What do Evolutionists offer

To the contrary: organisms that can't mate to produce reproductive offspring are of different species.



That's my point. Merely because groups within a species tend not to mate, doesn't turn them into new or different species !



The "evidence" provided is that there are different populations of that fish, just as there are different types of finches, or different types of dogs. That doesn't turn them into different, new, species: nonfinches, nondogs, or noncichlids




What morphology ? Nonspecification counts as nonevidence. How does mere use of the word "morphology" evidence different morphology ?
Much less different morphology that constitutes different species




Like the cichlid groups, they Can mate with each other and produce viable and fertile offspring and so are not separate species




That they cannot mate and produce viable and fertile offspring



i'm not exactly sure why an Evolutionist's so worried about species, when, according to their nonsensical theory, peanuts and wolverines and dinosaurs and people and bugs all have a common antecedent. Talk about "loose."
Evolution's so loose it's nonexistent. Unlike species, nature, and God. Which are real

We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know.

To the contrary at least in part: we've received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit which is from God, that we may know the things which have been graciously given to us by God

Being a Darwinian does not compel one to be a Christian, but, because one is a Darwinian one is opening a way for someone to be a Christian.

How ?

What is the source of this definition?

That depends on how strong the tendency is. If the tendency is very strong (to the point of virtually excluding mates from the other group) what would prevent them from becoming different species?

It may surprise you to learn that the theory of evolution does not require that they become nonfinches, nondogs or noncichlids. In fact, it would falsify the theory if they did. However, if the groups do not interbreed with each other, on what grounds would they not be different species?

Check out the paper for the specifics on morphology. Without reading the paper, I would guess that size and colour would be two aspects of differing morphology. There could well be several others.

It doesn't. I expect the full paper gave details not included in the short citation.

Different morphology per se does not constitute different species. But it does permit identification of groups which can then be observed for signs of being different species. For example, if one can determine by morphology that one group is a population of cats and another is a population of dogs, one can then observe whether or not they will mate.

The same principle applies when the species are more similar, as with ground finches and cactus finches. Or with small ground finches and large ground finches. Or cichlids of different colour patterns.

We know different human groups do mate with each other and produce healthy and fertile offspring. Since they do, we know they can.


The cichlid groups however don't. So we do not know if they can.

And if they don't or won't mate outside of their own group, how would you determine whether or not they can?

Evolution is about the origin of species. Can't tell if new species have emerged from an old one unless you have a criterion that tells when two groups are or are not the same species.


Is it evolution that you have a problem with or just common descent?

__________________
"Either we've got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy - and then admit that we just don't wanna do it." Steve Colbert

Allright, how about this: some evidence I posted somewhere else for common descent. Does this qualify?

(Anyone spotting mistakes in this post are more than welcome to help me correct them)

Warning: monster post incoming. But DO NOT CLAIM THAT THERE IS NO EVIDENCE FOR EVOLUTION OR COMMON DESCENT IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THIS POST! It took me a long while to write all this; if you're going to argue against me, I expect you'll have the courtesy to read it.

Okay, so let's take a closer look at the human-ape relationship. I'll present three different lines of genetic evidence from a laymans perspective, but I'll begin with a tiny bit of history: when Darwin proposed his theory, he had no knowledge of genetics (which is amazing, considering how much he got right anyway). In his time, it was hypothesized that humans and apes were closely related, but it couldn't really be evidenced because there was nothing to conclusively show how close the relation actually is. All science had to go by back then was paleontological and morphological evidence - which can only take you so far.

Then, DNA and it's importance to life was discovered about a century later. Now, if the hypothesis was correct, we should find evidence of it in the genes of apes and humans. And what do we find? Well, at first glance, we see great similarities - Funky already talked about this. Not remarkable in itself, but some support. But what else do we find?

Well, here's the first line of genetic evidence. Our genes are, as you should know, organized into chromosomes. We have 46 chromosomes and all the apes have... 48!? Now, chromosomes don't just disappear. Molecular biology requires that if the hypothesis put forth by evolution is true, we should be able to find the missing chromosomes somewhere. A number of things could have happened to them. For example, a pair (remember, chromosomes are organized in pairs) could have split and produced a new pair in apes. Or two chromosomes could have merged. Either way, we should find some chromosomes in the human genome that looks like two glued-together ape chromosomes.

We can be even more specific than that, though. There is a part of every chromosome called the telomere. Without going into detail, this is a non-coding part of the chromosome that's used as a buffer to make it possible to copy the coding parts of the genome without destroying them. This part is always at the end of the chromosome, so if we can find a human chromosome with two extra telomeres (or inversed telomeres - inversion is a rather common mutation) in it, we're golden.

Guess what? It's chromsome #2 in the human genome. Below is a picture of it, compared to pairs of chromosomes in chimps, gorillas and orangutans.

As you see, it's a direct match between the human chromosome and the chimp chromosomes, with two telomeres fused in the middle. There are a few small differences with the other apes, which is one of several pieces of evidence that we are more closely related to chimps than gorillas and orangutans.

A more conclusive explanation - with primary sources - can be found here, but it's not required reading if you read what I wrote above, unless you want to verify it by finding the scientific papers where these things were presented.

Okay, but that's just one thing. What's next? Well, I'm sure you've heard of viruses. Nasty little buggers. There is a special class of viruses called retroviruses, which are special because they inject their own RNA into the host cells DNA. This is obviously often - though not always - harmful, and you can read a bit about it on Wikipedia. Anyway, this is usually irrelevant to evolution, because what happens in a few cells in the body will not be carried on to the offspring of the individual. Except when it happens in the germ cells (the sperm or egg). If a virus attacks a human germ cell and inserts its own genes into that cell, and that cell then produces an offspring, the offspring will have copies of the retrovirus RNA in every cell of its body. Such retroviruses are called endogenous retroviruses.

So what's the relevance to evolution? Well, these bits of genes in our genome are essentially footprints in the sand. The longer an ERV has been fixed in the genome, the poorer its quality becomes (due to mutation in combination with the fact that natural selection doesn't favour our ability to produce viruses). Eventually, the ERV is distorted to such a degree that the gene sequence becomes inactive. That gives us a very rough estimation of how old (in generational time, which is what I'll be talking to whenever I say that ERV's give us time estimates) a particular ERV is, something we can't really do with regular mutations. The age estimation can be improved by mutating an inactive ERV sequence to see how far removed from a working copy it is.

So now to the point: humans have ERV's. Great. Chimps also have ERV's. Great. Same for all the great apes. Great. Here's the kicker though: most of the ERV's in the human genome are shared with the chimp genome. Slightly less are shared with gorillas, and even less with orangutans, etc. But the most striking thing of all: there are no ERV's not shared between, say, humans and orangutans that are not also shared between humans and chimps! Same if we compare, say, human-gibbons with human-rhesus, or even even human-gorilla with chimp-orangutan. This means that we can construct, entirely from genetic evidence, a phylogenetic tree - the tree of life! A short overview of our immediate ancestry turns out like this:

(source is Lebedev, Y. B., Belonovitch, O. S., Zybrova, N. V, Khil, P. P., Kurdyukov, S. G., Vinogradova, T. V., Hunsmann, G., and Sverdlov, E. D. (2000) "Differences in HERV-K LTR insertions in orthologous loci of humans and great apes." Gene 247: 265-277. I need to mention that for copyright reasons).

Compare that image to the previous one. Notice how the chimp is closer related to humans than gorillas and orangutans. Different types of genetic evidence corroborate each other. That's how science works - independent verification of evidence. And that ties in with the third evidence for common descent I thought I'd cover here today. The ERV's are particularily interesting, because they are relatively large changes in the genome that can also be assigned a rough time estimate, plus they have all sorts of interesting relevancies such as explaining why we are susceptible to HIV but chimps aren't. But the same basic method can be used on the entire genome, not just ERV's! What we get is a nested hierarchy of genes, producing a clear phylogenetic classification of all life on earth. Now, nature is never quite that simple, so there are things like horizontal gene transfer - especially between bacteria - that provide a number of shortcuts. These, however, are all ERV's (which is also why they are so interesting), which makes sense - viruses sometimes infect more than one species. And this is why I mention "regular" mutations as the third piece of independent evidence: they corroborate the evidence by ERV's and produce the same phylogenetic tree - the same nested hierarchy. They don't give us estimates in time, though.

Okay, you say, but it's all genetic. Can we corroborate it with other evidence? Of course we can! One such example is the fact that life is a twin nested hierarchy. I've shown you half of that - the other half is what Darwin observed. He noticed that only birds have wings, but mammals never do. All mammals have spines and eyes - and even a particular type of eyes, distinct from insectoid eyes. Some mammals swim, but they still have lungs eventhough gills might be better adapted to aquatic life. All mammals also have four legs, but all insects have six legs - and spiders (but only spiders) have eight. Spiders are also the only family of creatures that have eight eyes. And so on, and so forth. So what does this mean?

Well, if you organise all these features so that you put all animals with fur in one group, all animals with four legs in another group and so on, you'll end up with - you got it - a tree! Animals with mammalian-type eyes will be a branch of the vertebrate branch, for example, and birds and mammals will both be branches of the eye-branch. And never, ever do one animal fit into several distinct branches. That's a nested hierarchy. And guess what? It's the same nested hierarchy as we get from genetic evidence (so far, anyway - we haven't sequenced the genetics of all known lifeforms yet). The hierarchies corroborate each other, and each hierarchy has in turn been constructed by independent lines evidence that corroborate each other.

That's why the theory of evolution is so incredibly solid - the foundation it stands on is dozens of lines of evidence, each supporting each other. Even if one line of evidence would fall, the theory would stand strong. What you'd need to do to topple evolution is to disprove most of those lines of evidence - and noone has budged even one of them yet.

This has been a monster post, but I'll add a few words about the hypothesis of the common designer, because undoubtedly you'll think that this evidence is consistent with that, as well. You're right, it sort of is. A designer could have designed life into a twin nested hierarchy. But why would he? None of the designed things we see around us fit that criteria. We can't produce a nested hierarchy of inventions, because technology simply does not produce nested hierarchies. Now, the designer might still have designed these things with the explicit intention of making them appear natural, but that's just the nail in the coffin for the design argument: the fact is, that regardless of what life might look like, the designer argument would fit all possibilities. It is, therefore, unfalsifiable and thus not science, because unfalsifiable concepts hold no objective truth value. I talked about that earlier in the thread - look it up for reference.

So, is that evidence enough for you?

__________________
Errare humanum est, ergo non sum humanus.

I think this thread might benefit from piglet providing his preferred definition of "species", and then we could find examples suitable to his definition (assuming it's realistic).
If it's lack of interbreeding you prefer, piglet, then you might try checking out the evolution of polyploidy in plants. Here's an example (from http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html):

While studying the genetics of the evening primrose, Oenothera lamarckiana, de Vries (1905) found an unusual variant among his plants. O. lamarckiana has a chromosome number of 2N = 14. The variant had a chromosome number of 2N = 28. He found that he was unable to breed this variant with O. lamarckiana. He named this new species O. gigas.

It's worth mentioning that we can observe clear speciation within the fossil record, too. If you have access to the scientific literature (and if you don't, I'll send you the articles), be sure to check out the following:

T.M. Cronin and C.E. Schneider. 1990. Climatic influences on species: evidence from the fossil record. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 5: 275–279.

F. Robin O'Keefe, and P. Martin Sander. 1999. Paleontological paradigms and inferences of phylogenetic pattern; a case study. Paleobiology 25: 518-533.

As a side note, piglet, how do you interpret the Genesis account of Noah's Ark? Do you think there was room for all 60,000 vertebrate species on board?

__________________
"There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well." -- creation scientist Dr. Todd Wood

What is the source of this definition?

Nature. And also Genesis 1:12.
It's a law of nature and law of life that species only beget what they are (their species). Not other species

to the point of virtually excluding mates from the other group) what would prevent them from becoming different species?

The fact that they're not different species.
It's a law of nature and of life (and of our Creator) that species reproduce and generate what they are. Not what they're not

the theory of evolution does not require that they become nonfinches, nondogs or noncichlids. In fact, it would falsify the theory if they did.

You mean Evolution isn't a fact but's theory ?
Evolution doesn't teach that nonfinches eventually generated finches ?
You're correct that such a notion self-falsifies

if the groups do not interbreed with each other, on what grounds would they not be different species?

The fact that they can productively interbreed with one another

size and colour would be two aspects of differing morphology. There could well be several others.

Black humans are humans. White humans are humans. Regardless of whether, or how much, they interbreed with one another or not. Tall humans are humans. Midgets are humans. Some midgets maybe so small as to not be able to breed with very tall and large people. This doesn't constitute small and large people different species. Nor does it constitute a step toward Evolution. Since, as a matter of fact, Evolution doesn't exist and never existed in nature. At least not to anyone's observation

Different morphology does permit identification of groups which can then be observed for signs of being different species. For example, if one can determine by morphology that one group is a population of cats and another is a population of dogs, one can then observe whether or not they will mate.

Brown cats are cats. Brown dogs are dogs. Black dogs are dogs. Black cats are cats. "Cat" can also refer to a group of species: lions, tigers, leopards, etc

The same principle applies when the species are more similar, as with ground finches and cactus finches. Or with small ground finches and large ground finches. Or cichlids of different colour patterns.

Finches are finches. Finches aren't nonfinches. Finches didn't come from nonfinches. Nonfinches don't generate finches. Finches don't generate nonfinches. Nonfinches are nonfinches

The cichlid groups however don't. So we do not know if they can.

One person, looking at cichlids for however briefly he did in 1970 hardly constitutes adequate knowledge of whether, how much, or how little, different types of cichlids mate.
For example, a hypothetical observer of humans briefly in a segregated society might report that black and white humans didn't mate, therefore he didn't know whether they can.
Such a hypothetical observer could also, perhaps, generalize about races' different "morphologies." Color and size and perhaps others

And if they don't or won't mate outside of their own group, how would you determine whether or not they can?

Perhaps similar to "artificial insemination" as is done in some human pregnancies. We could see if the sperm of one type of male cichlid fertilizes the egg of a female of another type of cichlid, and what happens next.

Evolution is about the origin of species. Can't tell if new species have emerged from an old one unless you have a criterion that tells when two groups are or are not the same species.

How about peanuts and humans? If Evolution teaches you that they have a common ancestor, do you think it's "descendants" (humans and peanuts) are the same species ?

Is it evolution that you have a problem with or just common descent?

What's the difference ?

I rarely intrude into this forum but the fact is that this is just too easy. Speciation is a fact of nature, to say otherwise is pure, undiluted ignorance. Now whether or not things speciate to the point where we are talking a whole new genus is another story.

Pardon the interuption, now back to the regularly scheduled discussion.

Grace and peace,
Mark

__________________

You did just say that you accept the evolution of whales from terrestrial vertebrates (a scenario that spans many, many, many genera) here:

http://christianforums.com/showpost....26&postcount=8

Why the reluctance concerning inter-genus continuity now?

By the way, we welcome your evidence for speciation here, mark.

__________________
"There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well." -- creation scientist Dr. Todd Wood

Nope. Nature just is. It does not define itself. Those who study nature generate the definitions so that they can communicate with each other about what they are studying.

Just as geometric shapes do not define themselves. Mathematicians define them.

No. All you have here is a word: "kind" (in Hebrew 'min'; in Latin 'species'; in Greek 'genus') But no definition of the word that you can use to tell whether two populations are the same or different kinds.

Irrelevant. The question is whether two groups of cichlid fish are or are not the same species. Each reproduces its own kind, but are they producing the same or different species? What would tell you whether or not they are the same species?


No, that is not enough to prevent them becoming different species.

True enough. It is also a well-established law of life that species do not stay the same over time, especially when there are strong incentives to change.



It is both as you would know if you understood the difference between "fact" and "theory".



Yes, and it also teaches that finches do NOT generate non-finches---ever. Basic to the nested hierarchy.


If they are not interbreeding with one another, obviously they are not productively interbreeding with one another.

So why would they not be different species?



Thought we covered this already. Distinctive morphology helps us identify groups. It does not in itself show us whether or not the distinctive groups are different species. In some cases a difference in morphology may coincide with a species difference. In others it may not.

And do brown cats interbreed with brown dogs? They share a morphological characteristic. In fact they share several morphological characteristics. So why would they not be the same species?

In fact, each of these groups shares more in common with each other than any of them does with dogs. So why do you call them a group of species? Why not call them all the same species?


True, but is a ground finch a cactus finch? Is a lion a tiger? Is a Siberian tiger a Bengal tiger? Which of these pairs refers to different species and which to sub-varieties of the same species? How do you know?

If you didn't know, how would you determine whether or not they are the same or separate species?


Actually, our hypothetical observer would probably note that they did not marry, but did frequently mate. Especially he would note that black females were seldom permitted to refuse a mating with a white male.

Segregation has seldom prevented mating, only official sanction and approval of the mating.

That is actually a sound idea. So would you propose that "species" be defined (in the case of exclusively sexual reproduction) to include in one species all those who produce viable and fertile offspring, even if the only occasion in which sperm and egg unite is in a test-tube. And you would agree that if such artificial insemination consistently failed to produce viable offspring or only produced sterile offspring, the two groups would be different species.

No. That is what evolution is about: producing two or more different species from the same common ancestor. It appears that even much more closely related relatives, such as Neanderthal man, may have been a different species.

Oh, huge difference. If you thought common ancestry was all there is to evolution, you haven't begun to understand evolution.

That is like trying to understand evolution at the PhD level when you haven't completed elementary school yet.

Most evolution doesn't even produce new species. It just modifies existing species. But once you understand how evolution modifies existing species, it is a short step to understanding speciation and how and why it happens. And from there common descent follows naturally.

However, first one needs to understand evolution in its simplest form, as a modification of a species.

Here are some relevant questions.

Do species change their characteristics over time?
What are the mechanisms of such change?
What factors influence such change?

Also note that since we are thinking about evolution modifying a species, we need some idea of what a species is. We need to know that we are beginning with one species. How would we determine that?

__________________
"Either we've got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy - and then admit that we just don't wanna do it." Steve Colbert

Nature just is. It does not define itself.

To the contrary what nature is is nature's definition.
Which is why mythology like Evolution doesn't, and can't, define,
or be, nature. And why nature isn't, and never was, Evolution

geometric shapes do not define themselves. Mathematicians define them.

To the contrary: a triangle has 3 sides and 3 angles regardless whether a mathematician defines it so or not.

Likewise is math intelligently designed, and evident in nature, even before Adam was created

The question is whether two groups of cichlid fish are or are not the same species.

The answer was, is, and always will be: they are

Each reproduces its own kind, but are they producing the same or different species?

"Kind" = "species," as i and God am using them

What would tell you whether or not they are the same species?

The fact that they can reproduce reproductive offspring, like Genesis says




The law of life is that species don't and can't become different species. Rather, life reproduces only what it is.
This is the same with God's life. God became man to make man God. As Athanasius wrote. To make men children of God. In God's life and in God's nature. (But not in God's Godhead)

It is also a well-established law of life that species do not stay the same over time, especially when there are strong incentives to change.

If by "not stay the same" and "change" you mean that averages within populations cycles, such as age, weight, length of life, immunities, etc, that's true.
If by "not stay the same" and "change" you mean that species change into different or new species: that's a theory (and goofy one at that). Neither fact nor even close to being established. Much less well-established

It is both as you would know if you understood the difference between "fact" and "theory".

Evolution's not fact, fact's not theory, and theory's not fact. Though theories should include facts

If they are not interbreeding with one another, obviously they are not productively interbreeding with one another.
So why would they not be different species?

Like i wrote: "CAN interbreed..."

What do you call it when a parent population of one species splits to give rise to a new daughter population that cannot interbreed with the parent population, piglet? This is what happened in the evening primrose example I provided above. If that's not speciation, what is it?

__________________
"There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well." -- creation scientist Dr. Todd Wood