Summations Only

They're trying to find semantic loopholes. (And it's easier than doing actual science.)

That picture at least begins to clarify to me why you're so obsessed with common descent. So you're left with the elephant and tapir problem - which tree in your orchard do they hang from?And while you're at it, can you enlighten me on clean and unclean. The bible describes them as seperate kinds so they too must have different trees. Pigs and cows on different trees? Pigs on the same tree as rock bagder and camel? How does it work?Presumably the Discovery Institute have published their own taxonomy somewhere?

I don't suppose you are, but just in case you're interested in the truth of that quote please read this:http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ce/3/part12.htmlBut you could skip that because hunting for people that have said things that you hope support your fantasies is a lost cause

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"The validity of the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection does not depend on a quote by anyone, Nobel prize winner or Pope. There are a number of scientists (e.g. Fred Hoyle) who have done great work and also hold eccentric opinions on certain scientific matters. So what? Quotations are not facts about the natural world. Science progresses despite (and sometimes because of) eccentric individuals, but no individual's opinions are revered as facts. The process [of scientific investigation] retains the true and discards the false."

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Well TO tells us that"So far as the research below demonstrates, this quotation appears to be a mistakenly jumbled combination of statements made by two different people at least 36 years ago"So I suggest you go back to YOUR source - presumably some creationist quote mine - and tell us its origin properly.

There are lots of objections; it's age being one, it's context another, his religious dogma yet another, but the main one is that it's utterly irrelevant what any individual, no matter how renowned, says about any aspect of science - unless it's backed-up by real work to defend it; unevidenced opinion is useless.Suppose I changed the attribution:"That, by this, evolutionism would appear as a theory without value, is confirmed also pragmatically. A theory must not be required to be true, said Mr. H. Poincare, more or less, it must be required to be useable. Indeed, none of the progress made in biology depends even slightly on a theory, the principles of which [i.e., of how evolution occurs -- ED.] are nevertheless filling every year volumes of books, periodicals, and congresses with their discussions and their disagreements."Prof Richard Dawkins FRS FRSL, Emeritus Fellow, New College, Oxford. 2017Tell me what has changed about our understanding of evolutionary biology - except that one of its proponents has lost his mind. Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Yes you would and the entire creationist world would errupt in howls of joy and plaster it over every publication they could find and quote it forever more on forums like this.But nothing at all would have changed in biology. Several million other scientists would simply point to the 150 years of research, evidence and thought and get on with their work.Back in the real world - and mental illness aside - if Dawking ever did say anything like that he'd have a mountain of real, peer reviewed, research evidence to back it up and if proven right, science would honour him. He'd become one of the most famous scientists that have ever lived.That's how it works - not by quoting insignificant dead, scientists with religious prejudices, but by producing real, evidence-backed work. Time you guys got on and did some. The ToE is falsifiable - do it.

The peppered moth is an excellent example of natural selection. At least you get that.It's also an excellent example of beneficial gene mutation. NOT variation within the genome, not gene plasticity - gene mutation. The mutations have been found and even dated to the industrial revolution.Famous peppered moth's dark secret revealed - BBC News How many times does this need to be explained to you? Common descent is a conclusion drawn from the ToE, it's not evolution itself. It's not necessary for there to be a single descendant for all life on earth but it's quite probable.At least try to understand what you object to. If you don't you just look like an idiot.

Yes we know, is this all you're trying to tell us? If so you can stop.Meanwhile you don't see to be making any progress telling us what a 'kind' actually is. In fact you're avoiding all my questions on it. Like are pigs and cows seperate kinds and elephants and tapirs?

ffs, there's a whole thread on that very subject that does exactly that.How many times? Are you really this dumb?

It is most probable that all life on earth has a single common ancestor but it isn't necessary for the ToE that that is true.The most commonly cited other possibility is that there are two; one for bacteria and one for archaea and eukaryotes.It makes no difference at all to the ToE which of those is true or if another version is true.It also makes no difference at all to creationist arguments about it.What WOULD make a difference to the idea of common descent would be your crazy and unsupported idea of organisms descending from thousands (millions?) of individual 'kinds a few thousand years ago. So all you have to do is prove that to be true and collect the Nobel Prize. It should be very, very easy to do - evidence should be everywhere. Why haven't your side done it? Yes, we can see that your mind is boggled.

As you have now apparently discovered, common descent is not a theory. Progress of sorts. Yes, wrongly as you now accept.I've been here a few years now and have noticed that the crazier creationists - the real fruitcakes - speak of themselves in this third party way. You need to keep a watch on yourself.

The change was caused by a mutation in the early 19th century.

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Scientists have discovered the specific mutation that famously turned moths black during the Industrial Revolution.
In an iconic evolutionary case study, a black form of the peppered moth rapidly took over in industrial parts of the UK during the 1800s, as soot blackened the tree trunks and walls of its habitat.
Now, researchers from the University of Liverpool have pinpointed the genetic change that caused this adaptation.
They have also calculated the most likely date for the mutation - 1819.

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"We knew that within that 400,000 bases, there was some sequence that had to... cause the actual difference between the black type and the typical type," Dr Saccheri explained.
"So we went about an excruciatingly tedious process of identifying every single difference between the two types."
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Specifically, they estimate the DNA jump happened in a 10-year window centred on 1819 - a date that fits perfectly with a gradual spread of the mutation through the population, until black moths were first spotted in 1848.

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Famous peppered moth's dark secret revealed - BBC News

Yes, by god, it's still a moth! Yes, a mutation.So we have a beneficial mutation plus natural selection leading to a change in phenotype in response to a change in the environment.A perfectly demonstrated example of the predicted components of one form of the evolutionary process.

Just out of interest, would anything change for you if science could do that?

There's the fruitcake third person talk again. That's your opinion, but the question was would anything change for you if science did produce life from 'dead matter'?