"My point is that observed speciation is only known to occur that produces minor changes in individuals, and a change from a species to a subspecies does not constitute a change in body plan, or kind, which is what Darwin proposed and which his followers have been trying to prove for the last 150 years:"

Great. Now what's the barrier preventing this speciation from being built upon?

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You ask a good question about what constitutes a species, Brian. As you probably know, the answer varies according to the purpose of the proposal or question being asked:

"In their 2004 book "Speciation," evolutionary biologists Jerry A. Coyne and H. Allen Orr point out that there are more than twenty-five definitions of 'species.' How can we choose among them?"

-Wells, Darwinism and Intelligent Design, page 52

Some definitions are highly esoteric, but for my purposes, I am speaking of the general term, which is individuals that resemble each other and are able to breed among themselves.

My point is that observed speciation is only known to occur that produces minor changes in individuals, and a change from a species to a subspecies does not constitute a change in body plan, or kind, which is what Darwin proposed and which his followers have been trying to prove for the last 150 years:

"In 1997, evolutionary biologist Keith Stewart Thomson wrote: 'A matter of unfinished business for biologists is the identification of evolution's smoking gun,' and 'the smoking gun of evolution is speciation, not local adaptation and differentiation of populations.'"

-ibid, page 50

The question being asked by some on this board is "Where is the evidence of limits on body plans/genetics?"

But the correct question is: "Where is the evidence that body plans/genetics have ever been exceeded?"

Stone bones that have some similarities do NOT constitute transitional forms, as Gould admitted:

"The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils."

And: "I only wish to point out that it [gradualism] was never 'seen' in the rocks."

-Gould, The Panda's Thumb, page 181.

By Gould's own admission, gradualism has never been proven by the fossil record. Thus, branching speciation leading to an actual change in body plan remains an unproven concept. An accepted concept by faith-filled evolutionists, granted, but an unproven concept nonetheless.

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Your argument seems pretty good, John, but you are ignoring the fact that it is PEOPLE who decide whether a breed is a new species or not. This is a tricky business, far less cut and dry than you would have us believe.

You say that wolves and pugs are the same species. How about wolves and coyotes? Wolves and jackels? What about a purple finch and a house finch?

How exactly do people decide if two animals that are physically similar are in fact different species? I'm particularly interested in your answer to this last question.

*For those of you who don't want to look it up, wolves and coyotes are different species. Wolves and jackels are different species. And purple finches and house finches are different species.

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