Evolution, religion, and ignorance.

[Esquilax]

These skinks are only evidence of evolution if you've already bought into evolution. That two things are different does not imply that one changed into the other. You assume that.

Except, again, we have the intermediate skinks that retain the eggshells, so we can chart the progression there. Evolution is observed, we understand that such mutations can occur and even what survival advantage this change would confer, whereas you're just asserting that evolution skipped over these skinks, in order to be intractable?

Ah, but then I remember the reason I brought up the skinks in the first place, your claim that mutations don't produce anything new, and I realize I don't even need to go to the skinks to undercut your claim. Just look to nylon-digesting flavobacteria, representing the result of a probable single step mutation that allowed them to digest a material that didn't exist until 1935. Further research shows that this new ability could be induced in other species that did not have it prior, either.

And you would be wrong to then present such concepts as givens.

Have I not been spending the last few pages explaining exactly why I think this to be the case, rather than just taking it as a given? Isn't that the point of a discussion?

Again, argument from ignorance. If you think microevolution has accumulated to the point of macroevolution, that's a positive claim that requires evidence, evidence which you're loath to provide.

Is this just how this is going to go? With the two of us circling around who has the burden of proof by disagreeing who's making a positive claim? Do you really not understand even what you're arguing?

Here's my evidence, listen closely: microevolution is an observed fact. It happens, mutations occur, and we know through observation that they can be retained in populations if natural selection favors them. You've agreed that this is so.

Now, stop. If something is observed to happen, and we have evidence of it happening, then is that not reason enough to infer that it will continue to happen, without the intervention of some outside force? If I observe that gravity works, and makes things fall, do I need evidence that something will fall the last few inches before it hits the ground rather than floating off into space, or does my understanding and observation of the force of gravity not cover that?

You're making the claim that something that we observe, and can demonstrate to happen, needs additional evidence to show that it will continue to happen under the conditions that we've already observed it happening under. That's ridiculous. I don't have to provide evidence that gravity will continue to work on earth, when the only observations we have ever produced have been that gravity works.

I didn't say that nothing happened. I agree that evolution, by one definition, has occurred in this situation. Whoop-dee-do.

And that one definition of evolution is all there is. You're just making the absurd claim that it suddenly stops happening at a certain threshold for no reason, and then shift the burden of proof onto me to show that the thing we have all the evidence for will continue to be itself.

Again with the argument from ignorance. Come on, another evolutionist even called you out on this.

It's not an argument from ignorance, as "this phenomena that we observe to happen in every case will continue to happen barring outside interference" is not a positive claim, and as I've said multiple times, including in the very post you were responding to, I'm not saying that you're definitely wrong with your claim that some force prevents evolutionary changes from accruing to the point that a species change is required.

I am, again, stating that evidence would be required to be rationally justified in believing in this evolution-preventing phenomena, which is something that you, and the biologists that think as you do, have failed to provide.