What are common creationist strawmen?

Stephen Jay Gould did not claim that there are no transitional fossils.Punctuated equilibria was not invented to explain the basence of transitionals in general (it applied evolutinarty theory to the fossil record and explained why fine-grained intermediates were rare).Punctuated equilibria is not a theory of saltation - it does not propose "hopeful monsters".The criticisms of phyletic graduialism (often called simply "gradualism") offered by supporters of Puncutated Equilibria are not criticisms of evolution. Or even really of Darwin's theory, let alone mroe modern formulations.[This message has been edited PaulK, 05-04-2004]

Geology and the dating of rocks is not part of evolutionary theory. That the Earth was much older than a literreading of Genesis allowed had been established by the time Darwin wrote _On the Origin of Species_Although the following points are not really part of evolution they are common creationist errors that are relevant to discussions of the fossil record:There is no circularity in the use of fossils to date rocks. Certain fossils - called "Index fossils" are identified as good indicators of age, and only then are they used as a quick and simple method of dating other rocks.Radiometric dates often do NOT require knowledge of the initial amount of the daughter isotope. Isochron methods in fact will tell you what the number is.