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Major flaw in the basic premise, is the usage of a linear instead of an exponential growth rate. New families will appear slowly at first and emerge faster over time.

2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, etc...

I agree, and I'd like to expand a little bit. There will be exponential growth for a while, until biodiversity reaches an equilibrium, where they won't be any room for new creatures. There's no niches to be occupied, no room for improvement via evolution. Species are already so efficient that any changes are a detriment.

There probably haven't been any new families of animals evolving in thousands and thousands of years. You would think that humans terraforming (farming, building cities)the planet would create new niches for animals to evolve, but humans "evolve" too fast. In 435 years the environment has changed a lot. There is concrete everywhere and the natural flow of water and other resources has been continually altered for those 435 years. We change things so fast, new species don't have time to evolve. There are probably new families evolving deep in untouched forests, under the ocean, or in jungles, but it's impossible to tell because we haven't catalogued every living being on the planet yet. You won't see a new family of animal evolving in your backyard because you mow it every week.

FYI I'm not a democrat or environut, don't flame me for being one. I didn't say that humans taking over the earth is a bad thing, I'm just trying to point out the ID'ers that you can't use raw, basic 8th grade statistics to prove things about evolution, there are too many variables.

I agree with you on many of your points. Yes, the exponential growth rate is only a component of the question. As you also pointed out, extinction rates, ecological niches, birth rates, major disasters, and other factors must be included.

And yes, as I fully expect that human influence to open up new ecological niches that animals will evolve into. Rats in the city are a prime example.

There probably haven't been any new families of animals evolving in thousands and thousands of years.

Quite likely. Then throw in that the Linnaean system was created in 1757 based upon the way things looked 245 years ago. Then consider that divergence isn't sudden. Throw in that higher taxons are arbitrary, based upon the retrospectively considered importance of evolved traits.

There are probably new families evolving deep in untouched forests, under the ocean, or in jungles, but it's impossible to tell because we haven't catalogued every living being on the planet yet. You won't see a new family of animal evolving in your backyard because you mow it every week.

Let me get this straight. You are stating that things don't evolve because things change? More precisely, because they change too fast?

You can't have it both ways. Either humans changing the environment opens up new niches so new families will pop up faster, or new niches appearing does not effect the rate of new families.

The fossil record does show bursts of new families appearing- and the advent of man is just such an event that should cause a burst.

Changing the world too fast for animals to evolve? Come now, do we change the world any faster than the asteroid strike that extincted Barney and friends?

Also, the math may be simple, but that does not mean it is wrong. If its wrong, show where, but saying its simple is not proving that it is wrong. Lots of complicated factors go into how many yards a halfback may run for over the course of the season, but one can still find an average yards per carry using simple math, and the number found means something.

I agree, and I'd like to expand a little bit. There will be exponential growth for a while, until biodiversity reaches an equilibrium, where they won't be any room for new creatures. There's no niches to be occupied, no room for improvement via evolution. Species are already so efficient that any changes are a detriment.

That argument does not wash. According to the theory of evolution (and the Malthusian basis of it) all the niches would have been filled a billion years ago due to the exponential growth of organisms. In addition, according to evolutionary theory all the niches are constantly changing due to environment and the struggle of species with one another - a sort of biological arms race.

So after using these arguments to support evoltuion, it seems to me that evolutionists cannot state that 'evolution stopped' recently. It's just plain double talk and an excuse for not being able to find what the theory says we should be finding - namely intermediate species, species transforming themselves into new more complex species.