I should mention that I do not dislike Earl, and am not writing to attack him in any way. Too much "apologetics" has become little better than mud-slinging guilt by association that accomplishes nothing. This is something that I too have been guilty of in the past and want to avoid in the future. Nevertheless, I think that Earl's thesis depends on quite a bit of faulty reasoning, and when Earl's wrong, I'll say so.
Finally, I welcome opinions from those who disagree with me (and I love opnions from those that don't disagree with me). However, I find that most email correspondence a waste of time because the medium is entirely transient. Inevitably, I am forced to respond to the same issue again and again, and the level of discourse is usually very low. If you wish to dispute anything on this site, please do me the courtesy of writing up your point in a well-documented and durable format (a web page is fine.) If you email me the address of your response, I will link to it from the disputed article and respond to the concerns you express.