Evolution

Since this is a 4 round debate and there is no rebuttal to perform I will simply lay out a basic idea of what evolution is for this round, with some basic avenues of support for the theory. To begin with then, we should start at what it means when we say The Theory of Evolution (TTE). So what is a scientific theory? Well it's different from the colloquial usage often bandied around. A scientific theory is an explanation - not, as the often phrased 'anything can be a theory, right?' or 'it's just a theory' attempts to undermine what Theory means in context of The Theory of Evolution - a scientific theory is not a tentative attempt to explain some aspect of observed reality. A scientific theory is the best unifying idea (an explanation - one that postulates nothing unnecessary) of repeated observed and confirmed observations/experiments. A scientific theory may include within it several scientific facts or laws. It is both falsifiable and has clearly limited bounds as to what it attempts to explain. From talkorigins: "Biological evolution ... is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual. The ontogeny of an individual is not considered evolution; individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are inheritable via the genetic material from one generation to the next." http://www.talkorigins.org... As just mentioned, a theory may include several scientific facts within it. In the case of evolution it can be said - there exists facts (observations) which TTE explains. It means the phrase 'biological evolution is a fact' has a slightly different meaning to 'TTE is a fact'. The former is the observations, the latter the explanation of the former - we can be sure evolution occurs, explaining the mechanisms how though is separate to this and there are several theories of how evolution works. One of the most fundamental processes related to evolution and its meaning is speciation. Speciation is the process by which species diverge (anagenesis or cladogenesis). http://www.everythingbio.com... http://www.everythingbio.com... A common strawman of biological evolution is that such speciation is unobserved. This argument is false - we should not expect to observe many acts of speciation in a life time however it has been done. A short non inclusive list is here: http://www.talkorigins.org... The apple maggot fly, Rhagoletis pomonella is a great example of a species just beginning to diverge as well. http://www.nature.com... Depending on Con's arguments, I may go into more depth into the mechanism of how and why speciation occurs. It is sufficient for this round however to just note that it does occur and has been observed. Supportive evidence: While these don't prove the theory as is, they are very useful for the 'if evolution was true then we should expect X' type lines of inquiry. Paleontology, morphology, embryology, biogeogaphy, geology, genetics, molecular biology - all add strong supportive lines of evidence to TTE. Again, I may be required to go into more depth on any of these lines, it's sufficient they are presented as available for now. == With that done, all that is left is for Con to supply arguments as to why TTE is not the best theory for biological evolution and arguments that biological evolution does not in fact occur and has not been observed.