Certainty there is variation in kinds but they are all of the same kind - mammals. That is because we define what is a kind not the natural world. Vertebrates are also a "Kind" and include the kind Koala of Australia.
There are a wide variety of mammals in the world, from Ardvarks to Zebras......to relate them all to a common ancestor is beyond the capability of science to even imagine, let alone trying to establish through "evidence", that any of it actually happened with any certainty.
The only thing science is
certain of is that evolution
must be true no matter how many holes they have to fill with supposition and conjecture. I have never seen the power of suggestion more beautifully executed....no wonder the advertising world relies on it......and the intelligent minds that have been convinced of this nonsense with so little in the way of real concrete evidence is staggering....but I guess not unexpected when egos are in the forefront of it all. The hallowed halls of Academia would ring with laughter and derision at any who dared to question "the science".....but the trouble is, there is no real science......its like the Emperors new clothes. You are all walking around naked.....
Here you are partly right but you have those "gaps" of knowledge. Sorry could not help using that term. Adaptation is a mechanism of change. For new species or "kinds" you need other events - new habitats to exploit, changing environment, expansion geographically of a species with separation at a point. These all happen on the earth thus adaptations facilitates new genetic lineages and ultimately create sufficient changes that we as humans then label them as a new kind. So there are some of the "gaps" you were missing.
Adaptation takes place as a survival mechanism that is inbuilt in all living things.....a new environment or a new food source is a trigger for this to take place....but it never alters the organism to the point of taking it out of its taxonomy.
Darwin's finches were still finches, not some new species of bird. The iguanas were still recognizable as iguanas though they were adapted to marine life....they did not turn into a new species of lizard. The tortoises were still tortoises but different to their mainland cousins. There is no evidence for adaptation ever being responsible for amoebas to dinosaurs.....that is science's fairy story.
The rate of change is determined by the reproductive rate and the complexity of the environment. Do not worry it has nothing to due with assumptions. Assumptions are the providence of Creationists and ID people who only have assumptions to go on an no evidence. With your astute observations you surely are not one of those.
LOL....if there were no assumptions...there would be no "evolution" of the "macro" kind even possible. Why? Because they are devoid of all proof that what they "believed" to have taken place in the dim dark past, ever did.
They assume that it "must have".....because they have no other explanation......certainly not the existence of an all powerful Intelligent Designer.
But all mention of that possibility and some of them can't help themselves.....
hurling insults is all they know how to do.
Of course I thank Mother Nature. There is no one else better to thank. She generates the true gratitude for all the true gifts we have in this world.
As I said....you are giving credit to the wrong parent....but wouldn't Mother Nature have to have the same attributes as the real Creator. Do you think that this earth with all its wondrous lifeforms, was created for him/her...or us?
Can this possibly be an accident of nature, with no intelligent direction.....?
It is time to leave the dark side
@Deeje and join the side of light with the rest of us evolutionists.
I left the dark side over 50 years ago......no way I will ever wander back there again.....
When you are blind, you cannot see the light unless God opens your eyes.....that is my hope for you.....