Chromatic Aberration said:
This will get ranty but I feel I need to point out the thing as to why this position in particular is just such an annoying example of what is wrong this whole thing. Apologies for quite possibly offending you, but here's the thing:
Might as well say that there is "propaganda" from both sides and stuff "obfusciating" science when trying to ascertain whether or not evil lizard people control the world or we live in a democratic state. One of those positions is not like the other to the point where everyone who has somehow researched the matter properly says one of those positions is very much bogus. So why on earth would anyone argue differently? I tell you why: because they have a vested emotional interest in getting people to adopt their viewpoint - no matter the cost.
This is not what I observe though.
Evolution is supported by active evidence for it. It has been observed in the wild (just think of why you need to vary your bug spray). Bugs which have mutations that allow them to survive the spray end up with an advantage over those that don't, so they reproduce and eventually you end up with bugs which are largely immune.
I am currently on anti-biotics because I'm home sick. My doctor's instructions say finish the course - why? Because bacteria evolve and I don't want to be host to a new bacteria that's resistant to treatment.
With species we fish or hunt for example, certain kinds of salmon are maturing later, and coming in smaller because people fish for the larger ones. Elephants, poaching has meant that their tusks aren't growing quite as big as they used to because hunters wanted those large tusks.
So in real terms if you look around you can see evolution and the consequences of it, and with the massive time scales involved for it you see how the reasoning works. Throw in evidence from genetics, from the fossil record such as it is, from ring species, and it gets just better and better evidence for it.
None of this was aimed against creationism, evolutionary science does not have to disprove creationism. It just has to put across the evidence for evolution. If it doesn't stand on its own, it doesn't stand, if creationism were shown to be complete BS, it would not prove evolution.
Creationists don't have any evidence for creationism. We have seen species evolve, we have never seen one created by a God. So what do creationists do?
They give us bullshit. "Evolution would be terrible if it was true" you don't have to read that article to say its dishonest, because its an appeal to consequences, it it just there to deceive you. I am pretty sure most soldiers would rather not have people shooting at them, their preferences in that matter have no bearing on whether they're in that situation or not.
The attempts to tie Darwin in with history's monsters, are more of the same. Aside from the fact that the monsters in question were closer to Lamarckian views on evolution, and actually banned the teaching of Darwin, it doesn't tell you anything about the truth of whether evolution is real or not.
You get attempts to dismiss evidence for evolution, you get claims of scientific fraud and all of that (and yes, fraud does happen, it tends to get discovered later on and corrected for, but it happens) but never one instance of evidence for creationism. It all just comes down to "We believe it, because our preacher or holy book tells us to."
The nearest they can come to it is the idea of irreducible complexity, which is just an appeal to incredulity. Just because you don't know how how this could have come about naturally doesn't mean it didn't, and it falls very much victim to somebody figuring it out one day. There just isn't anything there for creationism.