Challenge for YECs: What are the roles of population and species in evolution?

[pitabread]

Yes. Can you take that further?

Please no. The last thing you want is mark trying to define things. Especially when he starts ranting about 'Darwinism'.

 

[AnotherAtheist]

Please no. The last thing you want is mark trying to define things. Especially when he starts ranting about 'Darwinism'.

His first post in this thread looks fine. I'd like to see it continued.

 

[pitabread]

His first post in this thread looks fine. I'd like to see it continued.

Just don't say I didn't warn ya

 

[mark kennedy]

Yes. Can you take that further?

The most commonly recognized definition of evolution is the change of alleles (traits) in populations over time. You have to understand, genetics was not regarded as a true science for the first fifty years of it's history. That seems a little hard to reconcile to the fact that geneticists were doing profoundly empirical work on Chromosome theory and while in the hunt for, what would become known as, the DNA double helix model. Geneticists simply track and manipulate traits, one of the best tools throughout their history was population statistics. There was a problem with that, the geneticist knew about the external traits and the molecular biologists could identify the physical elements but they couldn't connect the cause and effect until the DNA double helix model.

Historical digression aside, the definition of evolution was coined by Ernst Mayr, who studied birds (orinthology) for nearly half a century before contributing to the Modern Synthesis. Statistics are a powerful scientific tool, it's ability to predict are evident in so many fields from the spread of disease to the development of hybrids. Speaking of hybrids, Mendel was working on exactly that when he published his famous pea plant experiments paper, yielding what would be the scientific backbone of chromosome theory and the laws of inheritance.

So did I pass the pop quiz on what evolution actually is? Because I've developed a taste for genetics that has propelled scientific discovery by leaps and bounds for over a hundred years. What I find puzzling is the creationists and evolutionists alike are indifferent to this fascinating field of study that was born in the early fifties as a new science. It is a monumental as the development of physics and the principles of motion in the scientific revolution and very nearly rare in these discussions.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[mark kennedy]

Please no. The last thing you want is mark trying to define things. Especially when he starts ranting about 'Darwinism'.

Ugh says the caveman! Oh come on, you know you want me to start a rant on Darwinism. Just let me get a few jabs in, I promise not to take my soap box down to the park and scare the pigeons anymore.

 

[AnotherAtheist]

The most commonly recognized definition of evolution is the change of alleles (traits) in populations over time. You have to understand, genetics was not regarded as a true science for the first fifty years of it's history. That seems a little hard to reconcile to the fact that geneticists were doing profoundly empirical work on Chromosome theory and while in the hunt for, what would become known as, the DNA double helix model. Geneticists simply track and manipulate traits, one of the best tools throughout their history was population statistics. There was a problem with that, the geneticist knew about the external traits and the molecular biologists could identify the physical elements but they couldn't connect the cause and effect until the DNA double helix model.

Historical digression aside, the definition of evolution was coined by Ernst Mayr, who studied birds (orinthology) for nearly half a century before contributing to the Modern Synthesis. Statistics are a powerful scientific tool, it's ability to predict are evident in so many fields from the spread of disease to the development of hybrids. Speaking of hybrids, Mendel was working on exactly that when he published his famous pea plant experiments paper, yielding what would be the scientific backbone of chromosome theory and the laws of inheritance.

So did I pass the pop quiz on what evolution actually is? Because I've developed a taste for genetics that has propelled scientific discovery by leaps and bounds for over a hundred years. What I find puzzling is the creationists and evolutionists alike are indifferent to this fascinating field of study that was born in the early fifties as a new science. It is a monumental as the development of physics and the principles of motion in the scientific revolution and very nearly rare in these discussions.

Grace and peace,
Mark

This has taken it further, thank you. But, could you finish it off by describing what happens during speciation, and the roles of species and population in that step?

 

[mark kennedy]

This has taken it further, thank you. But, could you finish it off by describing what happens during speciation, and the roles of species and population in that step?

The general idea of speciation is that the two species are no longer able to interbreed. There are a few notable exceptions, for instance, troglodytes and bonobos still can even though they are clearly distinct species. Much of adaptive evolution is cyclical, I guess Polar Bears and Grizzly bears can still interbreed. I found a website discussing how one offspring was discovered as the ice caps are melting they are intermingling more. I don't know how to elaborate further since most of what I know about this aspect is going to be anecdotal.

 

[AnotherAtheist]

The general idea of speciation is that the two species are no longer able to interbreed. There are a few notable exceptions, for instance, troglodytes and bonobos still can even though they are clearly distinct species. Much of adaptive evolution is cyclical, I guess Polar Bears and Grizzly bears can still interbreed. I found a website discussing how one offspring was discovered as the ice caps are melting they are intermingling more. I don't know how to elaborate further since most of what I know about this aspect is going to be anecdotal.

That's after speciation has occurred. Could you please cover how the actual speciation event occurs, and the roles of population and species? You're so close.

I'd like to discuss the Polar/Grizzly/Brown bear example more, but I'm hoping we can finish off the roles of population and species in speciation first.

 

[mark kennedy]

That's after speciation has occurred. Could you please cover how the actual speciation event occurred and the roles of population and species? You're so close.

I'd like to discuss the Polar/Grizzly/Brown bear example more, but I'm hoping we can finish off the roles of population and species in speciation first.

Generally speciation appears to be more regional then anything else. Troglodytes live in the savannas while bonobos live in the Congo, what they eat and how they live is a key factor. There is also the Arctic Cod that has a unique and brand new (de novo) gene that keeps them from freezing in the frigid waters of the arctic. I would love to elaborate on the genomic mechanisms that activate and alter DNA sequences in regulatory and protein coding genes, certainly what the process is behind the development of a de novo protein coding gene. I simply don't think the research has gotten there yet. Beyond that I'm not sure what your looking for here.

 

[AnotherAtheist]

Generally speciation appears to be more regional then anything else. Troglodytes live in the savannas while bonobos live in the Congo, what they eat and how they live is a key factor. There is also the Arctic Cod that has a unique and brand new (de novo) gene that keeps them from freezing in the frigid waters of the arctic. I would love to elaborate on the genomic mechanisms that activate and alter DNA sequences in regulatory and protein coding genes, certainly what the process is behind the development of a de novo protein coding gene. I simply don't think the research has gotten there yet. Beyond that I'm not sure what your looking for here.

It's amazing how close you get. You've talked about speciation being regional. Species, regions, populations... You could add the word 'population' in the text above and you'd be there. Just one or two words extra to make it grammatical as well

 

[Michael]

It's amazing how close you get. You've talked about speciation being regional. Species, regions, populations... You could add the word 'population' in the text above and you'd be there. Just one or two words extra to make it grammatical as well

You seem to be surprised by the notion that someone can understand a concept and still reject it. I've met plenty of atheists around here that understand the content of the Bible very well, even better than many Christians, yet reject the whole concept of God. I'm sure that flat Earth proponents grasp the concept of a round object too.

 

[mark kennedy]

It's amazing how close you get. You've talked about speciation being regional. Species, regions, populations... You could add the word 'population' in the text above and you'd be there. Just one or two words extra to make it grammatical as well

Sorry to disappoint but my interest has long been the internal mechanisms. Obvious a polar bear wasn't born to a grizzly bear, a population of bears simply migrated north. As a creationist I'm forced into a very short timeline, remember is the change of traits in populations over time. The earliest genotypes were represented by only two parents and a remarkable short space of time to spread across the globe and diverge on a broad array. Did you know that if a populations numbers fall below a hundred they are considered doomed to extinction? What you would have had from the founding parents is a gene pool that was vastly more capable of divergence then anything we see in the modern world. Adams sons and daughters would have had to intermarry early, by the time the Mosaic Law was enacted this was strictly forbidden. Yet Abraham's bride and the bride of Isaac were closely related.

If you would understand genetics the best inroad I've seen is population genetics. If you want to see something truly fascinating related to internal mechanisms check this out:

SPECTER: CRISPR is actually an ancient bacterial defense system. It's like an immune system for bacteria, which is surprising because for a long time, scientists didn't think bacteria had adaptive immune systems. But in 1987, some Japanese scientists were looking for something in DNA, and they saw this weird group of nucleotides, pieces of DNA. They had no idea what they were doing and what they meant and what their function was. And in a piece they published in The Journal of Bacteriology, the last sentence literally was, and we saw this weird, crazy group of nucleotides, and we have no idea what they're doing there. And that was that. And that was not for a very long time. (New Gene-Editing Techniques Hold the Promise Of Altering The Fundamentals Of Life. NPR)
​

What you will learn while exploring the life sciences is how much we don't really know. That editing tool, if you check into it, is the single most important gene editing tool of our time. At some point you have to ask the question, what is the internal mechanism capable of altering genes on an evolutionary scale. Now this one turns out to be a tool that adapts the immune system of bacteria, are there other's that can adapt highly conserved genes related to metabolism, external features and highly conserved internal organs? We may well have that answer in our time.

 

[pitabread]

What you would have had from the founding parents is a gene pool that was vastly more capable of divergence then anything we see in the modern world.

Or as I like to call them, magic genomes.

 

[mark kennedy]

Or as I like to call them, magic genomes.

Or we can call them larger gene pools

 

[pitabread]

Or we can call them larger gene pools

Are you implying more than 2 founding parents then?

 

[mark kennedy]

Are you implying more than 2 founding parents then?

No

 

[pitabread]

No

Magic genomes it is then!

 

[mark kennedy]

Magic genomes it is then!

Like care about genomics

 

[AnotherAtheist]

Sorry to disappoint but my interest has long been the internal mechanisms. Obvious a polar bear wasn't born to a grizzly bear, a population of bears simply migrated north. As a creationist I'm forced into a very short timeline, remember is the change of traits in populations over time. The earliest genotypes were represented by only two parents and a remarkable short space of time to spread across the globe and diverge on a broad array. Did you know that if a populations numbers fall below a hundred they are considered doomed to extinction? What you would have had from the founding parents is a gene pool that was vastly more capable of divergence then anything we see in the modern world. Adams sons and daughters would have had to intermarry early, by the time the Mosaic Law was enacted this was strictly forbidden. Yet Abraham's bride and the bride of Isaac were closely related.

If you would understand genetics the best inroad I've seen is population genetics. If you want to see something truly fascinating related to internal mechanisms check this out:

SPECTER: CRISPR is actually an ancient bacterial defense system. It's like an immune system for bacteria, which is surprising because for a long time, scientists didn't think bacteria had adaptive immune systems. But in 1987, some Japanese scientists were looking for something in DNA, and they saw this weird group of nucleotides, pieces of DNA. They had no idea what they were doing and what they meant and what their function was. And in a piece they published in The Journal of Bacteriology, the last sentence literally was, and we saw this weird, crazy group of nucleotides, and we have no idea what they're doing there. And that was that. And that was not for a very long time. (New Gene-Editing Techniques Hold the Promise Of Altering The Fundamentals Of Life. NPR)
​

What you will learn while exploring the life sciences is how much we don't really know. That editing tool, if you check into it, is the single most important gene editing tool of our time. At some point you have to ask the question, what is the internal mechanism capable of altering genes on an evolutionary scale. Now this one turns out to be a tool that adapts the immune system of bacteria, are there other's that can adapt highly conserved genes related to metabolism, external features and highly conserved internal organs? We may well have that answer in our time.

I'll address your post separately (and follow up others with a single post) as I believe that you have addressed my original challenge as it was proposed more than anyone else. (Though, there are some posts I haven't thought about in detail yet.)

This thread was in response to the worst kind (in my eyes) of Creationist arguments. E.g. 'If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?' and suggestions (e.g.) that if someone believed in evolution, then they could throw themselves off a cliff at the Grand Canyon and evolve wings before they reached the bottom. The first implies that an entire species (or kind) evolves into something else. The second implies that an individual is what evolves. There are other bad arguments, such as the one you address where people will claim that an animal (e.g.) will suddenly give birth to another species.

It did seem to me that in looking at the worst kind of arguments here (which is what I found first when looking through these pages for the first time in a long time), that I rarely saw Creationists actually acknowledging that it's populations that evolve, and that it's quite normal (probably the majority of cases) for it being a single population that evolves into a different species, not the whole species. And that it's quite likely that the original species will still exist. Like the brown bear after the speciation event that produced the polar bear.

If some Creationists don't often mention that, it could be because they don't know it, or that they know it but won't admit it. I wanted to look into that.

There are of course different sets of beliefs that can be 'Young Earth Creationist'. E.g. if it is believed that animals speciated after Noah's Ark, but stayed within kinds, then speciation itself does not conflict with that flavour of YEC beliefs. Asking more about your own beliefs would be for another thread - it's hard enough to keep this one on topic.

I'll address someone else's post elsewhere, but it's important to understand the other person's position, in this case theories, for debate to be productive. Even if you don't agree with the other side. And it does seem that many Creationists either actively or passively build their arguments on a misunderstanding of evolution.

 

[AnotherAtheist]

I don't know.

I'll address your post singularly as well (will this happen to all of them.)

Thanks for saying 'I don't know.' That allows me to describe and is an honest response. It appears that in some other discussions that some people will act quite differently when the true situation is that they don't know.

I'll say that I don't expect you to accept or believe what I write next. However, I do feel that we should understand each other's positions. So, this is what modern evolution theory says. (And at this crude level, this has been pretty much the same since Darwin.)

Keeping it short, and leaving out some exceptions, evolution is the change in genes of a population of living things over time. Selection pressures selecting from the original genetic variability plus the rare mutations that are beneficial and preserved allows this genetic change, which will be gradual. So, brown bears may get lighter coloured to not stand out against the snow and ice, become better at swimming, etc. Eventually a time will be reached when the new population is different enough so that we will call it a different species. And so we have polar bears.

The consequences of this is that there is no reason why the original species will have disappeared, as brown bears living in comparatively warmer climes will have not experienced the same selection pressures, and hence will not have changed so much.

This whole thing addresses: if we came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? That's the most extreme form of that argument, but I see more subtle versions of it. It also made me curious in that I see Creationist arguments that depict evolution as applying to a whole species, or to individuals.

Note that there are some cases where a species will only have a single population. E.g. some killifish species are only found in one waterhole in the US. But this is an exception. Also, some forms of speciation through hybridisation do produce a new species quickly. But, I am addressing the 'typical' form of speciation here, not all methods by which it may occur.