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Sometimes people use "evolution" to mean both the process and the common ancestry that is the result of the process. That's how they're using it.
If humans didn't come from apes, why have we found so many intermediate fossils?
Random variation and selection can produce changes in the phenotyope. It can lead to speciation .That has been demonstrated by countless observations and experiments. There is no doubt that it works. Whether evolution started from the creatures of special creation or from a single self-replicating life form is the question we are discussing.
I don't need one. You need to show that special creation is the only alternative to common ancestry. You need to tell us when it happened and how many different creatures were produced by it. You need to give us information as to how the special creation came about.
Like most words, evolution can have different meanings. You can "pick up any definition he want" but you have to be sure that the person you are talking to agrees about the particular definition in use. Often there is a conventional usage for particular situations. For example, in common speech "out on the street" evolution can have a variety of meanings. On the other hand on this board by convention it generally means biological evolution by random variation and natural selection. The meaning used on this board may or may not include common ancestry, depending on how it is being talkied about at the time. That is why when I replied to you earlier I was careful to say "evolutionary mechanism" when I just meant variation and selection without the inference of common ancestry.
So you didn't read my post #491. Never mind. Your grasp of the English language is not good enough to lay the kind of linguistic traps you are attempting to construct. To most people, speciation is part of evolution. Why do you think Darwin called his book The Origin of Species if speciation was not part of the process he was describing?
Why is it an issue? Common descent is a reasonable inference from (the evolutionary mechanism of speciation). Special creation is not. There is no evidence of special creation, no reason to believe in it. If it turns out to be true then eventually there will be evidence found for it, I suppose, but in the meantime common descent remains the best working hypothesis. So what?
