evolution is wrong

"You say that just because we can't see how the evolution happened doesn't mean it didn't happen. But it doesn't mean it did either." - You're right. It doesn't mean anything regarding evolution's validity, and I never said otherwise. Which is why I find it curious that you're fixating on "gaps": if you want to disprove evolutionary theory, then if anything you'll need to focus on where there _aren't_ gaps. "You can't say that evolution happened without proof." - I already gave you proof. You don't seem to understand what evolution is. If evolution didn't occur, people wouldn't need new flu shots every year. Bacteria wouldn't develop a resistance to antibiotics over time. Plants and animals could not be bred to cultivate certain traits. People would not have different skin tones based on whether their ancestors lived in high-sunlight or low-sunlight parts of the world. And so on. All of that is evolution. "You are making a completely blind assumption about what happened." - No more blind than the assumption that gravity continues to exist even when it's too dark to see it operating on someone. "You can't do this." - Then you can't say that gravity exists. "I said that there is a gap between organisms living in water, to organisms living on land." - Yes, and I pointed out that evolution doesn't predict whether or not there are gaps in the fossil record. Therefore you can't use that as evidence against evolution. If you want to use it to dispute _how_ land animals evolved, go ahead; but there are plenty of transitional fossils, e.g., Tiktaalik, that make it pretty clear that amphibians developed from lobe-finned fish. See http://en.wikipedia.org... "That one is pretty important to evolution." - It's not important to evolution, it's important to understanding the specific way organisms evolved. Evolution occurs regardless of how life evolved, just like gravitation occurs regardless of the particular orbits of planets. Also, note that the topic of this debate is "evolution is wrong", not "evolution is right". I don't have to prove evolution to win, I merely have to dismantle your arguments that it is wrong, and I win by default. You brought up the topic; I await any substantive criticisms of evolution to address. "I don't assume evolution has ever worked. EVER." - Then you're ignorant of what evolution is. If all of evolutionary theory was false, you would essentially be identical to your parents; indeed, all related organisms would be identical. Biological evolution is "change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift." Unless you can prove that populations of organisms never change, you've already lost this debate. "You give the examples of bacteria, plants, fruit flies, humans, and dogs. None of these examples that you are talking about specifically, are examples of them changing species." - That's not true. Speciation has been observed in many species of fruit flies and plants (the obvious reason being that such species have much shorter lifespans than larger animals, and thus can diverge much more quickly; it would take many thousands of years to produce the same level of chromosomal change in humans or dogs). See http://www.talkorigins.org... So macroevolution has been observed a number of times, despite being extremely rare and usually taking millions of years to clearly occur. Besides which, it should be noted that there is no actual difference between microevolution and macroevolution, except one of scale. Many members of different species (for example, horses and donkeys) can interbreed to produce infertile offspring; some can even produce fertile offspring on rare occasions. This shows that what separates different species is a matter of degree, not always a hard-and-fast line. If one concedes that microevolution occurs, then all that is needed for macroevolution is (1) a lot of microevolution, and (2) reproductive isolation. "That is what we have been talking about throughout the debate." - And here I thought we were talking about evolution. It sounds to me like you are conceding this debate, since all the things you concede occur (new dog breeds and moth colorations and the like) constitute evolution, just as much as speciation does. Now it sounds like you want to start a new debate, about whether "macroevolution" or "speciation" really occurs. Which is fine by me, but it's not necessary for me to address that here, since you've already conceded that evolution occurs, if only on a "micro-" scale. "You are saying, evolution is true because evolution is true." - No, I'm not. I welcome you to cite a quote where I said that. In reality, what I said was that evolution isn't false just because we don't have 100% of the fossil record. You claimed the reverse, but now seem to have changed your argument yet again. "You have to PROVE that simple organisms evolved into complex organisms." - Again, science is not based on proof. It is based on inferring from the evidence to the most plausible explanation. The fossil record shows that the earliest species were simple, and that they became progressively more complex over time. It shows that similar species always appear around the same time in the fossil record. It shows, for example, that reptile-like birds with rudimentary wings appear in the fossil record during the time between feathered non-avian dinosaurs and birds. Molecular evidence shows that we share DNA with other species, with more shared between more similar species. None of this "proves" evolution, because nothing in science can ever be proven, no matter how much evidence is accumulated; even the theory of gravity may turn out to be false someday. But what it does show is that evolutionary theory is the most _likely_ explanation for the diversity we see in the biological world. It explains the sequence in which we see organisms in the fossil record, as well as the morphological and genetic similarities we see between different species even today. Creationism explains neither of these, and is thus useless to science as of yet. You seem to misunderstand what Romer's Gap is. Remember, a gap isn't evidence of how organisms have evolved: it's an absence of evidence. There are, in fact, fossils from that time period, just not as many as from the periods before and after it. And I already explained that climate issues, not "devolution" (which, incidentally, is a type of evolution, such as that acting on vestigial structures to conserve resources), are the likely cause of that geologically brief period of fewer fossils. Pederpes finneyae, one of the many tetrapod-transitional species like Tiktaalik, was found smack dab in the middle of Romer's Gap a few years ago. "I must say that it is sad when you start using wikipedia as your source for information." - I wasn't using Wikipedia as a source, I was providing it for you to learn about topics you were apparently ignorant about. It's a good introduction, and the article I cited is a "featured" one, meaning it's met significant review and its claims are cited. Check the "References" section at the bottom of that article if you want sources. "But when, in the history of all histories, has a mutation created DNA? EVER." - Mutations don't "create DNA" (if by that you mean create new DNA molecules); they alter DNA, resulting in new and different traits. If you are asking for an example of this, then see: Negoro, S., K. Kato, K. Fujiyama and H. Okada. 1994. "The nylon oligomer biodegradation system of Flavobacterium and Pseudomonas. Biodegradation" 5: 185-194. "No where in any recorded history has a mutation increased the complexity of an organism." - That isn't true; gene duplication and gene insertion are commonplace, in fact. And if you want a more dramatic example, read up on polymelia.