Jon, I think the vast majority of people have found a way to mesh religious beliefs and scientific theories. When I was young and in Sunday school, I was taught that the way the creation was explained in the bible was figurative/symbolic. In other words "On the first day..." simply meant "first." Creationalist fundamentalists say there is no symbolism, and take the whole thing literally. "If he said 'day,' he meant 'day."

I wish I could find the book "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking. A different science altogether, but I remember in it he said something about the facts and scientific conclusions doing more to prove the existance of God than to disprove it. I don't know why science and religion have to be in competition. It doesn't make any sense at all to claim fact is fiction or that facts disprove anything but dogma.

As far as missing links, we're finding new fossilized creatures all the time. I'm not sure exactly when the science of archaelology began, but we haven't been digging things up for very long. The fact we haven't found something yet doesn't prove it doesn't exist. We only have pieces of some creatures, or we may only have found one of them. The fact we haven't discovered something doesn't mean it doesn't exist - especially when an historical chain of events leads to the probability that it does. The theory of evolution explains how man got from one stage to the other, and there is plenty of evidence supporting that theory. It's logical to believe the same thing continued.

Question: Wasn't 'Lucy' considered 'the missing link' at one time?