Speciation events

The claim has been made that we don't observe transitional fossils and therefore evolution is simply conjecture. In the other thread I posted a link that cites a series of transitions for snails.However, one other way we know that new species appear is that we observe them:
Please see:
http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=619396302
http://x62.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=632350236As well as two FAQs on talkorigins.org in the Evolution section. We observe new species evolving with some frequency and therefore it is not a real objection to say that evolution has never been observed.Some go further, and claim that even if speciation occurs, it can't continue because of limits to genetic change. To make such a claim you need to demonstrate such a barrier.Larry Handlin

FE: I contested the changing definitions and doubtful conclusions on another postThere aren't changing definitions. There are several definitions depending upon the situation. For example, if one is studying live animal populations the BSC is generally the definition you will use. This has changed over time as we have refined what we mean. I would consider this a strength and not a weakness. Additionally the current definition clearly delineates what the standard is (even if experiments are somewhat impractable.You would not use the BSC in certain specific cases though, such as self-pollinating plants. The definition just becomes meaningless.Alternatives include morphological/phenological based differences.
Each possible definition though has been observed.FE: <

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Allison: Why? What would prevent it from happening to any creature?

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FE: We don't see evidence of this process of speciation except in the frankenstein experiments that even your talk origins moderator was hard pressed to find examples of.

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There are quite a few examples actually. And natural ones as well.

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FE: No arguement there is variation within species, but NATURALLY occuring speciation is quite an elusive find. A sense a long stretch to hammer home a point.

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Here, I'm especially curious to why you say that with the evidence of ring species.

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From post 26 of Thibault's:
http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=619396302

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If branching of existing species into new species occurred gradually in the past, we should see all possible degrees of speciation or genetic isolation today, ranging from fully interbreeding populations, to partially interbreeding populations, to populations that interbreed with reduced infertility or with complete infertility, to completely
genetically isolated populations.

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In the same post he gives specific examples of ring species. In contrast to your claim that only unnatural instances are observed, he points out a couple examples of species that are geographically separated. As you follow the geographic feature they are around you notice that while nearby populations can interbreed the populations at the end of the "ring" can't. This is both natural and a perfect example of how speciation can occur in stages. Given this it appears that we do see variation leading to a different species all together.

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Larry Handli

lbhandli:
However, one other way we know that new species appear is that we observe them:John Paul:
I don't know of any learned Creationist since the time of Linnaeus that didn't agree speciation occurs. The problem is when taking the observed instances of speciation and falsely extrapolating that data to mean all of life's diversity started at some unknown population of single-celled organisms that just happened to have the ability to self-replicate. The observed data of evolution fits the Creation model of biological evolution like a tailor-made glove. We observe organisms adapting to their environment in order to survive and no matter what humans do to interfere with nature, organisms always resemble their ancestors, which is not what we see if the current ToE is applied.
The Lord our God did not Create every species, didn't have to with the knowledge that the Creation would go out and fill the available environmental niches because each one had the genetic information to do so and do so fairly rapidly. Natural selection would then keep the organisms that adapted correctly.------------------
John Paul

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John Paul writes:
I don't know of any learned Creationist since the time of Linnaeus that didn't agree speciation occurs.

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Much more recently than Linnaeus both ICR and CRS have interpreted kind as synonymous with [b][i]species[/b][/i]. Duane Gish of ICR for years gave presentations denying that speciation was possible. All the speciation FAQs at Talk.Origins are there specifically to rebut the long-held Creationist position that speciation cannot occur. It has recently become more fashionable to interpret kind as a higher level of classification, but that doesn't change history.

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The observed data of evolution fits the Creation model of biological evolution like a tailor-made glove.

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As you've mentioned, there is more than one Creation model, and I'm not yet familiar with the specifics of what you're advocating. But if you're retaining the Genesis account of creation by God of kinds of plants and animals then your model doesn't fit the data since the data clearly goes back to a time when there were very few kinds at all, and certainly none that we know today like fish, birds and livestock.On the other hand, if you're saying that the geologic column is a record of the order in which God created suddenly various kinds of life then you've wandered so far from the Genesis account as to raise the obvious question, why do you think you're following Genesis at all?--Percy

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[This message has been edited by Percipient, 11-24-2001]

John Paul,No, speciation doesn't demonstrate that the diversity of life came from common ancestors. However, the genetic data does. A great article on this is done by Doolittle in the February 2000 Scientific American. In the article he describes the current understanding of the tree of life.Another great source of information on common descent is a series of evidence on the talkorigins.org cite that lists 20 lines of evidence.
http://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/My particular favorite area is Part 4 that deals with the molecular evidence. http://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section4.htmlHow else, other than through common descent, can you explain this evidence?Larry Handli

Percy, my apologies for the absence. Some things just can't be helped.Percy:Much more recently than Linnaeus both ICR and CRS have interpreted kind as synonymous with species. Duane Gish of ICR for years gave presentations denying that speciation was possible. All the speciation FAQs at Talk.Origins are there specifically to rebut the long-held Creationist position that speciation cannot occur. It has recently become more fashionable to interpret kind as a higher level of classification, but that doesn't change history.John Paul:
I can't control what other Creationists believed, proposed or thought about speciation at one time. Whatever that was it appears to have changed. The problem could have been with the definition of species. I am not even sure what state it is in now (the definition of species). And once a solid definition of species "evolves", how could we test it on all the extinct fauna?But anyways, here is what AiG says about speciaition:
Speciation Conference Brings
Good News for CreationistsAs for the "history" of what Creationists claimed, what about the "evolution" of the theory of evolution? Where does it stand now? Is the Modern Synthesis still reign supreme? Or has it been replaced? I can never get a straight answer.Percy:
As you've mentioned, there is more than one Creation model, and I'm not yet familiar with the specifics of what you're advocating. But if you're retaining the Genesis account of creation by God of kinds of plants and animals then your model doesn't fit the data since the data clearly goes back to a time when there were very few kinds at all, and certainly none that we know today like fish, birds and livestock.John Paul:
I advocate that all life is descended from the originally Created Kinds. Actually they could have been just dropped off by "aliens" for all I care, but I infer from the evidence that descendants tend to resemble their ancestors, more closely than humans resemble bacteria (if indeed bacteria was the "first family" of life on Earth).
Also by "back to a time", do you mean the lower down in the strata we look? You do know that not every organism that has lived and died gets fossilized. Entire populations have not been represented in the fossil record according to Phil (an evolutionist on the OCW DB). That coupled with the fact we have barely 'scratched the surface' looking for fossils, gives us a very incomplete and fragmented record to be basing any inferences on. Now that we have directly witnessed catastrophes depositing many layers of sediments in a short time frame also puts a damper on the old line "the further down in the strata you go, the older the objects are that are found there," because in fact it doesn't matter in what layer they are found, the objects could have been deposited at the same time.

[I've edited this post to add a missing quotation mark. The previously missing definition of macroevolution is now visible. --Percy]Larry, my apologies to you too for my absence.Larry:
No, speciation doesn't demonstrate that the diversity of life came from common ancestors. However, the genetic data does.John Paul:
You mean the way evolutionists interpret the genetic data. Or do we have the genetic data that shows procaryotic organisms can evolve into eucaryotic organisms or vice versa?Larry:
Another great source of information on common descent is a series of evidence on the talkorigins.org cite that lists 20 lines of evidence.
http://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/John Paul:
I've read that before. It is not a good sign when we (Creationists & evolutionists) can't even agree on a definition of a word. The word in this case is macroevolution. By the definition used on your link, Creationists are evolutionists! Creationists generally use these definitions (for what it's worth):

evolution, biological n.
1) microevolution-the empirically observed phenomenon in which exisiting potential variations within a gene pool (or population of organisms) are manifested or suppressed among members of that gene pool over a series of generations. Essentially a synonym for genetic variation. Often erroneously extrapolated (through semantic redefinition) to ?prove? the possibility of ?macro evolution?; 2) macroevolution-the theoretical concept that biological evolution takes place on a large enough scale to cause organisms to mutate over time into completely different organisms via the addition of entirely new organs and structural features, via the creation of entirely new genetic information.As for pseudogenes & retroviruses being evidence for the theory of evolution, look again:Pseudogenes:a description of the problemLarry:
How else, other than through common descent, can you explain this evidence?John Paul:
Common Creator, common mechanisms.

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[This message has been edited by Percipient (edited 08-21-2001).]

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[This message has been edited by Percipient, 11-24-2001]

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Originally posted by John Paul:
John Paul:
I can't control what other Creationists believed, proposed or thought about speciation at one time. Whatever that was it appears to have changed. The problem could have been with the definition of species. I am not even sure what state it is in now (the definition of species). And once a solid definition of species "evolves", how could we test it on all the extinct fauna?

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The question then is where is the barrier? If not at speciation exactly where are the limits for population change and the evidence for it. Molecular evidence shows very clear commonalities between closely related populations that reduce steadily as evolution would predict, as the move farther away genetically. Why would this be?

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As for the "history" of what Creationists claimed, what about the "evolution" of the theory of evolution? Where does it stand now? Is the Modern Synthesis still reign supreme? Or has it been replaced? I can never get a straight answer.

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What literature were you reading in attempting to answer the question? Specifically?

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Some would argue that it has been replaced--such as Gould, others such as Ayala and Fitch would argue the essential nature of the Modern Synthesis is still in place--the joining of population genetics and natural selection. Taking the second view what literature argues that this synthesis has broken down?

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John Paul:
I advocate that all life is descended from the originally Created Kinds.

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Then you need to define kind in terms of the standard taxonomic classification system so we can evaluate such a claim.

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Actually they could have been just dropped off by "aliens" for all I care, but I infer from the evidence that descendants tend to resemble their ancestors, more closely than humans resemble bacteria (if indeed bacteria was the "first family" of life on Earth).

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Then how are we able to construct a tree of life such as Doolittle does off of genetics? What would account for such a pattern other than common descent?
From the Feb, 2000 issue of Sci Am by Doolittle:

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Also by "back to a time", do you mean the lower down in the strata we look? You do know that not every organism that has lived and died gets fossilized. Entire populations have not been represented in the fossil record according to Phil (an evolutionist on the OCW DB). That coupled with the fact we have barely 'scratched the surface' looking for fossils, gives us a very incomplete and fragmented record to be basing any inferences on.

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Except that we do have quite a few finds and they inevitably do follow the pattern evolutionary biology predicts. It shouldn't be the case that of the sample we do see that there aren't violations (other than with geological anomalies of course)

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Now that we have directly witnessed catastrophes depositing many layers of sediments in a short time frame also puts a damper on the old line "the further down in the strata you go, the older the objects are that are found there," because in fact it doesn't matter in what layer they are found, the objects could have been deposited at the same time.

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This doesn't make any sense. In a catastrophe you would find fossils jumbled together. We don't find this in the geogogic record and you need to account for this if you are going to challenge evolution on this basis.Larry Handlin

quote:

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Originally posted by John Paul:
Larry, my apologies to you too for my absence.

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Larry:
Another great source of information on common descent is a series of evidence on the talkorigins.org cite that lists 20 lines of evidence.
http://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

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John Paul:
I've read that before. It is not a good sign when we (Creationists & evolutionists) can't even agree on a definition of a word. The word in this case is macroevolution. By the definition used on your link, Creationists are evolutionists! Creationists generally use these definitions (for what it's worth):

evolution, biological n.
1) microevolutionhe empirically observed phenomenon in which exisiting potential variations within a gene pool (or population of organisms) are manifested or suppressed among members of that gene pool over a series of generations. Essentially a synonym for genetic variation. Often erroneously extrapolated (through semantic redefinition) to rovethe possibility of acro evolution 2) Pseudogenes:a description of the problem

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Your site is problematic:
The Creationist sees our whole Biosphere as increasing in entropy since Creation

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Define entropy as the authors are using it. It most certainly is not entropy in the thermodynamic sense because such entropy is strictly defined and observed to decrease often times with photosynthesis.

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Additionally, the treatment of pseudogenes (and apparently retroviri) doesn't address the evidence at all. In the case of evidence line #21 we observe 5 identical retroviri insertions identical to each other in identical places between chimps and humans. This makes sense in the case of common descent, but makes no sense in any other claim that I have heard. In common descent such patterns should occur because common ancestors would have retroviri invade and change the genome and those changes would be passed along. However, I have no idea of why such non-functional genetic changes would occur in populations that were not genetically connected that are identical and occur in the same identical place on the genome. Could you offer a reason why?

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John Paul:
Common Creator, common mechanisms.

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This doesn't address the evidence. It is an assertion with no support behind it. Why would a common creator place the same retroviri insertions (non-functional) at the same place in the genome? There is no function, there is no loss of function in this case, there is simply an insertion by outside agent of a DNA sequence that does not code. Why and how would a designer do this?

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Thanks,
Larry

Larry:
The question then is where is the barrier? If not at speciation exactly where are the limits for population change and the evidence for it.John Paul:
The barrier would lay in the protein structure. Its 3-D structure can't be manipulated too much or else it will no longer bond to the other proteins it once bonded to.Biochemical Limits to Evolution: The Untold StoryThen there is the "information" issue. Dr. Lee Spetner has an ongoing dialog with Dr. Ed Max about that very topic. Which can be read here:A Scientific Critique of Evolution[/b]and continued HereLarry:
Molecular evidence shows very clear commonalities between closely related populations that reduce steadily as evolution would predict, as the move farther away genetically. Why would this be?John Paul:
Molecular commonalities are also predicted in the Creationist version of biological evolution and ID. And, at least in the Creation version, similarities would also be reduced in the evolutionary process. The 3 major differences in the theories are 1. The starting point (what organism or organisms started the evolution process); 2. What direction is the evolutionary process taking; and 3. To what extent can organisms evolve.
Point 3 is your barrier question. A good observation ccan be made by all of our experimentations with organisms. In all of our experiments with bacteria, not once after billions of generations, has bacteria evolved into anything else but bacteria. Dogs are still dogs, cats are still cats and fruit flies are still fruit flies. Our own experiments cry out "there's a barrier."me from earlier:
As for the "history" of what Creationists claimed, what about the "evolution" of the theory of evolution? Where does it stand now? Is the Modern Synthesis still reign supreme? Or has it been replaced? I can never get a straight answer.Larry:
What literature were you reading in attempting to answer the question?John Paul:
What would you recommend? My post was based upon the claims made by evolutionists on the No Answers in Genesis DB who said I was debating against an old version of the ToE when talking about the Modern Synthesis. I am aware of Punk Eq. but didn't think it had replaced the MS.John Paul:
I advocate that all life is descended from the originally Created Kinds.Larry:
Then you need to define kind in terms of the standard taxonomic classification system so we can evaluate such a claim.John Paul:
If fair is fair, then what was that allged first population of living organisms? What is the evidence that single-celled organisms can evolve into multi-cellular organisms?me from before:
Actually they could have been just dropped off by "aliens" for all I care, but I infer from the evidence that descendants tend to resemble their ancestors, more closely than humans resemble bacteria (if indeed bacteria was the "first family" of life on Earth).Larry:
Then how are we able to construct a tree of life such as Doolittle does off of genetics? What would account for such a pattern other than common descent?John Paul:
But common descent from what? The way you guys talk about it it is more like common ascent. Where is the evidence to support that chart? What evidence is there that procaryotes can evolve into eucaryotes, as shown on his chart? Interesting, yes. Indicative of reality, doubtful.Larry:
This doesn't make any sense. In a catastrophe you would find fossils jumbled together.John Paul:
Not really. Many organisms would most likely be destroyed by the catastrophe and not be around to fossilize. Also it would depend on what was living together at the time of the catastrophe. If only reptiles lived on an island that suffered a volcanic explosion, I wouldn't think we would find horses in the sediments left behind.
Animals (other than us) seem to have an ability to tell when a catastrophe is going to happen. They tend to go where they think it is safe. I am sure that animals wouldn't huddle together (that is all different types of animals in one place), so this would also act to seperate the organisms and thus their fossils.

Larry:
This doesn't address the evidence. It is an assertion with no support behind it. Why would a common creator place the same retroviri insertions (non-functional) at the same place in the genome? There is no function, there is no loss of function in this case, there is simply an insertion by outside agent of a DNA sequence that does not code. Why and how would a designer do this?John Paul:
No one said a Common Creator did it. It is a result of processes that occurred after evolution started.This was answered in the link I gave but here it is cut and pasted:"So I think there is a mechanistic process that has produced many of the Pseudogenes that we have, rather than a random process. If the Pseudogene is truly defective and if the mutations are truly found in patterns (not random), then the idea that it's a common mechanism is possible. Viruses have enzymes that, under the same conditions, do repeatable reactions.If the DNA in Humans, Chimps, Monkeys, etc., are very similar, then if they are all infected by the same virus, would we expect the virus to do the same thing in the different species? I think so.The "dreaded endogenous retroviral sequence common to both chimp and human DNA" is probably the major example of Common Mechanism. Viral enzymes (proteins) react with specific DNA sequences. If both chimp and human DNA have the same active sites, I would expect the viral proteins to react in the same exact way to both human and chimp.Common descent or common Ancestor is not the only answer."------------------
John Paul

[QUOTE]Originally posted by John Paul:
Larry:

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This was answered in the link I gave but here it is cut and pasted:

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"So I think there is a mechanistic process that has produced many of the Pseudogenes that we have, rather than a random process. If the Pseudogene is truly defective and if the mutations are truly found in patterns (not random), then the idea that it's a common mechanism is possible. Viruses have enzymes that, under the same conditions, do repeatable reactions.

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If the DNA in Humans, Chimps, Monkeys, etc., are very similar, then if they are all infected by the same virus, would we expect the virus to do the same thing in the different species? I think so.
Not at an identical location and creating an identical effect. There is no reason to expect that at all. What evidence is there that a retrovirus would
1) create an identical insertion
at
2) the identical spot in the genomeAccording to what is said above one would expect insertions of similar nature, not identical and in an identical spot.
The "dreaded endogenous retroviral sequence common to both chimp and human DNA" is probably the major example of Common Mechanism. Viral enzymes (proteins) react with specific DNA sequences. If both chimp and human DNA have the same active sites, I would expect the viral proteins to react in the same exact way to both human and chimp.
The ridiculous nature of this is that there is no reason why a common mechanism would produce the same effect at the same location. And then do it five times. Reacting the same way is expected, reacting in an identical way in another time is not. We see this evidence throughout life on earth not only in humans and chimps.The claim is silly from the perspective the insertions could occur anywhere in the genome, but don't. They occur in common places and are identical. There is no reason for a designer to do this that has been introduced and such a claim as this site makes would mean the designer had to plan for that level of specificity.Additionally, what is the benefit of these insertions--they don't code.
Common descent or common Ancestor is not the only answer."
So give another answer. Your answer so far seems to be God did it for unexplainable reasons. That isn't a scientific answer.Cheers,
Larry

[QUOTE]Originally posted by John Paul:
Larry:
The question then is where is the barrier? If not at speciation exactly where are the limits for population change and the evidence for it.

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John Paul:
The barrier would lay in the protein structure. Its 3-D structure can't be manipulated too much or else it will no longer bond to the other proteins it once bonded to.
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And this is why most mutations are neutral. Spettner nor Plaisted offer any barrier but at best a speed limit. However, I've yet to see any work that would limit change over the long haul. There is nothing in the articles that operates as a barrier. There isn't a hard line wherre genomes can't cross. And the observation of such should exist in the molecular evidence if it truly existed in nature. Indeed, both seem to indicate that genetic change has to occur much faster than is necessary in reality.Information arguments are rather silly unless you can define and operationalize information. If you wish to discuss that start it in a new thread.
Larry:
Molecular evidence shows very clear commonalities between closely related populations that reduce steadily as evolution would predict, as the move farther away genetically. Why would this be?

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John Paul:
Molecular commonalities are also predicted in the Creationist version of biological evolution and ID.
Commonalities aren't the issue. The issue are identical insertions in the identical portion of the genome of NON-FUNCTIONAL DNA.Also, give me a specific prediction of the types of commonalities expected under your "theory" and the potential falsifications. One of the most difficult areas to discuss with creationists is what their model is. If you could provide a scientific theory that covers why we observe the genetic similarities as we do I would appreciate that. It should have testable hypotheses, confirming evidence and potential falsifications. And of course be clear how this relates to a creation event.
And, at least in the Creation version, similarities would also be reduced in the evolutionary process. The 3 major differences in the theories are 1. The starting point (what organism or organisms started the evolution process); 2. What direction is the evolutionary process taking;
Evolution doesn't have a "direction" except towards fitness. So I'm at a loss as to how this would even be a comparable point.
and 3. To what extent can organisms evolvePoint 3 is your barrier question. A good observation ccan be made by all of our experimentations with organisms. In all of our experiments with bacteria, not once after billions of generations, has bacteria evolved into anything else but bacteria.
And why would we expect that to happen in such a short time? Where in evolutionary biology is such a prediction made? References please?You are attempting to falsify evolutionary biology through an argument it doesn't make.
Dogs are still dogs, cats are still cats and fruit flies are still fruit flies. Our own experiments cry out "there's a barrier."

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No, they are saying there is a limit to the rapidness of change. Which no one denies.
As I specifically said, a dog into a cat is not predicted by evolution. Any single step is going no farther than speciation. An event that turned a dog into a cat would be evidence of creation actually.The specific patterns of genetic commonalities also happen to follow a pattern that matches several nested hierarchies including those observed in the fossil record and taxonomic classification. These clearly are compatible with common descent--what specifically in creationism accounts for these hierarchiers? Especially what accounts for the non-functional nested hierarchiers we observe?
me from earlier:
Larry:
What literature were you reading in attempting to answer the question?

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John Paul:
What would you recommend?
Gee...Ayala and Fitch. What have you read?In the thread on the MS, see the references to Thmsberry. I'm seriously asking you what literature you have read from mainstream biology. Given your claims of confusion I would like to understand where the confusion came from--also, I do have doubts over what you have read. I have taken the time to read a lot of creationist literature, where as I seldom find the reverse is true.PE isn't contrary to the MS so why would it replace it? Unless you are arguing from Gould's point of view--which PE isn't even his argument about the MS being replaced? So I'm confused, what have you read that has confused you from the literature?
Larry:
Then you need to define kind in terms of the standard taxonomic classification system so we can evaluate such a claim.

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John Paul:
If fair is fair, then what was that allged first population of living organisms? What is the evidence that single-celled organisms can evolve into multi-cellular organisms?
Answer the question. What is a kind? If you can't define it, how can you claim there is a barrier at the kind level?The question you are asking I would recommend seeing Doolittle's work starting with the Scientific American ARTICLE I ALREADY CITED! See further down.As for the multiple cell development that is still a question. The problem is that isn't a claim against common descent, but an understanding that there are mechanisms we still investigate.
me from before:
Actually they could have been just dropped off by "aliens" for all I care, but I infer from the evidence that descendants tend to resemble their ancestors, more closely than humans resemble bacteria (if indeed bacteria was the "first family" of life on Earth).

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Larry:
Then how are we able to construct a tree of life such as Doolittle does off of genetics? What would account for such a pattern other than common descent?

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John Paul:
But common descent from what? The way you guys talk about it it is more like common ascent.
Would you care to explain the statement?
Where is the evidence to support that chart?
Well contained in the cited papers. Who would have guessed that? Doolittle in previous work has assembled a great deal of evidence to show the connections between different branches working especially with Horizontal Gene Transfer. Now, what you would have to explain is not only why a nested hierarchy exists for coding DNA, but also for non-coding DNA. Specifically Doolittle has looked at precursors for hemoglobin found in both vertebrate and invertebrates and connected them before he had the observational evidence. Then he went out and found the observation. I know of no reason creationism would predict such an occurrence, but common descent exactly predicts it.AFAICT there is no evidence contradicting the nested hierarchies so how do they fit the creationist theory? And here I need testable hypotheses, confirming evidence and potential falsifications.
Larry:
This doesn't make any sense. In a catastrophe you would find fossils jumbled together.

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John Paul:
Not really. Many organisms would most likely be destroyed by the catastrophe and not be around to fossilize.
Why would this occur only in the order that evolution predicts?
Also it would depend on what was living together at the time of the catastrophe. If only reptiles lived on an island that suffered a volcanic explosion, I wouldn't think we would find horses in the sediments left behind.
Ah, but they do live together in some areas. Why do we not find them together then?
Animals (other than us) seem to have an ability to tell when a catastrophe is going to happen. They tend to go where they think it is safe. I am sure that animals wouldn't huddle together (that is all different types of animals in one place), so this would also act to seperate the organisms and thus their fossils.
But this shouldn't affect layers--what is your point?The catastrophe you are indicating would be so widespread as to not cause this problem. The ordering you are arguing against should be broken in our sample. You must provide a reason why it is not. So far you haven't even addressed it simply waiving your hand and saying they moved around. Given a major catastrophe the pressure and force would mix them in many cases.Cheers,
Larry

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[This message has been edited by lbhandli (edited 08-21-2001).]

It seems to me that this thread is becoming muddled very quickly. Let me suggest that future posts not directly related to speciation (and given that doesn't appear to be at issue for anyone this seems easy to do)Issues presented include
1) Information Issues
2) Common Genetic Traits and their status as evidence for either or both--I would think the tree of life would fall here.
3) The Definition of kind and Genetic barriers to macroevolution above the kind classification
4) Fossilization and Layers
5) Modern Synthesis--though I think a rereading of the thread with thmsberry might put that one to ad nauseum quick enough
6) The development of multicellular life
7) The "direction" of evolutionThere is a tendency to throw out more and more topics sometimes, but creating a structure we can deal in-depth with each issue and avoid moving on from specific points. I will look for responses in other threads or move my responsed to new threads if they aren't related to speciation events.Larry

I agree that this thread is threatening to encompass too many topics. It'll probably be less confusing if whenever anyone decides to take a detailed detour into a topic not directly related to Speciation Events that they begin a new thread.--Percy