The theory of evolution is well established

Thank you for your rebuttal. Here is my reply and my closing statementCon argues that engineering bacteria in the lab does not prevent the result from occuring in nature. I do not disagree. However, it is quite a leap to say that because it can be engineered in the laboratory it will happen in nature. Offering this engineered result billions of years to occur likewise does not mean that it will. Put simply, a result produced in a lab could conceiveably occur in nature, but that is not to say that it does or ever will.There are two major flaws in con's three step reasoning undermining P1. First, the article does not claim that only naturally occuring processes are at work in the experiment. [1] This is evident in the number of steps that take place in vitro before the foreign DNA is inserted into the bacterium as the paper described in the article details. [2] Second, con does not consider the importance of the order of these processes, whether they would likely take place in that order or if the lab setting imposes the order. A damning detail for con's three step reasoning is that the experiment requires that "an exogenously expressed algal nucleotide triphosphate transporter efficiently impor[t] the triphosphates of both d5SICS and DNaM [...] into Escherichia Coli". [2] Given that the transporter is from another species, this definitely precludes the experiment tapping into a complete naturally occuring pathway in Escherichia Coli.No comment is needed to assert the veracity of the next three step reasoning given that the originally argued P1 proposition was unfounded. The point made in my first paragraph (that phenomena artificially created in the lab can, but do not neccesarily, occur in nature) is true for this new step reasoning as well. The important difference however is that mutations have been observed to in nature and therefore their propensity to occur in nature does not need to be demonstrated.I would however fault con on saying small mutations accumulate into large mutations causing speciation. Size is not necessarily the decisive factor here, mutations of different sizes can occur, from point mutations to large segmental duplications. [3] Quantity is the decisive factor with the accumulation of various mutations potentially causing speciation. One must remember that mutations are random and would thus not be expected to systematically strike the same gene locus over and over again (although of course, given geological times, mutations in the same gene locus do occur more than once).Again, con uses the faulty reasoning that if there is nothing preventing something from occuring ("There is no known cause for 6 letter DNA not arising.") this means that it should therefore occur. One could similarly argue that there is no known cause for Pluto's orbit being as highly inclined as it is, so why didn't it appear on the same plane as other bodies? One could imagine that answers to such questions are within science's future grasp. One paper originally quoted by con reviewed some ideas to explore. [4]Con next argument brings intelligent design into the debate. Right away it is important to point out that the argument suffers from the balance fallacy. It offers itself as an alternative explanation to evolution, but that does not de facto make it an explanation on par with evolution. By analogy, one could offer an alternative to gravity by positing that a highly advance alien species operating in another dimension actually moves bodies around in our perceived dimensions. One could similarily say it is not a stretch if we accept the premise that advanced aliens operate in other dimensions. Such arguments need to be subjected to the scrutiny that scientific theories undergo before they can pose as solid alternative explanations. Moreover, positing an alternative to a phenomemon does not actually say much about the validity of the original explanation. Offering an alternative to evolution does not say anything about whether it is well-established or otherwise.Once again, con mentions the quirks unearthed by Schwabe without giving any example or even smimply describing the nature of these quirks. I cannot be expected in a time/character limited debate to research and debunk the entire work of one scientific maverick. It is up to con to bring the counter-arguments made by Schwabe to the fore. Con fails to provide concrete examples for me to counter in this particularly segment of the debate. I will however concede that con does not quote Schwabe "extensively" as he only brings up two quotes (one with Gregory Warr). I accept that this was a misleading hyberboly on my part. However, I stand by my earlier statement that con doesn't provide anything concrete for me to counter in this instance.Con makes the statement "Pro claims that natural selection works on random mutation to create distinct species by eliminating transitions between two different taxa." I do not make this claim, I do not know what could possibly be meant by eliminating transitions between two different taxa.Con revisits the scientific study that showed convergent evolution in bats and dolphins, not just in functional attributes, but also in gene sequence. [6] Once more, what is ignored is that the Prestin gene already exists in various species and would have to already be quite similar accross all these species to be considered the same gene. The requirement is simply for a variation on a pre-existing gene in two different species. Given geological time and mutations in that gene that are favoured by natural selection, one can conceive of the same few mutations being retained in two different species. Transitional forms leading to either species would encouter different mutations for that gene for sure, but natural selection may favour a specific subset of mutations so that these when encoutered confer a very large advantage to their bearer. Thus dolphins and bats, out of the myriad of species that didn't develop echolocation, could both chance upon these mutations leading to echolocation. It is also important to stress that it is not the entire echolocation apparatus that is developped through convergent genes in bats and dolphins, but specifically a fragment of one gene that produces the Prestin protein. Con argues that a complex set of mutations is needed to arrive to this result while the article merely points out that the change took place for a complex trait, echolocation. Traits and mutations are not interchangeable. This scientific study is by far the most interesting piece of research I have read in this debate and definitely gives homoplasy a new life. It does not pose a real challenge to the theory of evolution however. Con is taking grounbreaking work and carrying it way past its logical conclusion.As con points out, my argument based on marsupials being solely found in Australia is wrong. However, it is not wrong for the reasons that con believes. What is wrong in my argument is that marsupials are also found in the Americas. [7] Perhaps I can be faulted for trying to simplify the argument from geographical location. Although I would like to clarify that I never implied that ancestral forms of marsupials did not exist on other continents, simply living marsupials. This would be a nonsensical statement at times where some continents were still interlocked. However, as the source con uses points out, we do see migrational trends throughout transitional fossils, with fossils that eventually stop on other continents and continue showing up in places where we find marsupials today. [8] Still consistent is the other argument that I made that con didn't address, which is that fossils from the same species can be found in layers on two different continents if the layer coincides with a period where these continents were connected, but not in layers after this continental break. It is legitimate to wonder why we would not find some same fossils after continental breakup if speciation does not actually occur. Finally I do agree that species adapted to their environment won't necessarily spread. However, the argument was being made for a whole infraclass of mammals. You would expect an infraclass to radiate. This is what they in fact did, both before and after the breakup of continents. [8]I now provide a brief closing statement.The theory of evolution is well-established. Some of its detractors like to point to surprising discoveries made over the last 150 years since its inception. The finding that convergent evolution leads to convergent sequences more often than previously thought is one such surprising finding. [6] Another approach is to point to ongoing interrogations, things that have no explanation yet. Why are there 4 base pair instead of 6 or more...why do they only code 20 amino acids? [4] However, this is to miss the point. We can make these discoveries and ask this question, because we have a working theory that puts them in a context. By establishing the theory of evolution Darwin did not answer all biological questions and his book contains independent conjectures since disproven. To prove that the theory of evolution isn't well established demands a little more than pointing to surprising results or gaps in our knowledge, it requires evidence that negates evolution to its core. It's safe to say we are beyond that point today. The theory of evolution is well established![1] http://www.livescience.com...[2] http://www.nature.com...[3] http://en.wikipedia.org...[4] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...[5] http://rationalwiki.org...[6] http://www.newscientist.com... (see Jellon [1])[7] http://en.wikipedia.org...[8] http://www.talkorigins.org...