Chris,

"It is just not useful without strong evidence."

I have to wonder how much evidence scientists require. It is the kind that hits one over the head with a baseball bat or the kind where the earth moves under someone's feet where another said it was going to?

Ross Stein made a good statement recently when he said, "scientists are always being humbled and he expected he would be humbled may times during his career." Now that's really close to the truth.

Sometimes you have to go out on a limb to get the best fruit. The fruit being new ideas, concepts, theories and occasionally some left field inspiration. Without a willingness to do these, you might as well sit in the lab, draw maps, play with computer programs and consider your life is darn close to watching an cell regenerate itself in a petrie dish over the days, weeks and so forth in your future.

Lowell pushes the envelope and goes to a higher level. He presents new ideas and concepts to people who aren't really ready for them yet. Geo-scientists to be honest are like that. It takes awhile for new ideas to jell. Actually, sometimes it may take 50 years, which in this case would be after the regulars here long ago retired and most of them would be dead for that matter.

At least with your preoccupation with finding and mapping faults you will never run out of work. For those who judge the theorists, they too will never run out of work, but will walk away never fully satisfied because they didn't think of it first. It will always be left to the next generation or so to prove or disprove what's on the table today. That's unfortunate, because a lot is lost in the the translation in many cases from the original idea.

Let us lift a glass of spirits and revel in those who present us with new ideas and be thankful that we have something to think about and discuss.

Petra