Well, you have to give them some credit, they did try to cover all the bases.
But we have to remember that they were writing for a non-critical audience, and an audience where only a tiny percentage were literate.
It is different nowadays, but even with high literacy levels many people still cannot see how transparent these cop outs are.
Certain types of Christian will be quite content with these excuses, the fact that they are nonsense doesn't come into it.
Brian.