From my home in the United Kingdom I have found the discussion about evolution and creation in AAPG's EXPLORER interesting. In the UK, such a type of correspondence simply would not occur. To that end, I applaud the willingness of the AAPG to allow the discussion.

AAPG's raison d'etat is to help in the matter of finding and winning hydrocarbons. This issue is not addressed directly in this debate about biological origins of life. If evolution, whereby living forms produce descendents with permanent modification rather than a temporary adaptation that can later be reversed (which I would label as micro-evolution), did not occur, then we need another explaination for the fossil record, the rocks and hydrocarbons.

I have never felt that the most usual explanation for the origin of oil (biogenesis, folowed by primary migration followed by secondary migration) is anything other than a wish list. There are too many problems with each stage of the explanation. The idea of an abiogenic origin removes some of these problems, but introduces alternative problems.

So does not our professionalism require us to put away any theophobia about the subject and ask the question as to wether a creator of some sort is responsible for the rich variety of hydrocarbons just as much as for the rich variety of biological life?

John Matthews,
Dorset, England