Evolution

[The Grand Nudger]

There are no goalpost being moved in variation. The limit was set when the creatures were created.

And precisely when did this "creation" occur? By what agent? What are these limits? The "goalposts" that I was referring to are those that arise from one creature being somewhat different from it's predecessor, and the next being somewhat different from it's predecessor, which was somewhat different from it's predecessor. Continue this for millions of years. Small individual changes may not seem like much if you line up any given organism with it's "father" or "son", but a different picture is likely to emerge over a long span of time. This is what we see in the fossil record. This is what we see in genetics. This is what we can observe in something as simple and near to us as our own parents and children. All clearly related, sometimes very closely related, but often vastly different. This is why the distinction between micro and macro evolution (insofar as creationists argue for it) is meaningless.

You do know that natural selection selects from the already existent gene pool, right?

What else would it "choose" from, something non-existent? That would be a hell of a feat, wouldn't it? NS is the winnower, not the causal agent. That is probably one of the many misconceptions you seem to have that would lead to this whole bit appearing to be very confusing/contradictory/improbable/impossible to you.

A single celled organism has the gene pool to become...well a single celled organism.

Indeed, unless it gets some choice mutation. But speaking specifically of single celled organisms, all that is required is division. One become two, two becomes four, so on and so forth. You wouldn't be suggesting that cells are incapable of division, or that division is some incredibly complicated or impossible procedure to accomplish, would you?

Even mutations, which a very rare, have a limit to amount of variation it can impose.

Insomuch as the mutation cannot be deleterious (and then only if the organism is to survive) yes.

And most mutations are harmful or neutral (the neutral mutations eventually become harmful).

You got that about half right.

There are absolutely no observed cases of them causing an entirely new family of organisms.

Family does not equal species, I see why you are so confused. "Speciation", say it with me. Kings Play Chess On Fine Grain Sand. So that's problem number two right there, isn't it?

There are no facts to back the claim that variation in limitless. The only con artist the man that tricked you into believing in an idea with absolutely no evidence to support it. All he did was take observed facts and expound on them with his imagination.

It's not so difficult to understand. Even very limited variations successively piled on over immense spans of time produces what we would call "limitless potential". Again you have a very basic misunderstanding about what is being explained here. There are plenty of limiting factors beyond variation (the environment that the organism exists in, the potential for it to simply become extinct, etc), but variation in and of itself, however well confined or miniscule in any specific case, is limitless in it's overall ability. Problem number three, what we have here is a trinity.

I hope that helps to clear up whatever garbage you've been fed, and were gullible enough to swallow, by whoever decided that it was okay to fuck with you. What you are arguing against isn't E by NS, it's some magical horseshit an apologist sold you as "the scientific explanation" so that he could argue against it, it's commonly referred to as a "Straw Man".


Here you go buddy, let wonder lead you to knowledge.
http://www.talkorigins.org/

This ones for your apologist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man