Evolution is not well supported

Needless to say my opponents claims to auto-victory are unfounded.If he were in any doubt about whether i was speaking of 'evolution', ie the word used in the debate title, or 'abiogenesis', he should have asked for clarification in the comments.Molecular evolution http://biomed.brown.edu...Abiogenesishttps://wiki.umn.edu...Molecular evolution studies the mutation of basic cellular molecules such as DNA, RNA and proteins. Abiogenesis pertains to how life arose from non-living material. This debate , then, pertains to the idea that basic cellular molecules vertically evolved over billions of years, explaining creatures like man.Amiss of 1050 characters, i hope now we can start the debate, rather than debate the definition, which i find bad manners.The high priests of evolution stand at their pulpit above the congregation, preaching with inspired ferocity eternal wisdom from 'The Origins of Species..' To be a member of the congregation; full of dignified, esteemed and well-funded scientists, one must subscribe to the beliefs of the inspiring orator speaking aloft.These wise men are not just mystics for the rich and powerful. They are determined that their message should enlighten the lives of us all. Whether prince or pauper, you need to hear their gospel and experience the divine light of reason. As it has been said; only the light of reason can be both saviour and redeemer of mankind.--We are at a point where it has become taboo to dare question evolution. Richard Dawkins, one of the most powerful high priests, immediately deduces that questioning evolution means a lack of education or a lack of intelligence. I find this oppressive kind of reasoning dangerous. I don't think that children should be taught this theory as hard fact during their 12-16 years of applied sociatal indoctrination (otherwise known as 'education'), and i don't think it is right to apply a stigma to those who dare to question the theory. You cannot be both sane and well educated and disbelieve in evolution. The evidence is so strong that any sane, educated person has got to believe in evolution. -- Richard Dawkins, in Lanny Swerdlow, "My Sort Interview with Richard Dawkins" (Portland, Oregon, 1996)The theory that man developed from something only a fraction the complexity of yeast, it seems to me, is not supported well enough to substantiate the afformentioned stigma and compulsory indoctrination.No one has ever witnessed one kind of creature turning into another, only variations within kinds of creatures. Yet we should. We should find the fossil record replete with examples of intermediary life forms, yet we don't. We find cats and dogs, but no cogs.We find fossils of lions. We don't find fossils of proto-lions. We don't find fossils which show, as they should, as steady development over time, morphing one kind of creature into another more complex one. Consider this: We are just on the pin-head of time. If creatures have been evolving for 13 billion years, we should find infinitely more fossils of intermediary species than fossils of creatures in their form we recognise today. But we don't. We find lions. Dr Colin Patterson, senior paleontologist of the British Museum of Natural History, wrote a book, Evolution. In reply to a questioner who asked why he had not included any pictures of transitional forms, he wrote: "I fully agree with your comments about the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them … . I will lay it on the line—there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument." Evolutionary geneticists have experimented on various rapidly reproducing species, from fruit flies to yeast, aiming to induce changes which would lead to different species, but these have all failed. No truly new species has ever been produced, let alone a new "kind."A current leading evolutionist, Jeffrey Schwartz, from the University of Pittsburgh has recently acknowledged:" the formation of a new species, by any mechanism, has never been observed."Sudden Origins (New York, John Wiley), p. 300.In addition, we know of good reasons which suggest that it would be impossible for a lesser creature to develop into a more complex one. For an ape (~18000 genes) to turn into a human (~24000 genes), we need more genes. Evolutionary theory contains only very limited mechanisms by which new information can be acquired and none of these mechanisms can possibly explain the development which evolution assumes must have occured, within the given time frame.For instance, Barrow and Tipler list ten steps in the course of human evolution, each so improbable that before it would have occurred the sun would have ceased to be a main sequence star and would have burned up the earth. John Barrow and Frank Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986)., pp. 561-565.They estimate the odds of the evolution of the human genome by chance to be on the order of 4-360 (110,000), -an unimaginably huge number.We witness genetic switches turn on, and switches turn off. We witness this when an animal changes environment and makes adaptations, but we never see new switches just suddenly appear. The evidence we have only shows that creatures have space to adapt within some pre-set parameters.Demonstrated by the case of Italian wall lizards.It was observed that mainland lizards moved to a remote island and studied for 30 years, developed new physical characteristics. "Lizards Undergo Rapid Evolution"http://www.sciencedaily.com..."Italian wall lizards introduced to a tiny island off the coast of Croatia are evolving in ways that would normally take millions of years to play out, new research shows. ""the lizards developed cecal valves—muscles between the large and small intestine—that slowed down food digestion in fermenting chambers,"http://news.nationalgeographic.com...Evolution in 30 years? No, read the smallprint."Tail clips taken for DNA analysis confirmed that the Pod Mrcaru lizards were genetically identical to the source population on Pod Kopiste."http://www.sciencedaily.com...Not evolution at all. Natural variation.Evolutionists, unsupported by the fossil record and observable data, increasingly try to cite genetic similarities as case for evolution. But as Roger Lewin, editor of Science Magazine points out, this is often inconsistent with the fossil record and morphology:"The elephant shrew, consigned by traditional analysis to the order insectivores . . . is in fact more closely related to . . . the true elephant. Cows are more closely related to dolphins than they are to horses. The duckbilled platypus . . . is on equal evolutionary footing with . . . kangaroos and koalas."http://www.daylightorigins.com...I have to stop. I look forward to discussing these points in Rd2, and introducing more arguments.Until then:"Scientists should refuse formal debates because they do more harm than good, but scientists still need to counter the creationist message."Scott, Eugenie, "Fighting Talk," New Scientist (vol. 166, April 22, 2000), p.47"We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, . . . in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated commitment to materialism. . . . we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door." Richard Lewontin, Evolutionary Biologist, Geneticist.