How much is too much evolution?

As I have said, slow changes would take a long time, but because of that when the changes take place they would remain in real life and be seen.

Once again, your assumption is incorrect and based on an outmoded (mis)understanding of evolution 

We know we are put together by instructions, a small change would be a single bit, any string of bits of code amounting to some healthy change would be major in my opinion considering the complexity of code in how it works. 

If I were to look at human code, changing a single bit could mean a decimal point is altered, great changes could occur in a bank concerning your bank account. This is why error checking to bring up an old subject is so important. If I understand you, the suggestion is several changes could occur in concert to improve life with, life-altering modifications for improvements. A natural mechanism for this would be what, what could know what information was needed to do it right?

Cosmic rays and computers : Nature News

That's where the computer analogy breaks down.  As I said, major changes usually don't require evolution of new genes but tinkering with what's already available.  It can be as simple as altering how a gene is expressed or regulated, or even just changing the timing, rate, or order in which the *same* genes are expressed can result in markedly different phenotypes.

You say things like, "tinkering with what's already available" as if it something unique when that is the whole issue. What is available if it gets broken, it's broken those changes are all critical it isn't like you can just screw with code and not be concerned with consequences, intended and the unintended.

The changes are not all critical and are under biological control, and as I said markedly different phenotypes can result without any genetic changes at all just by altering the level of expression of the same gene or the timing of expression or the order of expression.

Under biological control, there is a thought process behind these mechanisms making the changes that knows what is it doing?

Is there a thought process behind genetics, genetic recombination, crossing over, random assortment and segregation, jumping genes, lateral gene transfer, etc., etc., etc. that contribute to genetic variation and that we observe occurring in nature?  Do living things including cells have cognition or a sentience?  Is there a "Mind" behind it proximally or ultimately?

No. Rather there are processes that control the frequency of mutations. @tbwp10 once pointed out an example were an enzyme is released to speed up the rate of mutations when the organism is in environmental distress.

Alterations can be made on the fly with or without a plan or purpose, or they can be set up to fall out by design. They just happen to behave this way or that by what choice, necessity, random accidents, or design does one seem more reasonable than the others?

Brings us back to the question of whether life, once designed, requires constant intervention or operates according to inbuilt genetic mechanisms 

If life is designed, then designed life would have specific boundaries by design. I agree there is error checking; that is one I think we agree on. I think where we part company; I don't believe life from a common ancestor until the myriad of life we see today is also part of that built-in design, nor do I see the need for such mechanisms.

Ok

But if that is true, then you still have yet to precisely identify where those supposed 'specific boundaries' are, which is the problem addressed by this thread: How much is too much evolution?

Can these two skulls share a common ancestor or are the differences between them 'too great' to be the result of evolution?

Can these nine different skulls with different shapes and ranging from large to small *all* share a common ancestor or are the differences between all of them collectively 'too great' to be the result of evolution?

Where do you draw the line between 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable' evolution?  How much is too much of a difference?  How do you quantify this and objectively determine the boundaries?

This is what I believe you are asking me to accept. The first life had information in it to form itself, also embedded in it was everything required to produce every living thing that would ever exist! All the necessary alterations were there waiting to be released at the right time to do the right thing because, in life, that was needed so that it could be done? That would be a remarkable feat of coding that could cause life to evolve for centuries, creating birds, fish, plants, and everything else that has ever been. All of this was somehow also encoded in the first life form, setting up everything else to follow. Now, if that didn't happen, if the first life form couldn't set up everything to come by virtue of the code in it, where did all the new information for the required new code come from each time an alteration was to take place? You seem to suggest life could handle it; no big deal. Every change in an existing specified functionally complex piece of code must be done correctly, or dangerous things occur. I think you are too simplistic here. I accept small alterations, and even these can be dangerous. Major changes in form and function unacceptable, with maybe loss of information degrading a life, but never adding limbs that were not there before, wings, organs, systems, and so on.

Actually, I'm not asking you to accept anything.  I'm just wondering where and how you draw the line.  Seems subjective to me.  No objective, quantitative measure between 'major' and 'small'.  It's pretty much guess work, especially if you don't know the underlying genetics involved.

Error checking within an established system is checking those things that are normal for that system, by design. Going off-script, altering form and function is taking things to a whole new level on purpose or not. If the system isn't designed to accept new alterations like growing larger or smaller beaks, thicker or thinner fur, things tend to degrade slowly or rapidly depending on what is changed. 

But if the system is designed to accept alterations....

Any system designed to accept alterations will do so only under the rules of the system. I have acknowledged this from the beginning, and ID puts in play rules that can and do accept alteration within the bounds of each life. What common ancestor to the myriad of lives we see today would mean, as I have told you, that built within the very first common ancestor would be all of the necessary preplanned requirements to take life from A-Z, meaning the first ancestor to everything else. If you think the first cell alone was hard to build, what kind of code do you think that would take to preplan all other life would be like, and where was it kept?