The man's quarrel with evolution boils down to the fact that it does not explain how/where/why life began or got here in the first place.
He also tries to drive the discussion in the direction of DNA minutiae. It is akin to arguing that flatulence does not happen because the proposed mechanisms are not clear.
Telling him that origin of species is published ten years before DNA is discovered, or that DNA is not the best evidence for evolution, usually falls on deaf ears.
What's the evidence for macroevolution? Personally, I have never found biology to be remotely interesting. I love cosmology, but evolution bleh! My interest has always been whether it is incompatible with my religious beliefs, and since it isn't (disregarding the chance factor), I go with the scientific consensus, which seems to be for it, not against it. But if you could give me a neat (simple) summary, that'd be great.
Veri, what has evolution got to do with psychology? I love psychology, I regret the day I did not sign up for it. It has helped me a great deal. Some of it is whacko but there's a good deal of it that is helpful. There's a geneticist on another forum I follow and he is all for evolution. I wish I understood it better than I do.
The evidence for evolution is not in a nice neat bundle. It is similar to the evidence you find at a disturbed scene of a murder. Robert Ouko, Geroge Saitoti, Mercy Keino etc. No smoking gun or DNA gathered at the scene. Yet, there is little doubt they were murdered.
What constitutes the evidence is inferred from the convergence of diverse disciplines. For me it boils down to adaptation, shared features, fossil record, geologic history etc.
Adaptation. Fish and seaweed live in water. Lions on land. Polar bears in the North Pole. Camels and cactus in the hot deserts. etc etc
So what?
If you ask any geologist, climatologist, etc. The earth has always been changing. Oxygen levels, temperatures, sea-levels, climate, land masses etc.
The
fossil record. Fossils that correspond to earlier geologic periods are different than those from different periods.
Different creatures were living in different geologic times and niches. They are present in some and absent in others.
Shared features. If you look at apes. It is obvious they look like us or other primates. Cows resemble other bovines. Pigs look like warthogs. Some of these species can even cross-breed.
Extinctions. The lineage that can thrive, continues. The poorly adapted, sickly etc perish - more like waning off. When you look at the fossil record for different geological periods, some of the dominant species today, do not appear before a certain time. There are no lion bones from the cretaceous.
The creatures existing today, have replaced or thrived from the absence of extinct hitherto(copyright, kunadawa) strong creatures.