Macro and Micro Evolution

I think, Sidelined, you are right. There really is not big deal distinguishing micro and macro evolution. As Dr. Taz told us, the terms aren't even used all that much be the biologists.As best as I can tell your describtion is right. But then we should wait for confirmation from someone who is closer to the road.

Ya know, Sonic, I think this whole 'new organs' thing is leading you off in the wrong direction. I know you are trying to use it to figure out what the distinction between micro and macro is but I'm not sure it's helpful.As best as I can tell the whole big-deal about any distinction here is a made up problem by the creationist organizations. They did this because they were forced to accept some level of evolution. However, once they did that they had to put a stop to how far it was taken. To do this they tried to split evolution into two things: a "little" one that they had to accept and a "big" one that they didn't want to accept.But there isn't any split. The ToE simply says changes happen, some are kept around some aren't. If you keep on changing things AND you "rachet" them by not allowing them to wander totally randomly (that is you select some and discard others) then you end up with change piling up on change. On some of the paths of change you get very little overall change (say sharks over the last 50 million years) and on other paths (because the selection conditions are different) you get a large total amount of change (say primates over the last 50 million years).When the changes do add up to a lot we have "big" evolution. Sometimes the adding up takes a long time, but there are some changes that are genetically possible that are pretty big and happen pretty fast and the adding up doesn't take so long.At a high level that is all there is too it. But, oh boy!, are there a lot of details at a lower level!!!If you want new terms then you would be best to start to learn the terms that the researchers in the field use. They have been struggling with how to describe all this for decades and have lots and lots of jargon. We sure don't need to start inventing any more! Please don't!! You have a good idea in what you call "silent genetics". However, this too has been covered by the research. A lot of genetic changes don't, immediately, have any appearance in the 'phenotype' (phenotype -- the physical appearance of the body), but just stay in the genotype (genotype -- the detials of the genes of the individual organism). If they don't have any immediate affect on the phenotype they are not subject to natural selection. If this is the case they are "silent". They may or may not gradually spread in the population or be removed.However, a new 'silent gene pattern' may be subject to more mutations in it or be affected by other changes in the genome. "Suddenly" the mutation that occured a long time ago may have an affect on the phenotype. It may be a small affect or it may be moderately large.Large effects are hard to manage. They are likely to result in a huge mess and kill the individual. The small ones may have a chance of being beneficial. (However, there are large changes posssible but they are probably not as common).Aside from the silent changes, there may be innumerable small ones, some of which improve the organisms with them. This is the slow, small, "micro" steps we all accept. But there are ways for these to add up to large results over time. That is the point of transitionals.We can see some transitions in the fossil record. We can see others in the record in our DNA. We can infer others as we learn more about the way in which gene expression is controled (e.g., the HOX gene). We don't know all the ways that transitions can happen. We will possibly never know all of them.I think you last paragraph is trying to express some of what I have described above. We are still struggling to find words which we can all understand. We seem to be making some progress.

I still don't think we have this macro/micro thing sorted out. If macro is a "big" change of any type then, of course, it will take a long time and be hard to observe by watching a organism like ourselves.But we have access to organisms that are are subject to more rapid changes and have much, much shorter generational times. We can observe larger changes there.And I wouldn't be so quick to think that we aren't subject to selective pressures. We may not be subject to some of those that we were in the wild but we are subject to new ones.For example, we now live crowded up with a very much larger number of our own species. This allows the transmission of diseases that could not take hold when we were spread more thinly. We will evolve subject to those pressures to the degree that medicine can not keep up with them.I wouldn't expect to ever see all selective pressures removed. Sexual selection will remain for one thing. And it we mustn't ignore why they call them "Darwin Awards"

You need to support your 1% in the thread you started for that Sonic.And you don't get away with "I think" without giving reasons for that. Otherwise you are simply making an unsupported assertion and the debate will go nowhere at all and you will make no impact and you will learn nothing at all.

Well, I'm sorry to see you giving up Sonic.Maybe you are ignoring some of what is posted when you don't like it. If you want to stick to your site (Brown's) after being warned about him then you aren't going to learn squat. If you think there is value there then open a thread to specifically discuss his site. It is crap, he does not know what he is talking about, he is not intending to actually teach anything true. It is propaganda.Don't believe that? Then open a thread and watch it get shreded to little tiny quivering bits.

Sonic, you are lying to youself. You don't even know what the fossil record contains and you reject it before you do.The idea of fossils recording at the level of detail you think is necessary is silly. The fossil record records a lot of the larger changes ('macro'?). The changes you want are documented in other ways. The totality of information is what makes up the very strong support for the final conclusion.To bad you can't take a little hard debate. To bad you are resistant to learning.

I'd conclude that we haven't concluded anything. We still don't have a definition of micro and macro from the creationist side that can be used in anyway. The only reference we were given was Brown's site which didn't define a thing in any useful way.If there is a conclusion at this point it is that there is no general creationist definition of micro and macro evolution.

Ok, Sonic. Let's back up a little. (all times below are very approximate, the exact times don't matter)At 1 billion years (1 Gyr) and older there was no mulitcellular life that we have found fossils for.
At 500 Myrs ago we have a range of different creatures that have fossilized, but we have no true fishes, no amphibians, no reptiles, no birda and no mammals.At about 350 Myrs we have fish, no amhpibians, no etc.At somewhere around 300 Mys ago we have amphibians, no reptiles etc.At somewhere around 250 Myrs ago we have reptiles, no dinosaurs.At about 200 Myrs ago we have mammal-like things.At 150 Myrs ago we have dinosaurs, no whales, no apes etc.and so on.Now, how did we get from one form of life to the others.You might note that the creationists who originally grappled with these facts, in trying to save their idea of created life, came up with multiple creations and destructions as an hypothosis. However, that failed to explain what had gone on. It only takes a few transitionals to destroy that hypothosis and it fell before the facts.Now, what is your explanation?

Who knows, Schaf. No one here or Brown himself knows that he means by complexity anyway.