Can animals make things outside there kind?

Hello, Indiana, and welcome to EvC.I'm not a biologist, just a layman who is more or less (probably less!) informed about the Theory of Evolution. I am very interested in this subject for various reasons. If we cannot find satisfactory answers to any questions, we can probably get some feedback from some of our members who really are biologists. At any rate, I hope to find this an educating experience.My first response here may seem a little brief or terse, but that is because I am not entirely sure of the point you are trying to make. I think I might, but I worry about possibly misreading your intent.First of all, no one claims that any organisms will breed anything other than other organisms of the same species. The old idea of Goldschmidt, of the "hopeful mosnter" is not taken seriously. No one is claiming that some dinosaur laid an egg and hatched archaeopterix. No one thinks that some fish laid an egg and produced a salamander.Rather, each generation will be more or like the previous generation, with no obvious differences. A few individuals will be ever so slightly different than those of the previous generation, but not very much -- the differences will hardly be noticeable. If the differences (slightly longer fins, say) offer a slight advantage, then the next generation will have a few more individuals with these slight differences. Eventually, after many generations, most of the population will be individuals with these particular slight differences.And this process repeats. Slight new differences arise. Ones that are harmful will cause the individual to die before reproducing. Ones that are beneficial will allow the individual to leave more offspring, so more will have this feature in the next generation. But each generation will look more or less the same as the previous one, each individual will look more or less like its parents.In fact, one may not be able to see any major differences when one looks at the population over several hundred years. It is only over thousands, or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of years that these ever so slight differences add up to produce what we would view as a definately distinct, new species.Most creationists seem to accept "microevolution". Evolutionists only claim that it is this process of "microevolution" that, over long periods of time, leads to "macroevolutionary" change.I'll wait and see whether I have touched on the issues you are bringing up before I say anything more.

Hi, Indiana.First, allow me to say a bit about quote boxes. Use the "peek" button (next to "reply") so see what I have typed to get the various quote boxes. "peek" is a very useful feature -- whenever you see someone using some sort of effect that you like and want to know how to use, use "peek" to see the raw code that they have used. Note that this will appear in a new window which may be hidden under the window in which the message you are reading appears.

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You say no one claims that animals can make something outside there kind. Well, by looking at the evolutionary tree you would think so.

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Perhaps you are viewing "kind" as some kind of definite box; each individual organism is placed into one and only one kind, with the boxes not overlapping at all. "Kinds", if they have any meaning at all, do not work like this.Imagine you start with species A at one particular time. The members of the next generation are only slightly different, probably too slight to notice. The next generation are only a little bit different from the second, although a bit more different from the first. After a long time and many, many generations, these differences add up to a new generation, B, which is now very different from A. Perhaps not so different that they are a different species, and definitely of the same "kind". But the generations continue, and after a very long time B evolves into C; again each generation is only very slightly different from the previous one, but these differences add up over time so that C is distinct from B and certainly very different from A; but although it may be obvious that although C and A are different, we still consider them the same "kind" (like some creationists view lions and tigers, say). Time marches on, and eventually C evolves into D. Again, although D is different from C, it is only a little different so it counts as the same "kind". But now the differences have added up so much that D is very different from A, and now we consider D and A to be different "kinds".So, we see that A, B, and C are of the same "kind". D, C, and perhaps B are the same "kind". But A and D are different "kinds". This is because "kinds" are not distinct boxes in which we put things, but overlapping categories.Let me present a nice graphic from one of my favorite web pages. Click on the graphic to get a better view. (Thanks to ImageShack for Free Image Hosting.) The picture includes a group of skulls that belong to several hominid species that are on the lineage leading to humans. A is a modern chimpanzee for comparison, while N is a modern human skull. Note that B, a skull belonging to Australopithecus africanus (Lucy) is quite similar to that of a modern chimp -- I doubt that many people would consider A. africanus to be of the same "kind" as modern humans. So B and N belong to different kinds. Yet, I have no problem placing B and C in the same kind, C and D in the same kind, E and F in the same kind, and so on down the line.Of course, one is always free to define "kind" as one wishes. One can define the word "kind" to mean nice, separate boxes in which we place things. In the example above, one can define "A-kind" and "D-kind" and everything is placed either in A-kind or D-kind. If you do this, then you can say that something that was in A-kind, somewhere between B and C, gave birth to something that was in D-kind. But although this something was in A-kind, and we could tell that it is in A-kind, it would nonetheless be in between A and D in appearance. Although its offspring would be in D-kind, it, too, would be between A and D in appearance. What is more, there would be no noticeable difference between the parent and its offspring. For someone living at that time, it would appear pretty arbitrary to put this particular individual and its offspring in different "kinds". In fact, there would be a long period of time where it would be very difficult to decide in which category to place it.Look at the graphic again. Assuming that B and N are in different kinds, where would you put the dividing line between ape-kind and human-kind? You can look at the caption of the graphic to find out to which species each skull is assigned. Then you can look at the creationist literature. You will see that even they find it difficult to classify these skulls as distinctly "human-" or "ape-kind". Just what we would expect if evolution actually happened.The problem is that whether you are talking about "species", "genus", "family", or "kind", nature doesn't actually place things in nice, neat categories. Categories are human inventions; although categories are obviously useful they also have their limitations.I hope this has been reasonably clear, although I fear that may not be.-

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We call it variations but evolutionist like to call it microevolution.

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Actually, evolutionists don't tend to like the word "microevolution". It is a word that is mainly used by creationists to distinguish small-scale evolution that has been observed and cannot be denied from the large-scale changes that have happened over geologic time. To an evolutionist, there is no difference between "micro-" and "macroevolution", and so the seperate words are only rarely useful.

Hello, Indiana.

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This is my first debate, so I might not win but I'll try.

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I think it might be more productive if we don't consider this as a "debate" with winners and losers. Despite the forum being called "The Great Debate", AdminJar set this thread up for an educational purpose. I don't intend to try to convince anyone of anything; my sole goal is to explain the basic principles of the Theory of Evolution. All I am going to do is explain what scientists actually are saying about evolution and to try to clear up any misconceptions you might have about the subject. If I succeed in this and you understand evolution better than you do now, then you will be the "winner".-The rest of your post seems to me to be getting a bit off the original topic. That isn't to say that the issues that you bring up cannot be discusses, but I think it will end up less confusing if we deal with issues one at a time; let us resolve the issue that you originally brought up first. Of course, if you see some of these issues in other threads, you are free to join the discussion there. But let us focus this thread on the point that you brought up in your original post.The title you gave this thread is: In the OP you state: In a subsequent post your wrote: This is the issue that I was trying to address. All the other stuff I put in the post was intended to make my point clearer; I'm sorry if I confused things instead.According to the Theory of Evolution, an ancestral species can evolve into a descendent species and, in fact, all known species have evolved from a small number of ancestral species. These species can be quite different from one another, like a modern human being and the ancient lobe-finned fish ancestor. In fact, someone categorizing these species would be likely to consider them to be different "kinds". However, in all of the generations that connect the two, each organism was only very little different from its parent. No one who would have seen the parent produce the offspring would claim that an animal gave birth to a different "kind". However, the off-spring would still be different from the parent, just not very different. It is over millions and tens of millions of years that these differences add up to a large difference between the ancestral species and the descendent species.So, to your query, if you are asking whether it is possible for any organism to give birth to a completely different "kind" all at once, the answer is "no", biologists do not make this claim. It is only after thousands of generations over millions of years that these minute differences finally add up to a significantly different species.This is what I was trying to explain in my previous posts. Perhaps the confusion lies in that I am not understanding your original point? If that is true, then perhaps if you would try again to explain what you it is you were trying to say, then I might be offer a better response.

Hi, Indiana.

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I was thinking we would
have to debate since it was called the great debate.

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Yes, I believe that this forum was once used for people engaged in formal debates with agreed upon rules for the debate. I suspect that the admins would welcome formal debates where the rules are agree upon by the participants. You could suggest a formal debate with someone, if you wish; I would recommend, though, that you participate in the various threads first -- get to know the members here first before you decide who you would like to debate. Also, by participating in the various threads here you might find out what subject you would like to debate. "Evolution" is a bit too broad for a single debate -- one would have to narrow the scope quite a bit to get an interesting debate topic!I also read the beginning of my last message, and it seems to me that one could read a note of condenscension into it. I hope you didn't, but if you did, I apologize - it was not my intention to come across as condenscending.-

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Lets say we have a dog and it makes a dog. Whats going to get that dog to something else? Time?

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Well, every process takes time, so time is a necessary ingredient of anything, not just evolution. Some processes take very little time, and some take a lot of time.What evolution requires are imperfect replicators and an selection process that eliminates some of the replicators in a non-random fashion. The imperfection in the replication allows new variations to arise; then the selection process will cull the replicators in a manner that imparts a direction to the evolution process.Note the vagueness in using the terms "replicator" and "selection process". The principle of evolution has been used by engineers and computer programmers to "design" new (and often unexpected) solutions to various problems. Here the replicators are solutions (perhaps initially crummy solutions) to the problem at hand; these solutions are then copied with various small differences. Then a procedure determines which of the solutions are "better" solutions, and the poorer solutions are eliminated. Then the better solutions are copied with small variations.In the case of biological species, the replication process is involved with the copying of DNA. But there are various different "errors" (called mutations) when DNA is copied -- there are pretty efficient "proof-reading" mechanisms, but they are not perfect. There are all sorts of errors that can arise. Since the physical characteristics of a given organism (including the neurological structures that produce behavior) are determined by the DNA, the resulting offspring will be ever so slightly different from the parent.The selection process is the environment and the fact that the organism must obtain resources from the environment, all the while avoiding being killed. Some variations will result in the organism in being slightly more able to survive and reproduce than other variations.So what happened is that a miacid produced an baby miacid that was slightly different from the parent. That organism produce an offspring that was ever so slightly different again, and so forth and so on, until, after many generations (and so after a very long time) we now have dogs that do not seem very miacid-like at all.It is possible that in several tens or hundreds of thousands of years, the will be some not very dog-like creatures around that will none-the-less be the descendents of some group of today's dogs.