Scientific Evidence Strongly Supports the Theory of Evolution by Common Descent

I apologize for the delay for my reply. My opponent called me out on several fallacies that I wish to reply to. First, you do not have the BoP – thne BoP is shared between us. As I was typing the debate opening, I forgot to edit the resolution – so thus the confusion. Please forgive me. We will continue to debate as is from this point on. In the opening round, I defined creationism as the view that God created life in its present form within the past 10,000 years. My opponent has not challenged that definition, so if I am wrong, please correct me. Con 1: Fallacies Pointed Out Creationists deny speciation: I never stated that creationists deny speciation – in fact, I cited some that do. I believe that speciation is incompatible with the view that life was created in its present form as it would force the view that evolution has changed species dramatically. Some creationists accept this view point, other’s do not. [1] Affirming the Consequence: I am well aware of this fallacy. However, I do not address alternative “theories” in this debate as we are debating if the evidence supports evolution or creation – there can be an infinite number of “alternate theories”, so I stick with two for the purpose of this debate. Nowhere did I say that either evolution or creation is true. Con 2: Genetic Degradation I believe that my opponent is attempting to argue that the vast majority of mutations are harmful mutations – this is false, the vast majority of mutations are neutral (i. e. , not having any noticeable effect on the organism) [2] The study you have cited is quite long, can you please bring me a quotation from that study that shows the point that most (or all) mutations are harmful? I have been unable to find neither anywhere in that article, nor elsewhere in atheist/evolution circles the claim that most mutations are harmful. Con 3: Speciation is in Line with Creationism See the refutation to the fallacies that you pointed out. This depends on what type of creationist you are. Next, I would like to take time to address the point brought up by my opponent: Creationism and Evolutionism are incompatible. (Note, I specifically address the view that life was created in its present form within the last 10,000 years; presumably by the Christian God, but not necessarily). Finally, my opponent set me up for this challenge, “For evolution and creationism to become incompatible…Pro [sick] must show that the change due to speciation actually leads to greater genetic diversity leading to the addition of unique information that can lead to evolutionary common descent. ” For this, I would to respond in the next round as I am running out of space and time. Pro 1: The Age of the Creation By definition of creationism in round 1, creationism took place within the past 10,000 years. This is absolutely incompatible with the age of the earth and the age of creation (note, it is possible for both the age of the origin of life, which creationism puts in the last 10,000 years and the age of the earth). We can measure the rate of evolution to determine how fast evolution took and how old the earth needs to be in order for it to work. We measure these in units of Darwin. The video to the right explains much more in depth, but here is a brief summary of the video: . http://www.youtube.com... A “Darwin” is a unit to measure evolutionary rates; one Darwin is a change in the charactors by a factor of e in one million years. Simply put: Creationism is incompatible with evolution because the age of life is too short for evolution to have occurred. “Young earth creationism is simply incompatible with evolution. ”[3] Resolution affirmed. [1] For example, in Dr. Henry Morris’ essay, The Vanishing Case for Evolution, he argues that no new specie have ever been observed. Morris, Henry M. , 1986. The vanishing case for evolution. Impact 156 (Jun. ). . http://www.icr.org... [2] Fairbanks, D. 2012. Evolving: The Human Effect and Why on it Matters. [3] Ibid.