I' m with you Andyvon accept for the 'Both sides draw upon a wealth of data and different scientific studies'. which is simply not true. The aurguement is is now way equal scientifically - the aurguement for non human influence is akin to creationalism.in terms of scientific basis.
And your view is a little pesamistic, yes i absolutely agree with you that in the past life has been wiped out and recoverded anew but in all the period of life on earth we have never seen evidence of a species as advanced as out - a species that have reached every habitat on the planet, even across the solar system,who have specualtd on the true nature of graviy, energy and matter, infact theorised on the very nature of the universe. Why not allow oneself to consider the possiblility that we could survive longer than a few thound years and even get off this crazy rock spinning round the sun and live in yet more habitats.
Its more positive, and heck - a little more fun, than saying we're all doomed, doomed I tell yar and just keep on muddling round in our own flth till the end of days - which we would only have ourselves to blame for. As I said before, (and this time I tae it from that great peice of cinimatography 'Ghost Buster' "if we're wrong we'll go to jail...we'llenjoy it! But hey, if we're right then you...Lenny...would have saved the lives of billions of registered voters!"