This was too long, for a nested reply.
Since 'cumulative change!' is perhaps the biggest argument FOR common descent, i will repeat my rebuttal here.
Evolution has a central flaw. It is contrary to observed reality. The Theory of Evolution is basically a logical problem. It is a False Equivalence. It is argued that since living things change within their genetic parameters, that they also change outside of their genetic parameters. Since moths can be different colors, perhaps they can also become a different creature entirely. This concept is repeated over & over ad nauseum, until the concept seem not only plausible, but believed as proven fact.
The argument for common descent is based on alleged INCREMENTAL changes, that add up to big ones. But it ignores the HUGE problem of genetic parameters.. limits upon the changes that can be made.
For example, you can incrementally travel from New York to LA in daily, small steps. If you just took a few steps a day, it might take years for you to reach your destination. The ToE makes the false equivalence that since organisms can be observed taking 'small steps' in this way, they assume that the big changes are just added up small changes. But the genetic parameters are ignored. If you correlate many small steps in traveling between cities to interstellar travel, your arguments will fail, as the very restrictive limitation of gravity & distance is ignored. You cannot take many small steps to reach the moon.. Gravity will return you to the earth every time, UNLESS there is a mechanism to overcome gravity.
In the same way, DNA is like gravity. It will return you to the same organism EVERY TIME. It will allow horizontal variability, but it will NOT allow vertical changes in the basic genetic structure. That is observable, repeatable science.
The science of breeding or natural selection conflicts with the ToE. You do not observe increasing traits being available for organisms, but DECREASING. That is how you 'breed' a certain trait in an animal, or narrow the choices the offspring have. You do not add traits constantly, as is suggested by the ToE, but you reduce them, at times to the detriment of the organism, which can go extinct if it cannot adapt with the needed variability. A parent organism might have 50 possibilities of hair, skin, eye, or other cosmetic traits. By 'selecting' certain ones, either by breeding or by natural selection, you REDUCE the available options. THAT is observed reality, but the ToE claims just the opposite, that organisms are constantly making new genes to ADD variability. This is a flawed view with a basis in 19th century science, not what we know about in modern genetics. The high walls of genetics is the gravity that prevents vertical changes. It will allow the variability that remains within the dna, which contains millions of bits of information & possibilities. But there is NO EVIDENCE that any organism creates new genetic material or can turn scales in to feathers, or fins into feet. Those leaps are in light years, genetically speaking. It is impossible. It could not have happened, & we do not see it happening, now. All we observe is the simple, horizontal variability WITHIN the genetic parameters of the life form. Asserting that minor back & forth movement within the horizontal limits of variability does not prove the ability to incrementally build up to major verticle changes in the genetic structure.
