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reply to post by monkey_descendant
I don't understand
Microevolution is a change in allele frequencies in a population.
Originally posted by Howie47
For macro evolution to happen, new information must be created in the genes.......................
In the first essay of the collection, you say that as a scientist, you're a Darwinist, but as a human being, you feel it's important to recognize that natural selection is unpleasant and fight against it. Could you explain this in more detail?
Richard Dawkins: It's a less-strong claim than for the laws of thermodynamics. I think for the laws of thermodynamics we more or less know that they apply everywhere in the universe. The laws of Darwinian evolution: First off, we don't know if there's life anywhere else in the universe; there may not be. It is actually seriously possible that we may be alone in the universe. Assuming that there is other life in the universe (and I think most people think that there is), then my conjecture is that how ever alien and different it may be in detail (the creatures may be so different from us that we may hardly recognize them as living at all), if they have the property of organized complexity and apparent design -- adaptive complexity -- then I believe that something equivalent to Darwinian natural selection -- gradual evolution by Darwinian natural selection; that is, the non-random survival of randomly varying hereditary elements -- will turn out to be applied. All life in the universe, my guess is, will have evolved by some equivalent to Darwinism.
Originally posted by Howie47
reply to post by monkey_descendant
I don't understand
You admit you don't understand. Then you pretend to know better then
noted evolutionary biologist, P. Z. Myers.
If your above mentioned (finches) had evolved hooked beaks and started catching fish. That would have been classical evolution, Darwinism.
When the beak size changes by a couple mm, back and forth. From dry seasons to wet. That is due to a gene that is ever present in the gene pool. For macro evolution to happen, new information must be created in the genes.......................
The fact that you try and use this as proof of classical evolution, shows how desperate you are and how weak, (non-existent), the evidence for macro evolution is!
Originally posted by Howie47
reply to post by dave420
I will not be luered into a mindless, ignorant debate with you, Dave4.
If you had read any of the recent books on Evolution you wouldn't have made this post at all.
"... the attitude of population geneticists to any paleontologist rash enough to offer a contribution to evolutionary theory has been to tell him to go away and find another fossil, and not to bother the grownups." (Maynard Smith, 1984)
Among all the claims made during the evolutionary synthesis, perhaps the one that found least acceptance was the assertion that all phenomena of macro evolution can be ‘reduced to,' that is, explained by, micro evolutionary genetic processes. Not surprisingly, this claim was usually supported by geneticists but was widely rejected by the very biologists who dealt with macro evolution, the morphologists and paleontologists. Many of them insisted that there is more or less complete discontinuity between the processes at the two levels—that what happens at the species level is entirely different from what happens at the level of the higher categories. Now, 50 years later the controversy remains undecided. Ernst Mayer
We do not advance some special theory for long times and large transitions, fundamentally opposed to the processes of micro evolution. Rather, we maintain that nature is organized hierarchically and that no smooth continuum leads across levels. We may attain a unified theory of process, but the processes work differently at different levels and we cannot extrapolate from one level to encompass all events at the next. I believe, in fact, that ... speciation by splitting guarantees that macro evolution must be studied at its own level. ... [S]election among species—not an extrapolation of changes in gene frequencies within populations—may be the motor of macro evolutionary trends. If macro evolution is, as I believe, mainly a story of the differential success of certain kinds of species and, if most species change little in the phyletic mode during the course of their existence, then micro evolutionary change within populations is not the stuff (by extrapolation) of major transformations. Stephen Jay Gould
Originally posted by Howie47
reply to post by monkey_descendant
I know I'm pretty much banging my head against the wall with you guys.
Because this is your religion.
Here is a couple quotes that apply directly to the question of micro-macro evolution. For all the undecided or confused readers.
Among all the claims made during the evolutionary synthesis, perhaps the one that found least acceptance was the assertion that all phenomen of macro evolution can be ‘reduced to,' that is, explained by, micro evolutionary genetic processes. Not surprisingly, this claim was usually supported by geneticists but was widely rejected by the very biologists who dealt with macro evolution, the morphologists and paleontologists. Many of them insisted that there is more or less complete discontinuity between the processes at the two levels—that what happens at the species level is entirely different from what happens at the level of the higher categories. Now, 50 years later the controversy remains undecided. Ernst Mayer
We do not advance some special theory for long times and large transitions, fundamentally opposed to the processes of micro evolution. Rather, we maintain that nature is organized hierarchically and that no smooth continuum leads across levels. We may attain a unified theory of process, but the processes work differently at different levels and we cannot extrapolate from one level to encompass all events at the next. I believe, in fact, that ... speciation by splitting guarantees that macro evolution must be studied at its own level. ... [S]election among species—not an extrapolation of changes in gene frequencies within populations—may be the motor of macro evolutionary trends. If macro evolution is, as I believe, mainly a story of the differential success of certain kinds of species and, if most species change little in the phyletic mode during the course of their existence, then micro evolutionary change within populations is not the stuff (by extrapolation) of major transformations. Stephen Jay Gould
All the types,( I've discussed in this thread), are of the same species.
Tortoises, iguanas, finches, that have experienced "founders effect",
can still interbreed and produce offspring that are fertile. Even though some of these animals have been separated by thousands of miles and thousands of years!
Quibbling about the meanings of words is not going to change this fact, into Classical evolution, macro evolution, Darwinism, or what ever you want to call, "all life evolving from a common ancestor.
It doesn't have to turn the new population into a new species
Originally posted by Howie47
reply to post by monkey_descendant
It doesn't have to turn the new population into a new species
It does if you want to use it as proof of classical evolution! That is what this thread is originally all about! Lest we forget!
Originally posted by Howie47
reply to post by Ulster
So in your way of thinking. The very first life. Is no less complex then humans?! Humans are just more fit?!
Originally posted by Ulster
Originally posted by Howie47
reply to post by Ulster
So in your way of thinking. The very first life. Is no less complex then humans?! Humans are just more fit?!
Complexity is your word not mine. Complexity expresses a condition of numerous elements in a system and numerous forms of relationships among the elements. Not just the number of elements.
You argued than new information was added. That is not correct i many cases.
There are many bacterium that have more base pairs than humans.
Here is one with over 1 trillion base pairs. 300x more than you and I. www.springerlink.com...
Bacterial genes are packed more closely together in their genome than, say, in the human genome, and the genes still appear to interact with each other in complex ways.