Three Points:

1) If the standard for accepting a theory or fact was to have an eye witness account, then we would have to set free all murderers who killed their victims in the absence of any eyewitnesses. DNA evidence, fingerprints, a murder weapon belonging to the accused – all inadmissible since they rely on mere “inferences.”

Many scientific theories are not supported by direct eyewitness accounts. No one has ever seen an electron, a bacterium, or a virus. Our acceptance of each rest on “inferences.” However without the scientific theories that rest on on their existence, life on Earth would return to the Dark Ages that the enemies of science seek.

I am not convinced that we don’t have examples of macro-evolution within the scope of human history. I am tempted to challenge my opponents to look me in the eye and tell me with a straight face that a wolf is the same species as a Chihuahua. However reductio ad absurdum arguments are not effective against those who accept the absurd.

This instance of speciation is one of many such described in the Origin of Species. It occurred in a few dozen or hundred generations of selective breeding by humans. Just imagine would could be accomplished over hundreds of millions of years by the much more powerful forces of natural selection. I would be interested in hearing of evidence of these barriers to speciation that you speak of, John. I recommend Richard Dawkin’s latest work – “Greatest Show on Earth” which clears up many of these issues better than I can here.

2) All theories are disputed. There are still flat-earthers, those who dispute the heliocentric model of planetary motion, and those who deny that HIV causes AIDS. Not to mention holocaust deniers. The point is not whether or not a theory or fact is disputed. The point isn’t even the quality of the contrary “evidence” or the character of the disputants (incidentally the overwhelming majority of biologists, liberals or conservatives, theists or atheists, support the theory evolution.) The issue is whether or not the evidence supports the theory of evolution. The evidence is overwhelming and permeates all aspects of biology, and is supported by evidence from geology and physics. The theory of evolution is far far more supported than say, man-made global warming. Unlike the latter, there is not a shred of physical evidence supporting any alternate theory.

3) John cannot imagine how evolution could produce finely tuned complex ecosystems. Therefore according to John, evolution isn’t a plausible explanation for biodiversity. This is a perfect example of the fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantiam (argument from incredulity). According to one version of this fallacy, a statement is automatically false because it has not yet been proven true. In other words, absence of evidence is evidence of absence. This does not apply to this situation, since evolution is true. Therefore, John’s fallacy is one of argument from *personal* incredulity. In other words, because John personally does not understand how ecosystems arise via evolution, then evolution must be false. This is a far weaker and more fallacious position then the root fallacy! John’s claim underscores the need for the return of college courses in critical thinking now pejorative called “informal logic” to our philosophy departments. This should be a requirement for all college graduates, and should come at the expense of “multicultural” requirements, but that is matter.

By the way, I agree that the woman in the second video is obnoxious. I could not finish the video. With friends like this, evolution needs no enemies. Let us not fight irrationality with more irrationality.

The change and variation we can and do witness today IS evolution. Domestication IS evolution. We can see it work in real time.

What you are proposing is impossible, because, if you knew as much as you act like you do, you’d know that the drastic changes you demand to see are impossible to witness in a short period of time. The drastic changes you demand take millions of years.

What the hell do you expect to see, a duck with the head of crocodile? Quit being an idiot.

Indeed, there exists not a single uncontested example of supposed evidence for the evolutionary continuum that conclusively proves the evolutionary continuum to be an empirically established fact, allowing NO ALTERNATIVE OPTION or interpretation. By this I mean conclusive (empirical based) evidence that is NOT based on subjective presuppositions, inferences, interpretations, conjecture, assumptions, explanations, or speculations.

By evidence, I do NOT mean disputable examples of supposed evolution being observed today, where all we have is change and variation within a particular lifeform. For example, where scientists start with a virus, finish with a virus, and never have anything but a virus in between. Or where you have bacteria in, bacteria out; lizard in, lizard out; fruit fly in, fruit fly out; dog in, dog out etc. As this can well be interpreted as adaptation and variation within a particular lifeform, and does nothing to prove the evolutionary continuum from simple to complex lifeforms.

Dawkin’s dependent Darwinian earthly deity will not do. Natural selection is a blind and mindless deity. It is simply a biological process mechanism. It has absolutely no way of knowing where anything, or everything, is evolving to, or why. As such, this “blind watchmaker” would not have the necessary overall perspective or intelligence to evolve different life forms, at different rates, at different times, or not at all (stasis), in order to ultimately produce a finely tuned symbiotic living environment, containing finely balanced co-dependent ecosystems. That would require a truly divine perspective and effort.

As Soren Lovtrup, a professional biologist specialising in Systematics and Developmental Biology, rightly concludes in Darwinism: Refutation of a Myth, “I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science. When this happens many people will pose the question: How did this ever happen?”

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If you go a little farther back in time and compare the DNA of Drosophila and related genera to other Diptera, it’s also evident that all flies in the Drosophilid family radiated from a common ancestor. There isn’t any dead end. And the genetic evidence is in complete agreement with the evidence from comparative anatomy, comparative physiology and paleobiology. People’s belief in the accuracy of the evolutionary record is based entirely on the evidence. If there were any evidence to the contrary, the view of the scientists would change accordingly. But all the evidence converges on the evolutionary explanation for origin of species, genera, families, orders and all taxa.

Readers of this blog are unlikely to be persuaded on matters of science by somebody who evidently wasn’t paying attention in their ninth grade biology class.

Wrong, mtDNA. It’s used continuiously to relate different species and genuses and organize them into the tree of life. We can see very exacltly when the divergence from the human/chimpanzee common ancestor happened… it also happens to coincide with the fossil record, and the regular DNA evidence says the same thing…. Imagine that. Can you guess why they all say the same thing? How many cooberating sources of evidence do you need?

Don’t forget, mtDNA evidence is accpeted in a court of law for proving ancestry.

I write this as a mostly atheist who lives in the bible belt (I’m mostly atheist and sometimes pagan. It depends on how many naked women are dancing around the drum circle on that particular day).