Mutations Cannot Produce the Type of Change Necessary for Darwinian Evolution

Okay, so your final claim is that mutations cannot produce the change necessary for all life to descend from a common ancestor. Okay, so Darwin did make a tree of life. However, this is not how he defined evolution. Although I suppose that that's moot now. Nice long quote you've got there. What I notice is one missing word. Evolution. Just because Darwin believed in a tree of life doesn't mean that's how he defined evolution. But, again, that's moot. Okay, so you conceded my points on information. Well, you yourself provide examples of beneficial changes, so there you have it. There are information-adding changes right in your opening argument. Okay, you bring up the word "kind" and refuse to define it. So I really need you to define your terms before using them, especially if you know that they might be controversial. Anyway, I guess the meat of your argument is about changing fins into legs. This is based upon a big misunderstanding, which I will attempt to illustrate with an analogy. Imagine, if you will, a sheet of clay. Drop a ball on it and it will dent it. Drop a ball and miss it and you will not make a dent. Drop a ball in a place where there is a big dent and you'll push through the sheet. Two people see the sheet and and there is a hole going through it. One of them says "The hole wasn't made by the random balls falling. You see, one drop of a ball and it only makes a little dent. It doesn't go all the way through. See? Dropping the balls can't push all the way through. " Dropping the ball is a mutation. Making a dent is a slight change. Pushing through is something like changing a fin to a leg. Missing is being selected out by natural selection. Basically, what I'm saying is that evolution never proposes drastic mutation changes between large taxonomic groups. It instead proposes a slow buildup of changes via mutations that eventually lead to larger changes. When creationists look at individual changes, of course they don't see big changes. Big changes don't happen immediately. Just because the ball only makes a little dent doesn't mean it can't make a hole. Now you can't just fix up your argument by swapping information for structures without defining structures. I could say that even the tiniest change in a bacteria is a structure change, and because you haven't defined your terms you can't combat that claim. You could say it isn't changing the bacteria into more advanced forms but again, ball makes a little dent. Also, dinosaurs would not need a new skeletal system. Birds and dinosaurs have very similar skeletons. So are the respiratory systems. Additionally, many dinosaurs already had feathers. For the first thing, the allele that causes feathers is more frequent in birds than in the average dinosaur, so changing that allele's frequency in dinosaurs and also the alleles for wings, beaks, talons, etc. and you have yourself a bird. For the second, I once again refer to the examples you yourself gave. Mutations can change an organism's alleles. Mutations change the DNA, which changes the alleles, which changes the traits, including the chromatophores. Obviously, the mutation would have to occur in the fish's non-autosomal, or sex, cells, and even then the phenotype would only be present in its offspring. Yet even so, the change in allele frequency still occurs. In conclusion, my opponent is arguing from a misunderstanding, having made misconceptions about information, mutations, evolution, alleles, phylogenetic gradualism, punctuated equilibrium, and genetic changes.