One problem is that creationists are lumped into a single class. I'm horrified by the idea of a 6,000-year old universe and believe that people who push the idea are misinterpreting both science and the Bible. All truth is God's truth. I personally accept the idea that the universe is around 15 billion years old and that evolution of some sort takes place, yet I'm lumped in with those who believe in a 6,000-year old universe.whale.
Michael Behe's theory of Irreducible Complexity is profound. The bladderwort example he used here is compelling but, as a chemist by training, the most astonishing examples are things that take many different chemicals being in exactly the right place at the time for something to happen. With eyesight, for example, a large number of complex chemicals are involved. If any one of these chemicals are missing, the result is not just the animal seeing slightly less well (and thus slightly more likely to get eaten) but in being totally blind. How did all of these chemicals needed for vision end up in the right place?
If the body creates complex chemicals "by chance" in the hope that they might someday turn out to be useful, then we ought to expect to see hundreds of thousands of chemicals just hanging around in the body, waiting to be used when a species evolves an X-Ray eye or laser tail stinger. However, we don't see this at all. There are chemicals in the human body for which we don't yet know their function, but they're rare. The body is very efficient and doesn't make things that it doesn't use.
Amen!
There shouldn't be 'species' at all; but an amazing continum of critters and stuff.
We do see this. The chemicals might currently be involved in some other task but they are nonetheless "hanging around" and can be used as building blocks in new functioning systems (or even rearranged in existing systems for new functions)