What if creationism did get into the science class

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Originally posted by blitz77:
Microevolution has been demonstrated-macroevolution hasn't.

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I've asked this before, perhaps not to you (I can't remember), and hqve not received any answer. Where is the line between micro- and macro-? This question is critical, yet no one seems to be able to pin it down. Until it is pinned down, the whole argument is vaporous.Apparently speciation doesn't count, as this has been observed in the wild and in the lab. Admittedly, speciation is a bit of a semantic game anyway. But this isn't a problem for ToE, but only for Creationism which requires a hard line, somewhere, between 'kinds'.------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by blitz77:
Morris has a paper on this here

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Neither you nor Morris, answer the question I asked, but only sidestep it. Morris assumes variation within an ancestral species but doesn't define what that means EXACTLY; which was the question. His paper is artful vaguary. I say again, where is the line?------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by blitz77:
If you read the article, note the difference he puts-using the evolutionary tree, macroevolution is vertical (ie reptile-bird) while microevolution is horizontal (new breeds, maybe speciation?).

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I did read the article. I does not answer the question.This vertical/horizontal distinction is a red herring-- it draws a pretty picture in the believer's brain but it is substanceless. In order to make this distinction at all one has first to assume the idea of 'kinds' or 'basic models' or whatever. And in order to divide critters up into 'vertical' and 'horizontal' one has to know where to draw the line-- which is the question unanswered. So where is that line?An example, take a line of skulls from australopithecines to homo sapien: No webpage found at provided URL: http://origins.swau.edu/papers/man/hominid/gifs/skullsside2.jpgYou can switch any two adjacent skulls in the line and you wouldn't know the difference unless you have dates for the individual skulls. Even specialists ultimately turn to dates for the order. You could switch any three adjacents skulls with much the same result. So where is the line?It magically appears when you compare a skull from the end with one from the beginning, but this doesn't represent the issue properly.------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com[This message has been edited by John, 08-13-2002]

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Originally posted by blitz77:
That's why it is such a problem to classify such organisms;

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The skulls can be dated and organised by time.

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just take the many different breeds of dogs for example-wide range in size, body shape, colour, ratio of body parts, etc. So how do we show they come from different species?

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Dogs are a beautiful example of evolution-- the selective force in this case being human intervention. I have a chihuahua and I have a rottweiler. These two are about effectively reproductively isolated one from the other-- right at the edge of speciation. But more to your point, how do we show they are from different species?First, some things about species.The idea of species is a fuzzy concept. There are several ways to calculate species and there are exceptions to every one of them. The idea of species exists for human convenience-- a result of our weird need to classify. These ambiguities don't go away until you get away from the edge, say to the genus level.Evolution doesn't require hard, radical species boundaries hence our difficulty finding a set of defining characteristics for speciation. In fact, it seems that these fuzzy boundaries are exactly what one would expect when dealing with creatures which slowly diverge from a comon ancestor.In living organisms we determine species via a great deal of observation-- which critters mate, etc. With fossils, we can't do that so the distinction is done via average frequency of various traits of the skeleton-- funny protuberences on the knee, oddly shaped teeth, etc. Then compare this to the average variations within modern species such as lorises, lemurs, monkeys and apes.

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Evolutionists assume that those fossils "show" the evolution of hominids.

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The thing is, we don't have to get the species right-- only the order. Where we draw the species line is somewhat arbitrary. We can trace traits from 10mya to the present-- many traits-- that is enough to show descent.

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Like you said, how do we know they are "new species"?

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The implied argument here seems to be that all of the fossils from australopithicenes to homo sapien are the same species.The variations in morphology are extreme. If they are all the same species then some humans should look, or used to look, like apes-- well pretty close. So we classify this morphology as a different genus and species. Actually, defining primate traits can be traced all the way back to a little mouse-like thing contemporary with the dinosaurs. By your logic, we should slippery-slope all the way back to it, and just call it all one species.

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As for the line, changes from reptiles - birds could definitely be classified as macroevolution; one type of organism to another.

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I believe that reptiles and birds split from a common ancestor.

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However, just give me one example that you suppose would be classified as macroevolution.

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Macroevolution is a function of scale. It is the result of the accumulation of small changes. It does not happen over night-- even punctuated evolution happens over milions of years. Assuming a relatively good fossil record, any adjacent fossils will not show macroevolution; but skip five or six million years and you might see it. Why is this so hard to understand?------------------
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