Evolution vs Creation

Hey sonofasailor - Welcome aboard!I understand where you're coming from. It is pretty hard - at least at first - to rebut a lot of the creationist arguments. Not because they're valid, but because they cover so much territory from so many disciplines that even specialists have trouble answering them all. It because especially confusing 'cause creationists often use the jargon and even the findings of science as "evidence" for their own views. Which would be okay except a lot of times these evidences are distorted or misinterpreted. However, they are often esoteric, and without a specialist's knowledge it's often hard to see where they're wrong. I can relate to your problem. I simply stand in awe of the geologists when they're taking apart an argument - I don't even know what half the terms mean.As to your questions, I'd love to help out. However, each one of those requires volumes to respond! There are a couple of approaches to take if you're really interested in getting into the evo/cre debate (Warning: It can be addictive in it's own right!):1. You're going to have to do a lot of reading, I'm afraid. Fortunately, there are a ton of good, easily understood books out there that cover the key points. My suggestions would be: Douglas Futuyma's "Science on Trial", Niles Eldredge's "Triumph of Evolution", Carl Zimmer's "Evolution", and Richard Dawkins's "Climbing Mount Improbable" and "Blind Watchmaker". Again fortunately, you'll find that a lot of the more common creationist arguments are simply rehashes of the exact same material. Once you learn the problems, it's fairly easy to spot repeats by someone else. One of the great things about THIS board is that there are quite a few very intelligent posters from the "loyal opposition", so the arguments seldom get stale. 2. When you encounter something that you don't understand somewhere, come here and ask for specific help. It's easier to answer a particular question if it is less broad. There are a lot of folks here you can tap for information.Again, welcome aboard!

Congrats on the wedding! Long life and happiness to you both (been married for 13 years next month).If you want a good "primer" on the cells-to-modern life question, the Zimmer book I mentioned is one of the best I've seen. It should be available in most decent libraries. When you're ready to get more "technical", I've got another list for you (Wilson, Mayr, another Zimmer, etc).Glad to have you around.

Hi funk. I think you're phrasing the question wrong. It isn't so much that there is evidence against the Flood, simply that there is no evidence for the Flood. If the Flood was true, then someone in one of the relevant fields like geology, geophysics, paleontology, biology, etc would at some point have either deliberately or accidently stumbled across the traces that would be expected to be found of a global catastrophe of this magnitude. The absence of such evidence is utter/total.Now, what DOES exist is tons of evidence against particular wild mechanisms, stories and sheer mental gymnastics creationists try to use to explain the observations that DO exist from all those disciplines - observations that have much more mundane, prosaic explanations; none of which are related to a Flood. You'll see a lot of that on this board. Check out any of the geology threads.