the Bible completely. One wonders how God can call David a "man after my own heart", after reading the bloody exploits of David's reign, his murder of Bathsheba's wife so he could have her, etc. One wonders how a God of love could command Joshua or King Saul to completely eliminate whole populations, including children and animals. Taken as a whole, however, the Bible begins to make more sence. For example, David was not called a "man after my own heart" until later in life, when he had become a changed man. The populations which God had exterminated (and I know that is a strong word) were extremely evil. One only needs to read the history about the Caananite people to realize what God was actually eradicating. They were a people who had no regard for humanity, killed off their own children as sacrifices to their so called gods, made prostitution a religeous rite, etc. In otherwords, Charles Manson types. Further study shows that God did not have these folks killed off without giving them several chances to change their ways. For example, when Saul was commanded to go destroy the Amalakites, God specifically commanded that there was one tribe there he should spare because they had not been given a sufficient amount of time to change. Some folks wonder what side God was on in WWII. That's a good question. This is just a sample of some of the puzzles the Bible forces us to contend with. However, just because I can't understand everything about God, I don't throw out the Bible and say "it's baloney." That would be against scientific methods, as I pointed out at the beginning. Instead, I try to dig deeper and find more information. The book of Daniel is my favorite for this. One can't help but be amazed at the accuracy of the prophecies recorded in this book hundreds of years before actually occurring. In fact, it is so accurate, that many critics refuse to believe that Daniel actually wrote the book -- in their view it must have been written several hundreds of years later after the events had taken place. But then they are left with the puzzle of how the author of Daniel knew so much about Babylonian affairs, because at the time that they would like to have their author exist, there was absolutely no records available of Babylonian life. (This is beginning to sound like net.religion, sorry). For many years critics charged that the Bible could not be a reliable source because it disagreed with secular literature. Yet archeological digs and the finding of several inscriptions have proved that the secular literature was incorrect. For example, Sodom and Gomorrah actually did exist, Nebuchadnezzar actually was the builder of great Babylon, Belshazzar was really Babylon's last king, etc. In otherwords, the more I read, the more I am convinced that there is something inspired about the Bible. I do not believe in verbal inspiration of the Bible. I'm not sure any one does. Instead I believe that the Bible is an inspired message written by imperfect men. One would be a fool to call anyone perfect. The message in general in the old testament is that God is in control of the affairs of this earth. Obviously, God chose to reveal this message by giving a record of history, so that one could see how events were somewhat guided by him. (Obviously, I shouldn't use the word *obviously*, because what may be obvious to me is not necessarily obvious to someone else). We also see that God in the Old Testament never forced his will on folks. If a nation decided they didn't want God, they usually go their wish. So we see a story of Israel (not to be confused with the present occupants of Palestine) rejecting God, fumbling around on their own, repenting, and repeating the cycle over and over. Because of the reasons I have stated, I choose to believe that Genesis is just as inspired as any other part of the Bible. Again keep in mind that the message is inspired, not the words. After all, the Bible has gone through several hundred years of evolution; phrases and words in the original no longer make sence in terms of new languages and cultures, thus translators have in many cases translated words to their own interpretations. In some cases words have been inserted to make meanings more clear to modern languages such as English. Therefore, reading the Bible requires one to pull meanings out of the intent of the author, and avoid pulling things out of context. In fact, this is a good procedure for any type of reading. Otherwise, you get folks who claim that the Bible says the earth is flat, when the actual subject has absolutely nothing to do with the shape of the earth. People would laugh at me if after I read a statement such as, "the prism effect which one witnesses as the sun rises over the horizon", I would tell folks that this scientist claims the sun revolves around the earth. Or a statement such as "economic conditions in the third world..." would be used to justify that apparently there are 3 worlds, and I assume the size of earth. THE GENESIS ACCOUNT: The very first verse of Genesis states that "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth; and the earth was without form or void." Reading this straight forward seems quite self explanatory. Therefore, as a Creationist who accepts Genesis as an inspired message, I believe God is the creator of everything we see around us. That is all it says. It does not say *when* he created the heavens and the earth. The phrase "the earth was without form or void" doesn't tell us if God created the inorganic mass called "earth" right before creation week, or millions of years before creation week -- all it says is that it was there in a shapeless form when he created life on it. This verse also presupposes that God was in existence before the beginning (before the beginning is an interesting phrase). Thus, the Bible does not support a 6000 year age for the inorganic earth or for other heavenly bodies. It only supports the creation of life on this earth about 6000 years ago -- and that is simply an estimate made by using the chronology of Adam down through Christ. Reading other portions of the Bible, one notices that other worlds have also been created with life by God. For exapmle, in Hebrews 1:2, "...whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;". Also, Hebrews 11:3, "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." Whether God used the "big bang" to put the millions of bodies out in space, I couldn't say. However, I do know that the red-shift phenomenom is real, so it's a possibility. Again, one would be foolish to say that the Bible prohibits the "big bang", because it sure isn't in there. However, the Bible does state that the original matter was all created by God -- and that's my position. We go on and notice that on the first day God created light, on the second day he created the atmosphere, on the third day he created dry land and plants, on the fourth day he created the sun and the moon, on the fifth day he created the fowls and the fish, on the sixth day he created mammals and man, and on the seventh day he rested. (You think God got weary and needed a rest?) It's interesting to note that each day is concluded by the phrase "and the evening and the morning were...". The author is really emphasising the time element here. There is no doubt that what the author means is a literal 24 hour day. The fact is, if one tries to interpret each day as meaning one eon, or years, whatever, he might as well scrap the whole Bible. I don't understand folks who think they can arbitrarily decide whether something is a metaphor or whether something is literal. The context will tell you whether something is a metaphor or not. And there is nothing here to indicate that this should be a metaphor, so either it's a 24 hour day or the Bible is a hoax. Just for the sake of argument, let me assume that each day represents one eon. Then, when the plants were made on the third eon, how did they survive without sunlight until the fourth eon? Or how could they have survived without insects and birds to do the pollinating? And if each day is one eon, then how is it that suddenly the sabbath became only 1 day? For one who believes in an all powerful God, the abibility to create the world in 6 literal days in not a problem. For one who believes in an all powerful God, but then doesn't believe God could create the world in 6 literal days, I would ask if they really do believe in an all powerful God. It's interesting that light was created on the first day. Did God need light to see? Remember, the sun was not created yet. In Isaiah we read about the throne of God, where there is no need for the sun. (We see this in Revelation also). I believe that the light of the first day was the light of God's presence. No, I don't believe God needed light to see. However I believe that he knew that some processes he was dealing with apparently needed light (maybe some chemical actions, etc.). Or perhaps, representatives from other worlds needed the light so they could witness God's creative power. Whatever, all I can do is speculate and conjecture why. On the second day, the creation of the atmosphere presents an interesting phrase -- "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters". What this is literally saying is that a shell of water was formed around the atmosphere of the earth. This is evident from the next verse which says "the waters under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament". Obviously we don't have a shell of water surrounding our atmosphere today. So where did it go? It's interesting to note that the original world was created without winters, storms, etc. This is evident from later chapters in Genesis. What effect would a shell of water (several feet thick) surrounding the atmosphere have on the weather? Would it have a greenhouse effect, making the whole earth temperate? I'd like to hear feedback on this from some knowledgable source. Another reason why this verse is intriguing is because we read later in Genesis 7:11 (Noah's flood) that "all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." It's hard to imagine how rain could flood the whole earth, but it's easy to see how the whole earth could be flooded if God allowed the water shell around the atmosphere to collapse, by opening the *windows of heaven*. On the third day God caused all the waters to be gathered into smaller bodies of water, and have dry land appear. Again, for an all powerful God, who I believe could stop the Red Sea, this was trivial. Again it is not the purpose of Genesis to tell us how it was done -- only that it was done under God's power. Whether he caused the water to go underground, or he raised the ground, who knows. On the fourth day he created the sun and the moon. This is an intriguing situation because we all know that the earth depends on the sun for its stable orbit. I have often asked how the earth could have been here without the support of the sun? Obviously, we can only conjecture how. I see two possibilities: (1) the sun existed previously as a large dark body and God ignited it as it were, or (2) the earth was here without the support of the sun, guided by other forces, and God placed the earth into a solar system or he built a solar system around the earth. As far as I'm concerned, he could easily have done either one, or something else that I don't know about. What about the stars? If creation was accomplished only about 6000 years ago as I believe from the Biblical chronology, how is it that I can see stars that are more than 6000 light years away? If one reads verse 14, it says ".. lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years." It goes on to say let them be for giving light on the earth. Then finally it says "And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also." Taking what the author says, we can only conclude that God created the sun and and moon -- "And God made two great lights;". At the tail end of the sentence is tagged on "the stars also." The author is merely adding the thought that the stars also were made by God, though not necessarily on that day. Had the stars been created on that day, they should have been emphasised with the sun and the moon. On the other hand, let's assume that the author is wrong and that the stars were actually created on that day. I'm sure if God has the ability to create stars, he surely can cause the laws of the speed of light to do weird things. But to think that there were no other heavenly bodies around until the fourth day would be contrary to the other portions of the Bible which give evidence of other created worlds. Finally, we come to the fifth and sixth days of creation when God created the fishes, fowls, mammals, and finally the first man and woman. Note that up until creating man, everything was simply spoken into existence. But when man was created, God did something out of the ordinary -- formed a clay man and then gave it life. This tells me that man was set appart from the rest of creation. (Now if you are an athiest, I sure hope you can bear with me through this explanation!) As a creationist, I believe that everything was created perfectly. If this were not so, then the author would not have said "And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." The seventh day was a day which God set aside as a special day (like a holiday) in which man was to celebrate the creation. Note that this thought is brought out in Exodus 20:8 (the fourth commandment). In fact, that is the only purpose for the sabbath. I am hard pressed to find any Biblical reference that states any other reason for the orgin of the sabbath. So there it is -- a brief synopsis of what I believe happened. But, it sounds like my theory is all based on the presupposition that there is an almighty God, right? Exactly. One cannot believe on creation unless he accepts the notion of an almighty God. Can any one prove that God exists? No. Therefore, I submit that one requires a certain amount of faith to accept this notion. (By faith, I mean the acceptance of an idea for which little or no evidence exists). However, it is not a blind faith, in that I see little things here and there which suggest that there is a God. (Blind faith would be defined by me as presumption). This brings me to my next major topic. EVIDENCE FOR CREATION: First off, let me make clear two very important points. (1) Evidence does not constitute proof. (2) Exceptions to the rule do not change the rule, but rather remain exceptions to the rule. Its easy to ask questions. Any fool can ask a question. But it takes real wisdom to answer questions, and I'm not sure I can do that. One notes that generally speaking, when you have a debate between evolutionists and creationists, usually lot's of questions are fired back and forth, and very few answers are given. I submit that I cannot prove creation simply by asking questions which the evolutionist cannot answer. By the same token, one cannot prove evolution by asking questions which the creationist cannot answer. And yet, we need the questions to stimulate thought. A creationist should not be too hasty to think that there is no truth to the theory of evolution. There is considerable evidence for the theory of evolution, just as there is considerable evidence for the theory of creation. To say there is not a scrap of evidence for evolution is hardly justified. Suppose I come up with a brilliant idea. I then subject it to many tests, and I find that some of the test show my idea to be valid, and other tests show my idea to be invalid. Do I scrap the whole idea as worthless? No. I modify it a little here and a little there, and repeat the process. Suppose that every test I do gives me negative results, without a single exception. Do I conclude that my idea is right? Creationists have always held that life comes only from life. In fact, this is why a creation is necessary. All evidence points to the notion that spontaneous generation cannot happen. According to Webster, spontaneous generation is "the generation of living from nonliving matter...(it is taken) from a belief, now abandoned, that organisms found in putrid organic matter arose spontaneously from it." In otherwords, given the proper conditions of temperature, time, place, etc. decaying matter simply turns into organic life. This idea dominated scientific thinking until 1846 when Louis Pasteur fully shattered the theory by his experiments. Under controlled laboratory conditions, in a vacuum, no organic life ever emerged from decaying nonliving matter. Today no reputable scientist tries to defend it on a demonstratable basis. That's why Webster said it was "now abandoned". No present process is observed that could support the idea of spontaneous generation. Dr. George Wald, Nobel Prize Winner of Harvard University, states it as cryptically and honestly as an evolutionist can: "One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we are -- as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation." This quote taken from Scientific American, Aug, 1954. Besides demonstrating the point that spontaneous generation is impossible, the above quote also demonstrates something about the faith of an evolutionist. Creationists need faith to believe in God, and evolutionists need faith to believe in something they reckon is impossible. Dr. Wald's exhaustive search for a scientific explanation ended in failure, as it has for all other evolutionary scientists, and he had the courage to admit it. But he also had an incredible faith to believe in it even though it was a scientific impossibility. Surely, using rational and objective thinking, one would conclude that if it takes a high order of intelligence just to understand *life*, then it must take a far greater intelligence to design it. Thus, the fact that there exists zero evidence that spontaneous generation is possible leads me to believe that life was designed by some form of intelligence. Wald goes on to suggest that given enough time (say 2 billion years), even an impossible event is bound to happen. Perhaps. However; scientists still do not fully understand the nature of *life*. Until it is understood neither the probability nor even the possibility of its chance occurrence can be properly assessed. And if applied to an impossible event, probability theory would have no application. Let's look at another evidence of creation. Obviously, if all life was created on earth simultaneously, then one would expect to find such evidence in the fossils. Descending into the Grand Canyon for example, one moves downward past the Mississippian, Devonian, Cambrian, etc. geological stratas as they have been tagged. The Cambrian layer is the lowest or last stratum of the decending levels that has any fossils in it (although every now and then someone will find a random fossil in Pre-Cambrian strata). Interestingly enough, all lower strata below the Cambrian have no record of life. And yet the Cambrian layer is full of all the major kinds of animals and plants found today. The life forms in the Cambrian layer compare with the complexity of current life forms. This evidence is a puzzle to evolutionists. Darwin, in his Origin of the Species, states, "To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest period prior to the Cambrian system I can give no satisfactory answer." Drs. Marshall Kay and Edwin Colbert of Columbia University also agree with this evidence when they state "Why should such complex organic forms be in rocks about 600 million years old and be absent or unrecognized in the records of the preceding two billion years?...If there has been evolution of life, the absence of the requisite fossils in the rocks older than Cambrian is puzzling." This quote taken from Stratigrapy and Life History, Page 102. Let's look at another evidence of creation. The Bible states that all life should reproduce after its own kind. I looked up the word kind in Bible concordance to see what the actual Hebrew word meant. It said species. However that did not help me any, because Linnaeus (who classified everything) lived many years after the Bible was written thus it's doubtful that the author of Genesis new about Linnaeus' definition. However, it is quite apparent that the Bible specifically claims that all life belonged to discrete groups, and would always remain within those same groups. Therefore, if this is true, one would expect some evidence to verify it. Again, the evidence is found in the fossil records. Dr. Austin Clark, in his book "The New Evolution", page 100, describes the picture as it appears in the fossil records. "One of the most striking and important facts which has been established through a study of the fossil animals is that from the very earliest times, from the very first beginnings of the fossil record, the broader aspects of the animal life upon the earth have remained unchanged. When we examine a series of fossils of any age, we may pick out one and say with confidence, 'This is a crustacean' -- or a starfish, or a brachiopod, or an annelid, or any other type of creature as the case may be...How do we recognize these fossils as members of the various groups? We are able to recognize them because they fall within the definition of a particular group. But the definitions of the phyla or major groups of animals are all drawn up on the basis of a study of the living representatives alone." It is true that the fossil record is often obscure with many unsolved problems. Nevertheless, the obvious absence of connecting links would seem to be in agreement with the view of many creationists that the major groups of living things were seperately created. There is alot of evidence of change in the smaller units such as the genera and no doubt even in certain famililies and orders. However, there is no clear evidence that such limited changes compounded would produce new basic types -- categories such as the phyla or classes. When it comes right down to it, species are the only real entities in nature. All higher categories are based on the subjective judgment of specialists. Linnaeus placed all the varied marsupials (i.e. pouched mammals, such as oppossums, kangaroos, etc.) in a single genus, Didelphis. Today workers usually place them in an order (or still higher catagory) divided into many families and genera. One man's "genus" is another man's "family". So, as far as the fossil record is concerned the higher categories remain separate from the time of their first appearance until now. True, the record is extremely spotty and inadequate. But among the countless millions of fossils collected from all over the earth, I would expect to find at least a few "transition" fossils if they ever existed. BUT WHAT ABOUT... The question asked often to a creationist is "If God created everything perfect, then why do we obviously have flaws? Why mosquitoes and pests? Why man eating lions?" The usual answer is that sin caused all these things. I too agree with the usual answer. Again, since the basis of my belief is the Bible, my reason for this answer is religious, and not scientific. Note that in Genesis 3, after sin, God basically caused a change in all nature (i.e. thorns and thistles). How he did this would simply be conjecture. Perhaps he simply removed his sustaining power from the natural laws which he governs and let nature run its random course. This brings in an interesting difference between creationists and evolutionists. The creationist believes that random activity will result with random chaos, while the evolutionist believes that random activity will result with more orderly results. CONCLUSION: While brief (although it doesn't seem brief while I'm typing), I hope this answers some of your questions -- and I'm sure it creates some. The proof for the truth of the creation story in Genesis is not demonstrable. The proof for the thruth of the theory of evolution also is not demonstrable. In other words, neither evolution nor special creation can be demonstrated in the laboratory. Thus it becomes correct to speak of the doctrine of evolution or the doctrine of special creation, because one or the other is accepted in the same way that one decides which religious group he will join. As it now stands evolutionism and creationism are beliefs to which adherents are won by persuasion and not by laboratory proof. All the volumes of natural evidences available merely show that most plants and animals vary more or less as centuries pass, but do not show that new basic types either appear or have appeared from simpler basic types. This leaves the believer in evolution just as much a man of faith as the believer in special creation. However, I have chosen the faith in creation as the evidence seems to side more with it. Lief Sorensen Hewlett Packard Co.