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So do you understand why throwing your hands up and saying “I don’t know” is not as useful and predictable or as satisfactory as an actual explanation based upon the evidence?

Personally, I'm only concerned with the higher level problems with evolutionary explanations for the origin and development of life on earth, because I was told by scientists that this was a scientifically closed question, when it wasn't, and isn't.

Scientists can speculate all they want, as long as their speculation is labeled as such.

It's clear to me that militant atheists, from Darwin's time on, have used evolutionary theory to "debunk" the Bible or Christianity. That isn't science, and Christians, such as myself, resent it.

The means by which human life developed is an age-old question. St. Augustine postulated something similar to microevolution, while St. Thomas speculated that the "days" mentioned in Scripture corresponded to various "ages" of Creation.

These are interesting questions, but of little practical significance. If we believe that God created the natural world from nothing, and that He Created the human race in whatever way He chose fit, what difference does it make to us now?

Now, there's absolutely nothing wrong with investigating the origins of life or human life. The only thing I object to, in principle, is scientists telling us that they have certain knowledge regarding the big questions, i.e., "evolution is an indisputable fact," when the empirical evidence doesn't support such a position.

I don't like being lied to.

One thing the fossil record clearly does NOT show is that all species existed contemporaneously.

I understand that much.

So how is it that you accept the evidence of their long existence in the past without major change (say in three toed horses), but reject the evidence that those horses with toes didn’t live contemporaneously with horses with hooves?

I haven't studied horse toes, but I know that there is a scientific consensus that geological formations roughly correspond to various eras, along with the fossils contained therein, i.e., the Cambrian explosion.

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The other objection to I have to the modern scientific method is scientists engaging in metaphysics, while condemning Christians for doing so.

For example, many scientists condemn attempts to quantify "intelligent design," as with, for example, the theory of "irreducible complexity," while engaging in metaphysics themselves, i.e., rejecting divine intervention a priori, while, ironically, supporting research into artificial intelligence.

“The means by which human life developed is an age-old question. St. Augustine postulated something similar to microevolution, while St. Thomas speculated that the “days” mentioned in Scripture corresponded to various “ages” of Creation.”

Yes indeed. Aquinas was brilliant. Young Earth Creationists, not so much.

No scientist worth a damn would tell you that something was a closed question. The nature of science is that things are accepted provisionally awaiting further data. At some point though it would be perverse to deny the accumulated data in various independent lines of inquiry.

“These are interesting questions, but of little practical significance. If we believe that God created the natural world from nothing, and that He Created the human race in whatever way He chose fit, what difference does it make to us now?”

My problem with creationism isn't so much that it is wrong - it is that it is USELESS. Even if correct. Like “last Thursday-ism” the idea that the everything was created last Thursday - even if it was true - it would be useless. “When was D-day?” “D-day never happened - we only have false memories and false records - everything was created last Thursday.”.

Knowledge of the ages of the Earth and how life changes is not useless. There is a reason why oil exploration companies hire geologists who know the age of the Earth - because such old Earth models are useful in predicting where there will be oil. Creationism - not useful.

We know that data from non-human primates are the most useful in drug discovery because of their genetic similarity to humans; but we also can predict that if something works in rats, mice and dogs - it is likely to work in humans as well.

Knowing the age of the most recent common ancestor of human populations allows you to predict the applicability of data in one population to another. There is a reason why Japan wants therapeutics tested on Japanese populations before they approve it for use.

Knowledge about evolution and common ancestry allows us to predict when different human populations last shared common ancestry.

“Today, almost half a century after publication of the encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.” Pope John Paul

The convergence of several independent lines of inquiry makes for a very convincing argument.