Ragnazork should be (in the manditory sense) tought in schools

I would also amusingly point out the almost pointlessness of his Youtube video links - I can't imagine a legitimate purpose for their inclusion. Nonetheless, I will rebut his two main claims and address the severe issues which seem to persuade him of his position. ==================== There is no fundamental difference between RA (Macro-evolution) and QU (Micro-evolution) ==================== "My question for this statement is why? If I cant learn to beat my cousin at chess in 20 years, what would make me think that 100 would make a difference? " ----> This main criticism of yours is flawed, for it already presumes that there is more than a different than just time and scale. Ideally, one would be able to beat someone else if they practiced enough, but in this case you say no matter what it won't happen - so what? Perhaps your cousin is also practicing and progressing at the same pace as you; or perhaps you just suck at chess. This doesn't hurt the point that certain phenomena are simply the aggregate of smaller, similar effects combined. Take walking to be an obvious example. "The distinction between QU and RA that is important is that through QU we could expect a horse that defers from known horses by having six legs rather than four . Through RA we could belive one day their could be a horse with wings. " ----> Absolutely not necessary. RA, which leads to speciation, does not have to generate such fabulous imaginations such as flying horses or six legged horses. Not only would having a large land mammal grow wings but an incredible phenomena for evolution (one that is unlikely I would suppose), but you need not be different species and look so. .. radically different. Hell, the zebra has several species itself and none of them are as radically different as you expect them to be, because there is NO THEORETICAL REASON for your assumption here about RA. "Yes, we would use the same term for your walk to the store as your walk to the kitchen, but if you sprinted to the store, than I would say to convey the truth a different term is needed. " ----> It would still be classified in the broad sense as autonomous bodily movement. ==================== RA (Macro-evolution) should be taught in schools ==================== While I do know you don't want a creation vs. evolution debate, it can't be helped that I am forced in some ways to argue for the legitimacy of evolution. If I were to propose it be taught in schools, obviously I have to show it's a valid scientific theory, do I not? You point out that there is still political tension, but who cares about that? Science is not about what the public thinks or what makes them comfortable; it's not a public census. If we should look at any collective agreement as an indicator of what should be taught in science classes, then the scientific community is an obvious first glance. You claim me to be committing a fallacy of appealing to authority and yet you yourself commit that same supposed fallacy. The difference is that you have one random doctor, while I have entire legitimate group of organizations. My point in citing others was to show that if you think your reasoning of using Michael Egnor is valid, then I can demonstrate a much stronger example of people supporting it being taught in class. What's funny is that you even claim my sources support evolution only for the public spotlight - what a harsh claim, want to back it up? "As for Pigliucci praise of evolution, I could find nowhere on that site where a distinction was made between RA and QU, but all the examples given related QU as far as I could tell. " ----> The point of that article wasn't to make clear the distinction between RA and QU, but rather to show the overwhelming impact evolution has on interdisciplinary fields, ranging from medicine to even psychology. You claim that we don't have much point in learning evolution whereas many fields beg otherwise. Further, your proposal of "XG" is a red herring - simply because evolution perhaps had a different meaning before has no bearing on it's meaning now. Most words have had different meanings in the past, but there's no need to create a whole new word every time. ==================== Conclusion ==================== It's clear to me why my opponent doesn't see the distinction between RA and QU, he doesn't understand fully the difference. As I've suspected, he has a poor understanding of a certain aspect of evolutionary theory by expecting too much out of RA -- there need not be almost fanciful differences in species.