One thing I thing that is worth noting is that micro evolution and macro evolution are not two distinctly different things. They are the same thing, just on different time scales. Basically
Micro Evolution + Micro Evolution + ... + Micro Evolution = Macro Evolution
I want to pose a question related to that (and it will give me notifications to this topic as well yay!). A whole bunch of micro evolutions equal 1 macro evolution, is what youre saying correct? So there is a difference in the way that 1 is different to 100. They may both be numbers, but you cant just take nothing, and add 1 to it to get 100. It requires some work.
Uhm what? (0+) 1+1+...+1 = 100 seems fine to me. Lots of small changes can add up.
Now I think everyone agrees on evolution as far as the fact that things change, and adapt to their surrounding.
However we may not agree as to
how creatures adapt. We're saying that populations adapt via natural selection, whereas individuals don't. You're more of the opinion that Lamarck was right (or at least you were in that previous thread).
The problem comes when you talk about origin of species. For species to have an origin, they had to have originally not existed, and so they had to have came about by chance. This is why I consider bio-genesis to be an important part of evolution, although many disagree.
Well people have every reason to disagree: this isn't part of what evolution is covering at all. For the theory of gravity to hold true it doesn't matter in the least how the Universe came to be. What matters is that we have tons of evidence for the theory of gravity being true. Equally it doesn't matter in the least how the first life form came to be for the theory of evolution, all that matters is that we have tons of evidence for the theory being true (along with how there's no evidence against it and how it has predictive power).
Now, to someone who believes in evolution, as I pointed out earlier, the only difference between micro and macro is the amount, however, for someone who disagrees with the origin of species, micro and macro is more like a parabolic curve, where it has that certain point that it will never reach even though it will forever get closer and closer. However, in helps to keep in mind, that regardless of what the scientific definition of macro evolution is, when the avg ID proponent uses this phrase, they are using it, not in reference to a Siamese cat turning into a calico cat, but that cat turning into a dog.
Like I said you don't understand "microevolution". If you did you'd understand how it adds up over time.
As for bear dogs splitting into bears and wolves that's something that can be inferred from the fossil record. Speaking of the fossil record, I'd
love to see you comment on this:
Radiometric carbon dating allows us to determine the age of any individual fossil found. When we put all our fossils together and sort them by determined age we see which animals were around on the Earth how far ago. One hundred million years ago, for instance, the Earth was dominated by dinosaurs. We know that because from the complete collection of all the 100 million year old fossils ever found we can see:
-we have lots of dinosaur fossils from back then
-dinosaurs are the biggest animals we have from that time
Of further interest is:
-there weren't many mammals around back then, only some small, rat-like ones (not like today's rats, though)
-there were no birds around back then
And when I say there is NO SINGLE 100 million year old fossil of an elephant/bear/cow/horse/chicken/falcon/ostrich/etc, I of course mean there are no older ones either. We have dozens of thousands of dinosaur fossils that old, though... The first "bigger" mammals started emerging in the record after the dinosaurs vanished some about 61 million years ago (there are no dinosaur fossils younger than that). Of course the first of those didn't look (very) much like the animals we know today, but as you look at ever younger fossils they start looking more familiar. The first bird-like fossils showed up a few million years before the extinction of the dinosaurs, but (surprise, surprise) had many reptilian features as well (they sort of looked like a bird/dinosaur crossbreed).
This is far from the only part or feature of the fossil record that supports evolution, but I suspect it should suffice for now :
The fossil record is the observed evidence. We can see that there were no elephants around 100 million years ago, but lots and lots of dinosaurs were. Evolution can explain this easily. Now how would you go about providing an explanation without it?
Now as to theory>fact, as I have stated before in another topic, I consider this a bunch of bullcrap. A theory can be proven wrong, a fact cant. 1+1 will always equal 2. That is a fact. The paint on my wall is a beige shade. That is a fact.
You are driving down a road, so far all the houses you have seen, which are all in the same neigborhood, have all been green. You are 99% of the way down the street. You have viewed the contract that says that in this neigborhood on this street, your house has to be green. You therefor assume that the final house is green. You get to the final house, and it is....
redOh wow, they have a special contract saying that there house can be any color they want.
That final house, although all the evidence pointed to it being green, was not green. You may say "well you didnt say that there was a special contract" and youre right I didnt. That special contract is relative to the hole in any theory that has been proven wrong.
I believe I've also covered this here several times, but here goes once more: theories are never proven. They are, however, supported by evidence. Evolution has so much evidence going for it that it's ridiculous how some people still dismiss it as if it were a religion.
I'm not sure I see the point in using an analogy here, but I guess I'll play along:
So there are two streets with the same kind of contract. If evolution is predicting all houses are green (and may eventually need to be amended slightly), then ID is telling us that all the houses in the neghbouring street (which we can not see clearly from here) are
blue. We have
photos of some of the houses from that street, and they are
all green. But ID has never let that bother it, no sir. We have the fossil record. And like I've asked above: if evolution is wrong, how do you explain it?
Nice post Chemist, it always helps to have some more in depth stories and examples.
As for micro and macro evolution, I am not sure what you're saying flies. Micro evolution refers to smalll changes, typically over a short period of time. There is no reason why micro evolution must lead to macro evolution. Some species have actually stayed very stable over millions of years. I think it would be rare but it isn't impossible. Just as long as the situation doesn't demand any change. After all a statistical law says populations enjoy returning to the avarage. That means the right situation could actually nullify the genetic drift. The mutations are less numerous and the standard model keeps 'winning,'' since it is in essence the best model.
Thanks.
Now sure, natural selection doesn't
need to lead to speciation, yet it is easy enough to set up conditions under which it undoubtedly will. What you need is essentially just a population in which the members of two subpopulations will accumulate different mutations over time. The rules for how the small changes spread over a (sub)population remain
the same. The longer they are subject to different evolutionary pressures, the more changes they accumulate. At some point they're so different we start classifying them as a different subspecies, then different species, genus, etc.
