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Evolution FAQ
Is Evolution Science? Evidence of Creationism

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Is there evidence that supports the "theory" of (fundamentalist) creationism? Not in any meaningful sense. As discussed in the previous section, because creation theory in general does not have specified boundaries, just about anything could be considered "evidence" for or against it.

Most of the creationists' evidence is of the god-of-the-gaps nature, meaning that creationists try to poke holes in science and then stuff their God into them. This is essentially an argument from ignorance: "Since we don't know how this happened, it must mean God did it." Yet ignorance is never an argument and cannot be considered evidence in any meaningful sense.

There are also some positive forms of evidence/arguments cited by creationists. Two currently popular ones are "Intelligent Design" and "Irreducible Complexity." Both focus on the apparent complexity of aspects of nature, insisting that such complexity could only arise through supernatural action.

Irreducible complexity is flawed in numerous ways and is also essentially an argument from ignorance: "I can't understand how these things could arise from natural processes, therefore they must not have."

Intelligent Design is similarly flawed but is too complicated to get into here - links have been provided here and in the bibliography section to sites that argue for and against these claims.

In general, these arguments aren't particularly meaningful here since neither of them exclusively supports the fundamentalist creationism. Even if you accepted both of these concepts, you could still argue that the deity of your choice was guiding evolution such that the characteristics we see came to be. So, even if their flaws are ignored these arguments can at best be considered evidence for a general creationism as opposed to biblical creationism, and therefore do nothing to alleviate the tension between the latter and evolution that is the focus of these articles.

The only other types of "positive" evidence that creationists put forward are either so preposterous as to be almost unmentionable or demonstrably false. These include claims such as that Noah's ark has been found, flood geology, invalid dating techniques, or human bones or tracks found with dinosaur bones or tracks.

All of the claims remain unsupported and/or have been debunked numerous times, yet still they persist despite the best attempts of reason and evidence to stamp them out. Few serious, intelligent creationists put forward these types of arguments. Most creationist "evidence" consists of an effort to refute evolution as if doing so would render their "theory" somehow more believable. This is a false dichotomy, but it is rather irrelevant in any case - unfortunately for them, evolution is as strong as it's ever been.

(A bibliographic list of sources and recommendations for further reading will be coming soon...)

This FAQ information provided by Lance F..

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