Natural Selection

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New species? Descent with modifications? When have we ever observed this?

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Descent with modification has been observed time and time again
both in the lab and in life. Mutations happen, they have
been observed.New species is harder for reasons not only mentioned in post 2, but
because the definition of species is so (to quote Quetzal) squidgy.See the threads on that subject if you want more detail -- or,
here's a thought, look it up.Not seeing something is hardly evidence against it though.I don't need to have seen the rifle to know that someone shot
JFK -- I saw the effect, some of the evidence (second hand
admittedly) and concluded that someone must have used a rifle.Doesn't mean that I am absolutely right -- but the evidence
supports the conclusion.

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the giraffe, began stretching their necks to reach the leaves. Because of this stretching, their neck grew longer.

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LeMArkc may well have believed this -- Darwin didn't and it's not
part of Darwinian evolution.A Darwinian explanation would be that there is a heritable trait
that affects neck lenght, and that some condition existed
whereby the chance of survival to reproduce was enhanced by
having a longer neck (and supporting constitional features).More with longer necks were born in each subsequent generation,
to the extent that the genetype responsible for shorter necks
disapeared entirely.This is hard to proove, but logical. Natural selection in other
situations HAS been observed ... the above is an NS explanation
for how it might have happened. It is completely consistent
with the theory and so does not refute the theory.We cannot proove anything, but we can disproove things given
sufficient contrary evidence.

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These common ancestors for all humans are named Adam and Eve.

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But our closest common ancestor from the creationist PoV would
be Noah and his wife.

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(I have already shown in Part I, that the evolutionists are mistaken on this one).

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Where IS part I?

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I hesitate to ask, but which view appears more reasonable?

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So you base your disavowel of evolution on incredulity then?Modern dogs come from other, previous generations of dogs.
No evolutionist would tell you different. The creationist you
mention was using a common tactic of introducing a completely
different argument when faced with one that could not be answered.There are, I assume, genes which are different between different
breeds of dogs. Since we can only have two variants of a gene
per individual, if there are more than four variants of any
one gene then descent from a single couple is impossible. Or
do you accept beneficial mutations?Perhaps some of the geneticists could help here.

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They may also ask, how evolutionists make the jump from the strong surviving and the weak dying to a bacteria cell, over billions of years creating all that is in the world. Evolutionists do not care to explain how they draw the two together, but they do attempt to explain the more controversial opinion that all came from a bacteria cell. To explain this they point to mutations and artificial selection.

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It's not about 'weak' and 'strong'. It's about being 'better able
to survive and/or reproduce'

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Darwin was never able to point to any example of this

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That would be because it takes much longer than a single lifetime.We didn't evolve from bacteria anyhow. Bacteria, like us, have been
evolving for billions of years. We do not know the nature of
the ultimate common ancestor (if there is only One).

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Yet, Darwinist natural selection seeks to establish that purposeless natural process can substitute for intelligent design

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And this is borne out by evolutionary algorithms that design
electrical circuits that humans cannot really fathom, or that
work in unexpected ways.The 'intelligent intervention' that you mention in artificial
selection is being used, by you, to mislead.All that is being applied is a 'selection criterion' and whether
that is chosen by a person, or imposed by the environment is
irrelevent.If some relationhip between an organism and it's environment
causes a differential reproductive output between variants
one will become the dominant feature.

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D. PROVE IT!

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That's not the way science works -- you have to disproove it,
not the other way around.So far you have failed.

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predation (bigger tends to equal slower, in general terms), climatological or other abiotic limiting factors, etc).

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Doesn't it also mean 'harder to kill' though ... I don't
think elephants have any natural predators (do they?)

It seems to me (from m's comments) that a likely explanation
for the elephantine size of elephants via sexual selection
has a lot to do with predation -- when there is a threat
mate with a hulking brute who can protect the kids, when
there isn't mate with the less agressive (and perhaps
smaller) males so it's not so rough and they help with the
kids.I read an article recently about experienced female (birds
I think of some kind -- doh!! can't remember) selecting
smaller, gentler mates while virgin's were going after the
tough bigger males.You know this IS starting to sound like those hairless-ape
thingy's

Oh, right. I didn't know that -- I thought elephants
had a social structure more like buffalo/bison where there
are adult males in the group.There goes that idea then.Perhaps the size thing is just about getting bigger surface
are for cooling off or something? Especially if woolley
mammoths were smaller.

What about getting bigger cause they can, and the little
ones mainly get eaten ?