"In both your system & mine, claims need data."

Nice try, Bill. But the problem is that Pete doesn't actually have a system - he has 'Creation.com's' system. When you attempted to teach him about the 'ladder and bush' analogy he scuttled off to his favourite website and 'parroted' what they have to say about it. But the thing that he will never understand - because he's incapable of thinking anything through - is that creationism is not even a system - it's a sort of dead-end. Creationists believe what the Bible tells them to believe i.e. God created the world ... however many thousands of years ago (?) - The End. To them, none of this is open to question and God is unknowable anyway.

Then along comes the Great Beast Science and blows this cosy excuse for switching off your brain (or, more accurately, switching off the brains of the 'flock') apart! The Christian origins myth no longer makes any sense whatsoever and is shown to have no scientific validity. Creationists are now fighting a desperate rear-guard action. They portray themselves as noble Christian 'scientists' defending The Truth against the heathen. But what they, and Pete, refuse to acknowledge is that REAL scientists don't START with the truth! Real scientists work painstakingly TOWARDS the truth. If the truth were really known already, there would be no point in doing science!