How to create a hot 10 page thread:
Step 1: Choose a typical troll topic.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit
OT: Despite my first few lines I can't resist to bite the bait. ;-)
I am baffled by the statement, that evolution is as founded or even more founded than gravity. First of all: I don't believe in evolution, I KNOW that there is hard evidence for many evolutionary machanisms. You don't believe in that, that's a scientifically proven fact. Why I still reject parts of the evolution theory? Well, because it is not that well founded, like the OP suggests.
Of course you have mechanisms like modification, which explain a large range of things like making a white moth black, having different people with different skin colors and several subspecies of dogs, all of which originate in Canis Lupus, the common wolf. If you look at the difference between a Chihuahua, a Great Dane and said wolf, this is amazing enough. But lets go a little bit deeper and look at the bigger picture.
Modification is, unlike mutation, a mechanism that recombines existing genetic material. There are mechanisms for modification going on in the process of the merging of sperm and ovum. But the effects you get from this are in the range of going from a dog to a wolf and vica verca. Which means, no genetic material is added and no material is removed. Thats just not how breeding works (Mendel could tell you some things about that).
Going from a smalll woodland creature with stumpy legs and a round body, to a majestic galopping creature of the steppes (Hyracotherium to the modern horse), is a completely different story.
This is one of my favorite examples, so here a little excursion. There are many fossils between Hyracotherium and our modern horse. But even in this well documented example, we still have a load of gaps. Most of the intermediate states of the horse's evolution are still missing. I know, that is no proof against it, but it is also not "a stronger theory than gravity".
As soon as the resulting genetic material differs from the original, we have a mutation. We all know mutations, like sickle cell anemia or cancer. If a mutation happens, anything can result. It could be a slightly thicker skin, he ability to hold your breath a little longer, a sickening disease which shortens you life or even rightout death on arrival. (we are not talking about additional or missing limbs, which are most of the time not mutations but disturbances in the embryonic developoment)
There are several problems with this. First of all, the genetic code, like any codification, allows only a certain number of meaningful combinations. With most of the mutations, the result is either unnoticable, which has no "advantage" in an evolutionary sense, or the resulting creature will be in a worse condition than its ancestors or rightout nonviable. There are several mechanisms in the DNA of any living creature on this planet (I DON'T want to argue, if viruses are living creatures or not, that is a completely different topic), which PREVENT mutations from happening (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_repair). They are constantly repairing errors in the DNA and therefore prevent mutations.
Like this, mutations are very unlikely as such. As stated before, "good" (i.e. meaningful mutations, that are not ignored and do not righout kill the resulting creature) are also very unlikely. At this point, there is the argument with the tornado on the junkyard. If you have a tornado running over a junkyard, you will get a big mess. But there is a small possibility, that it will result in something meaningful, like a fully functioning car. So if you have a really big amount of tornados running over the junkyard (we are talking about billions or trillions, given the amount of time earth exists), one of them will eventually produce said car. The problem is, that then comes the next tornado and destroys the damn thing... What I want to say is: yes, there is a possibility for "good" mutations, but there is an even greater possibility for mutations, that destroy the whole thing again. So even given the amount of time we have, the possibility is running against zero to have not only advanced organisms, but also the variety of species we have today.
It is in this case a simple matter of information theory and math. We don't even have to go as far as looking as the chemistry of large molecules, amino acids in particular, to support my point.
I will not start a debate about the spontaneous ermegence of life, since this thread only discusses evolution, but this would also an interesting topic to further develop my thesis.
TL;DR:
What I want to say is, that you have to be careful, what you call a "fact". You have to check everything you are given as a fact today, because there are to many people trying to enforce their own agenda.
I don't want you to run into the curches, I want you to run to your books (or even wikipedia might be a good start). Check your facts, check the people that are giving them to you and start thinking for yourselves. Please please please, for the sake of humanity...
