Creationism is a doctrine that comes in many guises. There's biblical creationism and scientific creationism, and there's literal creationism and liberal creationism. The differences are superficial, and all variants share blind faith in the same curious little story from an anonymous compilation of ancient myths. It is possible, therefore, to treat them all as one and to reject them all as one.
Here are three brief points about debate between the theories of creation and evolution that support rejecting creation after only cursory examination. Creationism should be denied a seat at the table without being given time to preach its details.
One
Creation and evolution are each representative of a broad epistemology. Framing the issue of the origins and diversity of life as a contest or debate between creation and evolution disguises the point. The real issue is whether a naturalistic epistemology or a supernaturalistic epistemology is correct.
Evolution is a theory that is part of a naturalistic epistemology. Its knowledge is natural. It owes its existence (like every successful scientific theory) to a single virtue: it is the best explanation of nature. Nature imposes itself on it, and it unites and simplifies natural evidence. Accepting (or rejecting) a naturalistic theory requires only empirical observation and analysis -- evidence that can be accepted on its own merits. Therefore, naturalistic theories are persuasive on their own merits. They use known data to explain unknown processes. In other words, naturalistic theories attempt to explain the unknown by the known.
Creation is a theory that is part of a supernaturalistic epistemology. Its knowledge transcends nature. Its knowledge is not obtained from the natural world. It is imposed on nature, thus making it more complicated. Accepting it requires faith because there is not any evidence that makes it persuasive. Only natural evidence does not require faith and can be accepted on its own merits. Therefore, supernaturalistic theories are not persuasive on their own merits. Nor can they be fully understood. In other words, supernaturalistic theories attempt to explain the unknown by the unknowable.
The issue is not which theory is superior. The issue is which epistemology is superior. To decide, we must use reason. "Reason is not one tool of thought among many, it is the entire toolbox." Reason supports only a naturalistic epistemology. Simply because it is not a naturalistic theory, creation must be rejected.
Two
Creation and evolution are not theories with equal merit. Creationists discuss them as if they were. This is deception, stupidity or lunacy -- pick one.
Evolution is scientific theory and fact. It is verifiable and falsifiable. It makes predictions that have proven true. It is observable both in laboratories and in nature. It is open to public scrutiny and contentious debate. It is open to change and improvement. It has practical application to other sciences. It is explicit and rigorous. It is an incomplete theory with the capacity to expand its (already vast) explanatory power.
Creation is none of these things. It is neither verifiable nor falsifiable. It has no predictive or explanatory power. It cannot be observed, scrutinized or questioned. It is static and incapable of improvement -- it can only be "reunderstood." It is a complete theory, but because it is vague, ambiguous and subject to interpretation, it is incomprehensible. It has no practical application to other sciences. In fact, the following fields of knowledge would have to be overhauled to be made consistent with creationism: anthropology, astronomy, biology, botany, chemistry, geology, geophysics, meteorology, paleontology, philosophy, physics, psychology, sociology, world history and zoology.
This is not an example of a contest between competing theories. It is a silly question of which is more rational: science or pseudoscientific gobbledygook.
Three
Creation and evolution are not alone, and they are not opposites. It is not the case that criticism of one provides support to the other. Creationist argument often (always?) consists solely of attacks on evolutionary theory. Even if we assume that these arguments have merit, they add no strength to the creationist position.
The creationist strategy is called "dualism." The argument has value only if (a) these are the only two possible theories, or (b) the theories are diametric opposites. First, (a) is incorrect. If the creation story in the Old Testament is a viable explanation, many equally viable creation stories must also be considered (for example, these). All have equal merit. Second, (b) is obviously incorrect. Theories simply cannot be opposites. Therefore, the truth or falsity of evolution does not make creation more convincing. Dualism is rhetorical subterfuge and nothing more. A complete rebuttal is simply, "So what?" At best, its criticism demonstrates the incompleteness of our understanding of the world.
Creationists cry, "Success! There are gaps in your theory, so you must believe ours." This so-called "god in the gaps" approach, besides being inherently illogical as dualist, only substitutes faith in a supernatural being for honest ignorance. It does not increase our knowledge or reduce the number of questions we have. It actually increases our ignorance by introducing another unknown (worse: unknowable) entity. This is unreasonable. The reasonable response to gaps in a theory is to close them by expanding, modifying or replacing the theory with one that has greater explanatory power (although the replacement option is extreme and revolutionary -- see Kuhn). In this way, evolution has itself "evolved" dramatically since Darwin and others proposed it 85 years before the discovery of DNA. The gaps are closing. Naturally.
