The fact that objects fall when you drop them is part of gravitational theory. The fact that the earth moves around the sun is heliocentric theory. The fact that allele frequencies vary by generation is a part of evolutionary theory. Before you speak dismissively of theories, learn what theory means in a scientific context, and why no theory, even one that is infinitely evidence, can be proven.

The topic of this debate is whether evolution is fact or theory and it is generally accepted by scientists that it is a theory. It really doest matter if it is a generally accepted theory it is still a theory and therefore the topic of this debate is pretty stupid. The rest of my post isn't proving it is a theory it is proving that it is a bad theory.

Macro-evolution is simply the accumulation of micro-evolutionary changes over a vast length of time.

Nope. just cause i can jump 2 feet doesn't mean I can fly. There is a lot more complexity in Macroevolution which gives rise to different problems and limitations. Why do you think evolutionary biologists separated the theory into microevolution and macroevolution in the first place.

So, in other words, it might look like evidence for evolution...but God could have done it!

If something cannot be tested scientifically, it is not part of science. Saying 'God did it' in response to everything is untestable and it has no place in a scientific debate.

First of all noone said God it might have been a designer in our own universe who isn't all powerful. When you have 2 possible theories to explain the facts and the facts support both, the facts aren't evidence for either. Please cite where you got your definition of what science is and what testing is becasue there are multiple opinions. Also you can't completely test evolution either otherwise we wouldn't be having this debate.

1. This and this take care of your claim that speciation has never been observed.

2. Speciation takes a massive amount of time and it is no surprise it has rarely (not never) been observed. I have confidence that, as we go, we will continue to well-documented examples of macroevolution.

3. Surprise surprise, the poster boy of intelligent design and pioneer of the annoying irreducible complexity argument. I'll pass on the book for now, but in the meantime, here's a deconstruction of the irreducible complexity argument. I'd be happy to address any other specific claims you'd like to cite from his book.

1.Not really. The wikipedia article has some of the same examples as the other one and seems to mostly just describe how they think speciation happens. The first article gives very suspicious example of speciation. Scientists cant get viruses or bacteria to speciate in labs and they are describing much more complex organisms that mutate slowly and supposedly speciate. None of those examples of speciation have actually been observed in labs. Just cause you find a new specie that is similar to another one and hasn't been observed before doesn't mean it speciated.

2.Well no offense but scientists have been confident and wrong before.

3.I will address this point after I have finished the article which takes a long time to get to the point.

The origin of life is not part of evolutionary theory nor does evolutionary theory claim that evolution is purely a result of chance. While your arguments are more complete and complex than some of the other sorry examples in this thread, it seems you still have, at best, a tenuous grasp of what evolution actually posits. Either that or you are constructing a deliberate strawman.

Furthermore, improbability does not equal impossibility. In fact, given the huge amount of time encompassed in the history of life, there is an element of inevitability to even the smallest of chances: given the billions of organisms that have lived on earth in the billions of years since life began, it would be absurd to assume that some of them participated in incredibly unlikely and significant events. The fact that you are alive is an amazingly improbable, even if you only consider the minute chance of the particular sperm that carried half your DNA being the one to successfully fuse with the egg that carried the other half. And yet, here you are, arguing a theory you do not understand.

Then if your theory doesn't explain the origin of life isn't it incomplete? I was under the impression that evolutionists have been trying to explain the origin of life by random chance for a while. I mean look at the miller experiments(which are flawed by the way).

You misunderstand. I am not talking about improbabilities at the scale of your sperm example. I am talking about improbabilities at the scale that approach impossibilities. At the scale where you have to invent parallel universes just to explain life.

First of all I don't see how anyone can say its a fact because even evolutionists say it is a theory since it hasn't been proven. Second, as the guy before me said you have to make a distinction between micro-evolution and macro-evolution. Micro evolution can be called a fact because it has been observed in actual experiments. However this doesn't mean that macro-evolution is a fact. It would make perfect sense for a creator to design life so that it can adapt to its environment and not die off at the first sign of change.

Since the burden of proof is on those people that say it is a fact or even a good theory please provide me with evidence. What do you have?

I will go over some of the "proofs" that are often brought up:

1. Many species share a lot of genetic code and have similar body plans. This seems like it would support evolution but really cars are designed and we use the same basic design for all cars so this piece of evidence supports both intelligent design and evolution. There is no reason why a creator wouldn't use the same design multiple times.

2. We have observed development of immunity in bacteria and viruses. This is actually micro evolution. It's not like a new species of bacteria arose. Scientists have actually grown large cultures of bacteria and viruses in labs trying to get them to evolve new traits (new protein protein interactions) but all they got are minor changes and often these changes make the organism worse (loss of an ability or other for the sake of short term gain). We have never observed examples of macroevolution in a lab even with viruses that have a huge mutation rate and population. Read about his in the "Edge of Evolution" by Behe.

3. A sidenote: There are calculations that have been done by scientists (including in the book by Behe) where it is shown that it is extremely improbable for life to arise from non life but also for species to evolve into others. Actual evolutionist scientists are looking for new ways to explain these improbabilities by abandoing the idea that life arose by pure chance. They are coming up with new theories that suggest ideas such as that amino acids have a certain attraction that makes them want to arrange themselves in a certain order etc.

4. Transitional Fossils: Few of these have been found and often not even evolutionists agree on the evolution of that transitional form and its environment. I watched a lot of documentaries about these and have observed that really we can't know very much about that long ago and there are constantly new theories and stories that are invented to explain these fossils. They almost never even find a large part of the skeleton of that animal. They find a tiny bit and infer the rest using various suspicious methods. Also evolutionary theory fails to explain how instead of a tree of species you get a grass field during the Cambrian explosion where in a relatively short period of time tons of new body plans arise.

What everyday people need to understand is that the evolutionary theory is very incomplete and has many many serious problems. The only reasons it is accepted is because it is the only theory other than intelligent design that explains life and a lot of scientists simply don't want to accept a creator no matter what.

Yea and I am saying 1.5 hours inst enough free time for children that know how to use their time wisely.

All the things you listed you learn before grade 2-3 (my parents taught me those things way before grade 1 and i doubt I am unique in that way). What you do after is learn random bits of information from different subjects that may not even interest you and you soon forget after a test. They never go into specifics because often the teachers don't even know anything about the subject beyond the curriculum. You then get a host of assignments where you are asked to spew back what you "learned" and where creativity isn't rewarded and is sometimes even punished. They don't even teach you everyday things like how to do your taxes or how credit cards work etc.

The education systems have a lot of problems and I think that the time spent at school is more than enough. Giving homework is just overkill in my opinion.

I always find "math problems" like these hilarious. It is wishful thinking. There is no way anyone in this world functions that way cept maybe robots.

So apparently children don't spend any time with friends outside of school, don't watch tv or play video games,don't do exercise of any kind, don't talk to people other than family, don't spend any time travelling, thinking, reading, surfing internet. They also pass out instantly to get 8 hours of sleep and don't do any household chores. You didn't even try to set any time aside for inefficiencies in life or unpredictable events. Not to mention rare things that add up like going shopping or appointments. Do I need to go on? Really your calculation is kind of a joke.

And anyway from experience homework takes about 1.5 hours to 2 in a serious school. I am not even sure why you responded to me particularly because my argument wasn't that the extra time should be spent solely with family.

I would say for most children homework is good because most children don't want to do anything better with their time. For a few children however homework takes a good chunk of their free time that would be better spent on independent reading, studying or hobbies. I mean lets face it most of the stuff you learn in school isn't really that useful. It is general information that is usually memorized for a test and then forgotten.

I believe that 5 hours a day is more than enough for this purpose. Mature children should be allowed to use their free time to study something they really like or use their creativity. However they cant because they have to do their homework. If they don't then guess what they wont get good marks and get into University and a robot who did his homework gets a higher paying job than you and is valued more by soceity.

If a hobo off the street knocked on your front door and said, hey man ill do some chores and contribute to the household just let me live with you would you do it?

The U.S has no obligation to bring anyone in. It is hilariously idiotic how you blame the U.S for so many illegals because they don't just hand out green cards to whoever wants them.

YEa I know right. Just the other day I saw a couple of Christian suicide bombers in the news.

Islam is very confusing. You can get so many quotes form the Quran where "God" tells you to be violent and so many where he tells you to be loving and peaceful. Different groups interpret it how they want and the use it to justify whatever they are doing.

There may be contradicting statements in the bible but the overall message is pretty consistent unlike the Quran. And I am talking bout the new testament mostly.

The your argument would make no sense. How does showing that whites commit more crimes in general prove that America wouldn't be safer without the blacks?

Sorry about the steal enlightened. Couldnt resist

Sorry misclick. Voted myself down

The minimum length for an argument is 50 characters. The purpose of this restriction is to cut down on the amount of dumb jokes, so we can keep the quality of debate and discourse as high as possible.