[aphex]

That is quite a read, but I managed to get through many of the main topics. After posting I will return to the rest and hopefully make it through all those pages in time enough to keep current with this debate haha. But to comment on some of the points: (all quotes, unless otherwise noted, are coming from the essays within the previous link you listed)

"In every example, it is quite possible that the predictions could be contradicted by the empirical evidence. In fact, without assuming the truth of universal common descent, it is highly probable that the hypothesis will indeed fail for most of these predictions."

Well at least he is honest about it. Now as you will see, assuming you have gone through these essays yourself, the majority of the assertions made by the author are assumptions. Now stay with me, because I will not be necessarily trying to show that this author is wrong (in fact he presents a wealth of information dealing with common descent, but more on that later) but using his arguments to show an inherent flaw in the arguments and ‘evidence’ used to support macroevolution.

The author gives strong evidence that life came from a ‘common descent’ if you will, basically meaning most life forms are made up of very similar materials and biochemical functions. For example, he states:

“However, all known life uses the same polymer, polynucleotide (DNA or RNA), for storing species specific information. All known organisms base replication on the duplication of this molecule.”

Ok, sounds good to me,

“If every living species descended from an original species that had these four obligate functions [discussed in detail within the essay], then all living species today should necessarily have these functions”

Seems logical to me.

But there is still a problem:

“As explained in the introduction, none of the predictions directly address how macroevolution has occurred”

The evidence presented by the author shows that life today has several fundamental similarities, which would point to some sort of ‘common descent.’ But that is where the general evidence end and assumption begins, as the author also hints at (yes, much of me is similar to a chimp, but half of my genetic make up is also shared with a banana, so did I originate from primordial bananas as well?). He seems to think though that the details of how or if macroevolution even occurred do not matter, but rather that evidence of common similarities is enough to declare macroevolution a fact. In any other area of science, this would not hold up. Why not say that, in light of the fundamental similarities in life forms that a Creator used the same ‘materials’ to create all the diverse forms of life? This fits perfectly with the evidence and as much and more (in light of other evidence, such as complex design etc) evidence as the common descent, macroevolutionary theory. Of course it would be said that the idea of a Creator would be religious, having no place with ‘science.’ But as I see it, both cases take faith, so why rule out one over the other?

Now the author again says that in order to declare macroevolution a fact, we do not need the support of microevolution support among other supports. Of course, without such support you will never have a bullet proof scientific fact (though he regards macroevolution as fact regardless). Now, what if the evidence of microevolution disagrees with the needs of macroevolution? Well, in fact it does. As discussed before, there are no transitional fossils showing the leaps between species (now if we must return again to the skull issue, why not come up with some other evidences of transitional fossils for different species to avoid repeating ourselves). As a result, the evidences of microevolution disagree with the presumptions of macroevolution.

I also wanted to comment on his analogy of computer programs and macroevolution. He states the following:

“As a close analogy, consider computer programs. Netscape works essentially the same on a Macintosh, an IBM, or a Unix machine, but the binary code for each program is quite different. Computer programs that perform the same functions can be written in most any computer language - Basic, Fortran, C, C++, Java, Pascal, etc. and identical programs can be compiled into binary code many different ways. Furthermore, even using the same computer language, there are many different ways to write any specific computer program, even using the same algorithms and subroutines. In the end, there is no reason to suspect that similar computer programs are written with similar code, based solely on the function of the program.”

What I like about this is another inherent flaw in evolutionary theory, which it has yet to explain outside of assumption. Computer programs like those he discusses above are incredibly complex, but none would argue that you cannot even begin to compare their complexity with the incomprehensible complexity of life. But what is an important difference between the two? The computer programs which we marvel at were guided and created by an intelligent designer! Without the designer, we would have no program. Surely you would laugh at me if I were to tell you that my operating system simply came into existence one day on my computer. Of course you would know for a fact that it had to be designed, because it is so complex. And yet so many look at the wonders of life and its complex design and proclaim that it simply came about by accident; it just took time.

To conclude I just wanted to go over a quote the author uses by Richard Feynman, who states:

“Rather, it is whether or not the theory gives predictions that agree with experiment.”

This confirms what I mentioned in earlier posts: what experiments have been done to demonstrate macroevolution, transitions between one species to another, chemical evolution, etc. etc.? Unfortunately, such experiments cannot be done, going back to the original point that evolutionary theory truly fails to hold up to the requirements of an actual scientific theory. But! we are told, it is the epitome of science, so don’t question it!