Creationism(Pro) vs Evolution (Con)

Yay rebuttals! *The "orchard" of life* I laughed pretty hard when I saw the "orchard" of life, from Pro's round 2 post, and that the morphology was a straight horizontal line, in time, so I have some questions for Pro. 1. Pro, if you believe that speciation by way of natural selection occurs, then why hasn't speciation occurred prior to the orchard? 2. Why are the original "kinds" exempt from speciation, but their later kinds are not? 3. How do we know that the beginning of your orchard isn't just the branch of another "tree?" 4. Is the second "tree" of the orchard similar to or different from the first "tree" of the orchard, and to what degree? 5. Like are trees on the left side of the orchard vastly different than those on the right side of the orchard, and how so? Please elaborate on the placement of the trees in your orchard from left to right. 6. Why should we consider what the bible says to be authoritative on matters of the origins and the diversification of species? 7. Why should we accept this orchard, other than the reason "because the bible tells us so?" Pro it seems like you are just placing an arbitrary limit to speciation without any explanation as to why. 8. Why does speciation start where you have indicated? Pro's orchard has many branches and shows no signs of stopping from branching out even more. The orchard doesn't indicate any limit to diversifying species, which means that Pro's following claim that "natural selection alone cannot drive dinosaurs-to-birds evolution or ape-like creatures to human evolution" isn't demonstrated by the orchard, in fact, we could extrapolate the orchard and create immense diversity. Pro asserts: "there comes a point where nature can only select so much genetic information before there is none left." My response: Nope. As long as nature's environmental constraints are fluctuating and changing, new environmental constraints put different kinds of pressures on species, and as the constraints dictate, genetic characteristics are either beneficial for surviving long enough to successfully reproduce or they are not. *Genetics* I reject all of Pro's deleterious mutation effect diagrams for humans, because the term deleterious is undefined and humans are not the only organism. Deleterious just means harmful, and in evolution, as long as a mutation doesn't impede an organism from surviving and reproducing viable offspring, it's not deleterious. This silly graph is therefore overstating the harmfulness of mutations by including mutations that are regarded as undesirable, rather than actually being deleterious to surviving and successfully reproducing. Besides, the mutation diagram only shows point mutations for humans, not for plants, bacteria, or other animals, so Pro has given us no reason to believe in the harmfulness for mutations of other non-human organisms, thus mutations can produce beneficial, new genetic information. This doesn't seem to bother Pro at all as he says: "If genetic information cannot be increased, much less even maintained, it is ridiculous to even say that entire functional genomes of organisms were created through natural selection and mutations making the whole theory moot." My response: By showing a nonspecific diagram ONLY for humans, Pro can conclude the same for ALL GENOMES, like plants and bacteria? Come on Pro. Remember Pro, you agree with speciation by natural selection, and functional genetic mutations drive that process. *Fossils* Pro states the problem with evolution is living fossils like: "the horseshoe crab which still exists today remains completely identical to the fossils 445 million years old" My response: If environmental constraints don't change that much or become extremely selective of characteristics, characteristics that allow an organism to live long enough to successfully reproduce viable offspring may not change that much. Regardless, Pro's sources from round 2 for [12], [13], [14], and [15] are either dead, link to the wrong thing, or are inaccessible, so I have no way of verifying the truth of any of Pro's fossil claims...oh well. *Facial muscles* Pro claims: "Within organisms exist complex features that can't arise through the gradual process of evolution...a prime example of this can be seen with human facial muscles." My response: Human facial muscles can be seen in other hominids and primates. Here's a list of all of the facial muscles found in humans and primates, indicating a step-by-step evolution from our primate ancestors. "depressor anguli oris; DES, depressor supercilii; DLI, depressor labii inferioris; FRO, frontalis; LELS, levator labii superioris; LELSA, levator labii superioris alaeque nasi; OROC, orbicularis occuli; OROR, orbicularis oris; PLAM, platysma myoides; ZYMA, zygomaticus major; ZYMI, zygomaticus minor." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... To translate, the forehead, high cheek, middle cheek, jaw, nose, chin, and lip muscles are all shared among the primates, and the diagram at that link shows that. The article attached to that diagram mentions: "...the phylogenetic data available strongly support the idea that [facial] muscles A and B were the result of convergent evolution..." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... So, there were some facial muscles that were inherited from ancestors and some that arose by convergent evolution...either way it all points to the evolution of our facial muscles from our primate ancestors. *3rd round rebuttals.* Pro says: "If If I repeat words in in my my my sentence, does it improve improve it?" My response: It's not about improving it Pro. Your claim is, "I have yet to see a mutation that increases the amount of functional genetic information by creating functional genes." You didn't mention improvement, you mentioned an INCREASE in functional genetic information, and had you bothered to take a quick look at any of my evidence I've shown you on polyploidy, you would have seen: "A linear relationship between cell size and copy number was observed in the two populations" Yeah there were cells that INCREASED in size, which was caused by an INCREASE in FUNCTIONAL GENETIC INFORMATION, because having more information produced in gene sets raises the probability of new characteristics beneficial for certain constraints that otherwise would have doomed the species. Pro makes a marathon analogy: "Premise 1: A runner has been observed at the beginning of the marathon Premise 2: The runner has been observed at the end of the marathon Conclusion: The runner definitely ran the course of the marathon to get to the finish line." My response: Premise 1: Two ape telomeres have been observed on only on ape chromosomes. Premise 2: These same two ape telomeres have been observed fused together on our 2nd chromosome. Conclusion: The two ape telomeres definitely were fused, which matches with evolution, and proves ape-->human. Pro, If your runner had a camera on them the whole time they were running, we could verify if they ran the marathon; that's uniquely indicative evidence. Well, the two ape chromosomes are unique to apes...of billions and billions of gene sequences, these two are only ape, and human...we're modern apes. The two chromosomes are the camera that would have remained on the runner in Pro's example. Pro, animals are classified phylogenetically, and every single fossil, genome, and geological sample we find matches the phylogeny you would expect if evolution were true. Pro, please pick a color from my 2nd round taxonomic diagram...where does "kind" fall in that taxonomic colorful triangle? Pro, please listen to this particular member of the scientific community...don't just listen to scientists, look at the data. The scientists may have preconceived notions, but look at my evidence from round 2..it's objectively verifiable, please take a look at it. Homology has been confirmed by genetic similarities. The chromosomes dictate your characteristics, these characteristics change over time. Similar structures would be remnant in the fossil record, in the order they should be given evolution were true, and THAT'S THE CASE. Not only do fossils show homology, but the genetics confirm homology with chromosomal base pair uniqueness. On to Pro.