In this essay, universal common descent alone is specifically considered and weighed against the scientific evidence. In general, separate “microevolutionary” theories are left unaddressed. Microevolutionary theories are gradualistic explanatory mechanisms that biologists use to account for the origin and evolution of macroevolutionary adaptations and variation. These mechanisms include such concepts as natural selection, genetic drift, sexual selection, neutral evolution, and theories of speciation. The fundamentals of genetics, developmental biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, and geology are assumed to be fundamentally correct—especially those that do not directly purport to explain adaptation. However, whether microevolutionary theories are sufficient to account for macroevolutionary adaptations is a question that is left open.
This is false. The accumulation of mutations is experimentally tested in those experiments. I have even shown you experiments which test these mechanisms which you seem to forget again, and again, and again, and again. Here is one such experiment:
I have read it. Now develop a model that shows how the processes result in an eye. Without this there is no over arching theory only smaller evolutionary theories. You need the model to make predictions.
Evolutionary theory is probably among the very best experimentally verified sets of explanations and predictions in all of science. (Indeed, that is why this former evolution-denying Young Earth Creationist changed his position.)
Yeah. To say the least. That enormous body of peer-reviewed published research is rather difficult to ignore.
I won’t presume to speak for @Timothy_Horton, but the reason I respond to such jarring comments is that on Peaceful Science we have enormous numbers of read-only visitors who reach us through Google and other means such that they may “leap into” our threads without having read many of the preceding comments. And they may exit the thread before reading all of the responses. So sometimes it is necessary to clarify important points immediately and emphatically for the sake of essential science education. Truth matters.
Because of my own background (as a long-ago refugee of the “creation science” movement), I have a lot of empathy for those of my Christian brethren who struggle with coming to terms with evolutionary biology and its presumed theological implications. (Whether they be valid or invalid theological implications doesn’t make them any less difficult to process. Been there. Done that. It can be very hard work and require a great deal of study over more than just a few hours…)
Indeed, I regularly worship with anti-evolution Christ-followers and often teach Sunday School and Bible study classes where controversial origins issues arise. And even though my primary purpose within a given church is not to promote particular views on science, I try to be consistently adamant that no one misrepresents the science when these topics are introduced.
We are discussing evolution in general. Accepting “micro evolution” while not accepting “macro evolution” is kind of like saying one accepts the evidence that Newton’s Laws of Motion help to explain Fourth of July fireworks and local travel by automobile but not NASA moon shots and missions to others planets.
Also, I’ve lived long enough to have watched my “I don’t accept macro evolution” colleagues keep revising their definitions of “macro evolution” as the voluminous evidence became impossible to ignore. That dance eventually led to the absurd arguments of Ken Ham et al who say, “That’s not evolution because it’s still a bacterium!” (In other words, the movement which used to claim that evolution couldn’t produce a new species or genus gradually moved the taxonomic goalposts to family, order, class, and even kingdom as the previous alleged boundary collapsed!)
The point wasn’t doing experiments and you know it, Bill.
They haven’t offered or tested a single ID hypothesis between them, and a more accurate description is that they have QUIT doing experiments. All three of them.
There are papers published that test the predictions of evolutionary theory every day.
Examples, then. I don’t think you’re capable of offering 3, much less “many.”
Meyer’s pretense that the predictions in his books are scientific is absurd, don’t you agree?
Bill, what exactly is your point? You are pretty much working in exactly the opposite way that @swamidass wants us to work. Do you grasp this difference?
Joshua would like for Atheists and God-Guided-Evolutionists to put down the hatchets …more or less permanently… and accept what the other person’s positions are. Atheists are here… tolerating your position that Adam and Eve could be created by Special Creation, without bringing down the House of Science on everyone’s heads…
And in return, you are supposed to stop daring Atheists to prove Evolution works without God. This is NOT the task here… People here (aside from the Atheists and Agnostics) are inclined to see God as using Evolution as one of the alternate methods of creation.
And you are firing off all your guns like nobody has ever heard of this idea… Maybe you could start your own blog? And it can have a catchy title like: “Hey-All-you-Atheists-get-off-my-lawn.Org”