I like your post.I actually have a science degree, and now I educate science teachers on how to teach science.
What is science? It's the collection of evidence, come to a conclusion, collect more evidence, modify your conclusion, add in some more evidence - you see the pattern here?
What does "creation science" say? We will search for only the evidence that supports a foregone conclusion - that the Earth and all the living things were created by some mystical being that no one can see. If some evidence is found that doesn't support that conclusion, the evidence must be wrong.
Evolution is THE MOST studied phenomenon in all of science. We know how evolution has changed the living things on Earth better than ANYTHING else. But woefully, MOST Biology teachers have NEVER taken a course on evolution. They don't understand how it works. If understanding how evolution worked was REQUIRED to be a prereq to be a Biology teacher, and I argue it should, then our students wouldn't be caught in this mess. A misunderstanding of "what is science?" is a travesty.
Religion is about faith. There are many faiths, which is why Judeo-Christian cannot be taught in public schools. Evolution is science. People believe in religion, they understand (or don't understand) evolution.
This is one of the best articles I have ever read about the debate between creationists and evolutionists. http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/wackononsense.pdf
Pardon the inflammatory title.
And thanks for the article, that's really interesting and useful (so far, I didn't read it all yet). Maybe I should print and distribute it round here (yeh, that'd go down real well Even just number 1 - the difference between theory and scientific theory. You hear "it's a theory" so much. Thanks for sharing.