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

This is the same old argument from personal incredulity. It's just more "I can't believe man will ever fly" type of stuff.Observation and experimentation tells us that species are not fixed. By the same means we also know that descent with modification combined with natural selection can develop extremely complex and exquisite solutions. To expect easily mutable organisms to remain fixed for billions of years across wildly changing environments is by far the most unreasonable position.Evolution might seem less impossible to you if you think of it more like biologists actually describe it, instead of insisting on the Creationist caricature of evolution as "amoeba to man". Yes, a simple single-celled organism was our ultimate ancestor, but the evolutionary path was by one little baby step of evolutionary change at a time, each one when considered by itself perfectly possible and reasonable.--Percy

I guess it's necessary to explain once again that nothing is ever proven in science, that science possesses the all-important quality of tentativity so that theory may change in light of new information or improved insight. A theory explains and makes coherent a body of information and evidence. I *accept* the theory of evolution because at present it explains the evidence better than any other theory. You reject evolution not because of falsifying data or because you have a better explanation, but because you just can't bring yourself to accept that things could ever have happened that way, and that's why it's an argument from personal incredulity. Yes, it's obviously a personal view, especially since you do not support it with any evidence. You misstate evolutionary theory when you say chance couldn't direct evolution toward today's life forms, because the scientific view of evolution is that it is directionless. Human beings are not an inevitable outcome of evolution. Rewind the clock to the Mesozoic and start time forward again and the random nature of events will take things to an outcome that quite likely does not include us. No evolutionist here would answer yes to this, because as explained above nothing is ever proven in science. Theories are supported by evidence, not proven by it. Probably most evolutionists would agree that they believe in following the evidence where it leads. Then show me I'm mistaken by providing falsifying data against evolution or by providing a superior theory explaining life on our planet.--Percy

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