Hey guys, I've got somewhat of a tricky question for y'all. Hopefully this won't turn into a flame. And if anyone feels insulted, just keep in mind that I'm working on an "assuming this is true"

California is very liberal, and I've come to take everything I learn in school with a grain of salt. More often than not the stuff being taught is ridiculously biased. Of course, on personal searches on the web I've had some difficulty finding legitimate, generally accepted answers.

While studying for my finals and trying not to fall asleep, I realized that I haven't seen any mention of Intelligent Equation in my Bio text book. Usually it's presented in other text books to show another half of the story... or appease those who believe in it. No mention here. Evolution is presented in my textbook as 100% proven theory(sic) that's flawless under all criticisms.

My question is, are there any scientifically accepted theories or occurrences that contradict evolution? By scientifically I mean non religious or philosophical answers, and by accepted I mean actual theories that have some merit, unlike Aliens.   

BTW, to those who disagree with evolution, let's just pretend like it is true, and we're simply examining it.

I'm on my iPad at work, so lengthy replies are tedious.   "intelligent Design" is just creationism through the back door, gussied up in scientific-looking outfits.
Here's the Wiki for the recent "Dover" court case if you want a thorough dissection:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District

"the problems that I have with evolution are not religious" C. S. Lewis reflections on the psalms

For me the biggest problem is when the historic is called scientific. In my understanding, science is an inductive line of inquiry using standards of falsifiability, experiments and repeatability to arrive at a conclusion about ongoing forces. If the line of inquiry strays to reconstructing past events than you leave the scientific and enter into the forensic. And at that point the scientific process you learned in highschool gets altered. "verifiability" is inserted instead "repeatability". And as with any historical analysis (particularly when operating within a paradigm) you get bias and falsifiability goes right out the window. No matter what is found it supports the paradigm. We found that there are marked commonalities in all DNA (bacteria to humans) this supports an evolutionary view. If we had found that they were all wholly distinct the interpretation would have changed to "look how easily DNA evolves independently, this supports an evolutionary view". Heads I win, tails you lose.  As a slight aside, I'd also like to note that "look how organisms evolve" is distinct from "this is our evolutionary history". One is science the other is not. I took a graduate level class on behavioral evolution and the classes on "early human history" he told us that "you cannot approach this with the same level of criticism that you do experiments, because if you did nothing would stand". So there is a difference in level of evidence, but it is not commonly acknowledged when indoctrinating the young  

This point gets misunderstood. I do not look down on history or the forensic. They are important and good scholars in those fields have nothing but my utmost respect. I love history. I just think the distinction is real and important.

I'll also point out that as my initial quote states, it is possible to believe in evolutionary history and still be religious. Francis S Collins and C S Lewis both believed in evolution of a sort and one was and the other is a devout believer.

Rather than a conspiracy it's just an assumption on the part of the education community that Creationism in any form is irrelavent.

Right now, kid, there is no competing scientific theory to our current understanding of evolution. In most places, intelligent design is not presented alongside evolution in science class. It is not a conspiracy or biased liberalism, IMHO. Intelligent design is untestable, so it is not a scientific theory. It is one possible belief in the absence of theories.

Before our current theory of evolution it was thought that the consequences of your actions were heritable, because the theory of evolution predates the discovery of genetics. For example, in the medieval poem "Bisclavret" a woman has her nose bitten off by a werewolf and because of that her children and grandchildren were born without noses. Under this theory, if you get your ears pierced and do not let them close up, your children will be born with pierced ears. Before this theory it was assumed that animals could change, but nothing was heritable by the next generation. If a beneficial change was necessary, it was thought that the next generation would have to develope that change all over again. Before that it was assumed that animals and plants did not change at all.

Hovind is.... Well, let's just say that his credibility in regards to science is somewhat suspect.  I would go farther than that but I'll try to remain polite.

I understand that over half the population of the US does not believe in evolution and a fairly large percentage of that figure buys into the "creation" idea or even the more extreme "young-Earth creation" idea which beggars the imagination of those of us with some background in science.

This is not the case around much of the world, of course, and the inhabitants of numbers of other well-educated countries look upon this figure with amazement.   However, I just read that of all places, South Korea is having it's own "creation" battles with the Ministry responsible for education trying to remove references to evolution from textbooks.

Instead of starting a long, involved thread on ground that we've trod upon before, I'll try to talk about the "why".    
If you want to learn about the sciences, I suggest reading a couple of Dawkins' or Gould's books.   "The Greatest Show On Earth" by Dawkins addresses all the arguments of the creationists in great detail.

However....    Why is it that folks are willing to believe the simple creation myth of a group of bronze-age goatherders over the painfully-discovered evidence that science has given us over hundreds of years?

Why are the creation myths of other groups of peoples all over the world given such short shrift?   Why, for instance, is the Norse notion of the Frost Giants pulling the first man and woman from the ice not given equal validity with the Garden Of Eden?
Essentially, all cultures on the face of the Earth have some sort of creation myth, and most are qualitatively equal.  (that is, they are all myths with no evidence whatever)

Much of it is bound up with religion, of course.   The "Abrahamic" Faiths give great store to the bible, and the Genesis myth was incorporated into the Hebrew version long ago.  
As well, it makes us feel special.   Humans have a hard time accepting that we are, on the scale of the Cosmos, rather insignificant.  That our little blue ball (to quote Sagan) is really a none-too special little rock in a small solar system in just one arm of one of many billions of galaxies....

We don't like that.   Creation tells us we are special.  That we were put here for a purpose and that as well we have some hope of continuation past the death of our physical bodies.   That's a very comforting notion and we hold it dear.   We don't like to hear any evidence against.

But the evidence is massive and incontrovertible.   "As incontrovertible as gravity" to quote Sagan again.  Scientists may argue among themselves as to the exact time-scale and mechanisms of evolution, but the theory is acccepted as fact.
Even increasingly among the religious.  The Catholics long ago decided that the findings of modern science were not only correct, but that they didn't conflict with faith.
Recently, researchers at a prominent Evangelical university issued a statement saying  in essence that Genesis was a myth and that the natural history of the Earth conforms to the findings of contemporary science.
Francis Collins, the microbiologist who worked on the Human Genome Project, is an Evangelical.   He says flatly that Genesis is a myth and that Evolution is "how God did it".  

Those that have not done any amount of study in the field will find the misinformation put out by creationist groups appealing.  Those who bother to undertake such study will find the evidence for evolution and the scientific view of natural history to be both massive and compelling.

In regard to the Dover School Case, PBS made a documentary, a very great one at that, on the case. I suggest all of you to watch it. It's free. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/intelligent-design-trial.html

The way I see it, everything is obviously biased. We can use that word and "agenda" all we want. But those have become so dirty and associated with bad things, it's despicable. Is it bad for my "agenda" to be the search for knowledge, truth, to know what is right? Is it bad for my "bias" to be that truth is the most important thing over all? Not in the least. Remember that always. Don't be afraid of the truth. Ever. The truth is simply that, in one form or another. What has happened, what will happen, why something has happened, how something happened, and so forth. Just choose. Do you want to live fiction or reality? Read voraciously. Find evidence. Find truth.

Bigkahuna is right, I think it's the comraderie that comes along with slinging; and knowing that we will get along just the same after this thread.

I agree with Woonsilra, find the truth. Your textbook shouldn't have given you only that one option.
If men didn't ever question things that were 'scientific' like ancient medicine or the numbers of stars in the sky, history would be different. So you are right to question what you are learning.

"Then you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free." John 8:32

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.' John 14:6

The Bible supports you finding the truth as well. To start, I'd suggest going through all the links here. You probably know evolution pretty well, so it'd be a good thing to see the opposing evidence.