The basis of creationists arguments either stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of evolution and science, or a literal interpretation of Holy Scripture.

Arguments made by creationists contain misrepresentation of evidence, blatant lies and unfalsifiable claims — not able to be tested — which would exclude them from the category of scientific evidence. Creationism itself relies on the principle that evolution is untrue.

Instead of providing evidence for the claims they are making, that God created the world in six days around 6,000 years ago, creationists spend most of their time attempting to disprove evolution.

One of the most common objections made against evolution is that it doesn’t explain the origin of life, and that is absolutely true. Evolution does not claim to explain the origin of life or the origin of the universe. That particular field of research is called abiogenesis.

Evolution attempts to explain the diversity of the life on the planet. This is why Darwin’s first book on evolution is called the “Origin of Species,” and not the “Origin of Life.” This kind of fundamental misunderstanding of what evolution describes only goes to show that most creationists don’t even bother to look at theories that conflict with their preconceived religious notion. Whatever guise this blatant refusal of knowledge is hidden behind is in no way scientific.

Furthermore, creationists then use this misconception to perpetuate their baseless claims. Since evolution cannot explain the origin of life, this means creationism is a better explanation even though creationists don’t provide any real evidence. In this case, the difference between science and creationism seems to be that science isn’t afraid to say, “We don’t know.”

What’s even more ridiculous than the misunderstanding of the principles of evolution is the assumption that Charles Darwin is some sort of God-like, ultimate authority on evolution, which has created rumors that Darwin recanted his theory of evolution on his death bed. Alhough these rumors have no basis in fact, even if they were true, they would do nothing to the theory of evolution.

Darwin helped begin the theory of evolution through natural selection, but thankfully, science has advanced in the last 150 years. This includes one of the most compelling pieces of evidence for evolution: DNA.

“In the last 30 years, we have become so good at being able to obtain DNA sequence level data,” said Jim Colbert, associate professor of ecology, evolution and organismal biology at Iowa State University. “We can get the genome of humans and other species and compare them. We have the computational resources to do those types of comparisons.”

“Evolution is written in the genes.” said Colbert, “Organisms that are closely related have closely related DNA sequences and those that aren’t closely related don’t — it’s amazing.

“It’s particularly amazing to the think that Darwin, and others who were trying to work on this question, at the time they came up with this theory DNA wasn’t known about. It’s a completely independent line of evidence that the early folks, who were saying here’s how diversity arises, knew nothing about and yet, today, when we can actually make those kinds of measurements and those kinds of comparisons, they support evolution remarkably.”

Creationists not only lack an understanding of evolution but also other scientific principles. Creationists often use the Second Law of Thermodynamics in an attempt to disprove evolution. This law claims that entropy, or disorder, increases in a closed system. Creationists then claim that because disorder increases over time the order required for evolution would be unobtainable. Creationists seem to forget that the Earth is not a closed system. Our planet receives constant energy input from the sun, making it an open system. This means the Second Law of Thermodynamics does not apply.

These arguments represent only a portion of the misunderstandings of creationists. Supporters of this world view don’t seem to realize that attempting to prove another position wrong does nothing to make theirs truer. Creationists have the idea that if evolution is untrue, the automatic position must be “God did it.”

This is not only an enormous leap — as nothing about our natural world suggests anything about a God — but also a complete failure. The reliance on a misunderstanding of evolution is evidence enough that creationism has no place in science.