Evolution is a coherent theory with significant amounts of data to establish its veracity.

http://www.youtube.com... * Gould did not argue against evolution, he argued varied interpretation. To this effect I posted a video of Gould discussing his understanding of evolution and his interpretation of the theory. * Evolution has significant concrete data supporting it. To this effect I posted a fantastic link to http://toarchive.org... which has perhaps the best site on the subject providing the concrete data behind evolution. The growing massive understanding of genetics between different species would be more than enough to accept evolution even if we had no fossil evidence at all. * Evolution is a robust theory which explains large tracts of data. The arrangement, taxonomy, distribution, features, genetics, life cycles, and forms of all the different and diverse species of animals on the planet would be not understandable prior to natural selection. Darwin managed to explain the fossils being found, the distribution, taxonomy, and providing a robust mechanism for exactly how natural selection could occur. He managed to explain the entirety of the biological sciences in a single explanation. His explanation has not only explained the data of his day but it's the only thing that explains the data of our day. Understanding how and why all great apes including humans lack the gene GULO on their chromosome 8, whereas other mammals have it and don't suffer from scurvy, would be impossible if not for the understanding of evolution. * I am not parroting what I think I know, I actually understand the theory. I hope it should be apparent to the voters that I understand the theory in a very real way. That my understanding is not merely parroting of apologetics or cookie-cutter claims that I don't fully comprehend. To this effect there are a number of other debates I have conducted on the subject of evolution. I submit that these should also be used to determine whether or not I understand the theory. I believe, and I hope the voters agree that I have met my burden. I have established the points I was to establish in the intro. Although, I had to walk a fine line between giving a good presentation of the theory and correcting the misunderstandings of Con. I think I have sufficed to establish what needed to be established. I will continue in that manner and correct more of my opponents misunderstandings from the last round. Thank you for reading and doubly thank you for voting (if you're not voting for me you only get a single thank you). Tatarize. ----------------------------------- I don't know what possesses you to think this debate is about God. It isn't. I specifically didn't respond because I didn't think it was relevant before. God does not provide a mechanism for species are created. You conceded that evolution takes place in the short term but oddly question it in the long term. The suggestion is that given a little time you can get a little variation, but given a lot of time it's impossible to get a lot of variation. Think of the taxonomy like an ancestor list. All species which are chordata are related to an ancestral chordata. All the tetrapods to an ancestral tetrapod. All the dinosaurs to an ancestral dinosaur. All the birds to an ancestral bird. Now, consider this. They all come from the same ancestral species. There was once one species of mammal and one species of reptile and the species were very closely related. They would look no more different than a grizzly bear looks to a black bear. It is only through the modifications over vast stretches of time that the species look completely dissimilar. Think of an ostrich and a humming bird. They are both birds but vastly different species. However, there was once only one species of bird and slight amounts of variation within that species. So while it's true that a monkey isn't going to become something other than monkey. The species might easily radiate 100 million years from now and have burrowing monkeys and grazing monkeys and flying monkeys and aquatic monkeys and monkeys the size of a houses lumbering through the forest. -- The fact that species don't jump between branches in the tree of life is a very specific and confirmed prediction of the theory of evolution. You are spending your time being overly concerned over the amounts of variation found within the last 10 million years and the variations within the last 100 million. We have witnessed within our lifetime infectious diseases becoming resistant to the antibiotics used to fight them. Evolving new genes which only serve to render our medicines useless. Entirely new species arise and entirely new genes evolve within our lifetime. The fossil and genetic evidence is insurmountable and improving and you're amazed that given 200 million years rather than 2 million we can have forms a hundred times more distinctive? You are wrongly supposing that one species is converting to other, rather they are all the same species from the most humble of beginnings and radiate out to have a vast array of different lineages. The term species is actually really vague and fairly nebulous. Generally we use it to mean gene pool or genetically isolated population. We can cause speciation to occur within a number of generations and have done so repeated. http://toarchive.org... Further when one considers such phenomenon as ring species (where there's a consistent gradient of species around the planet or lake or similar area resulting in two different species in the same place which are the same species if you circle back around the ring to the intermediate species. http://en.wikipedia.org... * Fossils need not have had children to be fossils. * Scorpions have evolved plenty as have have sharks and crocodiles. * Of course the Mandrill is related to the Baboon. Oak trees are related to baboons. * The monkey species are different species. They occupy their niche. There's is a greater monkey or lesser monkey and there's no such thing as holding back all the other monkeys. * You don't understand the 2nd law of thermodynamics. * Adaptations do not decay over time. * The saber tooth cat looks to have gone extinct due to a meteorite impact in Canada about 13,000 years ago according to a new and fairly impressive new proposal of what happened to the megafauna. * Pika actually isn't part of the rabbit family. It has it's own grouping. * Pikas are more related to rabbits than hamsters. Sharing a much more recent common ancestor. * Pikas like rabbits are cecotrophs. Hamsters are however rodents characterized by their teeth rather than lagomorphs. The close relationship in behavior and appearance is due to their common ancestry and evolution. * Pikas are part of the Ochotonidae family. Rabbits and hares are Leporidae family within the order Lagomorpha, they are not as you suggest Ochotonidae. * Macroevolution is microevolution over longer periods of time. So rather than just a couple million years you are looking at tens of millions of years. The fossil record is fantastic for showing exactly these transitional forms of these no extinct common ancestors of the current forms. I can show you the common ancestors for mammals and reptiles. How is this a failure to properly provide evidence for evolution over the long term? * There is one tree of life because there is common ancestors for all the species on the planet. Live birth is also characteristic of mammals but not all mammals as the monotremes lack this functionality as well as nipples and various other standard mammal adaptations. * At the branching you have two very closely related species like the Red Pika and Gansu Pika. Only later do the variations mount. * You say there's no limit to microevolution, except you impose one... it doesn't work over long periods of time. That you deem to be macroevolution and demand God be at the helm. * Birds are dinosaurs. They are