I keep hearing the Intelligent Design and Creationists say there are

[flamin lib]

"holes" in the theory of evolution. Can anyone enlighten me on what these "holes" are? What are the flaws in evolution they keep talking about?

[phantom power]

1. There are certainly unanswered questions.

The details of how life began aren't well understood. The details of speciation aren't well understood either. There is an enormous amount of what I'd call circumstantial evidence, but it's difficult to catch life in the act of evolving.

[wryter2000]

6. Actually, you can see evolution in action

Probably not at the level of creating new species, although someone did observe a whole new species of finch evolve recently. I think. I read it somewhere. :)

Even Darwin observed evolution happening in moths. One particular type of moth had a motley (greyish) form and a brown form. The motley form survived in camouflage on the bark of trees with lichen growing on them. When evolution wiped out the lichen, the brown form (which was camouflaged on regular, brown bark) rose in numbers and the motley form declined.

[phantom power]

14. Yes, we can observe natural selection.

Or, unnatural selection, for that matter. We've been breeding animals for thousands of years.

But natural selection is not full speciation. For instance, those moths could still breed with each other, etc.

I'm optimistic that it's possible to monitor a speciation. Most modern theories and evidence suggest that it actually happens quite fast, at least much faster than over geologic time, as we once assumed.

I've read about some observed "ring species," where there is a progression of inter-breeding species around something like a mountain range, and the ends of the ring do not breed. However, in those cases, I don't think it's ever been demonstrated that they can't breed, only that they don't, due to behavioral differences.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

48. I also read somewhere

concerning moths in England - when the industrial revolution started putting so much soot into the air, the light colored moths evolved into a darker color, to blend in and hide from predators.

[wryter2000]

64. Right you are!

I meant to say "pollution," not "evolution" wiped out the lichen.

[lvx35]

8. I used to agree, but the I read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.

I was totally satisfied with his description of biochemical replicators as a naturally occuring chemical phenomenon that lead to life. Of course a lot of people disagree, but he pegged it for me. I recommend it as a good read.

My personal argument against intelligent design is theological. If God is omnipotent, and he wanted to give physical proof to us that He existed, everybody on earth would know. But the Bible, and spiritual texts from other cultures say he can only be percieved with the eyes of FAITH...So your not going to find god damned proof of Him in feathered dinosaurs or any other gad damned place.

[phantom power]

15. Yes, I've read it. Definitely a classic.

I think Dawkins explainations were more along the lines of plausible sketches, but not deep explainations.

For my money, Stuart Kauffman is barking up the right tree. I recommend his book At Home in the Universe, if you haven't read it. He's also got some newer books out, which I have't read yet.

[lvx35]

21. Thanks, I'll give it a read! n/t

[ironman202]

22. god as the absentee landlord

[endarkenment]

16. Theory of evolution doesn't say much at all about how life originated.

These are really two separate areas. God (pick your favorite brand) could have been the original creator of life. Evolution is a fact: you can look at the fossil records, you can conduct experiments with fast breeding species, etc. Darwin's theory is an attempt to answer the question 'how does evolution work', not 'does evolution exist'. Evolution exists independent of how life originated. Darwin's theory remains the best explanation we have for how evolution works.

Note that the ID creeps do not deny the existence of evolution, that idiocy belongs to the creationist morans. IDers don't even deny that evolution is responsible for most of the development of life.

[0rganism]

17. It's not hard to see life evolve, but that seldom satisfies creationists

Because the evolution quick enough to observe in low-budget controlled experiments happens most readily in populations of bacteria, viruses, and other single-celled life, it's easily dismissed as "irrelevant". More patient researchers can observe speciation in fruit fly populations, but even that's not enough -- "it's still a fruit fly". Well, duh, of course it is. Even if it can't interbreed with certain other fruit flies, the common ancestor of both species was still a fruit fly and we expect nothing less this far down the road. OTOH, if a fruit fly somehow morphed into a tree frog, that would be one of the best arguments against evolution available.

Speciation continues before our very eyes. Here's a decent article on the topic:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

[ironman202]

20. Oh? I give you the influenza virus, three flavors of ebola,

the fruit fly, every flower in your garden, genetically modified food, and your own immune system to name just a few. All evolving right now before your eyes.

[phantom power]

31. I would dispute some of those examples.

bacteria and viruses swap genes so profusely that I'm not sure the concept of "species" even applies to them. They certainly do mutate, and those mutations "breed" true. But almost any group of bacteria or viruses can swap genes. I suppose that's just one more mechanism of evolution.

Regarding flowers, I assume you are talking about breeding, which is certainly selection, but is it speciation?

Somebody else just posted links to fruit fly experiments. The author of that article himself seemed to question whether or not there was true speciation in those experiments. He also had a bunch of interesting plant examples in the wild, but those all appeard to have problems with viability, for example duplicated chromosome sets. Probably a precursor to a "viable" speciation.

Maybe. It's hard to keep up these days. I just find that the "examples" are a bit ambiguous. I don't personally doubt the process that they represent, I just feel that we haven't yet witnessed a "strong" speciation. By that I mean something that goes well beyond just "minor" drift by natural selection. Chromosome changes (viable ones), a new organ, etc. That would be compelling!

[ironman202]

33. i think these are good examples

if the genes continue to mutate over time, you get speciation.

[marcus_b]

41. Examples of speciation.

If we agree that speciation does happen, and are just curious if we can see it happening, then I think the point is a pretty small one. First, we would have to talk about what speciation is supposed to mean, then we have to talk about what evidence we accept. Is speciation in plants and fruit flies enough evidence, or do we want to see speciation in mammals? Do we want to see it happening in the free nature, or in the lab?

I have dug up the following two links:

FAQ Speciation (talkorigins.org)
Speciation (talkorigins.org)

For example:

"Three species of wildflowers called goatsbeards were introduced to the United States from Europe shortly after the turn of the century. Within a few decades their populations expanded and began to encounter one another in the American West. Whenever mixed populations occurred, the specied interbred (hybridizing) producing sterile hybrid offspring. Suddenly, in the late forties two new species of goatsbeard appeared near Pullman, Washington. Although the new species were similar in appearance to the hybrids, they produced fertile offspring. The evolutionary process had created a separate species that could reproduce but not mate with the goatsbeard plants from which it had evolved."

There are very convincing models of how speciation can work, and their predictions fit what we see in the current existing species. This evidence alone should suffice to stipulate that speciation probably happened. We should also not forget that with just a 100 years, evolution is a pretty young science, and finding examples of speciation has never really been a strong focus of biologists (probably because they took it for granted and rather turned to more interesting research, for example how it happens, etc).

We can lament that, and ask for a more tangible proof than the existing research. Maybe biologists will hear the call. If anything good comes out of creationism and intelligent design, then probably that the theory of evolution will be much better explained to the general public, and maybe more tangible proof provided.

[phantom power]

43. We're making rapid progress, these days.

I think I'm not keeping up with it all.

[marcus_b]

55. Sure.

You're right, it's impossible to keep up. Good that there is Google ;)

A couple of hundred years ago, you could be a professional in philosophy, math, cartography and a bunch of other things at the same time. Today, you need a couple of decades to become a professional in any of the rigid sciences.

However, I don't think this is really about that. We can happily leave the details of evolution to the biologists. Also, the examples in the link I posted are not so many, and some of them may not be very valid. So I wouldn't think that the last word is spoken on the subject.

The important thing though, wrt creationism, is that at least we know how to verify the claims made by biologists, if we want to. We can read the research papers, we can try to repeat the experiments, and we can analyze the same data as they did. So, at least there is a framework that allows us to understand what they are talking about, and if we really wanted to, we could catch up with them. At least we know how we could try to do it.

With creationism (intelligent design is just shadow creationism), there is no such thing. There is no rational basis of their "theories". Whenever I read some of their papers, I feel completely at a loss. There is no rational, analytical way to follow what they say and come to the same conclusion, or to falsify what they say. If there is, the mistakes and logical errors are so basic and come so early that there is little left worth an analysis. This is the basic difference.

For what it is worth, out of curiousity, I have tried to follow up some of the claims made by creationists and intelligent design proponents, but as I said elsewhere in this thread, this is really a political/religious struggle, and not a scientific discussion.

Frankly, I am a bit worried about its relative success. It shows that factual evidence and rational analysis count for very little in a heavily polarized and brain-washed society. The same treatment can be seen of political analysis and historical evidence, where it costs lifes.

[phantom power]

57. It worries me too.

Societies seem to be prone to periodic waves of irrationality, and just plain nuttiness. I guess it's our luck to be living thru one now.

Speaking of evolution, the part of our brain that's good for rational thinking is quite new, and when push comes to shove, it's no match for the much older parts of our brain.

As a species, our main edge is that we can think rationally at all, not that we're very good at it. It's almost like a parlor trick, more than a skill. If we give rise to any future species, maybe they will be better at it than we are. Or not. Evolution doesn't favor any particular direction :-)

[Ediacara]

Uh...

The details of how life began aren't well understood.

This is not a component of evolutionary theory. What you are talking about is abiogenesis, and it's much better understood than most people realise.

The details of speciation aren't well understood either.

Uh... not exactly correct. If you're talking about the difference between punctuated equilibrium vs gradualism, then yes, there is disagreement, but neither extreme is anywhere near as extreme as some would lead you to believe, and the mechanisms of genetics that operate on speciation are becoming very well known.

There is an enormous amount of what I'd call circumstantial evidence, but it's difficult to catch life in the act of evolving.

Again, not true. Speciation is seen on a rather constant basis. It's hard to see long generation time organisms like humans or elephants evolving, but a human is perfectly capable of seeing bacteria evolve.

[mattclearing]

46. We've only been aware of the process a little over a century.

Of course it's hard to catch in action.

[PatrioticLeftie]

2. The Ones That Don't Prove Creationism

[wryter2000]

4. Welcome to DU

:hi:

[PatrioticLeftie]

7. Thank You!

[wryter2000]

3. BeeEss

Nothing in science is understood 100%. For example, the strict evolutionists believe that all evolution happens gradually. The punctuated equilibrium folks (like Gould) think that species make only small changes gradually but there are spurts of rapid change. The argument is over HOW evolution works, not whether evolution explains speciation.

One of their "holes" is the lack of a fossil record for every single change. What idiocy! How many multi-million year old bones to they expect to find?

Another is the development of the eye. They believe it couldn't have happened gradually but had to have been designed. That's been debunked, too, but I don't remember the explanation or the data that disprove that little bit of silliness off the top of my head.

[Geoff R. Casavant]

19. Even the eye is possible . . .

I actually just read a refutation of the "what good is half an eye" argument, in the context of a book on artificial life.

In essence, even when an organism's phenotype (its appearance) remains unchanged over millions of years, its genotype (its genetic information) changes, sometimes radically. As long as the particular changes aren't detrimental, they remain dormant, and are passed around through recombination and inheritance. Then, when the necessary genes are present in a critical percentage of the population (a little over 13%; for those with an appreciation of all things elegant and mathematical, the exact ratio is 1/e squared), they suddenly explode throughout the population, and the feature appears in the phenotype without a transitional form.

[ironman202]

24. the eye is perhaps the best evidence of evolution

light sensitivity in older species is well documented. If the eye were "designed" all at once, every eye would see the same.

[Geoff R. Casavant]

38. I had forgotten that

the eye apparently evolved independently on three different occasions. There are "human" type eyes in variations, and insect type eyes, but I forget the third.

[Ediacara]

40. Mollusks

The insect eye, isn't just insects, but all arthropods too (trilobites, crustaceans, spiders etc). There are also a number of organisms with light sensing organs, such as echinoderms and flatworms.

[TimeChaser]

39. That argument is the one that pisses me off the most.

"What good is half an eye" Feh, but you don't get half an eye, and then suddenly, POOF! A whole eye. You get cells that respond to light first, and over millions of years they get more specialized.

But you can't argue facts with a fundie.

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. Of course there are holes

that's why it's a THEORY. But it is theory based upon the scientific method, which helps us to separate fact from fantasy.

The problem with the fundies version is that it is based on mythology not science and the people who made up these myths still thought the earth was flat and the center of the universe. We have since discovered that a lot of what people believe 5000 years ago isn't true. Why should we try to continue to pretend that it is?

[ComerPerro]

9. The Bible doesn't back up evolution. Thats the hole

[Fire Walk With Me]

10. My evolutionary holes are more provable than your invisible friend.

Nyah.

[donco6]

11. "Holes" = Unanswered Questions

When you can answer any question with "God did it", it's easy to throw stones at well-documented scientific explanations.

We still have problems understanding the nature of matter, for example, but that doesn't stop Newton's and Einstein's propositions from being used very effectively to predict the reaction of matter to various influences.

It's the same way with evolution. And remember, the whole ID thing is simply a way to get religion into schools. They have no interest in saying, say, that we were designed by Martians. No, the "intelligence" they are speaking of is the one and only fundamentalist Christian God.

[etherealtruth]

29. Exactly! n/t

[edhopper]

12. Read Richard Dawkins'

"The Blind Watchmaker" for a debunking of Creationism and a coherent and well reasoned defense of evolution.
As well as a good argument for Atheism.
He even explains the eye!

[Jade Fox]

13. Evolution is based on massive scientific evidence....

Creationism is based on a few lines from an old book.

[aasleka]

18. the religion of science

Evolution is the the theory that some genes are better than others. It simply defies logic that a one celled creature would complicate itself in evolution when it already can easily gain food and procreate. Where would this one celled creature develope new genes?

The fossil record does not support the theory of evolution.

Radiation mutation fits most of the evidence and yet people easily accept evolution still. Just another sample of a eugenics theory.

Remember arithmatic is based upon mathmatical THEORY also. Science is a religion you must have faith to understand. Those who don't accept that you can have infinite parts of a value (among other things)are just as incredulous on your "science" as those who mock the religious lore.

Is there absolute truth for scientists or for the faithful?
No.

There is no such thing.

[phantom power]

23. Ummmmm.... No.

Evolution has absolutely nothing to say about genomes being "better" or "worse."

Evolution certainly has nothing to do with "eugenics." Eugenics is quackery, which mis-uses the terminology of evolution to lend fake support to it's claims.

Science is a process of learning based on collecting evidence that is either consistent with a hypothesis, or disproves the hypothesis. Anybody who claims science is a religion doesn't know what they are talking about.

[Viking12]

25. One doesn't need faith to know the value of science

Nor does one need faith to understand science; one only needs an education. For instance, we can educate the uninformed when they make goofy claims like, " the fossil record does not support the theory of evolution." There is plenty of tangible evidence all around to support science. The same can not be said about the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

[Warren DeMontague]

45. BLASPHEMER!

Not only is he risen, he's tasty with pesto.

http://venganza.org

[wryter2000]

66. Apostate!

Put the green devil behind you. Basil is the work of Beelzebub. Embrace the gospel of white clam sauce with garlic.

[BillZBubb]

26. BALONEY!!!!!

The fossil record absolutely supports evolution. There are holes in that record, but there is nothing that contradicts evolution. Your post is bullshit.

You do not understand even the basics of science if you claim "science is a religion". Science is in fact the antithesis of religion. There is NO belief in science that wouldn't be rejected or altered if new information became available to refute it. There is no revealed truth, no holy scripture. Science attempts to fit the universe to the facts, not the other way around as in religion.

[ironman202]

30. this person

is an excellent example of one who cannot draw obvious conclusions from observed facts. The saddest part is that the deeper and richer meaning, the importance, the animus of his own religion is wasted on him. His faith is a mile wide and an inch deep. He perceives evolution as a threat to his tribe. He is in fact, a hypocrit and a heretic. This is much deeper, and much worse, than mere hypocrisy, which is almost clean in intellectual terms by comparison. When someone is hypocritical, there is at least the hope of reaching him if we are able to make him see and acknowledge how his words are contradicted by his actions (and/or by other words). If someone alters his behavior after understanding his error, it is because he acknowledges at least to some extent the connection between words and particulars.

But if someone uses words and concepts in a manner which consistently reveals that those words mean absolutely nothing to him, it is not possible to reach him at all. There is nothing to reach—in the sense that there is no mind there capable of understanding what you are saying. On the most basic level, such people do not know how to think. When someone functions in this way—that is, when he is not capable of thinking in the most rudimentary manner—there is one method of survival that tends to overshadow all the others: membership in a group, or tribe, which he hopes will protect him.

[Warren DeMontague]

44. What a crock.

If you don't accept science, fine, home school your kids. Teach them that the Earth is flat and the Sun is made of of bright orange angels singing "hallelujah" to Jesus.

But if we're talking about SCIENCE class, Science- and only science- is what should be taught there.

[flamin lib]

63. Marking for further research from the folks at DU.

[mondo joe]

50. Wrong from the start. Evolution does NOT hold that some genes are

"better" than others.

Every time you people say or write something you again prove you have no idea what you're talking about.

[HereSince1628]

61. Although poorly stated I think aasleka is trying to talk about fittness

and adaptation, both ideas central to the concept of natural selection.

Although it is apparent that aasleka has an imperfect grasp of evolution, the question of why genetic change should lead to diversity instead of just adaption within a lineage is a good and even interesting question within evolution, because it is at the heart of the question why anagenesis seems much less common than cladogenesis.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

27. I think that there may be far more "holes" found when examining

a Creationist POV.

[johannes1984]

28. Ironic

I've always savored my politics as a dramatic display of evolution .The survival of the fittest always at work , and even though created by our hand ,ever so obviously a drift with the human eandeavor .

Yet seeing Bush get reelected ,did make me realize there were holes ....although it's not a hole which could not be beautifully depicted by some scientific method ... as much as it's the hole left behind by a large group of people sticking their head in the sand and yelling 'I"M NOT LIVING IN THE 21ST..NANANANA....BUSH ,BUSH ....well you know the drill .


Oooow Pat robertson and group , why can't you just get stoned and accept the fact your kneejerk reactionary filth does naught for the better .


On the up side , 's gonna be fun having that 'told you so 'moment

[phantom power]

32. Survival of the "fittest" is only statistically true.

It's really more accurate to say: "Survival of the survivors."

[johannes1984]

37. thanks for pointing that out

has more of a ring to it too

[mondo joe]

52. I like to say: Survival of the fittest is DEscriptive, not PREscriptive.

Half the creationists don't even know what that means.

[wryter2000]

67. Bush getting relected has nothing to do with evolution

Survival of the fittest means that the animal who gets more of his genes in the next generation is more likely to pass along his/her characteristics into the future. It doesn't address individual success in business or politics.

[johannes1984]

70. probably evolution as a theory has nothing to do with it .

Yet it's a personal remark , and observation in how i see the world evolve

[leftofthedial]

34. evolution does not explain

what happened to my missing car keys

or why Paris Hilton is famous

so therefore there must be an intelligent designer

you see, it's all a matter of irreduceable complexity.

[marcus_b]

35. Not what they mean.

The theory of evolution is a scientific theory. Note that this is not the same as the popular meaning of "theory". A scientific theory is an explanation of observable behavior, that can be independently confirmed and, if it is a good theory, makes predictions about future observed behavior that can then be tested.

Scientific theories evolve. They are never complete, because our understanding of the universe will never be complete, due to its enormous complexity at the very least.

So, a "hole" in a theory would be an observation that is either not explained by the theory, because it is outside of its scope. Or it may be an observation that conflicts with the predictions of the theory. In either case you would look for a better theory, usually by extending or modifying the current one.

Here is an example from the world of physics: Newton's laws of motion are confirmed very well, but they are completely wrong. For velocities close to light speed, and for huge masses, you get relativistic effects (Einstein). For atomic scales you get quantum effects (Planck). However, at slow velocities and small masses the Newtons laws are very, very good approximations to the relativistic equations. And at macroscopic scale they are very, very good approximation of the quantum mechanical equations. So, for all practical purposes, within certain limits, you can use them and get the right results. Note that of today, there are no equations that harmonize the relativistic and quantum mechanical equations, so we know that both are wrong, too!!! But in the scenarios for which they have been developed, they are very, very good theories explaining many observable effects to a very high degree of accuracy.

The same is true for biology. Evolution is a theory that is very well confirmed, with independent lines of research and analysis. But it doesn't answer all the questions that are out there, so it has to be constantly evolved, extended, tweaked, modified. But there is no doubt among biologists that evolution does indeed happen. What is under constant discussion is how exactly it does happen. There are many devils in the details, but the overall principle is not under dispute.

Nothing of this however matters for creationists or "intelligent designers". For them, evolution is "just a theory" (in the common day use of the term), and it is "flawed" (as if that means that it could be totally off). Nothing could be further from the truth. It is a scientific theory, which has been confirmed to a high degree of scientific accuracy. You cannot say this about creationism or its more modern face, "intelligent design". Although intelligent design tries to appear as a scientific theory, any specific claim by it I have seen has been thoroughly rebutted.

For a beginner introduction:

Understanding evolution

If you are looking for rebuttals of specific claims made by intelligent design proponents, you need not look farther than google search results. There is wealth of information on this topic in the web. You can also check out the Wikipedia articles, which link to the criticisms. From what I have seen, for any popular book on intelligent design you can find a point-by-point rebuttal on the web.

But be warned: Reading through the inane claims made by intelligent design proponents is very much like reading through conspiration web sites. With every discussion of the topic, you enter deeper and deeper into a net of misinterpretations, false complexities and illogical arguments. It takes a lot of patience, and a good deal of understanding of logic, math, language, and of course scientific work and biology to dig through the crap and filter the good from the bad.

If you ask me, it is hardly worth it. The creationists and intelligent design proponents can only win from the confusion, and it takes a lot of time away you could spend on constructive activism. There is absolutely nothing credible to intelligent design or creationism, it is charlatanical. It is a rejection of reason and science. You can not fight them with reason in a direct confrontation with their proponents, because they purposefully reject rational argumentation.

So, if you need to fight the creationism movement (I pity for you!), your best bet is probably to educate parents about evolution, how it works, etc, and to help teachers to confront smart-asses in class who repeat the propaganda they picked up at home. There is material for that on the above web site.

[aasleka]

56. Vicious defense of evolution as bad as creationists

Not sure how you got me favoring intelligent design?

As Marcus pointed out sometimes things scientifically proven are wrong. There is the faith I was talking about.

This person is indeed better spoken than me though, articulating the advancement of knowledge. Seems to me most of the folks replying here act like the creatonist attack dogs when their beliefs were challenged.

Question everything even your deeply held faiths, no matter relgious or scientific in nature.

BTW my kid got honor roll in kindegarten $$. His favorite bed time story?

Suns' fusion reaction

[wryter2000]

69. Evolution is not a faith

Science depends on observation. If a scientific "fact" is disproved by observations, it'll be discarded for a better one.

One of the most specious and insulting arguments is that religious faith has the same status as observable reality as science.

Welcome to DU, btw. :hi:

[wryter2000]

68. Welcome to DU

:hi:

[librechik]

36. holes? They need to make sure the blinders fit better

they shouldn't be thinking about that Demon Science Noway Nohow!

[johnfunk]

42. I keep hearing from scholars that there are "holes" in the Bible...

... so I guess we're even!

[Initech]

47. To quote Bill Hicks

"Ever notice how the people who believe in creationism look really unevolved?"

[DanCa]

49. Please lets call ID what it really is Trojan Horse anti choice speak

ID is just an attempt to get the ac movement into public schools, under the trojan horse guise of god in public life. It takes something benign to the ignorant masses and than wraps and corrupts it too meet thier own ends. Its kind of like the ring of power.
On a side note I am a regular church goer and I beleive in evolution. I don't believe in ID because it doesn't teach genesis it teaches a smattering of philosophies into anti choice speak Remember the devil loves to masquerade himself as angel of the light

[Initech]

51. Actually, I think ID really is...

Just the loophole that fundamentalist nutjobs needed to get creationism taught in schools. There really is no scientific merit to prove it and there really is no evidence to back it up. There's nothing scientific at all about "intelligent design", it's just creationism.

[DanCa]

53. well

we both agree that it's just a back door into the school system. And that it shouldn't it be taught in class. I am just splitting hairs alittle bit here because I see it as an anti choice indoctornation(sp) course rather than regular bible study. I hope were cool.

[marcus_b]

58. There is a scientific way to disprove it.

Intelligent design is the "scientific face" of creationism. The proponents of intelligent design describe it as a wedge, which they want to use to popularize their ideas (in a second step) and then confront policy makers to institutionalize their ideas (the third step).

Note that their goal is not primarily to persuade other scientists. Their sole objective is to persuade the public, to put pressure on policy makers. This is of course deeply immoral, and is doomed to fail eventually, when all their lies are dismantled. However, until then, their ideological warfare can have a dramatic effect on brainwashing children in school and causing policy makers to distribute financial resources to unscientific endeavors.

The Wedge Strategy

So what are they doing in step 1? They frame the ideas of creationisms in a pseudo-scientific way. Instead basing their arguments on religious grounds, they are looking for areas of rigid science which they can twist and manipulate to make it look as if they support "intelligent design". For example, they try to draw from information theory.

The thing is: By entering the scientific arena, even if they only do it in a pseudo-fashion, they are totally exposed. The intelligent design claims are very easily debunked, because they are based on fundamental logical errors that are rather easy to see, if you have some familiarity with scientific work (any will do). However, the final decision will be made in a propaganda war in step 2, and not by a rational, public debate.

[HereSince1628]

54. There are holes, they come in various sizes.

Many of the little holes are not so much holes in the theory as gaps or confusions in the evidence that the theory tries to explain. These sorts of holes don't really challenge various aspects of evolution theory.

As a person whose graduate education, research and college/university teaching involved evolution, I can say that for most of my career there were, and I think remain, some surprisingly large "holes," too.

One is so terribly obvious it is usually completely overlooked by people who accept evolution as the source of biotic diversity on this planet. Most people talk about species though biologist REALLY know what that means. Unfortunately, species as a concept is damned hard to define. And even if biologists can talk about it in a manner which is understood across the discipline, it turns out that the definitions often turn out not to be equally workable across all the types of data needed to study evolution.

Now, if biology can't really nail down a definition of species how in the heck can biologists nail down the mechanisms of speciation?

Microevolution, changes in gene frequencies within populations, doesn't account for species. The idea that enough accumulated genetic difference results in a new species is facile, but unsatisfying, because it doesn't really answer all sorts of questions about why some changes in gene frequency lead "species" and others don't. This sort of question is particularly important because accumulated change is the underlying brute force mechanism that leads to anagenesis of species (something considered by macroevolutionists as probably rate) while changes in the composition and frequencies of particular genes may lead to cladogenesis of not only species, but possibly within the lineage in which those particular sorts of genes occur (leading to possibilities like clade selection).

As Stephan Gould lamented frequently, the fossil data that spans time frames in which "speciation" leaves its mark in the geologic record took place actually provides essentially no genetic data (Gould's fossil snails). On the otherhand RNA, DNA and protein sequence data that clearly demonstrate genetic differences typically don't identify which, if any, of the revealled accumulation of genetic differences _contributed_ to the speciation event rather than just rode along with it...

[Hamlette]

59. here's a great rebuttal by VERY religious guys

in the salt lake tribune yesterday
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_2941591
Over the past few months, the possible introduction of legislation to mandate teaching intelligent design (a camouflaged form of creationism) in Utah public schools has spawned considerable debate within the pages of The Salt Lake Tribune.
Of particular concern to us are three anti-evolution creationist "myths" that have all been raised recently in The Tribune. Although a newspaper may not be the proper place for detailed scientific discussion, some clarification is appropriate as belief in these assertions may affect legislation and public policy.
l The first claim is that there are no transitional forms in the fossil record. This is patently untrue; there are many examples, but the creationists repeat the statement as if the retelling will change reality.

snip

Rather, we seek spiritual truth through our personal devotions and secular truth through the scientific method. We urge the Utah Legislature to do the same.

[HereSince1628]

60. It's well and good to say that different searches use different tools

because they often do.

But of course the problem is that for creationists there is an intersection between the claims of their religious instructors and their science instructors.

[Pepperbelly]

62. I just do not see how ID can be taught ...

the preponderance of material regarding ID is negative, that is attempting to "poke holes" in Darwin's theory and the different supporting notion that have developed over the years. But there really isn't a system of knowledge that lends itself to being taught in the schools.

You can only go so long complaining about other models.

[rman]

65. moreover, they argue that's 'proof' that ID is correct

Thus they think they can avoid having to present evidence in support of ID. Which is of course completely unscientific.