Given the available data, denying the theory of evolution is completely unreasonable

Con starts by giving a definition of kind, as I requested, and later gives an example: humans. Since the term "human" corresponds to a species, I will assume that when my opponent refers to the word kind, he means species. The definition that he provided would be okay in a standard debate, but this is a debate about science and the definition provided has no meaning in science. My opponent complains about the usage of the word "species" in science, saying that it is akin to "splitting hair", but this is a vacuous complaint; the scientific vocabulary was not created to accommodate people who do not understand science, it was created to accommodate the scientists who use it. If Africans were to develop a mutation that would render them sexually incompatible with the rest of humans, then they would be considered as a separate species; the truth of scientific conclusions are in no way impacted by their moral implications. Although I agree that the average person would (and should) consider them human. He ends this paragraph by saying that drosophilia do not evolve into something radically new, which I already addressed. This paragraph begins with a blatant contradiction which sincerely baffles me: my opponent denies having "argued that a dog should give birth to something radically different from a dog", but he ended his last paragraph with "The fact is, after all these generations, the drosophilia in Pro"s example didn"t evolve into anything radically new. ". This is a direct contradiction. He then goes on to say that we should observe radical changes in bacteria and fruit flies because they have a shorter life span, but what my opponent fails to understand is that evolution has been occurring for billions of years and therefore we should NOT expect a RADICAL difference between generations separated by a couple of years. And what constitutes a radical change in fruit flies? Would the loss of their wings count, or change in eye color or body size? Because that has been observed many times (including by me). Con then says that the changes always occur within the "limits of variation", which he obviously does not deem necessary to define. Con starts this paragraph with the ridiculous assertion that "evolutionists" use the theory of evolution as some sort of back up plan because they "lack imagination to see how a Creator could have made the giraffe". He then proceeds to analyse the evolution of giraffe, starting with the fact that males are taller than females. I fail to see how this would be a problem and completely reject the assertion that females would "die out" especially since. .. they don't; if that assertion were true, giraffe would be extinct. He then makes the same statement about baby giraffe, which is partly true (only half of them survive until adulthood), but mostly fails for the same reason. Con asks why other species did not evolve long neck as well and the answer is simple: they never developed the mutation. "Pro said the mutations are random, but a mutation giving an antelope-like creature a longer neck wouldn"t increase the length of the legs" I agree that it is not necessary (although it does help for stability), but why would the fact that it happen be an argument against evolution? My opponent says: "it would be a sever health hazard to dramatically increase neck length without all the physiological and anatomical mechanisms simultaneously being in place to facilitate the skeletal changes" which is the argument from irreducible complexity. This argument fails because it has been demonstrated that every proposed irreducibly complex system is actual reducible; the function of the organ simply changes (1). I would also add that there is a nerve in the giraffe's neck that goes all the way from the brain to the bottom of the neck and then back to brain for absolutely no reason, making this nerve more prone to damage then if it was a straight line across the neck. Why is this important? Because while this makes perfect sense under evolution (the nerve started out really small but grew longer along with the neck), it makes absolutely no sense under Intelligent Design. "the low height of most plants common in the giraffe"s diet argues strongly against the notion that they evolved longer necks to reach food" I would have to see the source of that assertion; from what I have read, giraffe do feed in trees (2). My opponent concludes this paragraph with a critic of the Lamarckian theory of evolution, which no one in the scientific community accepts, so I do not know why my opponent brings this up. Regarding the Laetoli Footprints, a quick search allowed me learn that they are viewed as an enriching discovery concerning the evolution of humans; the apparent bipedality of those who made these footprints corresponds with our chronology of human bipedality (3). I do not see why my personal evaluation of these footprints would be relevant; I'm not an expert on this matter. "Pro thinks my argument against bacteria evolving into something else is silly" Because it is. "its people like him who claim that e-coli bacteria developing the ability to ingest citrate is proof of evolution" Again, it is not proof but evidence; the fact that a population of living things developed a advantageous feature is 100% evolution. "Why shouldn"t we see a bacteria evolve multicellular algae or fungi? " Because that would not make sense in the light of evolution; if you manage to witness a living thing evolving to become part of an other domain, you will have cast some serious doubt on the theory of evolution. My opponent brings up dating once again. I really do not know what to add on this subject; my opponent demonstrates a lack of understanding not only concerning atoms and decay rates, but also basic mathematics. Since this is not a debate about decay rates, I simply direct my opponent to this link for further information: Again, not the subject of this debate. But if my opponent really wants to know more about this, then we can have a debate focused on that particular subject. "Atheistic evolutionists usually say what they'd expect to see if God existed, like he would make his existence more evident, and if the Bible were true they'd find scientific evidence of Noah's flood, etc, so why is it unfair for me to state what I'd expect to see if evolution were true? " The prediction that God would make his existence evident is indeed unfair and so are your predictions about evolution. That being said, floods leave a massive amount of evidence when they occur so we should be able to confirm it if it did happen. In response to one of my previous arguments, my opponent says: "but in saying this he implies the even more improbable scenario in which animals simultaneously developed plenty of beneficial mutations to sustain their physiological changes" which, yet again, demonstrates a lack of understanding. Evolution is all about population mechanics; if a single individual develops a beneficial mutation, he will pass it down to his children who will pass it down to theirs and so on until the slight edge that this mutation gives them makes them more numerous than those who do not have it. Evolution does NOT happen on an individual basis; the more people there are in a population, the faster it will evolve. My opponent then proceeds with a shotgun of unsupported assertions which I will ignore due to the lack of characters, although I will say that natural selection and mutations are fully adequate to produce everything we see. This paragraph is completely off-topic but I will still address it. I agree that science does not have a monopoly on truth, but so far it has been the greatest (and arguably sole) tool to discover it. I disagree that science can not tell you about love (4) or about what is good or bad; I personally side Sam Harris on this issue. "So we ought to be more like chimps than gibbons if evolution were true. " Good news: we are (5). As far as I can tell, my opponent does not dispute the fact that languages did evolve in a way that is extremely similar to living things. He points to new words and expression being formed regularly, which would constitute the mutations in biology. His biggest concern is that we have a record of language evolving, but no record of life evolving. While I deny that assertion, the purpose of this example was not to prove evolution; it was simply to illustrate how it is possible for something to evolve gradually without ever being completely different from its direct ancestor, and yet end up (after many generations) with something completely different. We could even go further with this analogy by comparing the remnants of Latin in the French language (French is my first language so I know) to vestigial organs in humans or other animals. In conclusion, my opponent has presented many arguments, all of which I hope to have debunked to the audience's satisfaction. I hope I have also managed to explain to my opponent how evolution works so that he may refine his position in accordance with what the theory actually says. I thank my opponent for participating in this debate. (1) (2) . http://en.wikipedia.org...(3) . http://www.nature.com...(4) . http://en.wikipedia.org...(5) . http://genome.cshlp.org...