Author Topic: How many here believe in evolution? (Read 14295 times)

-dead- · « **Reply #405 on:** December 05, 2002, 11:57:35 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by 2Slow
I must be one of the imbeciles. Evolution is still a theory. Show me a currently in progress example of evolution.

According to evolution theory, all life is "a currently in progress example of evolution".

Hortlund · « **Reply #406 on:** December 06, 2002, 01:47:49 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by -dead-
According to evolution theory, all life is "a currently in progress example of evolution".

*sigh* what a wonderful argument.

You too MT with that marvelous "go look in the mirror"-evidence.

WTF is wrong with you people? Did you learn to argue in kindergarten?

How's this then:
According to creation-theory, all life is a currently in progress example of creation. If you want more evidence, go look in the mirror.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND just how useless such an argument is?

myelo · « **Reply #407 on:** December 06, 2002, 07:44:11 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by 2Slow
I must be one of the imbeciles. Evolution is still a theory. Show me a currently in progress example of evolution.

Here you go: the development of strains of bacteria resistant to certain antibiotics.

Convinced? If not, why not?

Hortlund · « **Reply #408 on:** December 06, 2002, 08:06:36 AM »

Because that is an example of microevolution. Microevolution is not in doubt. But microevolution cannot explain how a new species comes into existence.

Macroevolution is the creation, (or evolvment or whatever you choose to call it) of a new species. It has never been observed. It has been deducted (guess) by scientists observing various fossils, looking at microevolution, looking at a number of other factors, and drawing conclusions from those separate observations.

H. Godwineson · « **Reply #409 on:** December 06, 2002, 08:15:57 AM »

Will somebody PLEASE drive a stake through the heart of this thread?

Shuckins

straffo · « **Reply #410 on:** December 06, 2002, 08:21:27 AM »

I still can't have a clue of what the macroevolution is ...
In fact I never seen this term used before this tread ... go figure ...

Hortlund · « **Reply #411 on:** December 06, 2002, 08:26:31 AM »

In evolutionary biology today, macroevolution is used to refer to any evolutionary change at or above the level of species. It means the splitting of a species into two (speciation, or cladogenesis, from the Greek meaning "the origin of a branch") or the change of a species over time into another (anagenesis, not nowadays generally used). Any changes that occur at higher levels, such as the evolution of new families, phyla or genera, is also therefore macroevolution, but the term is not restricted to the origin of those higher taxa.

Microevolution refers to any evolutionary change below the level of species, and refers to changes in the frequency within a population or a species of its alleles (alternative genes) and their effects on the form, or phenotype, of organisms that make up that population or species.

Another way to state the difference is that macroevolution is between-species evolution of genes and microevolution is within-species evolution of genes.

28sweep · « **Reply #412 on:** December 06, 2002, 08:29:48 AM »

God created us all...the believers and dirty infidels alike...he took the form of a simple shepherd and emerged from Arabia around 400AD..I thought everybody knew this????(what a freaking joke)

straffo · « **Reply #413 on:** December 06, 2002, 08:50:42 AM »

So you are discussing the taxonomy ?

Samm · « **Reply #414 on:** December 06, 2002, 09:54:43 AM »

It was once thought that what made the earth so hospitable for life compared to other planets was it's distance from the sun . However today we know of ecosystems that perpetuate completely independant of solar radiation .

I believe that the universe is at it's very very very very beginning. And that life will eventually spread around the galaxy and beyond . The cat is out of the bag, and it's proving to be quite indominable, resilient and flexible . I believe the virus that is the DNA molecule will infect the universe terminally .

midnight Target · « **Reply #415 on:** December 06, 2002, 10:00:20 AM »

I cut and pasted this from the same place Hortlund cut and pasted his last post....

Conclusion

There is no difference between micro- and macroevolution except that genes between species usually diverge, while genes within species usually combine. The same processes that cause within-species evolution are responsible for above-species evolution, except that the processes that cause speciation include things that cannot happen to lesser groups, such as the evolution of different sexual apparatus (because, by definition, once organisms cannot interbreed, they are different species).

The idea that the origin of higher taxa, such as genera (canines versus felines, for example), requires something special is based on the misunderstanding of the way in which new phyla (lineages) arise. The two species that are the origin of canines and felines probably differed very little from their common ancestral species and each other. But once they were reproductively isolated from each other, they evolved more and more differences that they shared but the other lineages didn't. This is true of all lineages back to the first eukaryotic (nuclear) cell. Even the changes in the Cambrian explosion are of this kind, although some (eg, Gould 1989) think that the genomes (gene structures) of these early animals were not as tightly regulated as modern animals, and therefore had more freedom to change.

crowMAW · « **Reply #416 on:** December 06, 2002, 10:04:59 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Hortlund
Because that is an example of microevolution. Microevolution is not in doubt. But microevolution cannot explain how a new species comes into existence.

You never really gave a response to the post below that addresses this statement.

Quote

Originally posted by -dead-
Why is it "simply stated, wrong" to assume that successive sets of micro-evolution can lead to macro-evolution over a long time period? What evidence have you found to the contrary?
--snip--
Evolution and in particular the idea that "micro-evolution" can lead to "macro-evolution" (or speciesation) would seem to explain this very neatly. What would your explanation be I wonder?

It seems your expectation of macroevolution is that an elephant would suddenly give birth to a hippopotamus, i.e. an immediate transition from species to another. Evolution via natural selection does not work that way.

"Macroevolution is proposed to occur on a geological timescale and in a gradual manner. 'Gradualness' has little to do with the rate or tempo of evolution; it is a mode of change that is dependent on population phenomena. Gradualness concerns genetically probable organismic changes between two consecutive generations, i.e. those changes that are within the range of normal variation observed within modern populations. Morphological change may appear fast geologically speaking, yet still be gradual." Douglas Theobald, Ph.D., University of Colorado.

Further, I think Mylo's explanation of the development of the giraffe's long neck and corresponding cardio-vascular robustness answers your question as to how microevolution can lead to a new species. If you want to re-read it, go to page 7 of this thread.

midnight Target · « **Reply #417 on:** December 06, 2002, 10:13:33 AM »

And, Stevie

Your personal attacks are becoming tiresome.

But I will press on. What I think you suffer from may be a lack of imagination. You try to picture a fish turning into a toad. Or a as posted above, a dog into a cat.

You are thinking backwards. The common ancestor of both species may look like neither. The speciation (micoevolution if you like) that occurrs after the two groups have been separated results in the differentiation you see today.

No dog became a cat. But a common ancestor gave rise to both.

H. Godwineson · « **Reply #418 on:** December 06, 2002, 10:32:50 AM »

MT,

Is that where the idea for the cartoon character Cat-Dog came from?

Shuckins

midnight Target · « **Reply #419 on:** December 06, 2002, 10:33:53 AM »

LOL, you don't know how close I came to posting a pic of that.