Can I just interject with a question for a second? Did the Kansas school board require the teaching of creationism and halt the teaching of evolution? Or did it just allow for the teaching of creationism (or intelligent design, or spaghetti monster, etc).

Even an atheist would have to agree that our current working model for life on Earth has holes in it. It doesn't take a religious fundamentalist to recognize that some of the predictions the theory makes aren't accurate (linear time line for one thing, most biologists now hold that evolution happened/happens in quantum spurts).

And frankly, the primordial sea full of proto-proteins, getting zapped repeatedly by lightning to form RNA, sorry, that's just a bit hinky for me. Were this version true, it should be fairly reproducable in a laboratory environment.

Don't get me wrong, I DO hold that the earth is 4 billion years old and I do agree with the progression of the species. I just see some gaps in the tale that's usually told. Not holding it up for inspection because you're afraid of creationists entering the discussion is as bad as the blind creationism itself. We still can't get any closer to a more accurate model. Don't be so thin skinned... We're still not quite certain on an accurate model of particle physics (remember when the proton, nuetron and electron were as small as it gets?) But physicists kept plugging away. Biologists need to do the same.