How Can You Doubt that Evolution Has Occurred?

In a Letter to the Editor of World Net Daily this past Thursday, the letter writer equates Creationism with Flat Earthianism. I often hear this comparison, and find it to generally be the result of ignorance or dishonesty on the part of the speaker.

The author of the letter finds it absurd that "we are still debating at all whether or not evolution occurred".

Well, that depends on your definition of "evolution". A case can be made that there are at least six different definitions, but for the purposes of this letter we can deal with two: 1) Macro, or "big-scale" evolution, the goo-to-you, molecules-to-man, hydrogen-to-human type of evolution; and 2) Micro, or variation-on-a-theme, or adaptation type of evolution.

Virtually everyone, including hard-core, "Bible-thumping", young-earth Creationists agree with the variation-on-a-theme type of evolution. This type of evolution is seen in everyday life, in the fossil record, in thousands of years of animal breeding, and in decades of lab research, and yes, even in the Bible ("From one man he made every nation of men"-Acts 17:26, and etc). This type of evolution is "scientific fact". This type of evolution is also the result of a loss of, or a mere shuffling of, pre-existing genetic information. Whether you're talking about horses devolving from a three-toed variety into our modern one-toed variety, or bacteria "evolving" resistance to antibiotics, or dark moths "evolving" into light moths, etc, you're talking about a loss of or shuffling of existing genetic information, resulting in variations on a theme, but not in genuinely new types of creatures. (The so-called fossil evidence of "missing links" is hardly compelling; famous evolutionary paleontologist Stephen J. Gould has said "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology." Other top-name evolutionists have made similar admissions.)

What's required for the macro type of evolution is a vast increase in new never-before-existing genetic information, from the genetic information in pond scum (none) to that in a paramecium (lots) to that in a human (LOTS). Where is the observation of this vast increase in genetic information? Where is the lab experiment that demonstrates that this is even possible? Where is the "science" behind this claim?

Note that the difference between these two types of evolution is not one of quantity, but of quality. One type (macro) requires the appearance of vast amounts of new genetic information that has never existed before; the other type does not.

Evolutionists typically change their definition of evolution mid-sentence. They start out by claiming that evolution is a fact, meaning macro-evolution, but by the end of the sentence they're trotting out examples of variation-on-a-theme.

Next time someone presents some piece of evidence for evolution, ask yourself if it's evidence of loss/shuffling of pre-existing genetic information (variation-on-a-theme), or evidence of new genetic information arising which did not previously exist. (And transfers of previously-existing genetic information from one creature to another via such mechanisms as mosquito bites don't count; we're looking for new never-before-seen genetic information, which is required in vast amounts if macro-evolution is true.)

So, there's no doubt that "evolution", meaning variation-on-a-theme, has occurred. But Atom-to-Adam? Show me the evidence.