Are creationist crticisms of ToE based upon the assumption that creation happened?

I think you're exactly right but are missing an important emphasis. The "cutting that time down a bit" may be misleading to the point of being wrong.The selection process both cuts down on the time (and I'm guessing by a lot ) and produces certain patterns in the result (the Panda's thumb). You can't get everywhere from one given point.Edited to add:
The cutting down is important because I'd guess that many situations are so unlikly to occur if all possibilities are allowed.[This message has been edited by NosyNed, 05-24-2003]

Would that make natural selection something like
'pruning' algorithms in computer search strategies?If a branch looks unlikely to yield the result, it's
lopped off rather than searched.

No way! There is no looking ahead.I don't think I made the point clear.One thing: There is not particular direction or "desired" outcome.Once some variation arises and is selected for it may mean that other possible branches in evolutionary space are less easy to reach or impossible. Therefore the continued process isn't having to search every possible outcome. There are a smaller number of total steps to get from where it was to where it is.But it isn't searching for a particular way out. It is a little like water flowing downhill. It doesn't have any preferences for which way but will find one way.Water flowing once it has branched right at some point can't move back up hill and "explore" the left branch. Well, in general. It could back up and make a deep pool and flow the other way under some circumstances.I think the above might be a slightly useful analogy.

Peter, there are loose, colloquial similarites between evolution by natural selection and search, but one has to be careful about reading too much into them. There are also more formal connections.A better way of thinking about your pruning analogy is to imagine a search involving multiple agents, at various locations in a search space, where only a fixed number of agents is allowed. The death of an agent before reproduction is a kind of node pruning (without lookahead). This may eventually result in higher concentrations of agents around "fruitful" nodes. (But again, this is only an analogy.)I suggest reading some of the monographs of John H. Holland for more detailed explanations of genetic search. His writing is both accurate and accessible. Of course, most of the examples he gives involve teleological* search, but the principles are the same for undirected search.-Neil* (in edit) By teleological I mean with an end goal in mind, not with a directedness in the details of the process. That is, artificial selection where the same gross measure of fitness is used throughout the process.[This message has been edited by NeilUnreal, 05-28-2003]

I wasn't really thinking of lookahead pruning.My thought was more along the lines of taking a
'layer' in a search space and applying some criteria
to each leaf, the decision being whether to follow on or not.After selecting those to continue with, produce the next layer,
and repeat the process (maybe even changing some of the criteria).If the criterion remained the same, you would presumably
reach a point where you had a set of leaves that all matched,
to some degree, the criteria.I don't think evolution is 'directionless' as such, but I don't
think it's determined either.It is a process which directs life towards forms that can survive
the prevailing conditions.

Believing that science proves things, which is the same thing as not understanding the principle of tentativity, is a common misperception among laymen. But now that science has been properly described for you, why would you want to persist in adhering to this misperception?Science does not prove anything. All it does is build theoretical frameworks around bodies of evidence that both explain and make sense of the evidence, and predict in which areas and directions future evidence may lie.A good example of this is a prediction related to Einstein's general theory of relativity. Einstein's theory explained many phenomena, one of the requirements of theory, but it also predicted that light would be affected by gravity just like everything else. In 1919 Sir Arthur Eddington went to Africa and measured the angle of deviation of starlight passing near the sun during a solar eclipse. The deviation was roughly the amount predicted by Einstein, and the theory was confirmed.But is Einstein's theory proven? No, it is only supported by the evidence, not proven by it. Tentativity requires that theory always be open to change due to new evidence or improved understanding.Until you incorporate the principle of tentativity into your understanding of science, you will continue to make conceptual missteps, such as believing that evolutionists are "faithful and willing disciples to this theory," or making arguments from personal incredulity like, "To say that all that we are today is a result of a vast series of unpredicted, unobservable, impersonal, purposeless, unaccountable, incalculable events, is totally unacceptable to me."If you want to believe evolution is weakly supported by the evidence that is your perogative, but until you offer a theory which better explains the evidence you're just blowing hot air and in essence saying, "I don't accept this theory, but I can't explain why in terms of evidence."Of course, we here know why you don't accept evolution. It's because it violates your misconceptions about the way the world should work, and because of your mistaken belief that Genesis not only has some literal interpretation, but that you know what that interpretation is.--Percy

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I understand your incredulity based on the "odds," but one has to keep in minds that in the engineering we do today (as described above), we have so many failures because we are looking for a particular, predetermined outcome. That was not the case with evolution--any outcome would suffice.

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For a very good book about the lack of understanding most people have of mathematics and especially of probability and odds, read, "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and it's Consequences" by John Allen Paulos