Okay, scratch "control" and insert "influence."

Fully aware of all this, Keinstein. I do understand how evolution/natural selection works, at least within the confines of how little we actually do know, about this, and planetology, and astronomy, and cosmology, all of which are of a piece.

There is a Department of Astrobiology (I believe it started out being called "Xenobiology") at a nearby state university, and one of the members of that department is a friend of mine. The idea is to study such things as how--and in what conditions--live emerged and evolved here on earth and extrapolate this to conditions on other planets. Fully aware of the level of speculation involved, however it is a serious study. I follow all of this avidly, and my friend and I have had many long and fascinating conversations.

Don Firth