Can Chromosome Counts Change?

What test would you use to distinguish between two organisms that are decended from the same kind and two that are decended from different kinds? So you'd accept processes that increase chromosome counts as evidence against your position?

Did you miss the first question of my post? This is a question you have to answer if you want us to take the idea of "kinds" seriously.

So, it's a species. Then why didn't you just call it "species"?Ok, you probably didn't mean "species". But I'm sure you don't mean "populations that can interbreed" because those arise all the time. We observe populations that once could interbreed - were once even the same population - stop being able to interbreed as a result of accumulating change through mutation. It's called "speciation". How can you talk about "created kinds" if new "kinds" - under your proposed definition - arise all the time through observed processes? How are we supposed to do research on something that there's no evidence to suggest exists, and is contrary to observation.

What about processes that add totally new base sequences? Do those add new "information" (whatever that is)? Mmm-hmm. So, if I have two species which historically had the ability to interbreed, but through mutation they totally lose that ability, can I assume that a new kind has been created? That happens, you know.What about ring species? That's where you have a linear series of species where each species can interbreed with its neighboors but the first species in the series can't interbreed with the last. An ascending inter-infertility is consistent with increasing genetic distance due to gradual evolution but how does that jive with your created kinds?

Fabulous.Now, pretend you have four species. A and B have never been able to interbreed. C and D were able to interbreed until about 200 years ago. What test can you perform to distinguish between these four species? Basically, given two species that can't interbreed, how do you know whether or not they used to be able to interbreed, or never have been able to interbreed?If there's no such test, how can you be sure that all life isn't simply decended from one original "created kind"? "Splice" or "insertion" mutations actually add new nucleotides to the DNA, as far as I'm aware. If new nucleotides aren't new information, what would be? If entirely new genetic sequences in the organism - such as what happens if a chromosome is duplicated, then mutated - don't represent "new information", then you'll have to explain what you think information is, and what it means to quantify it. As far as I'm concerned, DNA doesn't code for information - it codes for protiens, and there's no requirement for new information to generate novel protiens. Novel protiens are all you need for evolution, not new information.

We've pointed out that speciation occurs as an accumulation of mutations. What you're asking is akin to asking "I would like you to give me an actual example of a footstep that resulted in traveling to a different city." It's not possible simply because you can't concieve of it? What arrogance! There is more in this universe than you can concieve of, Guy. Like what, exactly? Remember that taxonomic categories are essentially arbitrary groupings of evolutionary "distance", much as "mile", "kilometer", and "city block" are all arbirtary groupings of real distance.What you're saying is that you can walk a city block, but you can't walk a mile. I say that the same process that can carry you to the next block can carry you to the next mile. I keep asking for the barrier that will stop you from walking a mile, and you keep trying to show me, but then we look and it isn't there - every time you postulate where the "kinds" barrier is, I show you evolutionary developments that are crossing it.You can hardly claim that people can't walk a mile if I can show you people who are doing it. Please, continue to read my sentence. I said "chromosome duplication then mutation." Don't just stop at "duplication." If I have the sentence:I have a cat.And I duplicate it:I have a cat. I have a cat.Then I might very well not have new information. But then, if I mutate the new string:I have a cat. I have a hat.Now how is that not new information?And you haven't really answered my question: how do you tell the difference between decendants of one original kind that have lost the ability to interbreed and decendants of two different original kinds that never could interbreed? If you can't tell the difference than you must accept at least the possibility that all life is decended from one original kind - aka a common ancestor.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 12-24-2003]

Right, but there's no difference between micro and macroevolution, so that doesn't really explain anything.How would you tell the difference between two protiens in the same family and two protiens from different families?

Back to the question you couldn't answer - how would you tell the difference between two proteins from the same family and two from a different family?How come you're still talking about "created kinds" when you couldn't even tell me what they are?

That's not really an answer. What would you look for in your analysis? What features identify protiens that share or do not share descent? How would you tell the difference between protiens sufficiently removed from the same family and protiens from two different families, if they're equally different in both cases? But those are arbitrary, human-imposed classifications, not organizational levels found in nature. So they can't be "kinds". For the "kinds" argument to have merit it has to be based on something actually found in nature.

But of course the evolutionary view is that all protiens are ultimately from the same ancestor. The argument is because the classification systems are arbitrary. If they were an actual phenomenon of nature, there'd be no argument whatsoever.So what's a kind, again? How do I tell if two organisms are in the same "kind" or not?

Arbitrary? Maybe you need to look that word up, maybe? The proposed evolutionary lines may be theoretical in some cases, but they're hardly arbitrary. They're based on evidence, on natural features and genetic similarities.I mean, is there anything arbitrary about you being descended from your parents? Hardly.If you think this is a substantial rebuttal to what I'm saying, then you clearly don't understand what I'm telling you. Yet, you're unfazed by the large-scale continuity found in the fossil record that proves exactly that?Again we reach the inescapable conclusion - if there is such a thing as a "kind", there's only one of them: life.Honestly your answer isn't very helpful at all. Let's try a more practical excercise. Take any two animals that you think belong to different kinds and explain to me, without recourse to arbitrary taxonomy, how you know that they're of two different kinds - that is to say, they share no common ancestor.