Thanks, Maj.

I appreciate your taking the time to read the post and look forward to reading your reply to it.

Cogito, I want to start by saying that I'm really not interested in trading insults back and forth.  I find it annoying and wasteful.  I'm also not interested in getting into a circular I say yes it is, you say no it isn't argument, then we accuse each other of doing what we're doing.  wasteful...very briefly amusing, perhaps, but mostly wasteful...

That said, I am interested in giving an answer to your question - but not arguing about the answer.  Ask as many follow-up questions as you want.  If I can answer, I will.  Formulating intelligent responses will take time, though, as I have three children under 4 and a husband who need my attention.  (They're awesome... most of the time, that is...)  

{I added this paragraph after I finished writing and editing my response.}  In the following, I believe I am answering your questions.  Please do tell me if it doesn't seem so to you.  I did not specifically use the word alleles anywhere, though it is understood in my mind to be included in what I was writing.  Based on a previous thread, I am assuming that we are not talking about natural selection as the driving force of evolution, but as a complement to mutation which is considered the driving force of evolution.  

Some of the problem is that we are using the same terms, but really meaning different things.  Perhaps it would be better to abandon the terms macroE and microE altogether.  Part of what draws me to being a creationist is that I believe that genetic codes have tremendous flexibility built in to them, but that there is a limit to that flexibility.  In another thread I tried to explain this using cats as an example.  I think it pretty likely (though I've no direct proof) that all cats from lions to cheetahs to housecats to leopards etc have descended from one (pair), or at most a few, of original cat kind(s).  

Kind is not equivalent to species.  It may overlap in some cases.  It may not overlap anywhere.  I don't know the entire taxonomical chart, so I can't begin to tell you which places it would.  Further, I think that finding it out would require an immense amount of experimentation.  Even that would only give us a rough idea, not being able to actually go back and see the original creation, and not having every single creature represented in the fossil record.  (If I were speaking evolutionarily, that statement would have read "Even that would only give us a rough idea, not being able to actually go back and see all the transitional forms..." - In evolution, what exactly constitutes a species depends on who you ask.  There are reasonable reasons for the confusion.  I see from your post that you consider there to basically be no separate species when it gets right down to it.  I gather it is simply a way of organizing organisms for you, having little actual meaning or significance.)  

Back to the cats.  The original cat kind(s) was(were) created with great potential for diversity.  However, what I'm saying is that the genetic information required for that tremendous variation was already present in the DNA of these original cats.  It didn't require errors to creep in.  It was already there.  Much the same way that couples in India can have children ranging from white to black all of the same mother and father - what awesome variety!  My husband and I lack the genetic information to accomplish this feat (very sadly to my mind - I would love to have my family look like a bouquet, a testament to God's aesthetic creativity).  What has happened in the interim between creation and now is that the information programmed into the original DNA has manifested in many different ways.  So we have large cats, small cats, fast cats, cats of many colors, but all cats.  (like we have large people, small people, fast people, people of all colors, but all people)  I do not think it is very important whether or not these cats can or do interbreed.  It's irrelevant.  It isn't relevant to me that some cat breeds have died out and that we no longer have the same level of diversity present in the DNA of the existing cats.  What is relevant is that although an error in the DNA that manifests itself can cause bristle-haired cats to be born on farms, the error does not even begin to alter the cat into some other animal.  (Actually, I'm not certain that it is an error in the DNA, it could just be a programmed variation that is just being reorganized through breeding to be able to manifest - it is a North American [inbred] farm cat phenomenon and it's relatively rare.)

" why is it so difficult to believe that if a particular species' members become geographically separated (thus creating two separate gene pools), that over hundreds of millions of years of time those two gene pools will grow to be vastly dissimilar giving rise to species members that not only look nothing alike in appearance nor exhibit similar behaviors but which also cannot interbreed?"

In the end, only Stathei actually puts forth the idea that natural selection is sufficient to explain the types of changes you are talking about.  Since I am not aware of any leading evolutionist apologists espousing that view, I'll ignore it.  Everyone else acknowledges that something else must happen to break through the natural barriers built into DNA.  By acknowledging the need for something outside of the intact genetic information (supposedly mutations), it is tacitly understood that the initial genetic information will not allow for drastic changes from one kind of animal into another no matter how many billions of years might be allowed.  Great variety?  Of course.  "Lucy" to Maj?  No, not by natural selection (or genetic drift, gene flow, or phenotypic plasticity).  The question becomes:  Is mutation really sufficient to break these natural barriers?  I don't believe it is.  Why?  

Mutations have been shown to change the color of kernels of corn, to cause genetic disease, to change the texture of seeds, to change the height of plants... what mutations have never shown is a change from one kind to another.  This is an extrapolation which I believe to be unwarranted by the observable experimental evidence or by observed nature.  

Why do evolutionists say I can't have the evidence I demand?...because it takes too much time to accumulate the mutations to make those changes...it can't occur in my lifetime.  This is an argument that I should be content to accept the premise of mutation-driven godless evolution without evidence.  Why?  Why should I accept it?  On what evidence?  On what basis?  Because only naturalistic principles can govern our conclusions?  That's a silly argument.  It says "You can't believe God created or drives evolution because there is no god."  Really?  Says who?  And why?  The general answer is "God is not necessary to explain why we're here - it is a fact that we evolved by naturalistic processes."  This is circular reasoning.  When you strip down all the bells and whistles, that is what it boils down to.  I assure you, though it may seem insulting, I am not writing this with any intent to attack or insult.

Fossil evidence is historical in nature, not experimental.  We try to form intelligent opinions about the past by studying them.  The evolutionist automatically accepts the idea that one kind, over time, gives rise to another or many others.  He has to.  He has no other option.  If I accepted long ages, but rejected the Bible, I would have several options.  Maybe god/gods created animals at different times in earth's history.  Maybe god zapped the animals with massive mutational changes under his direction and they did evolve.  Whatever...   I can tell you that I doubt very seriously, given my inquisitive and skeptical nature, that I would believe evolution possible without a god of some sort directing it.  The person approaching the fossil record from a long ages, atheistic outlook has no other option but to believe evolution has taken place no matter that there is no actual evidence of it.  Evolutionists cite homology.  What is homology but similarity of structure and/or of genetic code?  If we had a designer/creator, why on earth couldn't that designer/creator make things homologous (but not necessarily actually descended from a common ancestor)?  

Do you see where I'm going with this?  Atheistic evolutionist apologists (and this describes the majority I believe) have no choice but to accept the beliefs they espouse, even without direct evidence.  I understand why they are dogmatic.  It doesn't offend or threaten me on a purely personal level.  I've studied it enough to understand.  It does offend and threaten me on the level of my fellow man, who is being led to believe that there is actually an alternative to believing in a god.  Most of my fellow men do not bother to study things in depth (whether evolution, or politics, or parenting, or you name it), but just blunder around in life accepting what others tell them to be true - the higher the credential, the more true it must be.  This is true both in god-fearing and atheistic communities.

Please note that I have not in any way addressed my beliefs regarding a young earth in this post.  That was intentional.  I don't want to interfere with the other thread and it really isn't necessary to explain why I don't believe in naturalistic evolution.