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["You can easily see that the fossil record shows that animals change over time."]

The only thing bones and fossils prove is that something lived, then died. The rest is assumptions about those bones and fossils.

Hogwash. You can learn a great deal about life in the past without having to go as far as "assumptions". Unless, of course, you're going to pull the dishonest creationist trick of naming every observation you find uncomfortable as "mere assumption", no matter how obvious and unarguable it may be.

Here, for example, is one of the things we can indisputably observe about the fossil record:

It is time for students of the evolutionary process, especially those who have been misquoted and used by the creationists, to state clearly that evolution is a fact, not theory, and that what is at issue within biology are questions of details of the process and the relative importance of different mechanisms of evolution. It is a fact that the earth with liquid water, is more than 3.6 billion years old. It is a fact that cellular life has been around for at least half of that period and that organized multicellular life is at least 800 million years old. It is a fact that major life forms now on earth were not at all represented in the past. There were no birds or mammals 250 million years ago. It is a fact that major life forms of the past are no longer living. There used to be dinosaurs and Pithecanthropus, and there are none now. It is a fact that all living forms come from previous living forms. Therefore, all present forms of life arose from ancestral forms that were different. Birds arose from nonbirds and humans from nonhumans. No person who pretends to any understanding of the natural world can deny these facts any more than she or he can deny that the earth is round, rotates on its axis, and revolves around the sun.
The controversies about evolution lie in the realm of the relative importance of various forces in molding evolution.
- R. C. Lewontin "Evolution/Creation Debate: A Time for Truth" Bioscience 31, 559 (1981) reprinted in Evolution versus Creationism, J. Peter Zetterberg ed., ORYX Press, Phoenix AZ 1983

As you well know from the countless prior threads on this topic -- but are desperately trying to pretend you don't -- is that insisting that science students accept current scientific views in order to get a letter of recommendation attesting to their fitness to practice science is in no way an exercise in "dogma" or declaring oneself to have "authoritative" answers.

Oh, my. Evolution is science? In bold? OK, I'll play.

Kindly define "Evolution". But please avoid "change over time", which is utterly bereft of content. You will be laughed out of town.

Would you agree that science has its own set of standards that have nothing to do with "Creationism"? If you don't, you have no understanding of science. If you do, why do you mention Creationism?

How do you reconcile 250,000-to-millions of species with virtually no transitional forms in the fossil record? Please take careful note that this is a question of fact, not opinion or rhetoric.

Why has no one demonstrated Evolution in the lab, despite countless years of trying? Fruit flies have been bred into monster fruit flies that rapidly revert to the norm when subsequently left to their own devices. They have never been selectively bred into anything but fruit flies. No new species has ever been created in the lab.

What is the mechanism of evolution? Mutation? If so, it remains to be demonstrated. Mutation destroys genetic information. You might as well say "magic". There is no evidence, from the fossil record or from the lab, that mutation drives Evolution. Well, help yourself to this one. You may wish to note, however, that I am quite good at parsing rhetoric, if I do say so myself.

How is it that species appear fully formed in the fossil record and remain virtually unchanged for millions of years, then disappear? Lots of species.

Explain the Cambrian Explosion. Now please don't give us Punk Eek, which says it happens when/because we don't see it. Still no evidence.

Tell us about that mysterious force, Natural Selection which, boiled down to facts, is nothing more than the passive environment. Then explain why there are 3 species of sharks alive today in the worlds waters that 1) lay eggs, 2) give live birth and 3)something in-between. Which came first and which is dominant on the Evolutionary scale?

Yeh, I know. Tough questions. Science is like that. They have yet to be answered with anything other than empty rhetoric by the Darwinists. Darwin was a Master Sophist, as are his acolytes. It's the facts they have trouble with. Now I ask you, where has it been necessary in all the foregoing that there be any appeal to God or Creationism?

Darwinism is Bunk, Gould was a Sophist and Dawkins is an Atheist. Conclusion: Evolutionism ain't science.

Therefore, all present forms of life arose from ancestral forms that were different. Birds arose from nonbirds and humans from nonhumans.

Claiming it as a fact doesnt make it a fact. No matter how many letters you can string after your name.

I'm not a YEC. I agree that descent with change is a fact. But. Gradualism, which makes use of the millions of years of life, is refuted by the fossil record. Punctuated equilibrium doesn't describe a process, it seems more a "kluge" than anything else.

Like, gee, these fossils stay the same, then wham, some are gone, others, radically different appear. Okay, fossil creation is the exception, not the rule. Still, saying that somehow evolution happens in bursts and then goes into stasis doesn't really account for how that much change occurs that quickly, it merely amends the theory of gradualism to fit the facts, after the fact.

Now, there may be a good scientific explanation, my faith in God doesn't rest on him actually creating each species or each major "kind" of animal - but, scientifically, I weary of naturalists and atheists overstating the weak science. There's not enough "there" yet.