Definition of Evolution

Well, to be fair, science as a general rule of thumb must base its fledgling theories with observation, testing of hypotheses, and repeating the processes. Neither of those fit the criteria for the theory of evolution.Darwinian macroevolution has never been directly observed, to which you might reply, it takes years and years to accumulate enough minor gradations. Its like trying to watch fingernails grow!But the thing is, fossils are snapshots in history. And in the same way you might not be able to see one's fingernails or hair grow, directly, you can still see clear evidence of it from those snapshots.The fossil record is inept in answering these questions because we do not see any clear examples of transitional forms. Indeed, this has long been the problem for evolutionists. But the argument is brought up so much now or days against evolution that it is not as widely admitted as it was in the past.The second tier is with the fact that evolution cannot be duplicated in a lab. For instance, the Drosphila Melanogaster, which is your average fruit fly. Numerous scientists have bombarded these fruit flies with X-ray radiation, among other techniques, in order to mutate them. Well, it worked remarkably well. They were able to produce offspring with eyes missing and wings growing out of their heads. But I suppose the point is, no bionic fruit fly was ever the bi-product of these experiments. (No dragonflies, houseflies, horseflies, butterflies, were ever bioengineered-- just fruit flies and lots of them).Of those that actually survived essentially produced monstrosities with horrible deformities that certainly would have eliminated them in the wild. Natural selection works against the typical evolutionary model because it does not further the advancement of mutations, but rather, tends to weed out any aberrations.The Drosophila has been no exception to the rule. Even more damning, the fruit fly is molecularly very simple in relation to that of a human. What is worse, their lifespan is not even a thousandth to that of the average human lifespan. What does this mean? Essentially, it means that the fruit fly has the physical ability to evolve more readily than that of a human being. The fruit fly is relatively simple with a genome, composed of four pairs of chromosomes, of about 13,000 genes.Aside from this, they breed at a much quicker rate. So, then, surely in 80 to 90 years of experimentation, their generations would be into the hundreds of thousands. Compare that figure to humans. In 80 or 90 years, how many generations have come out of your immediate family? Most likely, about three generations, and maybe four in that amount of time.If ever there were a prime candidate for proving macroevolution, the Drosophilia would be it, and yet, nothing even comparable has ever been established.Lastly, they cannot repeat the results of the experiment because they cannot simulate it in the lab to begin with.Therefore, I scarcely see how dissenting objections to evolution should be viewed with such scathing anger. (Not you, but in general) For how ever misguided you'd like to say creationists are, they have some very reasonable objections to the theory.Having said that, they have to respond to some very reasonable postulates presented by evolutionists until a solid consensus can't be found in some appreciable way. Edited by nemesis_juggernaut, : typo

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"God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners." -Sren Kierkegaard

No, please don't hold back for my sake... Tell me how you really feel. Shouldn't evidence for macroevolution be so completely abundant so as to be self-evident? Should it really be necessary that you have to find some obscure creature that might qualify, if the theory is as strong as it claims? What was the function then? If my memory serves correct, they were looking at specifically homeobox sequences to see if intentional tweaking could speed up speciation. The mutants were so badly mutated that there was no hope for survival as a wild phenotype. I even said that natural selection weeds out aberrations such as these. We're talking about flies with antennae growing out of their eyes and other bizarre mutations. Obviously that's hardly a beneficial mutation.I think part of the problem was that homeobox genes only turn on or off other genes that are already extant. I think at the time they were hoping for something far more grand. Even supposing that is the case, I'm curious to know if any acid tests have been conducted, and if so, what did it consist of? Whether it was half or 4 times as many is beside the point. The point I'm making is that they are simpler than that of humans, procreate much faster, are more prone to mutation, etc. The point is that they are a much coveted test experiment for evolution, but it yielded unfavorable results unworthy of defending the theory.

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"God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners." -Sren Kierkegaard

Yes, I was aware of the argument when it was discovered. Naturally, I remain unconvinced. And this is due in part that it is incomplete. We know nothing of the hindquarters, yet we're told that its essentially a missing link.I wonder that if mudskippers were extinct right now, if evolutionists would make the argument that they were really creatures in transition from water to terrestrial, or vice versa.

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"God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners." -Sren Kierkegaard

Yes, I am aware of that the fruit fly has been used in a multifaceted way. I'm simply mentioning the Drosophila because it is used as evidence of speciation. I'm really not sure where the ambiguity is in that. But it is what they did. If your objection is that the expressed intent was not specifically to, in essence, "prove" evolution, then I can't really comment on that. All I know is that the fruit fly has been used as an evidentiary claim for macroevolution. I am simply dispelling the notion that it proved anything in favor of macroevolution. In my mind, it did prove quite nicely that the abundance of beneficial mutations are little more than wishful thinking. Percy, its just an illustration so the reader understands what I mean. I don't see how that could be "clearly wrong."I would also like to see the alleged instances of observed speciation. I'm guessing it is going to show various forms of microevolutionary specimens that no one objects to. Its a stretch that defies imagination that the horse and whale series produced anything of value. Its based purely on conjecture. Then where does a theory like punctuated equilibrium come in to play that contravenes the supposed finely gradated series? There are no finely gradated series. There are organisms that appear fully-formed in strata just as they are walking around today. I don't see how this off-topic, being that the premise of the OP is quite broad. Is that a more gentle of way of saying, shut up, nem... you don't know what you're talking about.?

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"God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners." -Sren Kierkegaard

And I've read your posts as well. They lack any substance. They are reminiscent of Rick JB's posts which are pithy, at best, and ad hominem at worst.You'd attract more flies with honey than with vinegar. In the future, perhaps you could make an attempt to be affable instead of instantly trying to blast me out of the water.

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"God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners." -Sren Kierkegaard