How do you define evolution?

[leroy]

Not even close to what is required.

First of all, there are very few systems that we understand down to the genetic level even in species alive today. For example, the complete set of genes responsible for the development of the eye. We know *some* of the genes involved, of course.

ok so until we understand how this systems work at the genetic level we should remain agnostic.

maybe there is a viable step by step path..... maybe the eye is irreducibly complex....maybe there are many possible paths and chance (genetic drift) is enough. maybe mutations are not random but biased towards building complex eyes.

we don't know.

In particular, it is NOT required that every single mutation give a selective advantage

it's simple.

if you* whant to affirm that eyes evolved mainly through a process of benefitial random mutations followed by natural selection, you have to show that there is a viable path where most mutations where benefitial.

if you are a neutralist you have to provide a path of neutral mutations and show that genetic drift is enough to keep those mutations

if you are an ID proponent you have to show that at least one step is irreducibly complex

if you want to remain agnostic and claim that you don't know how eyes evolved then you don't have to show anything.

.

Mutations do not have to happen one at a time.

ok so if you what to claim that mutations occured 2 at a time or 10 at a time you have to show that your model is viable.

if you want to admit ignorance and admit that nobody (except for @shunyadragon) knows how eyes evolved you don't have to show anything.

And events like recombination broaden the range of possibilities even in a population without mutations.

ok if you what to affirm that eyes evolved through random recombination you have to provide your evidence

if you claim that recombination was not random you have to provide your evidence.


if you admit that we don't know then you can make some popcorn and wait for scientist to find an answer.

....
my point is that until we understand eyes (and other systems) at a genetic level we should remain agnostic and admit that we don't know how they evolved.

 

[exchemist]

ok but you won't support your assertions.

Thousands of books and internet references already do this. Why should he jump through hoops for your amusement?

 

[leroy]

Thousands of books and internet references already do this. Why should he jump through hoops for your amusement?

ok quote one peer reviewed article that concludes that eyes (or any other complex system) evolved through random mutations and natural selection (or by whatever mechanism that you think is true)

 

[Polymath257]

What do the fossils really show? They can't speak, so they show exactly what science wants them to show...its called interpretation of the evidence and science sees what it wants to see. We can take the very same evidence and show you the work of a very powerful and inventive Creator. The greatest scientist in existence....his intelligence is clearly seen in how it all works.

At the very least, they should a sample of what was alive at different times.

They did......and science knows that all life came from pre-existing life.....this applies to the first forms of life as well which could have been bacteria and that would have been needed to condition the soil for vegetation to grow. A self-sustaining, and never ending food and water supply ready and waiting for all the creatures to follow.


Which to us indicates that whales as we know them, were probably created at a later time. Science is looking for a chain that does not exist in reality.....individual creation with adaptive capabilities fits what science knows and can demonstrate.....but not what they want to assume. I don't understand why a Creator is so hard to accept?
It takes as much "faith" to believe in what science can't prove, as it does for us to believe in God.

Do you see the contradiction in these two paragraphs?

In the first, you say that all life came from previous life. In the second, you claim that whales did not.

I am agreeing that whales had an ancestor that lived 50 million years ago. But since nothing that 'looked like' modern whales lived then, the whales came from something that we would not now identify as a whale.

That is all assumption......science really has no idea whether they were even related, or just different species of marine animals who lived in different times in different parts of an ocean. Evidence is not proof.....and if that evidence is interpreted only in a biased way, how will the truth be ascertained? Does it matter? I believe it does......especially if we have to account to the Landlord of the home we are destroying with our clever applications of science.

Evidence is not proof. But it is evidence. And we can test it with other evidence and see if things fit together.

You propose many instances of special creation distributed over time and place in order to explain the diversity we see. I propose that everything alive today had an ancestor living 50 million years ago. Even according to you that is a reasonable assumption (life comes from life).

You can believe them if you wish......I'll pass.

That is your assumption to make.....I see the hand of a brilliant Creator at work in the universe and on this earth with immutable laws governing everything....I'd love to introduce you to him some time.....He is not going to jump up and down and wave his arms for those who choose not to believe in him.....he doesn't need to, as I believe his creation speaks for him.

On the contrary, I do assume that there are immutable physical laws governing everything. So we can apply those laws that we discover here and now to analyze the past. And that *does* prove things about the past.

And that proves that species change over time in quite dramatic ways. Among them, whales descended from a species that lived on land. We even have the progression shown in the fossil record. it works in terms of the time of the different stages, it works with comparative anatomy, and it works in the modern genetics showing how living cetaceans are related.

On the other hand, you propose a completely new creation of a 'kind' at some point in the past that you don't identify. You fail to identify which 'kind' the animals alive 50 million years ago belonged to, you claim that comparative anatomy is essentially useless, and you claim that the genetics we can produce is just a coincidence.

Why not use *all* of the evidence unless it is because you insist on the conclusion ahead of time?

 

[shunyadragon]

ok but you won't support your assertions.

Evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design

Evolution and Perceptions of Scientific Consensus

Polls show more than 60-65%+ of Americans believe in evolution. Most (40%) with God as Creator.

Level of support for evolution - Wikipedia

Scientific
The vast majority of the scientific community and academia supports evolutionary theory as the only explanation that can fully account for observations in the fields of biology, paleontology, molecular biology, genetics, anthropology, and others.[18][19][20][21][22] A 1991 Gallup poll found that about 5% of American scientists (including those with training outside biology) identified themselves as creationists.[23][24]

Additionally, the scientific community considers intelligent design, a neo-creationist offshoot, to be unscientific,[25] pseudoscience,[26][27] or junk science.[28][29] The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that intelligent design "and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life" are not science because they cannot be tested by experiment, do not generate any predictions, and propose no new hypotheses of their own.[30] In September 2005, 38 Nobel laureates issued a statement saying "Intelligent design is fundamentally unscientific; it cannot be tested as scientific theory because its central conclusion is based on belief in the intervention of a supernatural agent."[31] In October 2005, a coalition representing more than 70,000 Australian scientists and science teachers issued a statement saying "intelligent design is not science" and calling on "all schools not to teach Intelligent Design (ID) as science, because it fails to qualify on every count as a scientific theory".[32]

In 1986, an amicus curiae brief, signed by 72 US Nobel Prize winners, 17 state academies of science and 7 other scientific societies, asked the US Supreme Court in Edwards v. Aguillard, to reject a Louisiana state law requiring that where evolutionary science was taught in public schools, creation science must also be taught. The brief also stated that the term "creation science" as used by the law embodied religious dogma, and that "teaching religious ideas mislabeled as science is detrimental to scientific education".[33] This was the largest collection of Nobel Prize winners to sign a petition up to that point.[34] According to anthropologists Almquist and Cronin, the brief is the "clearest statement by scientists in support of evolution yet produced."[22]

There are many scientific and scholarly organizations from around the world that have issued statements in support of the theory of evolution.[35][36][37][38] The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's largest general scientific society with more than 130,000 members and over 262 affiliated societies and academies of science including over 10 million individuals, has made several statements and issued several press releases in support of evolution.[21] The prestigious United States National Academy of Sciences, which provides science advice to the nation, has published several books supporting evolution and criticising creationism and intelligent design.[39][40]

There is a notable difference between the opinion of scientists and that of the general public in the United States. A 2009 poll by Pew Research Center found that "Nearly all scientists (97%) say humans and other living things have evolved over time – 87% say evolution is due to natural processes, such as natural selection. The dominant position among scientists – that living things have evolved due to natural processes – is shared by only about a third (32%) of the public."

ok so until we understand how this systems work at the genetic level we should remain agnostic.

maybe there is a viable step by step path..... maybe the eye is irreducibly complex....maybe there are many possible paths and chance (genetic drift) is enough. maybe mutations are not random but biased towards building complex eyes.

we don't know.





it's simple.

if you* whant to affirm that eyes evolved mainly through a process of benefitial random mutations followed by natural selection, you have to show that there is a viable path where most mutations where benefitial.

if you are a neutralist you have to provide a path of neutral mutations and show that genetic drift is enough to keep those mutations

if you are an ID proponent you have to show that at least one step is irreducibly complex

if you want to remain agnostic and claim that you don't know how eyes evolved then you don't have to show anything.

.

ok so if you what to claim that mutations occured 2 at a time or 10 at a time you have to show that your model is viable.

if you want to admit ignorance and admit that nobody (except for @shunyadragon) knows how eyes evolved you don't have to show anything.



ok if you what to affirm that eyes evolved through random recombination you have to provide your evidence

if you claim that recombination was not random you have to provide your evidence.


if you admit that we don't know then you can make some popcorn and wait for scientist to find an answer.

....
my point is that until we understand eyes (and other systems) at a genetic level we should remain agnostic and admit that we don't know how they evolved.

 

[shunyadragon]

o
my point is that until we understand eyes (and other systems) at a genetic level we should remain agnostic and admit that we don't know how they evolved.

I gave one reference on the high school level, and there are many available on the internet including videos. We do understand the evolution of the eye on the genetic level including the specific genes involved from the simple light sensitive cell in primitive organisms to the different commplex eyes that evolved from the primitive light sensitive cell including the natural selective benefit of the more complex eyes.

You can lead a horse to drink, but ah . . . you can't force them to drink.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

When you say natural selection doesn't equate common ancestry, I would say that's true, but do those "naturally selected" have a common ancestor is the question.

Natural selection is the mechanism driving evolution. Knowing what caused a change does not establish relatedness between two forms that were changed.

 

[exchemist]

ok quote one peer reviewed article that concludes that eyes (or any other complex system) evolved through random mutations and natural selection (or by whatever mechanism that you think is true)

The evolution of eyes: major steps. The Keeler lecture 2017: centenary of Keeler Ltd | Eye

There. I've jumped through one hoop for you.

And that's enough. You can do further reading on this subject on your own.

 

[nPeace]

Well I guess that all depends on whether the people who purport to "know what they are talking about" ....actually do.

I see that science likes to blur the line between what they know and what they assume to be true. A large part of the evolutionary theory (especially its first premise) is based on assumption...not provable facts.

Yes "science", or scientists.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Most people's definition of "evolution" includes the unsubstantiated claim that such minor changes over time means that an amoeba can become a dinosaur, given a few million years.

Nope. The definition of biological evolution has been given here a few times, and nobody mentioned that. It always consists of a mention of change in living populations over generations. Darwin suggested a mechanism (natural selection working on genetic variants leading to changes in living populations) and some implications (common descent of all life).

Maybe you should find a different word for unicellular life than amoeba. The theory does not predict that amoebas were ancestral to dinosaurs, just that unicellular life of some sort was.

I acknowledge that "adaptation" can change the physical characteristics of any species within a 'family' of creatures over generations when environmental changes also mean a change in diet....each is equipped to make those changes naturally as a survival mechanism (e.g. Peppered Moth or Darwin's finches)......but it is a fact that science cannot take the small changes that occur in one species and claim "evolution" on a macro scale, as if one family of creatures can become a different family, given enough time......and then treat that idea as if it must be a fact. (e.g. whale evolution, where the first "whale" was claimed to be a four legged furry land dweller, the size of a dog.) This is an assumption......not the same as a fact at all.

The thread is not about what we believe. It's about how we define (biological) evolution, which has already been done here accurately, both in genetic and phenotypic terms.

This whole argument is unwinnable

Did you see this as a struggle or contest? The scientific community doesn't. Nor do those lay people who understand the evidence and argument for evolution. Only creationists are having trouble with it, and they aren't part of the scientific debate, which has proceeded well past whether the theory is correct or not. It is, even if there are people who have a stake in it being incorrect.

Your fallacy is:

"Appeal to consequences, also known as argumentum ad consequentiam (Latin for "argument to the consequence"), is an argument that concludes a hypothesis (typically a belief) to be either true or false based on whether the premise leads to desirable or undesirable consequences."

You rule out the theory because of the consequences to you of it being correct. You don't say that explicitly as part of an argument, so calling it a fallacy might not be strictly correct. How about calling it an unstated assumption and a logical error.

neither side has cold hard concrete facts, no matter what definition you might want to present

The scientists have facts, and don't need you to agree with them or even understand them.

But don't feel picked on. It's not because you're a creationist that they aren't interested in your opinion. I happen to agree with the scientists, but do you want to know something? They don't care about that, either. Their debate is among themselves. None of us is invited to contribute opinions. Any objections people outside the community of experts might have would be of no interest or value to them.

One's evolution professor at university also doesn't care what his students believe, just like the scientists. I'm sure that he hopes to be convincing to as many people as he take his course, but unlike a Sunday school teacher, he won't ask them what they believe. He'll test whether the student understood and assimilated the curriculum, but not whether he believed it.

OK, please tell me why you say evolution is a theory. I know you said it's a theory and also a fact

The fact is that living populations change over time. This is observable, like the sunrise. The theory supplies the proposed mechanism.

Someone said here that all matter came about (including the universe) by means of evolution. So abiogenesis is not in the issue right now. We MUST MUST assume that there were chemicals (?) that started it all* - so really abiogenesis is not in this issue right now.

We can describe material, chemical, biological, and psychological evolution, each depending on the prior forms of evolution to become possible.

The Big Bang describes the evolution of the material universe from singularity to the universe of galaxies and stars. Abiogenesis is a hypothesis about the chemical evolution of non-living matter to life. Biological evolution is about living things evolving into the tree of life we see today. Psychological evolution considers the advent of mind in living things and the subsequent appearance of human intellect.

We can add cultural evolution to that chain, as human culture evolves from hunter-gatherers with spears and hand axes to modern life (civilization, agriculture, technology, etc.).

 

[shunyadragon]

Yes "science", or scientists.

Both demonstrate and endorse evolution beyond any reasonable doubt.

 

[Jose Fly]

But don't feel picked on. It's not because you're a creationist that they aren't interested in your opinion. I happen to agree with the scientists, but do you want to know something? They don't care about that, either. Their debate is among themselves. None of us is invited to contribute opinions. Any objections people outside the community of experts might have would be of no interest or value to them.

Point of clarification: Anyone can pick up a professional science journal, read an article, and if they find an error or problem with it they can write that up and submit it to the journal. If it's valid it will be published in the journal, regardless of the person's education, title, or status.

Similarly, anyone can attend a professional scientific conference, go to a session, and ask questions of the presenters and/or panelists. When you ask your question, they are not going to ask who you are or what your qualifications are. If it's relevant and valid, they will address it.

Where I work, anyone could come in the door and get time with one of us biologists (before COVID anyways). In fact, we're encouraged to do that sort of thing as often as possible.

But to be clear, for all of that to happen a person does have to understand the material, do their homework, and raise valid scientific questions or concerns. IOW, you can't just say "you're just assuming everything" or something like ridiculous like that.

The reason folks like @Deeje don't do any of that is because this isn't about science for them. This is exclusively a religious/social/psychological issue for them, so they have zero incentive to do any of the above. That's why the nauseatingly repetitive attempts to educate them on the basic concepts of science invariably fail.

 

[Deeje]

And which 'assumptions' do you think they make that are wrong?

I have already mentioned them.....amoebas to dinosaurs.....there is no real evidence whatsoever to demonstrate that it happened as science suggests it must have. The ‘chain’ of evolution (like the whole theory) is assumed, but to us the appearance of new lifeforms has an equally reasonable explanation that we believe is more compatible with the real evidence. Creatures were added or subtracted over eons of time by the endeavours of a hyper-Intelligent Being who has abilities that science cannot comprehend. He is not a magician, but a purposeful “Creator” in command of all that exists. The Bible tells us that he is pure dynamic energy...the source of everything. Could we uneducated believers know something that educated science cannot entertain?

Nothing about the real world is proved beyond any doubt. Even that there is a real world cannot be proven absolutely.

You doubt that the world exists? We are all just collectively fooled into believing in our own reality, which extends into outer space and all scientists are studying things that don’t exist? You really want to go there?

But it is a reasonable assumption that everything alive 10 million years ago has an ancestor 50 million years ago.

We have reasonable assumptions too.....deliberate creation over a very long period of time....no phantom “common ancestors” needed.....just a powerful entity, unidentifiable by human scientists, but who has the ability to create and control matter and to implement immutable laws to ensure the endurance of his creation. Can science prove that such an entity does not exist?

 

[Deeje]

Both demonstrate and endorse evolution beyond any reasonable doubt.

And isn’t that what is demonstrated? “Belief” needs no “proof”....science demonstrates that as much as we do. Scientists have their own concocted interpretation of “evidence”...and we have our interpretation of that same evidence without the jargon and assumptions of science, but in realisation that all that exists demonstrates the hallmarks of design and deliberate planning.

Creation is not an accident. To assume that is it has to be to support an unproven idea, is sheer ‘bloody mindedness’ IMO.

“All life comes from pre-existing life”...science knows this but denies it to push their unprovable theory.
This is the difference between “believers”....both exercise the same level of belief, but channeled in different directions.

The Bible tells us that we are all being separated in this time of the end....and I believe that this is one of the dividers....but not the only one.

 

[YoursTrue]

The biochemical evidence for that is fairly strong.

It is not impossible that a number of competing proto-life forms could have been present at the start, but it looks as if everything that survives today came from the same starting point and the chain of relationships in the fossil records does not contradict that hypothesis. So most likely if there were several separate forms of life at the beginning only one became dominant early on and the others - if there were any - disappeared.

Well then, again -- it brings up the question as to where did it come from? Did it start in water? Soil? Rock? This is not abiogenesis, it is if everything (supposedly) comes from a common ancestor (maybe), Right now it doesn't make sense, even though there are common elements to -- almost -- everything. It still does not mean that it all just came about, I mean evolved to what is known as life forms. Or living matter. You say at the beginning, can you elucidate a bit as to what you say is the "beginning." Or -- is it yet conjecture.

 

[YoursTrue]

It is a too simplistic comparison, and there is more to the relationship than that. Again . . .

Evolution is not redefined, and no natural selection does not automatically equate common ancestry. More than 200 years of scientific research, Objective verifiable evidence, and discoveries involving Physics, Biology, Organic Chemistry, Geology, Paleontology, Genetics, Comparative Anatomy determined that the common ancestry of evolution of life on earth is the only explanation that fits the evidence.

I'm beginning to think that while there are evidences of structures (like cells) in many venues, there truly is no evidence of evolution by "natural" occurrences, as if it all just happened. And here's one reason why -- despite the claim that evolutionists keep saying that abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution, it absolutely does, and must. Because a dead sparrow can't fly.

 

[shunyadragon]

I'm beginning to think that while there are evidences of structures (like cells) in many venues, there truly is no evidence of evolution by "natural" occurrences, as if it all just happened. And here's one reason why -- despite the claim that evolutionists keep saying that abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution, it absolutely does, and must. Because a dead sparrow can't fly.

You analogy is unbelievably ridiculous. This reflects your self imposed ignorance of science, and changing the subject and dodging the reality of the evidence.

 

[YoursTrue]

Its a word which have a different meaning. Same as you can have a car theory test for new drivers, that doesn't hold the same meaning as the general use of the word theory either or how it is used in science.

Same word different meanings/understandings.


Because the tree is not suppose to be understood in such way.

Its not like at each branch point you have one couple and they have two babies, one is a chimpanzee and the other one a homo sapien (or modern human).

If you zoom in on the branch point between chimpanzees and humans. It would look like this:

View attachment 53303

So I found some of these and added them so you can see them. All these are artist recreations of how they believe that some of these have looked like based on examined them. And they all belong to the blue line of humans after the split in the branch in the picture you linked. So they are not in the chimpanzee line.

View attachment 53302
Since evolution is an on going process, which is constantly going on its not exactly easy to say that, this exact place is where the branching happened. A good example of this is like how it is with language. Lets take Danish and Norwegian, its very easy for us to understand each other, despite being from different countries, neither modern day Danish or Norwegian originally were like that, but have evolved from former versions, its not exactly easy to say that at exactly the 1st may in 900 AD the language changed to what it is today, its a long process that happened over time.

So you can look at the same with evolution, those above are not all the same, but all belong to the hominids, which all came from a common ancestor (or branch point between chimpanzees and humans in your picture.) Again there are millions of years of evolution going on here, from that point until today.


Again as above, its a long process. A scientist don't have millions of years to spend observing evolution happening. I don't know if the closest to this is with horses and mules.

Horses and donkeys mate to produce mules, which are sterile (most of the time - there are occasional exceptions), so they do not violate that particular species definition.

That is why they look at fossils and based on which features and which are missing they can see how they fit together. Im not an expert on this, but you can examine how they do this in greater details if you want, they are not just guessing left right and center. You can actually see some of this in the first image I linked if you read the text and look at the red break lines. Then you can see why they are thrown into humans rather than chimpanzee.


No, that is simply wrong. A hypothesis would be more like the general use of the word theory. You have an idea that something is a certain way, so you create an hypothesis that you want to test to see if it is true or not.


Yes but it would still be a theory (guess) in general terms. That is not the case when we are talking about a scientific theory. Because it is what explain the facts. Einstein theory of relativity is also a scientific theory, do you also think that he was completely wrong? and we should simply refer to that as scientists merely guessing?

For some reason people that doubt evolution, get extremely caught up in the word theory here, but not so much when its Einsteins theory, there is no difference in the meaning!!.


But it does, as explained above. We sometimes use the same word for different things and they have different meanings.

In Danish for instance you have the word "Have" which is not pronounce as in English, but rather you drag it out or split it in the middle when you say it, "Ha..ve", not sure how to explain it.

Anyway, it can mean both "Garden" and "Oceans" (When you are referring to more than one ocean), and besides that, it can also mean "used to have" as well.

Hvor mange have er der i verden? (How many oceans are there in the world?)

Jeg kan lide at være i min have. (I like being in my garden)

Han plejede at have tre venner (He used to have three friends)

Same word completely different meanings. There is no difference when it comes to the word theory.

As I used it, "to like something" but it can also be used to mean "to suffer from something".

Here's my question: looking at the ape-like images, they look similar but are physically recognizable to their "family" relatives, I mean gorillas may not look like chimps (maybe there are some that do, but I don't know), and humans Now. Not as in an artist's rendering, but now in photos and pictures. And yes, dogs don't look too much like humans or apes. So I wonder if you think that humans, said by scientists to have existed in a similar form as today for hundreds at least thousands of years -- why was their "development" so slow during that time? Which brings up another question -- and forgive me if I don't know or remember the answer -- how long ago did the current 'crop' of humans (homo sapiens?) begin? The reason I ask this point is because it is related to some other questions I have. Thanks for putting up with me.
P.S. Language development is not the same as biological development, let's say, from -- what is supposed to have evolved into apes, by the way? But let's leave that point aside. Because even accents change depending on who's who. If you know how long homo sapiens have been around, perhaps we can start there.

 

[YoursTrue]

You analogy is unbelievably ridiculous. This reflects your self imposed ignorance of science, and changing the subject and dodging the reality of the evidence.

No, it's not ridiculous. Because again -- a dead bird has elements and genes but -- is not 'alive' and cannot function. It stays dead, even though it came from a living egg of sorts. Could have built nests. But the bird is no more once it's dead. WHY, can you answer? What happened to its "life"? Gone? Back to evolution? Non-living matter? Something you don't want to answer by calling the question ridiculous. If I recall correctly, someone else alluded to here about you, you just want to deny. It's there in your posts. The matter goes back to 'the ground' in general. I hope you come to your senses and answer where and how 'evolution' (the theory but perhaps in your terms not a theory, and of course I dare not say 'fact') started. Did life come from non-liiving matter? I venture to guess that's what you must think. 'Life' (necessary for the theory of evolution or -- in your terms -- evolution) started somehow.. . Even the branches of the evolutionary history say they started somewhere. Where? and how? And with what? proof?

 

[Polymath257]

I have already mentioned them.....amoebas to dinosaurs.....there is no real evidence whatsoever to demonstrate that it happened as science suggests it must have.

The problem is that this is NOT an assumption. it is a *conclusion* based on the evidence.

And, of course, amoeba are NOT ancestors of dinosaurs (as others have pointed out).

The ‘chain’ of evolution (like the whole theory) is assumed, but to us the appearance of new lifeforms has an equally reasonable explanation that we believe is more compatible with the real evidence. Creatures were added or subtracted over eons of time by the endeavours of a hyper-Intelligent Being who has abilities that science cannot comprehend. He is not a magician, but a purposeful “Creator” in command of all that exists. The Bible tells us that he is pure dynamic energy...the source of everything. Could we uneducated believers know something that educated science cannot entertain?

Except that magic is exactly what is required to add 'creatures'. Unless, of course, they have ancestors prior to their appearance. And *that* leads inevitably to evolution.

You doubt that the world exists? We are all just collectively fooled into believing in our own reality, which extends into outer space and all scientists are studying things that don’t exist? You really want to go there?

No, I do not. But that is very similar to the contortions required to make the evidence fit creationism. You need magical creation of new 'kinds' at essentially random times and places when anatomically similar species exist previously.

We have reasonable assumptions too.....deliberate creation over a very long period of time....no phantom “common ancestors” needed.....just a powerful entity, unidentifiable by human scientists, but who has the ability to create and control matter and to implement immutable laws to ensure the endurance of his creation. Can science prove that such an entity does not exist?

It isn't required to prove such does not exist. The invocation of magical new creations is enough to dismiss this as nonsense. We know that living things reproduce and that there are mutations from generation to generation. If this is enough to explain the observed diversity (and it is), then that is enough to dismiss the alternative requiring special creation of each new 'kind'.

Furthermore, the very fact that this new entity has not been and *cannot* be identified by the evidence makes this hypothesis much weaker than the simple hypothesis that living things have previous living things as ancestors.