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At any moment now they'll be here, screaming that this "proves" the reality of Noah's Ark, the 6,000 year age of the universe, the collapse of everything we know about biology, etc.

There are people who do not think evolution has advanced beyond the theory stage, because it hasn't, who do not subscribe to the young earth belief. Noah's ark may or may not be true, I don't know, do you?

What I do know is there are many holes in the theory of evolution and many, many fakes have been advanced as "proof" that evolution is fact not theory. The reason for the fakes is that hard proof is sorely lacking. This lack of proof is the only fact in the theory of evolution.

To lump all people who do not give credence to evolution as whacko nut jobs who lack education in science is just a little on the liberal side don't you think?

To cite just a few fakes that are proven and so well proven that I will not provide links, if you want to google them you can find them easily enough. 1.)Nebraska man. 2.)One of the best known, Piltdown man.3.) The dino to bird fakes, most notably that of Archaeoraptor liaoningensis, which was supposedly discovered in China and was printed up in National Geographic and later turned out to be a fake comprised of 88 different bones glued together. 4.) The well known horse chart showing the Hyrax as the first early horse, which turned out not to be a horse at all. The order of the horses shown in the chart was also fake. 5.) The fake chart and drawings showing the development of the fetus that supposedly cycled through all the stages of evolution. This was proven to be fake almost immediately but schools kept this chart in text books and taught it as fact for over 40 years.

All these and many more fakes have made many people sceptical about evolution. You don't have to be a creationists or beliver in ID to doubt evolution. I for one do not rule out a third possibility that will someday come to light. In the meantime I will adhere to my belief that evolution is just a theory because it has never been proven to be anything else. Anyone who thinks it is fact has simply not studied all the evidence with an open mind.

Let me reiterate. I am not religious, I do not believe in ID, but also I know evolution to not be proven. I doubt it ever will be. It requires just as much faith to believe in evolution as creationists need to believe in ID.

There are people who do not think evolution has advanced beyond the theory stage,

There is nowhere to advance "beyond" the theory stage. Theories are endpoints in science.

Noah's ark may or may not be true, I don't know, do you?

What evidence is there to suggest that it is true?

What I do know is there are many holes in the theory of evolution

Name three?

and many, many fakes have been advanced as "proof" that evolution is fact not theory.

"Many, many" fakes? Let's see...there was Piltdown man, exposed by scientists (not creationists) as soon as it was available for study. Then there was that recent bird-like fossil that was discounted, though I don't remember if any actual scientist claimed that it was a genuine find or if it was a layman who didn't necessarily know better.

Now we have the frauds perpetrated by the subject of this article, but nowhere is it suggested that his frauds were presented as unique finds, so they would only represent a false specimen amongst an already established line.

The reason for the fakes is that hard proof is sorely lacking.

The reason for the Piltdown man fake is that the scientists had a cultural bias and wanted to "prove" that humans originally came out of a certain region even when the evidence did not support it. I can't speculate on the reason for the other fakes, because I don't know of any others.

To lump all people who do not give credence to evolution as whacko nut jobs who lack education in science is just a little on the liberal side don't you think?

Some of them are not whacko nutjobs; they just lack education in science. Others lack education in science, yet still see fit to proclaim themselves experts on a subject that they've not even given the slightest bit of study -- the majority of vocal creationists here on FR seem to fall into that category. There are a few intellectually honest creationists who make themselves known here, but I can probably count their number in binary without going beyond a single nibble.

To cite just a few fakes that are proven and so well proven that I will not provide links,

IOW: "I don't do any research, I just parrot creationist stuff without doing any fact-checking

1.)Nebraska man.

Nebraska man was the result of an overzealous paleontologist hastily jumping to a conclusion over a single tooth without subjecting the find to any further study or peer review. The man who found the tooth was not trying to "fake" anything, and even he acknowledged that it was too early to classify the find.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_nebraska.html

Key quote:
" Most other scientists were skeptical even of the more modest claim that the Hesperopithecus tooth belonged to a primate. It is simply not true that Nebraska Man was widely accepted as an ape-man, or even as an ape, by scientists, and its effect upon the scientific thinking of the time was negligible.

2.)One of the best known, Piltdown man

"Discovered" by http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/piltdown.html

An actual fake, though it should be noted that one of the reasons for it being exposed was that it did not fit in with the real evidence collected for evolution; the "find" didn't make any sense in light of the other actual, non-faked evidence for human evolution. I'd like to hear a creationist explain what "proves" Piltdown to be a fake, because if you don't accept the evidence for evolution, you lose a fundamental basis for rejecting Piltdown as a genuine find.

3.) The dino to bird fakes, most notably that of Archaeoraptor liaoningensis, which was supposedly discovered in China and was printed up in National Geographic and later turned out to be a fake comprised of 88 different bones glued together.

You're being dishonestly misleading with the statement "88 different bones", because the "find" was still only a combination of two different fossils yet you seem to be implying that it was haphazardly tossed together from the remains of any species that could be found lying around.

A "fake"? More of a case of National Geographic jumping the gun and presenting a find as "confirmed" before it went through the peer review process. The fossil was subjected to peer review by scientists who accept the theory of evolution, and rejected based upon what they observed. It was not cobbled together in some lame attempt to support dinosaur-to-bird evolution; we have plenty of genuine fossils for that.

It was sloppy journalism, and nothing more, but dishonest creationsts latch onto it and blow it completely out of proportion to "prove" that evolutionary biologists and other scientists are perpetrating a deliberate "fraud", though they never once explain why, if there is a deliberate attempt at fraud, the find was ever exposed as invalid in the first place. Surely if there was truly conspiracy here, the people studying the fossil -- who all accept evolution and thus have reason to keep the lie going -- would have kept the fact that it was actually a joining of two species under wraps.

4.) The well known horse chart showing the Hyrax as the first early horse, which turned out not to be a horse at all. The order of the horses shown in the chart was also fake.

Uh, no.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/horses/eohippus_hyrax.html

5.) The fake chart and drawings showing the development of the fetus that supposedly cycled through all the stages of evolution. This was proven to be fake almost immediately but schools kept this chart in text books and taught it as fact for over 40 years.

Geez, I'm getting sick of this claim; it's one of the more common creationist misrepresentations out there.

The fake drawings were done by a man named Haeckel. Haeckel hypothesized that the stages of evolution in an organism's history could be viewed through embryonic development. He believed that observing a developing embryo would show the zygote, then fetus -- from fish to humans -- developing similar features, such as gills that would then be "lost", through later development in organisms that no longer had such structures. To that end, he created a series of embyro drawings. Yes, he did fudge the data. His fraud was exposed within his own lifetime, and he was forced to admit it.

Now, he fudged his drawings to advance his hypothesis. Thing is, most scientists at the time didn't buy his hypothesis. They didn't see any reason why certain structures couldn't be dropped from embryonic development altogether (though it should be noted that there are some cases where 'no longer used' parts seem to form on an embryo and are lost, even if these aren't quite as common as Haeckel wanted to believe), and Haeckel's hypothesis never really gained any momentum.

Now, yes Haeckel's 'fudged' drawings have appeared in textbooks. Personally, I believe that it is sloppy to present them at all in any context beyond pointing out Haeckel's fraud, however it should be noted that I have not seen any textbook using the drawings as "evidence" of Haeckel's failed hypothesis.

Let me say this again, in case I was not clear: While some textbooks continued to use Hackel's drawings, they were not using the drawings in tandem with a claim that Haeckel's hypothesis was correct. The use of the drawings was not a means of passing misinformation regarding the theory of evolution; there were merely flawed attempts to show embryonic development.

Yes, it is bad that textbooks use flawed drawings, but creationists pretend that there's a far deeper meaning here than is really present.

Let me reiterate. I am not religious, I do not believe in ID,

No, but you are willing to parrot the dishonest "arguments" of ID (aka creationist) proponents.

but also I know evolution to not be proven. I doubt it ever will be.

Theories in science are never proven.

It requires just as much faith to believe in evolution as creationists need to believe in ID.

Evolution is a scientific theory supported by non-fakes in the fossil record and DNA evidence. What physical evidence is there for the non-scientific assertion of ID?

There are people who do not think evolution has advanced beyond the theory stage, because it hasn't, who do not subscribe to the young earth belief.

But it always turns out that all the science they know is the pig-ignorant YEC propaganda turned out by sites like ICR and AiG. Let me scratch around a little bit in my files and maybe I can find some examples. Then again ...

To cite just a few fakes that are proven and so well proven that I will not provide links, if you want to google them you can find them easily enough. 1.)Nebraska man.

Not a fake. A misinterpretation in 1922 that was retracted in 1926 or so. Irrelevant the the current state of any science. Long forgotten until revived by the Morris-Gish crowd. And what's a "secular skeptic" doing stretching a misinterpretation into a deliberate fraud? The first data item out of your mouth is a misrepresentation -- by you. I mean, what's the agenda?

2.)One of the best known, Piltdown man.

From 1912. Suspected by many scientists (mostly in Europe and America) almost at once, finally discredited in 1954 by means and reasoning not recognized as valid even now by creationists.

The dino to bird fakes, most notably that of Archaeoraptor liaoningensis, which was supposedly discovered in China and was printed up in National Geographic and later turned out to be a fake comprised of 88 different bones glued together.

Your "most notable" is the only one of which I have ever heard. Stretching again, aren't you, Mr. Secular Skeptic? What's the agenda? Please produce the others.

4.) The well known horse chart showing the Hyrax as the first early horse, which turned out not to be a horse at all.

Hyracotherium is not a hyrax. Inexcusable mistake for someone so expert in science as to know the experts have it all wrong, and yet you aren't the first. It's a creationist thang. How did that happen to you, Mr. Secular Skeptic?

BTW, the horse chart is just an oversimplification, not a fraud. The problem is not that horses didn't evolve from Hyracotherium, but that it's a tree structure, not a straight line. In jumping from that correction to a claim of "fraud," you're giving the ICR talking points again. So far, you've been doing it right down the line.

5.) The fake chart and drawings showing the development of the fetus that supposedly cycled through all the stages of evolution.

Haeckel's drawings were shown innacurate, yes. I don't think anyone has proven fraud, yet here you are claiming it. Embryology continues a valid science, and its link to evolution remains strong.

Ontogeny and Developmental Biology.

Figure 2.4.1. Cat and human embryos in the tailbud stage. A cat embryo is shown on top, a human embryo below. Note the post-anal tail in both, positioned at the lower left below the head of each. The human embryo is about 32 days old.

All these and many more fakes have made many people sceptical about evolution.

But I can only give you Piltdown, Archaeoraptor, and (at a stretch) Haeckel for any sort of fraud at all. Furthermore, you contaminated your Archaeoraptor claim with an attempt to stretch it to some unknown number of other fossils you conventiently forgot to mention. Thus, two out of five of your claims of fraud are themselves fraudulent and fraud may be suspected in a further two. Of your valid claims, the only thing recent is Archaeoraptor and that fraud was by two Chinese merchants.

You don't have to be a creationists or beliver in ID to doubt evolution.

You just have to get all your science from their web sites. And how did that happen, Mr. Secular Skeptic?

What's phoney through and through here is you. There are no secular skeptics, only lying creationists.