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The defenders of evolution on this thread have made several fallacies. First, they make an "appeal to authority", that is to say that their belief must be true because the mainstream scientific community says so. Secondly, they make unsupported statements, such as their claims that the observations of Morris, et. al., have been refuted, without stating how specifically these men were in error.

A third fallacy is their refusal to plainly state or acknowledge their presuppositions. The fundamentalist and evangelical Christian believes that the statements of the Bible are true, when understood in their historical and grammatical context, and that, while acknowledging, as Paul does in Romans 1, that man can learn from observing nature, those statements are a superior form of knowledge than human observations. This belief is plainly stated by the fundamentalist or evangelical.

Evolutionists who criticize the creation scientists who try to disprove evolution from a strictly observational standpoint have a valid point, however. There is a great deal of evidence that supports the position of an old universe, such as the distance of the stars from the earth, measured by light years, the fossil evidence that suggests that life forms became more complex over time, and the apparent age of geological formation, based on the half life of certain elements. There are, of course, some facts that evolutionists have a difficult time explaining, such as the apparent lack of evidence of any random mutation that contributes to the survival of a species and the difficulty in finding "linking" fossils showing the development of Species B from Species A. However, the bottom line is that the universe appears old, according to much data.

(The main differences between fundamentalism and evangelicalism include the latter's acceptance of "lower", or textual criticism of the family of manuscripts from which Erasmus compiled his Textus Receptus, the source of the KJV, Luther's German Bible, and other Reformation era Bibles, and the former's belief in "secondary separation", i.e., cultural, educational, and social contact, from unbelievers. Both groups support Biblical inerrancy and infallibility and come to the same conclusions regarding creationism. John MacArthur and R.C. Sproul, in the evangelical camp, are on the same page as John Rice and Bob Jones, in the fundamentalist camp. For the sake of simplicity, I will use the term "conservative Christian" to designate both groups.)

OTOH, the evolutionists, particularly those who support biological evolution, so-called macroevolution, deny that they start with presuppositions, but claim that they derive their beliefs objectively. There are two basic camps of evolutionists: those who deny or doubt the existence of a god like the one described in Scripture and those who would reconcile the predominant findings of science with the existence of a powerful, omniscient Creator.

A principal set of beliefs held by many, though not all, evolutionists is that the physical universe and the development of species occurred at random. They observe such things as the distance light travels from celestial objects, the fossil record, the DNA of different species, etc., and conclude that these events occurred without intelligent guidance. They are atheists, agnostics, or deists who deny the existence of an all-powerful and personal God. While some evolutionists in this camp, like the late Isaac Asimov or Carl Sagan, were not reluctant to state their atheism, by and large they do not reflect on the extent to which their presuppositions guide their conclusions. Such people observe data which seems to indicate that, say, all members of the canine family developed from a single set of ancestors who lived, say, 20 million years ago. Yet they fail to recognize that their non-belief in or skepticism concerning a designing intelligence, and not their observation, leads them to the conclusion that random chance and/or spontaneous mutation caused the development of wolves, coyotes, dogs, foxes, etc., from the initial canid ancestor. They make the error of affirming the consequent.

The position of this camp of evolutionists is that of naturalism, i.e., that there exists no higher truth than natural science. In their view, there is no better method than the scientific method for judging the claims of science, and there is neither any need nor any place for a "first philosophy," such as metaphysics or epistemology, that could stand behind and justify science or the scientific method. However, in adhering to such a position, they are working on a presupposition, that natural science alone is the highest truth. Their position is an unprovable axiom, as much as is that of the conservative Christian. The second group of evolutionists are those who believe in the existence of an all-powerful God who essentially used evolution as His chosen instrument to create the universe. Of course, they work under a presupposition as much as do the other set of evolutionists and the fundamentalist/evangelical Christian. The guided evolutionists come from a wide variety of backgrounds.

Some are liberal, neo-orthodox, and neo-evangelical Protestants. Others come from the pro-Vatican II mainstream and left wing of Catholicism. (I presume Eastern Orthodoxy has similar divisions regarding how the universe came to be, as do such groups like Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, Christian Scientists, etc.) These camps seek to hold to the position that there is some or much truth in Scripture, or in the Catholic case, the Magisterium. However, they hold to the presupposition that when a position in Scripture (or tradition) is confronted with physical evidence that points to a contradictory proposition, such that dinosaurs, modern birds, and modern mammals could not be created on the same day (the Hebrew word yom, which is used over 900 times in the Protestant/Jewish Old Testament, denotes something like a 24 hour day, not a very extended time period), the latter should hold the higher value and the former position should be re-evaluated.

The professed Christians in the guided evolution camp attempt, sometimes valiantly, to synthesize the two contradictory poles of Biblical positions and those of mainstream science. However, they run into an inherent problem: if Scripture is less than true, how does one determine that any portion of it is true? How can Genesis 1-11 be allegorical or mythological, but, say, John 3:16 not be so? If God did not create man by fiat and the Adam and Eve story is fiction, how could the human race have developed the universal sinfulness Paul notes in Romans 3:23 that required the Substitutionary Atonement of the Son of God as the means to pay the debt of sinners? This camp has not presented a satisfactory answer.

This is as much a Catholic as it is a Protestant problem. The Catholic Church holds to the position that the body of tradition (church doctors and fathers) and Papal pronouncements ex cathedra are the lens through which the Bible must be interpreted. While Popes Pius XII and John Paul II issued letters, about 50 years apart, that acknowledged the scientific evidence supporting evolution, they did not authoritatively teach that God used this means to create the universe. Catholics face the same problem as do Protestants: why is one plain teaching of the Bible (fiat creationism) false or allegorical while another (the Substitutionary Atonement) is not. The fact that anti-Vatican II, traditionalist Catholics recognize the problem and thus are creationists is evidence that the Catholic Church has not escaped the Protestant dilemma.

I am not sufficiently familiar with Judaism, Islam, or Asian religious systems like Buddhism or Hinduism to comment on how these faiths deal with the issue of evolution vs. creation.

Another group of theistic evolutionists are scientists who came to the conclusion that a higher intelligence guided the creation of the physical universe and the origin of species. This is the "intelligent design" group, including men like Philip Johnson, Michael Behe, and William Dembski. Unlike the creationists, these men have credibility in mainstream academia. However, their method of debunking unguided evolution is similar to what those in the creation science camp use. They find scientific evidence to disprove a particular element of evolutionist theory, for example, the impossibility of spontaneous generation of the formation of the simplest forms of life from primordial chemicals. Mainstream pro-random evolutionist scientists may regard intelligent design advocates as creation scientists after "a shave, a bath, and clean clothes." They are hated by the random evolutionists as much as leftists despise ex-leftists turned conservative or libertarian more they do "cradle conservatives." Indeed, some random evolutionists have designed their own conspiracy theories, attempting to link intelligent design advocates to conservative Christians with the guilt by association or implication method tried and tested by such noteworthies as Robert Welch, Lyndon LaRouche, Oliver Stone, and Michael Moore.

However, the fact remains that they have not refuted the intelligent design advocates' position on the irreducible complexity of life or macroevolution. It is worthy to note that non-believing evolutionists from Charles Darwin to Stephen Jay Gould have acknowledged gaps and weaknesses in evolutionary theory.

However, the intelligent design advocates are themselves amiss at times in acknowledging that they, too, have presuppositions. If, for example, Philip Johnson argues against naturalism, is he not by implication advocating the existence of a supernatural realm, specifically, that an all powerful God exists? As much as anyone else in this debate, the intelligent design supporters have presuppositions. The fact that they acknowledge the existence of a Creator and even His goodness is, as Paul argued over 1900 years ago in Romans 1, something that may be derived from observation of nature. Yet this is not enough from the Christian standpoint, as Jesus noted when He stated that even the devil believes in the existence of God.

The fourth fallacy of the evolutionists on this thread is the ad hominem remark. Below is a sample of the invective thrown at conservative Christians by people whose political beliefs are presumably conservative or libertarian:

Teaching complex numbers to Fundamentalists (inter alia) isn't easy either.
Doctor Stochastic

Militant ignorance.
VadeRetro

Hey who doesnt like to read comic books?
RightWingNilla

Teaching science to creationists? Better to teach algebra to a donkey.
Central Scrutiniser

Clearly there are a number of creationists who don't care about reality.
Dimensio

The fallacy in the title is that you can't teach fundamentalist, be they Christian or Moslem, any thing. The rind surrounding their brains prevents entry of any knowledge from unapproved sources
bert

these threads also show that not all Conservatives are scientifically-illiterate bohunks (I don't think most creationists are Slavic or Magyar!) mired in the dark ages.
Junior

Were "blacks" or "African-Americans" substituted for "fundamentalists" or "creationists," their rantings would be seen for what they are: bigotry. They would likley be banned from posting. Dr. Stochastic, Vade Retro, RightWingNilla, Central Scrutinizer, Dimensio, bert, and Junior are bigots. Were their arguments stronger, they would be not need to resort to ad hominem attacks. Nor can they use unjustified statements and ad hominems made by creationists as an excuse. I believe that, irrespective of one's metaphysical views, the statement that two wrongs don't make a right is valid.