Evolution is the best theory for the diversity of life.

1. Vestigial Structures: My opponent states that "they are clearly designed to be wings." As I recall, that is something a proponent of intelligent design might say. Aside from that, I think that my opponent is assuming a lot here. It is quite possible that the wings were always there to serve other purposes (balancing and etc...). But even if they did lose the ability to fly, this wouldn't prove evolution as a valid theory. Then my opponent questions the list that Wiedersheim came up with. I found a few sources that might help. Although "Wiedersheim's originally published list contains 86 items, later interpretations enlarged his list to 180 vestiges" (https://en.wikipedia.org...). The zoologist Horatio Newman also said "in a written statement read into evidence in the Scopes Trial that 'There are, according to Wiedersheim, no less than 180 vestigial structures in the human body, sufficient to make of a man a veritable walking museum of antiquities" (https://en.wikipedia.org...). You can also read about it here: http://www.apologeticspress.org... Lastly, my opponent writes that "No, as I said before, the point of that paragraph was to explain why evolution predicts vestigial structures. I'm presenting evidence of evolution, and so I was making sure to cover all my bases and explain why it is that vestigial organs are evidence." Yes, and my point was that there are no true vestigial structures since functions are always found (eventually). The ostrich wings do have functions (not flight) and therefore are not vestigial. As for the Beetles, your third source says this: "In some species however, wings that are vestigial in the sense of not retaining any function related to flight, may have other functions, such as organs of aposematic display in some Orthoptera and Phasmatodea. Brachyptery occurs commonly among insects. An insect species might evolve towards brachyptery in reducing its flight muscles with their associated energy demands, or in avoiding the hazards of flight in windy conditions on oceanic islands, in which flying insects are prone to drowning. Brachyptery also is common in ectoparasitic insects that have no use for wings, and inquiline insects with socially parasitic life strategies that do not require functional wings" (https://en.wikipedia.org...). Your own source admits that the wings are only vestigial in the sense of having no function related to flight. But they are not truly vestigial since they do have other functions. Therefore my point remains valid. 2. Transitional Forms Then it is said that "but you haven't explained why feathers and scales can't coexist." I have done this but I am happy to do it again. A common reptile has no feathers. When the creature supposedly starts to evolve into a bird, it has to slowly loose scales (not completely) and then to slowly gain feathers. So the creature would eventually come to a point where it could not remain in the water (due to lack of scales) and then it couldn't fly (due to incomplete feathers). The creature would die off easily. Therefore transitional forms could not have survived in the first place. As for the Titaaliks, I did some more research since you posted some working links. I found all kinds of interesting things. Here is a video: What happened was that "the discovery of fossil tracks in the Zachelmie mountains of Poland, in rocks dated twenty million years earlier than the Canadian find, forced an embarrassing second look" (http://www.examiner.com...). I mean, literally everyone started to question these findings. Statements about this findings are listed below: "They force a radical reassessment of the timing, ecology and environmental setting of the fish-tetrapod transition, as well as the completeness of the body fossil record."5 "[It] will cause a significant reappraisal of our understanding of tetrapod origins."6 "[They] could lead to significant shifts in our knowledge of the timing and ecological setting of early tetrapod evolution."7 "We thought we"d pinned down the origin of limbed tetrapods. We have to rethink the whole thing."8 "That"s surprising, but this is what the fossil evidence tells us."9 "These results force us to reconsider our whole picture of the transition from fish to land animals."10 Source: http://creation.com... This creature found in 2004 was not a transitional creature and we have to be careful when we look at the evidence before jumping to conclusions. 3. Intelligent Design My opponent says "that man-made machines are intelligently designed... I don't see why that loses me points." All I am saying is that when you use an analogy to show evolution and instead it shows intelligent design, that makes the analogy help me more than it does my opponent. My opponent states "Man-made objects defy the nested hierarchies because we can mix and match parts, no matter how complex, from one hierarchical tree to another. In evolutionary theory, this is not possible. If one lineage develops a complex organ, it is far too unlikely that another lineage develop the exact same organ independently, so all complex traits should be found only in clades - that is one ancestor and all of its descendents." I still don't see what the big deal is here. You can mix and match parts of any hierarchical tree to another (even with evolution). Creatures have a lot in common when considering what their made of and etc... My opponent says that "wings with bird-like complexity only occur in birds and appear nowhere else in the animal kingdom. Note that this applies to complex traits, and not the animals or themselves." I would say that humans creation is not much different in a sense. Machine like complexity will only occur in machines and will appear no where else in human creation. 4. Endogenous Retroviruses I took a look at the video. I thank my opponent for finding links that actually work this round. That helps me out a lot. Aside from that, a study "revealed that retroviral sequences in the human genome encode tens-of-thousands of active promoters; transcribed ERV sequences correspond to 1.16% of the human genome sequence and PET tags that capture transcripts initiated from ERVs cover 22.4% of the genome" (http://creation.com...). The article later states that "These ERVs aid transcription in over one fifth of the human genome! "These data illustrate the potential of retroviral sequences to regulate human transcription on a large scale consistent with a substantial effect of ERVs on the function and evolution of the human genome." This again debunks the idea that 98% of the human genome is junk, and it makes the inserted evolutionary spin look like a tacked-on nod to the evolutionary establishment. These results support the conclusions of the ENCODE project, which found that at least 93% of DNA was transcribed into RNA." We currently do not know if the similar sequences are functional. But like I said earlier, functions are usually found. Human ignorance is the real problem. Many of the DNA labeled as Junk DNA have had actual functions and there is no reason to doubt that we will find functions for the other DNA still in question. My opponent states that "My quote had a very specific meaning. I was saying that your objection to me saying that a pegasus could exist given creationism is based on your personal opinion and not in the "theory" of creationism itself." The theory of intelligent design proposes that a creator made all of life. And a Pegasus couldn't exist simply because the creator didn't make that a possibility. I don't see how this is just my opinion. If a creature doesn't exist, then it wasn't created by an intelligent designer. It is pretty simple logic here. 5. Micro Vs Macro My opponent says something cool. They say that "In science things aren't proven. Only disproven." That is very true. However, the evidence they provide for macroevolution could again be used to support an intelligent designer. The evidence of the chromosome two doesn't prove common descent. All it proves is that humans have very similar DNA to apes. This could easily mean that a God created humans and apes similar. The evidence could literally go both ways. While I agree that science is allowed to make inferences, people keep claiming that macroevolution is fact when the evidence could equally support a God as well. And that, I have a problem with.