The one thing that "the new atheists" (as the group represented by Dawkins, Harris, and Dennet usually get denoted) have to watch is falling into the same dogma that they criticize religion for. Dawkins is no charlatan, but he can come off as a zealot. He can't prove God exists or doesn't exist any more than the Pope can. In the end, his style may serve as an attention getting device. Publishers like controversy and hot-headedness. We see it everywhere from Rush Limbaugh and Anne Coulter to Al Franken and Micheal Moore. People pay attention to pointless intellectual tennis matches. Reasoned debate doesn't seem to sell as well.
But Creationism, as G10 pointed out, has always made scientific claims. To take a recent example, a "
creation museum" was opened in Kentucky. The people who run it believe the earth was created 4000 years ago and that dinosaurs and humans co-existed. Those represent claims about the way the world is. There's nothing metaphysical or "special" about them so they
can fall into the realm of science. Science has every right to challenge them, just as the museum has the right to challenge science. But who wins out? What will ultimately decide whether the universe is 4,000 or 13.7 billion years old? It seems evidence should rule here. And who has the better evidence? If creationism wants to prove that the world is only 4,000 years old it had better start collecting some solid data to counter the piles of scientific studies that refute it.
Right now science can't outright refute creationism or intelligent design, but it's completely conceivable that it one day will have that ability. Because, in the end, either the world was created or it wasn't (or some special case outside of our current knowledge exists, which, in this realm, is always possible; but we have no way of knowing what that is, so it doesn't serve as a good basis for arguments).