macroevolution has effectively stopped in humans

I am going to address your points out of order, because I would like to go through them in order of importance. What Are We Debating? In PRO’s final paragraph this round, she wrote, “i didn't say evvolution [sic] has stopped, or will never occur again. " This may be the case, but PRO did claim that speciation will not happen again; the very first sentence of this debate begins, “we won't be developing into another species…” This is what my moon colony hypothetical was about. There are numerous other ways populations could be isolated, such as a Mars colony, which PRO suggested. My point wasn't about the specifics of such a colony; it was simply that isolation will lead to divergent paths of ecolution, which, over time, almost guarantee a speciation event. Significance PRO has attacked my point about the evolution of lactose tolerance as not being significant. This is absurd. The ability to digest lactose makes people more able to survive famines, and has aided the spread of civilization [1]. It has even been hypothesized as one of the reasons for the fall of the Byzantine Empire [2]. The fact is that we as humans are still evolving [3][4][5]. I chose to discuss the lactose example because I was familiar with it. The evolution of lactose tolerance occurred within the past 10,000 years [1], which is a blink of an eye in geologic or evolutionary time, so there can be no doubt that we are still evolving. Of course, PRO has complained that it is not significant, and notes that we don’t see any “anatomical changes. " If PRO thinks that the fact that we haven't grown additional limbs means that we aren't evolving, she is mistake about how evolution works. Transposons We finally get to the transposons. The reason I used that source is because it is something I had read somewhat recently that showed how these retro-transposons are the result of the evolutionary success of specific “selfish” genes [6]. The point is simply that we are still evolving. I really didn’t think I needed to source that point; the fact that we are still evolving is beyond dispute, but I try to make it a point to source everything. PRO seems to have no problem with the fact that we are still evolving. She wrote, “it just looks like there might be minor genetic deviances [sic] still occurring, which i never contested. " Genetic change in a population over time is evolution [7]. Since PRO is not contesting that we continue to evolve, she needs to provide evidence for why we cannot expect a speciation even in humanity's future. A Wrap Up The thing I want to hammer home here is that PRO’s main point, that humans will not evolve into a new species, has not been supported with evidence. At this point it remains a bald assertion. Her secondary point, that we will not be “significantly altered” due to evolution, similarly remains unsupported. I look forward to PRO’s comments in the final round. Sources [1]. http://www.smithsonianmag.com...[2]Cochran, G. &,Harpending, H. (2009). The 10,000 year expansion: how civilization accelerated human evolution. New York, NY: Basic Books. [3]. http://www.yourgenome.org...[4]http://www.scientificamerican.com...[5]http://www.npr.org...[6]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...[7]http://www.nature.com...