wfooshee
That's because, unlike you, he knows what a theory is
Indeed - creationists have a very different interpretation of some important terms, "theory", "facts", "proof" and "evidence" being key among them. That's not to say that I don't understand what SCJ is implying when using these words on his terms, but it is clear that we are talking at cross purposes at times, especially when it comes to the word "theory"...
Well we're getting closer. Theories are theories and opinions are opinions whether they come from the Creation side or the evolution side. Neither has basis in unrefutible physical proof or fact. Unlike you I'm willing to admit that. However, I would claim that of the two there is more scientific basis for a claim of truth on the creation side than the other.
Both concepts - special creation and evolution/common descent - are just two different ways of explaining the same set of observable facts. However, the key difference is that one is a scientific theory and the other is not. Why? Because of falsifiability. No fact or piece of evidence contradicts the special creation hypothesis - creationists take succour from this, but it actually means that special creation cannot be and is not considered a scientific theory. Find a piece of evidence that supports evolution? No matter, it was simply created to look like that. Find a piece of evidence that contradicts your view that the world is 6000 years old? No matter, it was created that way to test your faith.... and so on, and so forth. Special creation makes no predictions and comes to only one, unalterable conclusion - that things are the way they are because that's the way they were made!
Evolution theory, on the other hand, attempts to explain why observable facts of the natural world came to be the way they are, and that explanation must be consistent with all the available evidence, past, present and future. Find a piece of evidence that contradicts your theory of common descent? Then your theory is dead. Observe one species giving birth to an entirely different species? Then the entire theory of evolution is dead. In other words, live scientific theories are only as good as the next discovery because of falsifiability. For this reason alone, evolution theory is scientifically far superior to creationism.
Another key measure of the validity of evolution as a
bona fide scientific theory is in its predictive power - have any hypotheses originating from evolution theory been subsequently confirmed? Yes - the entire field of genetics provides spectacular confirmation that Darwin and Wallace's original concepts were fundamentally correct. Indeed, evolution theory even predicted the field of genetics itself. Although Darwin was unaware of the biomolecular basis of heredity, or the biological mechanisms that facilitate the process of natural selection, he correctly predicted that such things must exist if evolution is true. Evolution theory may have been borne out of the fossil record and comparative anatomy, but genetics has come along and provided a massive amount of new information that supports the original hypotheses of common ancestry and descent with modification.
The key point is that observational data could so easily have shown such evolutionary hypotheses to be completely wrong, and yet they haven't - far from it infact. Before the field of genetics existed, we could only presume or predict what we might expect to find when we did finally start looking at the genomes of living things - evolution theory faced a collosal and unavoidable test. There were any number of ways that the theory of common descent could have been destroyed in the blink of an eye, and yet, the actual results have consistently returned in favour of the common descent hypothesis, time and time again. There were literally infinite possible outcomes that would have shown that the common descent hypothesis was false. But guess what?... The pattern and extent of genetic similarity between supposedly "unrelated" species - now known in spectacular detail - is the only outcome that supports the common descent hypothesis, but yet it is precisely what we see. To claim otherwise is simply fraudulent.
It was not out of thin air, it again points out, that in the fossil record, now some 250,000 or more, wherein you would certainly expect to find proof for the evolutional theory, is absolutely void of such. Debatebly the method used may not be the best, but it does not discount the principle fact of the matter, therefore it is genuinely not misleading.
To cite an example of one present day species evolving into another present day species is misleading, because it doesn't happen. The type of intermediates Werner categorically states "should" be present if evolution were true should, in reality, not be found at all. But not content with mere errors (such as his erroneous interpretation of what evolution "should" do), Werner is also guilty of massive errors of omission. For example, he focuses on a specific area - bat evolution - where a lack of fossil evidence is/was a known issue. But the fact that bat evolution is now much more fully understood - not from the fossil record, but from comparative genomics - is
not even mentioned. This is hardly a surprise.
people begat people, monkees begat monkees, cows begat cows, etc., etc., etc. Past, present, and as far as can be seen future, this is the truth in fact.
Indeed it is the truth, but it is only
part of the truth - and the part I have underlined is where our views diverge. While the creationist view (the immutability of species) may appear true throughout recorded history, two critically important facts remain and demand consideration if one is to get the full picture.
1) Recorded history is incredibly short relative to the full history of life on the planet, therefore recorded history is clearly not the whole story. In other words, the term "Past" used in the context of the above only actually means "very recent past" as opposed to our "entire past". By the same token, "future", as in the context of the firsthand human experience, only truly refers to our immediate future, and certainly not "all eternity". Indeed, by understanding the various processes by which genetic information may be altered over time, and examining the rate at which this can occur in a variety of species (including our own), it is very far from established that the human species will remain recognisably human for all time (and this can be applied to any species, of course). There is no such a thing as an inherent quality called humanness, let alone that this quality is permanent and unalterable, no matter how long a time period you give it. When one considers the true depth of geological time, it becomes apparent that the idea of species permanence is merely an artefact created by our limited observational history.
2) Detailed comparisons of modern day species reveals unequivocal patterns of relatedness that are not self-evident by merely eyeballing various lifeforms superficially over a short period of time (such as what we would call 'recorded history'). The immutability of species hypothesis - "confirmed" as it is by common sense and firsthand experience - is seriously challenged by a vast swathe of genetic (and other) evidence.
I can agree we may not have always been the way we are today, however according to what facts are actually known, we have always been people.
Vestigial organs (i.e. our vestigial tail bone, the appendix etc.) as well redundant enzymes, "junk" DNA etc., are all evidence that strongly support the view that our ancestors were once very different from ourselves. There are also many clear examples of "oddities" within many other modern-day species that clearly demonstrate that they too once looked very different (i.e. whale digits). Furthermore, these superfluous and/or redundant features - abundant throughout the living world - completely defy the design hypothesis, but fit nicely with the view that these features are vestigial remains from once very different forms.
In the light of all that I've said above, it is far from established that "we have always been people". In view of all the contradictory evidence, the question has to be "How do you know?"
Never been to a museum, eh? 
