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As I pointed out to begin with, I do not subscribe to Berkeley’s pro-evolution, leftist, and anti-Christian dogmas. I merely cited what they said about evolution being a theory. Just because they join you and the talk origins crowd by saying evolution is a theory AND a fact, does not change the fact that such comments are intentionally misleading and basically dishonest in a debate about evolution and creation.

It was only recently that this tactic was introduced as a way to confuse and trick the uninformed. But you have carried it further by denying evolution is a theory. Now it is only a fact and what, a law?

Even natural selection, though observed (which amazingly you want to deny while making pro-evolution arguments), is not a law. Darwin coined the term to describe changes that were not the result of artificial selection (which by your logic would conclusively prove Intelligent Design or at least guided evolution to be true since this is definitely an observable activity). So descent with modification sometimes occurs randomly, but sometimes it occurs by intelligent intervention through breeding. So by your and Berkeley’s definition of evolution (”descent with modification”), some evolution is necessarily the product of intelligent design (in this case, planned selective breeding with the intent to produce specific traits and having a successful outcome). Breeders intentionally and intelligently caused some of what you define as evolution.

See I can play word games too. I think a press release needs to be issued that Berkeley agrees that intelligent design is well supported by scientific observation. Would you be OK with that? That is 100% equivalent to calling evolution a fact in this debate.

“Descent with modification is an inescapable FACT”.

In the same way intelligent design is a fact. Since Pasteur debunked spontaneous generation, biogenesis is an accepted law of science which states living things only arise from other living things. It has been two and a half years since man has begun creating synthetic life. Are you prepared to publicly embrace that the law of biogenesis has now been replaced by the law of intelligent design abiogenesis since the only observable instance of life arising from nonliving matter did so through intelligent intervention?

Your arguments would be more respectable if you man-up and just admit the error I think you already know you made rather than double down or try to change the subject. Evolution, as defined in the creation vs. evolution debate, is a theory. Even if you are determined to also describe the evolutionary processes as facts, all the world of evolution proponents acknowledge it to be a theory.

“Now you do accept the common ancestry of SOME species with each other, do you not?”

Yes. I accept that speciation occurs. Thus some species share a common ancestor. I reject the unsupported conjecture “of biological evolution... that ALL life on Earth shares a common ancestor” as per the webpage we both cited. There is simply no evidence to back up this claim. None. It is wishful thinking less substantiated than tree fairies and unicorns. Even if unguided abiogenesis occurred, it might have easily generated many types of simple life forms which interacted to form and share genetic information that gave rise to a multitude of species. It is also possible that some species today represent the merging of more than one species. So I will clarify my earlier remark. I reject the concept of a UNIVERSAL common ancestor, something which is apparently a sacrosanct tenet of the so-called theory of evolution by its proponents.

“Did we SEE natural selection leading to the death of every bird that didn’t have the optimum shaped beak?”

The essential element of genetic variation is observable. That is, it is measurable, quantifiable, and detectable, within populations. Causality is even established. We know why the change occurred. We know how this change resulted in natural selection in the way Darwin intended the term to mean. Some traits can be produced by breeding. Some traits become more defined or otherwise change or develop without any human intervention to breed those traits. It is natural selection. Yes, it is a mechanism for evolution. It is also a prediction of a type of fact which has been verified at least in some instances such as this by observation.

“If so then you accept ‘adaptation’ and ‘speciation’ and SOME ‘common descent’ - and with a speed far beyond anything observed in nature.”

If speciation has ever been directly observed it would the combination of historical records of observation with more recent records of observation. Thus any observable rather than inferred instance of speciation would necessarily have happened very quickly. But the necessary rapid genetic variation is perhaps “observed” indirectly if we makes some causal assumptions.

In large populations variations happen more frequently and selective pressure is drastically reduced. So as the earth has filled with more living things the rate of change has not only increased but done so exponentially. Most significant genetic variation can be measured by comparing variation within large populations to determine how much change has occurred over a certain amount of time (assuming the generational time space is relatively constant). So far, most such genetic variation can be shown to be almost entirely to have occurred within a number of generations that represent around five thousand years. This is coincidentally very close to the time frame of the deluge, aka Noah’s flood.

It is not my intention to be insulting. I love a good debate. Apathy is the enemy of truth. Whether we reach an agreement or an impasse I think you are much more likely to find TRUTH than those who treat this issue as uninteresting.