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Author Topic:   How different is macro/micro evolution
Iname
Junior Member (Idle past 3884 days)
Posts: 28
Joined: 06-08-2006


Message 1 of 25 (341439)
08-19-2006 4:38 PM


I've heard it said from some that Macroevolution is a much different and more complex process than Microevolution. (Some creationists would say it's impossible)I've also heard it said that they are essentially the same process, most notably by Crashfrog....
quote:
I'm not convinced that macroevolution is any different than microevolution, no more than walking to the store is fundamentally different tha[n] walking ten miles
So how different is Micro/Macroevolution.

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AdminNosy
Administrator
Posts: 4754
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Joined: 11-11-2003


Message 2 of 25 (341448)
08-19-2006 4:56 PM


Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

  
jimfgerard
Inactive Member


Message 3 of 25 (341455)
08-19-2006 5:41 PM


I think the problem here is mainly with the creationist habit of misusing 19th Century terminology like 'Catrostophism/Gradualism' and yes, micro/macro-evolution. They really need to do at least their minimal prerequisit research before beginning a debate though if they did so they wouldn't be creationists.
By definition the first rung of the macro-evolutionary ladder is speciation which, if anyone would care to look into it, is an observable phenomenon both indirectly and directly so the old creationist cannon that there's some magical wall keeping evolution proceeding from the formations of breeds within species to new species is nonsense to begin with.
Cheers.
Edited by jimfgerard, : I caught a typo

democrats are sometimes inept and presently lost but republicans are mean scientifically ignorant hypocrites, I know what lesser of two evils is the most rational choice.

  
Chronos
Member (Idle past 6225 days)
Posts: 102
From: Macomb, Mi, USA
Joined: 10-23-2005


Message 4 of 25 (341482)
08-19-2006 7:05 PM


They are the same process on a different timescale. So, not really different at all. Should we make a distinction between macroerosion and microerosion?

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ramoss
Member (Idle past 611 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 08-11-2004


Message 5 of 25 (341486)
08-19-2006 7:10 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Iname
08-19-2006 4:38 PM


Macroevolution is the cumluation of a numerous microevolution events. If you consider a step a microevolutin event, think of macroevolution as going on a hike.

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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 6 of 25 (341492)
08-19-2006 7:26 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by Chronos
08-19-2006 7:05 PM


eroding the framework
Do you deny different levels of selection exist then?

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Iname
Junior Member (Idle past 3884 days)
Posts: 28
Joined: 06-08-2006


Message 7 of 25 (341496)
08-19-2006 7:45 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by Brad McFall
08-19-2006 7:26 PM


Re: eroding the framework
What exactly do you mean by...
quote:
different levels of selection
...?

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kuresu
Member (Idle past 2512 days)
Posts: 2544
From: boulder, colorado
Joined: 03-24-2006


Message 8 of 25 (341497)
08-19-2006 7:50 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by Iname
08-19-2006 7:45 PM


Re: eroding the framework
maybe a tiny selection level would be getting thicker hair.
major, or really large, selection level would be surviving the K-T extinction event.
who knows what he means?
I don't know of any one who's really figured out what Brad's saying--I defintely don't get 99% of what he writes.

All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

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Iname
Junior Member (Idle past 3884 days)
Posts: 28
Joined: 06-08-2006


Message 9 of 25 (341499)
08-19-2006 8:05 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by kuresu
08-19-2006 7:50 PM


Re: eroding the framework
quote:
maybe a tiny selection level would be getting thicker hair.
major, or really large, selection level would be surviving the K-T extinction event.
Yeah that's what I was thinking he meant (something along that line)but it seems to me that they both affect the population and the individual. I can't really think of any selection that would affect the population much differently than the individual.

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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 10 of 25 (341501)
08-19-2006 8:18 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by Iname
08-19-2006 7:45 PM


re:query
I mean that idea remanded by Gould between these two pages.
quote:
The Structure of Evolutionary Theory by SJ GOULD
Edited by Brad McFall, : corrected wrongly scanned page.

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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 11 of 25 (341503)
08-19-2006 8:25 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by kuresu
08-19-2006 7:50 PM


Re: eroding the framework
I supposed, but I did not say, then, that the reason people ask about how different ma/mi may be in the context of c/e is that creationists have complained that evolutionists have moved into a discussion of macro evolution against clearly won creationist (in their minds) differences of adjectives "vertical" and "horizontal" change without a continuity seemingly inherent. Creationists have not noticed, it seems to me, (but I know this literature less well), that a stricture on this move to puntuated equilibrium and other macro issues could be designed against, if a clear method of finding external AND internal purposivness embryologically were taken out of neotinic literature. It might be possible to read Aggasiz that way, but I have not tried. Instead, I was trying to ask the question in terms of evolutionary debate itself where it was an answer for Gould that time does not matter when arguing against only genes as "the" level of selection.
I think that conceptually there can be others but I know of no way to determine what level of organizations are natural in this respect or regard.
Edited by Brad McFall, : grammer

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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 12 of 25 (341505)
08-19-2006 8:32 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by Iname
08-19-2006 8:05 PM


clarification
The issue surrounds the disintegration of sexual organisms during reproduction without (Gould's sense etc) displacing the organisms role as the natural selectee.
One first gets the notion of the "evolutionary individual" and then one can discuss if selection occurs.
Notice the inversion in the use of the word "organism" that Gould points to (from Wilson and Sober) on the second page I scanned.
What Gould banks on, and to an good extent I agree, I think the choice against the interactor mistakes the actually transmitted sense of the focus of evolutionary thought. Incidentially Phil Johnson seems to have made this same move to the post-modern locating the issue in the "information" below the cell level. But if gene selection is the only ultimate unit then it becomes very interesting how the gene is localized and to what organic parts as it becomes difficult to seperate where expensive machines are needed when if it was an organism (or population) the eyes work just fine for the purpose.
Edited by Brad McFall, : title change

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kuresu
Member (Idle past 2512 days)
Posts: 2544
From: boulder, colorado
Joined: 03-24-2006


Message 13 of 25 (341510)
08-19-2006 8:43 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Brad McFall
08-19-2006 8:25 PM


Re: eroding the framework
let me see if I got this right:
you brought up the different level of selection idea as (a parallel?) to the creationist demand of macro and micro evolution.
in other words--both are pointless, or rather, the difference in each level is meaningless?

All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

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Replies to this message:
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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 14 of 25 (341514)
08-19-2006 8:56 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by kuresu
08-19-2006 8:43 PM


Re: eroding the framework
K, I only added that information because you wondered what I, BSM, meant. I really did not wish to bring up both sides c-e as we already can have more than one with macro-micro.
I was talking about the LEVELS OF SELECTION because Chronos said
quote:
They are the same process on a different timescale.
but Gould's argumentation sets up different causal links on *differently* on different levels making macro and micro to be, in his vision something very different than something that can be linearly related (in it's differences) to the "arrow of time".
I think this is the greatest possible conceptual change to evolutionary thinking in my generation. Dennet was challenged to image it. I have had the thought but have not clearly delimited levels (of selection) in mind. Williams and Dawkins are holding out on a different course and so may be some technocrats.
technocrats ideas?
quote:
A Different Approach to Nanothermodynamics
Terrell L. Hill, Nano Letters Vol 1 (2001) 273-275
“In contrast to macrothermodynamics, the thermodynamics of a small system will usually be different in different environments.”
There is however, in my learning, a means to extend the micro in to the macro which might slow down the advances conceptually that Gould wishes to accelerate (contra creationists in part sadly and in my view wrongly).
Edited by Brad McFall, : link

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Replies to this message:
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subbie
Member (Idle past 1254 days)
Posts: 3509
Joined: 02-26-2006


Message 15 of 25 (341561)
08-19-2006 10:20 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Iname
08-19-2006 4:38 PM


Creos use different terms so they can maintain their (otherwise unsupported and provably false) claim that evolution has never been observed. Even the most ardent creo knows that they can't claim with a straight face that organisms never change. Thus, they exploit a purported distinction between micro and macro. However, I've never seen a creo explain the distinction without relying on their undefined and undefinable term "kind." Thus, as far as creos are concerned, the difference between micro and macro is as meaningless as the "kind" nonsense.

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin

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