"With all due respect changing a wolf into a chihuahua is chump change. Is the dog's digestive system reengineered? No. Is the dog's circulatory and skeletal systems completely redesigned? No. This is little different than the Galapagos finches."
I disagree. If you had never seen a chihuahua and I claimed they were selectively bread from wolves, I wager the typical creationist would scream bloody murder and DEMAND far more proof.
Look at a bat and a rat. Some bats basically look exactly like rats but with their arms turned into long skinny arms with stretched skin.
The wolf and chewy dog seem further apart to me on the surface.
The other HUGE thing you seem to constantly ignore is the DNA evidence.
Observe the DNA among related species and non-related species. It's really close together, and gets further apart for unrelated species.
Evolution explains this DNA match up very well.
"And more importantly, creating a chihuahua is anything but random. It is carefully guided by the 100 parallel Cray computers that sit inside our craniums."
It was not an example of randomness. It was an example of how FAST things can be changed. There is nothing in evolution which prevents FAST change. Thats the point I made, and it sticks.
"The line of reasoning that you took is what evolutionists always take: they give tiny microevolutionary examples and then say imagine what would happen if you strung those all together. Why are we being asked to imagine something? "
Are you?
If I can change a dog into a chewy dog in a couple of hundred years, I think drastic changes in nature could easily account for such changes through selection and mutation over hundreds of millions of years.
I think the best thing to do is go out and study macroevolution in detail. Examine the evidence.
Get caught up on the most up to date science available.
Many of your questions stem from mere ignorance. Not a put down. I am no master of evolution, but I cant sit here for the next 10 years studying evolution in detail just so I can answer or all your questions
I think you should ponder the DNA evidence more.
It aligns with evolution very well.
Here is a website I found very interesting that talks about creationism and evolution.
http://www.lightandmatter.com/evolution/
Here is a snippet:
What's the evidence for evolution?
Creationists often claim that evolution is not a very important part of biology, but nothing could be further from the truth. You will have a hard time finding a biologist who will disagree with Theodosuis Dobzhansky's statement that "Nothing in biology makes sense without evolution."
Evolution is easily observed in the laboratory, for instance when bacteria evolve resistance to a particular antibiotic. The fossil record shows, for example, how birds evolved from dinosaurs. The hypothesis that present-day forms evolved from a common ancestor or ancestors is corroborated by DNA studies, which show that humans have 97% of their DNA in common with chimpanzees -- in terms of DNA, we are even quite similar to mushrooms!
If you don't believe there are any transitional fossils, look here:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
One more side point... did you NOT see the fossil found several months ago in china of that feathered dino?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2684927.stm
peace
axeman