[geoschmo]

Darwin was a student in theological seminary before the voyage that resulted in his seminal work. Although there is some question whether his educational choice was a matter of spiritual belief or one of practicality.

At the time of his voyage to the Galapagos he was more what you would call an amateur naturalist, as it was more or less something he did as a hobby. Although "amatuer" in this connotation is not meant to degrade the quality of his work as the field was in it's infancy at the time anyway he was pretty generally regarded as having a talent for it at the time by his professors. Obviously his work has pretty much redefined the field as it has exsisted after him.

The point of all this is just that a case could be made that even Darwin approached the subject from a philisophical perspective. At least initially. The phisophical and the scientific are heavily interconnected when discussing the subject of the origin of life.

Geoschmo