Why, without any attempt or intent on sounding as though I may be flaming you, are you willing to compromise what the Bible says but not willing to compromise on what evolution teaches? Just curious, that's all.
To answer some of your questions: first, scientists question evolution every single day. We don't compromise against it because there is no evidence against it, it is that simple. The requirement for one to believe in the Bible is faith, the requirement to accept evolution is to understand the evidence supporting it. Two different and unrelated things.
Most of your questions about evolution however, show very little understanding of the natural world and evolution itself. And I totally understand why you (and many others) question evolution. The reason for that is totally clear to me: since you don't understand evolution, it would require "faith" for you to accept it at face value. Now, what many here suggest is that you (and other creationists) try to understand evolution by reading about it, since we cannot explain it in a mere internet thread. But read about it in unbiased scientific sources, not creationist websites (or at the very least, both).
Let me try to address some of your other questions:
In answer to your question, would you expect to see a frog in the Cambrian explosion? Would you see one in the Devonian? No, and why not? One wouldn't see a frog in a total marine environment. A frog would be at the edge between marine and terrestrial. This is also the reason one wouldn't find a bunny rabbit there either, because bunnies don't live under water. One also won't find bunnies in certain parts of the world today although we know very well that they are breeding quite well in other parts of the world.
You make it sound like the Earth was completely covered by water during the Cambrian and Devonian. That is not the case, there was plenty of land during both periods. The reason why there were no frogs or bunnies back then is simply because they did not exist.
The reason why we find some animals in some places today and not in others is partly because of geographic isolation and partly because of habitat requirements. We don't find freshwater fish in the ocean, or humans in the North Pole.
A better question would be, "Why do we still find life forms of all shapes and sizes in today's world if they all started out as simple and worked their way up?" In other words, why do single celled organisms remain amongst multi-celled or why do invertebrates survive next to vertebrates? Why do endoskeleton creatures reign over the exoskeletons? Why do lower primates exist next to mankind? How did a sloth protect itself from becoming extinct? What brought about the caterpillar's change to a butterfly? Why are dragonflies the exact same as they were a supposed millions of years ago? Why haven't sharks changed at all? Why have some fish never changed? Why is the oak still as popular today as it was all those supposed millions of years ago? It seems as though evolution forgot to evolve some critters.
No, I am sorry friend. There are too many answers that evolution cannot answer satisfactorily for me. God bless you.
In Christ, GB
That is a classic misconception about evolution. 99% of the species that once lived on Earth are now extinct. Evolution does not equal progress towards some goal. Evolution equals variation, change and survival. If an organism survives as it is, it will keep existing. If evolution drives it to change, it will change.
Single-celled organisms are some of the most successful forms of life in this planet. They are found in many places where humans cannot survive. They are nourished by the most basic chemical reactions you can imagine. That does not, in any way shape or form, preclude some of them of evolving. Let me give you a practical example. Wolves today look exactly how they did 6,000 years ago, yet look what evolution (through artificial selection) did to dogs. Evolution didn't "forget" to evolve some species. Those "old" species that we see today are simply the most successful ones and survived through a lot of change.
Do endoskeleton creatures reign over the exoskeletons? Really? I would argue that for every human in the planet there are at least 1 billion bacteria, some of which are responsible for the deaths millions of humans (and don't even get me started with viruses). The combined weight of ants is more than that of humans. So, who reigns over who?
I agree with you that there are many unanswered questions in evolution, but none of the ones you pose are in that category. And more importantly, all of our current evidence indicates that the more questions we answer about evolution, the stronger it gets.
-- Orogeny gets my point; it looks like you don't.
