Microorganisms can undergo macroevolution. Macroevolution is simply change at or above species level. There is no reason why microbes can't display change above species level and indeed they do exactly that. Macroevolution in microbes is still macroevolution.
I think "Macroevolution is simply change at or above species level." is misleading.
I think that makes it sound like a different process that only operates at the genus level or family level or order level, etc. The only process that is actually operating during macroevolution is microevolution AKA descent with modification and natural selection.
WE only know that macroevolution or speciation has occurred afterwards when we can see descendent species, and it is seldom, and maybe never, obvious which generation speciation occurred at because it is a whole population reproducing, not individuals. Does this make sense?
Every time I see "macroevolution is change or evolution above the species level it makes me cringe. The taxonomic levels above species are based on even more speciation events in the distant past that are also the nested hierarchies we see in our cladograms.
Stop Tzar Vladimir the Condemned!
What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that it has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --Percy
The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq
Why should anyone debate someone who doesn't know the subject? -- AZPaul3
The Bible is not subject to science, science is subject to the Bible.
No, not even close. Where did you get that nonsense from?
Science is subject to Reality, which is to say "to the physical universe." Science studies what is observable or otherwise detectable and measurable, and hence testable.
It can be argued that, according to belief in Divine Creation, then science is the study of that Creation. Indeed, many scientists have been motivated with a desire to learn about the Creation and even about the Creator (only to discover, as Haldane did, the Creator's inordinate fondness for beetles).
Evolution would be part of that Creation. Hence, there is no inherent conflict between science and/or evolution and Creation -- if you think that there is a conflict, then you must explain why you would think such a thing. Of course, since your false creationist theology conflicts with reality, it also conflicts with the Creation. And indeed, much of creationism tries to refute the Creation since they seem to believe that the Creation disproves the Creator. Why you would insist on believing that, we cannot understand.
So science is not subject to the Bible. The two have nothing to do with each other, except on those rare occasions that the Bible says something correct about reality (but so many of those get lost in believers' interpretations).
Nor is the Bible subject to science, except when believers make false claims about reality ostensibly based on the Bible. To quote from Philosopher of Science Larry Laudan whom Dr. Duane Gish of the ICR loved to quote-mine (quote is from a part that Gish chose to ignore):
“Science at the Bar—Causes for Concern”:
In the wake of the decision in the Arkansas Creationism trial (McLean v Arkansas), ...
At various key points in the Opinion, Creationism is charged with being untestable, dogmatic (and thus non-tentative), and unfalsifiable. All three charges are of dubious merit. For instance, to make the interlinked claims that Creationism is neither falsifiable nor testable is to assert that Creationism makes no empirical assertions whatever. That is surely false. Creationists make a wide range of testable assertions about empirical matters of fact.
Thus, as Judge Overton himself grants (apparently without seeing its implications), the creationists say that the earth is of very recent origin (say 6,000 to 20,000 years old); they argue that most of the geological features of the earth's surface are diluvial in character (i.e., products of the postulated Noachian deluge); they are committed to a large number of factual historical claims with which the Old Testament is replete; they assert the limited variability of species. They are committed to the view that, since animals and man were created at the same time, the human fossil record must be paleontologically co-extensive with the record of lower animals. It is fair to say that no one has shown how to reconcile such claims with the available evidence—evidence which speaks persuasively to a long earth history, among other things.
In brief, these claims are testable, they have been tested, and they have failed those tests.
And from a later article (More on Creationism by Larry Laudan, Science, Technology and Human Values 8, no. 42 (1983):36-38 (my emphasis added)):
quote:
...the soundness of creation-science can and must be separated from all questions about the dogmatism of creationists. Once we make that rudimentary separation, we discover both (a) that creation-science is testable and falsifiable, and (b) that creation-science has been tested and falsified -- insofar as any theory can be said to be falsified. But, as I pointed out in the earlier essay, that damning indictment cannot be drawn so long as we confuse Creationism and creationists to such an extent that we take the creationists' mental intransigence to entail the immunity of creationist theory from empirical confrontation.
Once this discussion settles down we can bring in the age of the earth.
Oh goody! Though as Percy points out, you should propose a new topic for that one.
Though, you're not very experienced at this, are you? I can tell because you actually volunteered to get into an age-of-the-earth discussion. An experienced creationist won't do that, at least outside the safety bubble of a predominantly creationist environment. Outside of such a safe environment, especially in the presence of knowledgeable opponents, the experienced creationist will do absolutely everything he can to avoid discussing age-of-the-earth claims.
The reason for that reluctance is that a creationist quickly learns through bitter experience that those claims are the worst and the weakest and the most easily refuted ones that he has in his arsenal.
But, hey, propose that new topic anyway! It'll be fun!
How does it show this? Why would common design produce that specific pattern of sequence conservation? .... Again, how does it show this? Why would common design produce that specific pattern of sequence conservation?
First, your question is again assuming evolution in your use of the statement "sequence conservation"
But to answer the rest of the question,... a designer using the same elements for construction, but arranging the expression, timing, and/or location of the same elements in different ways to produce different products is a common feature of design.
So though exons (generally the protein coding part) create the main elements that make up cells, those can be and generally are ubiquitous among differeing forms of life. It is like if someone were constructing multiple buildings, they would likely use similar elements (wood, concrete, metal, copper wiring, nails, glue, etc) among all the different constructed objects.
Yet, the expression, timing, location, amount, arrangement of those same elements would be varied across different forms of life (for biology) or construction (differing buildings). At least for biology, introns are a contributing part of the information that leads to differing outcomes. That would explain why in a design scenario, exons are more uniform across different species and introns are not as uniform.
Please tell us why the observed pattern of sequence conservation is not what evolution would produce?
I didn't say that. As you next quote me saying, I agree that evolution could/would produce such a pattern as seen in the graph. What I am merely pointing out that besides evolution, common design also can explain it.
How is it cherry picked? You can go to the UCSC genome browser yourself and look at many different genes. You will see the same pattern.
Yes, I went there. But your screenshot (perhaps innocently) conveniently shows the correlations you expressed. But on that site, taking your view as a starting point, you can scroll left and right on the genome and see other areas that DO NOT match up in the same way. So your snippet of that site supports your assertion, but the entire display of data (and it is A LOT) does not 'necessarily do so'.
That's like saying "evolution would explain it just fine" without even saying what "evolution" is.
In this and other threads (and in millions of other sources) exactly how evolution produces the observed results (like DNA relationships, fossil record and lab experiments).
So to offer "common design" as an alternative explanation we'd have to see the same level of details. How is the design done and implemented? How is the "design" reused to produced the observed results? Those and 10,000 other questions would need to be answered.
Yeah, you really are a typical creationist, full of stupidly false ideas. Plus, no matter how hard we try to explain simple reality to you (such as the difference in science between "fact", "theory", and "hypothesis", even "proof", you continue to refuse to learn anything. You go whining and bitching and moaning to Percy that we're calling you "ignorant". Well, everybody's ignorant about many things, so ignorance is no sin. We can always reduce our ignorance by learning.
However, there are those, such as yourself, who refuse to learn. They will even refuse to even begin to consider starting to learn, such as yourself and sadly far too many other creationists. We refer to that as WILLFUL IGNORANCE, which is indeed a grievous sin. An abomination even.
I'm certain that you are so self-unaware that you cannot even begin to imagine how difficult and frustrating it can be to try to have a discussion with someone who is not only willfully ignorant, but is also belligerent about it (eg, creationists who always have to turn a discussion into a conflict that they must win at all costs no matter what it takes). Fuck that shit, but with creationists it's always the only game in town.
In the American judicial system the threshold for proof is "beyond reasonable doubt".
Yeah, but so what? Court procedure has nothing whatsoever to do with science. What the hell are you talking about? (BTW, there's that question again that terrifies creationists)
There was an episode of NOVA circa 1991 which featured lawyer Phillip Johnson, one of founders of "intelligent design", and his book, Darwin on Trial . I'm sure you're familiar with both since you just used his argument (though I have learned the hard way that most creationists know even less about their own creationism than they do about reality, especially in that they will only learn a creationist claim but without knowing which creationist it came from (though admittedly claims flow so freely amongst creationists like urban legends, which makes it that much more difficult to track them down in order to identify Creationist Zero for any particular claim) ).
Watching that NOVA episode, the moment that Johnson tried to use courtroom rules of evidence as the model for doing science, I scream silently inside my head (and my inside-head ears are still ringing) "What an IDIOT!Science is not analogous to a courtroom procedure, but rather to a POLICE INVESTIGATION!" What is wrong with you people?
In a police investigation, you observe the scene for clues -- in German, Tatort literally means "place of the deed" from "Tat" and "Ort"; it's also the name of a long-running series of German police shows since 1970. From those clues you form hypotheses which you then test As you confirm or refine or rejects hypotheses, you build up a body of evidence which includes not only raw data but also how that ties in with the confirmed hypotheses. Or at least the most favorable hypotheses at this point of the investigation, since all investigations are tentative (oh, there's that word again!) until finalized (and even then, the point at which you finalize an investigation is almost always arbitrary).
It is only after the investigation has been finalized that it goes to the Grand Jury in order for them to decide whether an indictment is warranted. And it is only after indictment that a trial can be set in which the courtroom rules of evidence can even begin to apply.
Now imagine what would happen if the police were required to apply the courtroom rules of evidence to every single police investigation from the very beginning of that investigation. Utter chaos. No police investigation could ever possibly get started, let alone completed ("finalized", yes, because that is determined arbitrarily). You couldn't even begin to consider checking out a clue or any lead until you already have absolute proof beyond reasonable doubt that the clue will lead you to convictable evidence. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
It is only after all the leg-work and chasing down false leads, etc, that an investigation can lead to developing the evidence for a triable case. Yes, the goal of preserving the evidence for eventual trial is an important consideration for the investigators, but to requiring that same level of "beyond reasonable doubt" to be applied at every single level of the investigation from the very beginning can only doom each and every investigation to failure.
Why would you ever think that that would be a good idea? Or even a necessary one? What is wrong with you?
Scientific proof is something else entirely.
Science does not deal in proofs, so what the hell are you talking about?
All you accomplish with BS like that is to demonstrate your own ignorance, which in your case is that unforgiveable sin, willful ignorance.
How did land creatures turn into whales, how did apelike creatures evolve into humans, etc.
Already explained so many times over. Get off your lazy ass and look it up!
And be sure to avoid creationist sources. They will only lie to you.
BTW on YouTube, for whales Aron Ra has some good material. And for hominids, Erika "Gutsick Gibbon" is the queen of that topic. She'll even pull out skulls and pelvises to show you everything she's talking about, including pointing directly at the pertinent details.
All creationists can do is flap their gums and wave their hands and deflect all direct questions. Scientists will explain everything to you and show you the evidence, even comparing specimens in order to point out in intricate detail the differences. Creationists only want to confuse and deceive, whereas scientists want to teach.
Consider these questions: ... I realize you've probably heard these all before.
Yeah, we've heard them all before (though #4 is new to me, but given your [plural] proven history of stupid bullshit lies, I'm sure it's no different from the rest). We even have a term for that: PRATT ("Point Refuted AThousand Times). I've also seen it referred to as something like "slaying the already slain thousands of times over"
What was/were the initial lifeform(s), i.e., what organism(s) are at the root of the evolutionary tree?
Who knows? And who cares?
When I was a Cub Scout, we had a field trip to a house in Anaheim (I have tried in vain to find it again on Google Earth, but new owners must have remodeled or rebuilt) where they had built an astronomical observatory dome on top of their house, with a refractor telescope. Neat stuff, that, but not practical for serious work in the midst of so much light pollution (especially with Disneyland right across the freeway, as I recall its location). In the Q&A session, I asked the obvious question, the same one that you just asked: "Which planet was discovered first?" Well, that answer lies in prehistory, so nobody knows; the Seven Planets (including the Sun and Moon and excluding the earth in that geocentric cosmology) were all known and had been observed long before history came along.
What actually matters is that the overall pattern that we see, even in the taxonomy laid out by the CREATIONIST Carl Linnaeus (apologies: he was not a creationist in the modern anti-reality sense of the word), is that of common groupings leading all the way back to some common point of origin. Neither creationism nor "intelligent design" and its "common design" nonsense can explain such a pattern; only an evolutionary approach of common descent can do that.
Way back in Message 51, I referred you to the Wikipedia article, monophyly, AKA "nested clades." Did you ever read it? Of course not, since your god of lies requires that you must never ever learn anything, but rather must forever remain steadfastly and religiously willfully ignorant. Satan (AKA "Lord of Lies") must be very pleased with you.
Universal common ancestry is a logical consequence (AKA "conclusion") of evolutionary thought, not a necessary premise as you choose to misrepresent it. We see everything pointing in that direction, to a kind of singular point of origin, but we don't have the details for that. But still, not knowing the possible details (or even existence) of such an original "point of ultimate origin" does not negate the overall pattern that we very clearly see.
How did the eyeball evolve? How did all of the eyeball sub-components develop concurrently through random mutation to eventually create such a profoundly useful feature? Without these sub-components working in tandem the eyeball would be entirely useless and would be naturally de-selected.
This stupid bullshit again?
OK, I have to ask you to please present your own scenario for the evolution of the eyeball. Because that particular scenario is what you're rejecting, even though it has nothing whatsoever to do with how the eyeball actually evolved.
OK, since you will never answer my question, I will present the only creationist scenario that I have come across (all of the rest will just say "it's impossible to have evolved" without explaining why); paraphrasing from memory:
Creationist Nonsense about the Eye:The eyeball is made out of several different components; eg, retina, lens, pupil, optic nerve. If you were to take a razor blade to an eye and separate each of those components, the eye would no longer work. Obviously, each component is useless by itself, but they are all needed to be fully formed to come together for a functioning eyeball. The scenario is that each component had to have evolved separately in order to finally come together with the others at the very end to create a functioning eyeball. That means that in every single step of that separate evolution of a component it was completely useless and hence could not have been selected for. All of that makes the evolution of the eyeball impossible.
Seriously, they actually described slicing up an eye with a razor; I did not make that up! And that kind of creationist argument comes up again in the next item with its format of "many components needing to evolve separately only to come together miraculously to form a functioning system." It's not the components themselves that are evolving, but rather the system itself.
The bottom line is that the various components evolved together and in concert rather than separately (which makes no sense at all). Start with photosensitivity, which exists even before a nervous system. Add a nervous system and a connection to that photosensitive tissue. An indentation around that photosensitive tissue and directionality can be sensed. A lens, pupil, or cornea can be added along the way. And each and every stage not only exists in nature, but is also functional contrary to the creationists' ignorant and baseless claims.
Richard Dawkins explained it well in The Blind Watchmaker, but then he was mainly only repeating what Darwin had written on the question. Creationists love to quote-mine Darwin about the eye, but they always ignore the subsequent four pages (actual mileage will vary by edition) which describes the existence of each intermediate stage in nature where they do provide each species with functional sight (though of very different quality, but just being able to detect the presence of light provides an advantage over being unable).
YouTube has several videos of Dawkins lectures covering this question. I will not waste the bandwidth trying to explain it to you, since you will only reject everything anyway.
In the cardiovascular system which developed first - The organs that required oxygen, the blood that carried the oxygen, the lungs trat oxygenated the blood, or the heart that pumped the blood?
What the hell are you talking about? Like with the evolution of the eye, are you again trying to claim "each component had to have evolved separately"? Really?
Again, look at the different circulatory systems in existence and observe that they all work, even the ones that are open circulatory systems.
First, the most basic animals (eg, unicellular) use oxygen even without having anything remotely resembling organs. Since animals with organs evolved from such basic animals, the need for oxygen in animal tissue would have been established long, long ago. Why would you think that this would be any kind of a problem?
Blood is body fluid. In the earliest and most basic animals, basically it's sea water. As animals needed to encapsulate those fluids, they specialized. Why would you think that this would be any kind of a problem?
Lungs not needed at first; they only came along much later. Even fish gills (not lungs, in case you didn't know that yet) came later.
Clearly and as demonstrated with extant species, at first the animal would have drawn oxygen et alia directly from the water that it's in contact with. Even frogs will draw oxygen from the water through their skin despite also having lungs.
In addition, we have many examples of oxygen diffusing into body fluids through spiracles (or stomata such as leaves use through which to "breathe"); holes on the outside which can connect to tubes extending into the body. Ever notice how hard it is to drown an ant? This is why. And once the oxygen comes in through the tube, it diffuses thoughout the body fluids. Of course, the larger the critter gets, the less effectively it can get oxygen, so that places a size limit (eg, giant ants as in Them! would have died from suffocation).
Then larger critters such as spiders (book lungs) developed more efficient means to take in oxygen, but those are later developments.
Next we would see some way to improve the diffusion of oxygen through the body. Body movement would have come first, followed by some kind of "pump".
At first, these would have been open circulatory systems in which the body fluids just get circulating. There are many examples of such systems, especially in arthropods.
Extend the output of that pump and you would have the start of an aorta, which would improve the efficiency of getting fluid out into the body cavity. Extend the input of that pump and you would have the start of a vena cava that would improve getting remote fluid into the pump/heart. The reason why these extensions would be improvements would be that they would eliminate body fluid eddies that would lead to regions of stagnation; IOW, they would improve the circulation of all the body fluids.
From there, the arterial and venal tubes would branch and distribute themselves, followed by developing some kind of capillary networks. Again, this would have developed long, long ago.
So basically, every possible intermediate stage is represented in many species of Animalia. Again, the question is what kind of problem is any of this supposed to pose for evolution?
Any number of unique features, like the chameleon's tongue, whose development through gradual mutation defies comprehension?
I don't know what your claim about the chameleon's tongue is supposed to be, but I have no doubt that that claim is just as stupid as the rest and also fails to present any kind of actual problem.
Though I do have one question: what is Latin for the informal fallacy, argument from stupidity? Just because you are unable to understand something does not disprove it; it just means that you do not understand. In your case, that would be willful stupidity being used to maintain the willful ignorance that you have made your faith completely dependent on.
I think it needs to be made clear that this is not a different process from microevolution and that there is not a clear line of one day a brand new species.
That's fair. I was more focused on the other related points, but yes, I agree that microevolution and macroevolution are the same process, just viewed at different scales.
Mutate and Survive
On two occasions I have been asked, – "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
I think "Macroevolution is simply change at or above species level." is misleading.
Personally I don't think that the term is very helpful one, but as far as it means anything, that is pretty much what it means. Nonetheless, I agree that macroevolution is simply a lot of microevolution adding up. It's the same process. I do get that. I also think you're right in suspecting that K.Rose... let's be diplomatic... isn't going to see it way. It's a familiar bone of contention.
I think that makes it sound like a different process that only operates at the genus level or family level or order level, etc. The only process that is actually operating during macroevolution is microevolution AKA descent with modification and natural selection. We only know that macroevolution or speciation has occurred afterwards when we can see descendent species, and it is seldom, and maybe never, obvious which generation speciation occurred at because it is a whole population reproducing, not individuals. Does this make sense?
Perfect sense. I agree with all of that.
I wish we needn't use the term at all, given that it is so easily misunderstood, but creationists will bring it up. Sadly, their usual definition of macroevolution is "change beyond the level that I am prepared to admit".
For now I am more focused on the points I raised:
The "micro" in "microorganism" and the "macro" in "macroevolution" do not negate or oppose each other in any way. Microbes can undergo macroevolution.
Dogs dogs begetting non-dogs isn't a prediction of the Theory of Evolution and would be strong evidence against it.
I would be really interested to know what K.Rose has to say about that.
Mutate and Survive
On two occasions I have been asked, – "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
First, your question is again assuming evolution in your use of the statement "sequence conservation"
No, it's not. It is an observation. There are more sequence differences in introns than there is in exons when we align the same gene from diverse species.
First, your question is again assuming evolution in your use of the statement "sequence conservation" But to answer the rest of the question,... a designer using the same elements for construction, but arranging the expression, timing, and/or location of the same elements in different ways to produce different products is a common feature of design. So though exons (generally the protein coding part) create the main elements that make up cells, those can be and generally are ubiquitous among differeing forms of life. It is like if someone were constructing multiple buildings, they would likely use similar elements (wood, concrete, metal, copper wiring, nails, glue, etc) among all the different constructed objects. Yet, the expression, timing, location, amount, arrangement of those same elements would be varied across different forms of life (for biology) or construction (differing buildings). At least for biology, introns are a contributing part of the information that leads to differing outcomes. That would explain why in a design scenario, exons are more uniform across different species and introns are not as uniform.
That doesn't explain why there are more differences in introns than there is in exons and why those differences increase with evolutionary distance.
It's also worth mentioning that the vast majority of life on Earth do not have introns in their genes.
I didn't say that. As you next quote me saying, I agree that evolution could/would produce such a pattern as seen in the graph. What I am merely pointing out that besides evolution, common design also can explain it.
Common design doesn't explain it, as shown above. Even more, we don't replace known and observed natural mechanisms with supernatural ones.
quote:
For, be it observed, the exception in limine to the evidence which we are about to consider, does not question that natural selection may not be able to do all that Mr. Darwin ascribes to it: it merely objects to his interpretation of the facts, because it maintains that these facts might equally well be ascribed to intelligent design. And so undoubtedly they might, if we were all childish enough to rush into a supernatural explanation whenever a natural explanation is found sufficient to account for the facts. Once admit the glaringly illogical principle that we may assume the operation of higher causes where the operation of lower ones is sufficient to explain the observed phenomena, and all our science and all our philosophy are scattered to the winds. For the law of logic which Sir William Hamilton called the law of parsimony—or the law which forbids us to assume the operation of higher causes when lower ones are found sufficient to explain the observed effects—this law constitutes the only logical barrier between science and superstition. For it is manifest that it is always possible to give a hypothetical explanation of any phenomenon whatever, by referring it immediately to the intelligence of some supernatural agent; so that the only difference between the logic of science and the logic of superstition consists in science recognising a validity in the law of parsimony which superstition disregards. --George Romanes, "Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution", 1882
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution, by George J. Romanes, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.
Yes, I went there. But your screenshot (perhaps innocently) conveniently shows the correlations you expressed. But on that site, taking your view as a starting point, you can scroll left and right on the genome and see other areas that DO NOT match up in the same way.
Are you looking at genes? If so, what are the names of the genes?
I looked at prestin (SLC26A5), mmp3, AR (androgen receptor), and FOXM1 and I am seeing the same thing.
Remember, I am talking about the patterns in genes, not intergenic regions.
Added in edit:
BMX is the gene to the left of ACE2, and it shows the same pattern. CLTRN is to the right, and once again the majority of intron sequence is not conserved while exon sequence is. There are functional elements in the introns of CLTRN, but again these are missing in the vast majority of intron sequence. You would still need to explain why there are fewer differences in some areas and more differences in others.
Here is a laymans presentation of some findings:
Nowhere in that video does it speak about large tracts of selectable sequence specific function in introns.
It's also interesting that you cite research on yeast. The vast majority of yeast introns have been removed by evolution. Of those that remain, they are very short, in the order of 100 to 400 bases. Compare this to the thousands of bases in human introns. If common design is a thing, then why aren't the introns the same in human and yeast genes?
quote:
The number, length and abundance of introns vary greatly between organisms. Intron sequences constitute 24% of mammalian genomes (Venter et al., 2001) and more than 95% of the human genes sequence (Lander et al., 2001). In contrast, the genome of baker's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae contains only 296 introns present in 283 genes accounting for 5% of the yeast genes (Chervitz et al., 1999; Hodges et al., 1999; Lopez and Seraphin, 1999; Spingola et al., 1999; Davis et al., 2000; Clark et al., 2002; Kellis et al., 2003; Juneau et al., 2007). Deletion of Many Yeast Introns Reveals a Minority of Genes that Require Splicing for Function - PMC
In a police investigation, you observe the scene for clues -- in German, Tatort literally means "place of the deed" from "Tat" and "Ort"; it's also the name of a long-running series of German police shows since 1970. From those clues you form hypotheses which you then test As you confirm or refine or rejects hypotheses, you build up a body of evidence which includes not only raw data but also how that ties in with the confirmed hypotheses. Or at least the most favorable hypotheses at this point of the investigation, since all investigations are tentative (oh, there's that word again!) until finalized (and even then, the point at which you finalize an investigation is almost always arbitrary).
It is quite obvious that no creationist would accept evidence from a crime scene according the logic they have been using in this thread.
If a forensic scientist came upon a very recognizable swirl of oil at a crime scene they will conclude that it was left by a fingertip. Creationists? Nope! There could be some unknown supernatural process in action that could have produced the oily swirl, and it is only because of the religion of secular scientism that anyone believes those swirls were caused by a fingerprint. Besides, those swirls can also be interpretted as God causing oily swirls at the crime scene.
The "micro" in "microorganism" and the "macro" in "macroevolution" do not negate or oppose each other in any way. Microbes can undergo macroevolution.
Yeah, when I saw K.Rose try to remove microorganisms from the discussion I suspected that she was confusing microorganisms and microevolution, but she's so confused about so many aspects of evolution and science that it's difficult to address them all. Maybe she thought we meant microorganisms or microbiology referred to organisms that experiences microevolution??
K.Rose seems pretty unpracticed at challenging biological evolution and this may be the beginning of her career as a creationist debater, or she's just really shitty at it.
I'm always baffled that creationists don't ever seem to find the whole concept of evolution fascinating. Boy, when I was a kid and first read about evolution and Charles Darwin I was hooked. I tore through everything about it in our county library within a month and then had to bug my mom into getting books on inter-library loans. This was about the same time I got interested in dragonflies so there was always a tension between those interests.
Why don't creationists ever get hooked by evolution?
Stop Tzar Vladimir the Condemned!
What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that it has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --Percy
The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq
Why should anyone debate someone who doesn't know the subject? -- AZPaul3
Personally I don't think that the term is very helpful one, but as far as it means anything, that is pretty much what it means. Nonetheless, I agree that macroevolution is simply a lot of microevolution adding up. It's the same process. I do get that. I also think you're right in suspecting that K.Rose... let's be diplomatic... isn't going to see it way. It's a familiar bone of contention.
Micro and Macroeconomics might be a decent analogy. At the microeconomic scale we have individual people making decisions with how they spend and earn money. At the macroeconomic scale we have entire groups of people interacting in an economy which produces different outcomes compared to microeconomics.
In the same sense, there are larger scale evolutionary mechanisms. For example, there is species and clade selection which occurs at levels above a single population. The interactions of ecology and geology also happen at a macroevolutionary scale. So there are meaningful concepts involved in macroevolution that aren't seen microevolution. However, the creationist concept of micro and macroevolution really aren't a part of the actual science.
In the same sense, there are larger scale evolutionary mechanisms. For example, there is species and clade selection which occurs at levels above a single population. The interactions of ecology and geology also happen at a macroevolutionary scale. So there are meaningful concepts involved in macroevolution that aren't seen microevolution.
Do you have some references that discuss clade selection?
Decades ago I read some of the authors that Stephen Gould wrote about that hinted at higher level selection, but I was really disappointed that I couldn't grasp what mechanisms they were proposing. Whatever is happening is not as obvious as mutations and natural selection.
I'm often struck by just how amazing it was that Darwin put together such a coherent theory of natural selection without understanding genetics. He understood many aspects of inheritance but seemed frustrated that he couldn't discover the underlying mechanism of genetics.
Is it possible that today, we are missing a major component of the processes of evolution similar to Darwin's missing genes? Or is it more like the minor effects of epigenetics?
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Do you have some references that discuss clade selection? Decades ago I read some of the authors that Stephen Gould wrote about that hinted at higher level selection, but I was really disappointed that I couldn't grasp what mechanisms they were proposing. Whatever is happening is not as obvious as mutations and natural selection.
Clade selection isn't in my wheelhouse, so I don't have any suggestions other than a Google Scholar search. From what little I know, clade selection is a bit hazy and lies more on the philosophical side than the objective scientific side. I would call it more of a high level concept than an actual working scientific theory.
I'm often struck by just how amazing it was that Darwin put together such a coherent theory of natural selection without understanding genetics. He understood many aspects of inheritance but seemed frustrated that he couldn't discover the underlying mechanism of genetics. Is it possible that today, we are missing a major component of the processes of evolution similar to Darwin's missing genes? Or is it more like the minor effects of epigenetics?
It is impressive that Darwin figured out so many of the concepts that remain true to this day. The fact that so little of the theory had to be changed once genetics was understood is a testament to Darwin's insightfulness.
The unification of embryonic development and genetics is also an important one, and it has some impact on the theory. We now know that development limits what adaptations are possible, as one example. Epigenetics doesn't have that much of an impact because in the vast majority of cases it is an expression of the underlying DNA sequence meaning the sequence of bases in the genome determines epigenetic outcomes. It is essentially a different form of gene regulation. In some very limited cases there is transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, but these are limited in both effect and scope. It's more of a side show than the main act.
As of now, there doesn't seem to be any need for any big adjustments. Much like the standard model in physics, its just a lot of refining. Probably the biggest mountain to climb right now is understanding the direct connection between genotype and phenotype. Exactly how are differences in DNA sequence tied to specific differences in phenotype.
Yeah, when I saw K.Rose try to remove microorganisms from the discussion I suspected that she was confusing microorganisms and microevolution, but she's so confused about so many aspects of evolution and science that it's difficult to address them all. Maybe she thought we meant microorganisms or microbiology referred to organisms that experiences microevolution??
Yeah, I wonder if it's a linguistic mix-up or if it's part of the broader creationist trend of denying macroevolution in any organism with a fast enough life cycle to for evolutionary change to be obvious in a practical experiment.
I'm always baffled that creationists don't ever seem to find the whole concept of evolution fascinating. Boy, when I was a kid and first read about evolution and Charles Darwin I was hooked. I tore through everything about it in our county library within a month and then had to bug my mom into getting books on inter-library loans. This was about the same time I got interested in dragonflies so there was always a tension between those interests.
What's always struck me is how little interest creationists typically show in the natural world. They don't seem that interested in wildlife, don't seem to know much about it. Your passion for dragonflies is not something we see replicated in the creationists who've posted here at least. It's weird. These are, after all, the same people who supposedly believe that the supreme being of the universe made all these things for their specific benefit and then explicitly placed them in charge of it all... and it's like they don't want to know. I can never get over how odd that is.
Why don't creationists ever get hooked by evolution?
Hopefully because the ones who do cease to be creationists.
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