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Author Topic:   The phrase "Evolution is a fact"
Stagamancer
Member (Idle past 4944 days)
Posts: 174
From: Oregon
Joined: 12-28-2008


Message 107 of 217 (515240)
07-16-2009 2:21 PM
Reply to: Message 93 by boysherpa
07-13-2009 10:17 AM


Re: my observations
Evolution, being both "micro" and "macro", is ambiguous in definition. Therefore its testability is questionable.
Evolution is completely UNAMBIGUOUS in definition. Evolution is a change in allele frequencies within a population. This is highly testable. Micro and macro are not descriptions of two different types of evolution, they are categories that help define the scope of the set of questions that an evolutionary biologist focuses on. It's like the difference between physical and organic chemistry: they are both chemistry, they both exist simultaneously, and there is no real world separation between the two, but they involve different sets of questions that different scientists can ask. (though, as other people have pointed out, these terms have mostly fallen out of use in the biological community)
speciation (which is poorly defined)
Actually speciation is well defined. What is difficult to pin down is what exactly a species is, which is due to the variety of different sexual reproductive strategies, and the fact that most things in biology exist within a continuum and not strictly partitioned categories. But just because species are hard to define does not mean populations can't evolve, which is the whole argument anyway.
Edited by Stagamancer, : clarification

We have many intuitions in our life and the point is that many of these intuitions are wrong. The question is, are we going to test those intuitions?
-Dan Ariely

This message is a reply to:
 Message 93 by boysherpa, posted 07-13-2009 10:17 AM boysherpa has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 108 by Rahvin, posted 07-16-2009 2:39 PM Stagamancer has replied

  
Stagamancer
Member (Idle past 4944 days)
Posts: 174
From: Oregon
Joined: 12-28-2008


Message 109 of 217 (515247)
07-16-2009 4:30 PM
Reply to: Message 108 by Rahvin
07-16-2009 2:39 PM


Re: my observations
We can look and say "this is species x" and "this is species y," but the continuum of continual change in populations makes drawing a line at the exact moment when a new species has formed rather difficult.
Indeed. Though I just wanted to reiterate that just because the actual point or line of speciation cannot be determined (or doesn't really exist) doesn't mean that speciation is poorly defined as boysherpa contends

We have many intuitions in our life and the point is that many of these intuitions are wrong. The question is, are we going to test those intuitions?
-Dan Ariely

This message is a reply to:
 Message 108 by Rahvin, posted 07-16-2009 2:39 PM Rahvin has not replied

  
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