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

I've asked this question in a number of different ways over the
years and never got a satisfactory answer (and I am open to one).If one didn't hold a creationist belief, what about ToE would
one object to?What evidence exists that would indicate creation (without
any reference to any religious system that has ever
prevailed)?Isn't the majority of anti-evolutionary thinking biased by
the assumption that creation is, in fact, the way it happened?The creationist approach seems to be this::1) Creation is what happened.
2) If we add X idea to the Biblical creation account Y data supports it.
3) If we assume creation Y data must be wrong, so what techniques could be wrong that are used to measure Y data.All anti-evo discussions I have witnessed boil down to acceptance
of an unsupported creation assumption.I have not seen any statement of what one would expect the world
to look like if creation were the key (even ID works backwards
just in case anyone was about to claim otherwise).

Since you are an evolutionary creationist we mainly
are in agreement (I got that sense when discussing
Bible literalism anyhow).We may disagree about the unknowable source of life,
the universe, and everything ... but what's wrong with
that so long as we avoid persecution and jihad.

I have noticed the lack of fundamenalist creationist
posts ... and evolutionry-creationist stances are Ok
by me since they DO take into account the data and applied
evidential interpretations.I would have thought that reformation in Christianity would
be a priority ... after all didn't Jesus get nailed to a tree
for suggesting that the predominant Hebrew religion needed an
updating?

I have to agree about the regurgitation of creationist
arguments ... one has to get used to that sort of thing
in this 'great debate'.And I also agree that the thought that humans are nothing
special appears to underly the rejection of evolution more
than anything else.

I'd agree that all species are unique As to special ... well it has an unfortunate number
of undertones for my liking. Humans are just animals,
and by no means the only successful species, nor the only
species that can manipulate its environment ... we are just
better adapted to do certain types of manipulation.No amount of specialness is evidence of God, but the possibility
that we came about ... well ... just because we did rather than
as a part of some grand design seems to scare the hell out
of some people (or into them I suppose )

quote:

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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.

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The comments above are fundamental to the question that I raised.You mention 'purposeless' and 'impersonal', and this implies that
at a subconscious level you object to ToE because it topples
man (sorry for the non-pc phrasing) from the pinnacle of creation.Most of the rest of your post, as Percy pointed out, is about
your own incredulity. It's hard to accept that as a criticism
I know ... and many of us have trouble spotting when this
criticism is valid within our own views.Biological systems have vast complexities, agreed ... but check out
the threads that talk about genetic algorithms for designing
electronic circuits. These programs (analgous to the natural world
around us) operate on admittedly existing components (analagous to
the genetic stuff of life) to create circuits that perform a
specific function (analagous to organisms).The system is set up to operate in the way that evolution is
supposed to work, and the results are electronic circuits so novel
and efficient that the companies that run the programs have patented
some of these designs.Complexity and function from evolutionary process. The 'environmental' constraint applied forces the 'design' toward
something that best suits that environment.With circuits this can be done in a short time in the lab.Consider what can be accomplished in nature over the last 3billion
years or so. You do realise how long 3 billion years is?

The intelligence creates the 'environment' (analgous to
a god or gods creating an ordered universe), it's then left
to run.The circuits are not the result of operator intervention,
or in any sense pre-determined by the nature of the genetic
algorithm. The genetic algorith just provides the rules (akin
to the laws of physics etc.) that the process must adhere to.In genetic programming those rules are based upon the supposed
mechanism of evolution ... and the results are startling.My reason for suggesting that people of certain religous belief
reject ToE for other than firm scientific grounds still appears
valid to me ... even you appear to be looking for reasons to
doubt ToE, rather than critiquing (sp?) the theory itself.Other people have pointed out the major error of the probablistic
incredulity ... but there is another factor to account for even
in that ... we are looking for ANY outcome on ANY planet in ANY
galaxy in the universe ... the odds of not stumbling across
become astronomical.

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.

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.