For those wondering what "macroevolution" actually is...

[Guy Threepwood]

You keep claiming that structures with several parts cannot evolve stepwise, but you never give any reason and ignore all explanation of how it can happen. What do you think? That if you continue to deny it, it will go away?

What is your explanation of a step by step Darwinian mechanism that can create an eye?

 

[Speedwell]

What is your explanation of a step by step Darwinian mechanism that can create an eye?

Evolution of the eye - Wikipedia

 

[SLP]

What is your explanation of a step by step Darwinian mechanism that can create an eye?

What is your evidence that the structure of the eye was pre-programmed?

 

[Speedwell]

What is your evidence that the structure of the eye was pre-programmed?

He and Xianghua have already made it clear that they are under no obligation to produce any. All they need do is show that the evolutionary process is inadequate and "design" must be assumed as the only possible alternative.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Evolution of the eye - Wikipedia

The diagram at top right begins, as always, with a fully functional eye, then imagines a superficial shape changing process which is extremely crude in comparison to the sophisticated engineering of the generously granted starting point

It also concedes eyes appeared suddenly in the Cambrian (along with everything else), and so the actual pathways are left to 'hypothesis'

also that they ' have evolved independently somewhere between 40 and 65 times.'- i.e. not through common ancestry

 

[Guy Threepwood]

He and Xianghua have already made it clear that they are under no obligation to produce any. All they need do is show that the evolutionary process is inadequate and "design" must be assumed as the only possible alternative.

The capacity of creative intelligence to design and build functional visual systems, is not an assumption, it is the only unambiguously demonstrable method by which such a system can arise.

Not to say that being created through random error is entirely impossible, it's just not demonstrable, and looking increasingly improbable the more we learn about the sophistication of even the simplest eye.

That's why, again, even secular academics in microbiology are placing more burden on the pre-existence of crucial information required build eyes. - which is also supported by the observation that they apparently appeared entirely independently across large numbers of organisms

 

[Speedwell]

also that they ' have evolved independently somewhere between 40 and 65 times.'- i.e. not through common ancestry

Your other objections were pedestrian and predictable. This one seems bizarre. I have no idea what you are getting at.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Your other objections were pedestrian and predictable. This one seems bizarre. I have no idea what you are getting at.

see above, this is key evidence for secular biologists who increasingly point to pre-existing information, often involving epigenetics to some degree, instructions on how to build eyes (and other organs) coming essentially pre-packaged, and enabled independently according to environmental triggers.

ie. NOT through incremental inherited advantage aka Darwinism.

 

[Speedwell]

see above, this is key evidence for secular biologists who increasingly point to pre-existing information, often involving epigenetics to some degree, instructions on how to build eyes (and other organs) coming essentially pre-packaged, and enabled independently according to environmental triggers.

ie. NOT through incremental inherited advantage aka Darwinism.

So what does that have to do with the eye evolving more than once? Why would any of this pre-existing information have to stem from a single common ancestor?

ie. NOT through incremental inherited advantage aka Darwinism.

Why not? Where is it supposed to have come from?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

So what does that have to do with the eye evolving more than once? Why would any of this pre-existing information have to stem from a single common ancestor?

well it's a good question, nobody knows- the entirely independent evolution of eye has been the general consensus but also controversial

Why not? Where is it supposed to have come from?

according to ToE?- it was all supposed to have come from a random mutation- but eyes, like the cell itself- were presumed to be much simpler when the theory was formulated- the whole pattern emerging of things suddenly getting exponentially more sophisticated the deeper you go- runs counter to Darwinism and parallel to what brought down classical physics before it.

 

[SLP]

He and Xianghua have already made it clear that they are under no obligation to produce any. All they need do is show that the evolutionary process is inadequate and "design" must be assumed as the only possible alternative.

When you wrote "All they need do is show that the evolutionary process is inadequate" I think you meant assert? Demand? Pretend? Fantasize?

 

[Lobster Johnson]

but this is the problem- even the simplest eye is too complex and contain several parts.

Nope! The simplest kind of eye is just a patch of skin that is sensitive to light. This gives the creature enough information to differentiate between light and dark, which can be all they need to give them a survival advantage. Everything builds from that.

if so why complex animals evolved at all? they should stay as becteria too.

Animals didn't actually evolve from bacteria.

As for why early animal ancestors may have developed into more complex forms rather than remaining in simple forms, it was probably down to their environment and the selection pressure they were under.

Likely all the environmental niches that allowed for simple forms were taken up by all that bacteria.

 

[pitabread]

You keep claiming that structures with several parts cannot evolve stepwise, but you never give any reason and ignore all explanation of how it can happen.

This is the most telling part to me. xianghua has spent years now with people explaining how multi-part structures can evolve, yet has learned effectively nothing over that time.

I'm not even sure how that is possible. :/

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

It also concedes eyes appeared suddenly in the Cambrian (along with everything else)...

Not quite true; complex eyes are first seen in the Cambrian (and have been suggested as one of the drivers of diversification in that period). Being soft tissue, eyes are very unlikely to be preserved, but the Cambrian sees the development of protective shells (protection from predators that can see?), which increases the likelihood of preservation of imprints of soft parts.

There is now a wealth of evidence of Precambrian life, such as Ediacarans, to the extent that some are now calling the Cambrian explosion a 'myth' - an artefact of some exceptional conditions for preservation and the discovery of some of those sites.

...they ' have evolved independently somewhere between 40 and 65 times.'- i.e. not through common ancestry

The genetic evidence is that complex, i.e. camera-like eyes evolved independently either from common simple precursor eyes, or re-purposing genes from an ancient genetic 'toolkit' comprising genes (including those coding for opsins and the like) that have found many different uses through evolutionary history, and consequently, are widely conserved.

 

[Jimmy D]

It also concedes eyes appeared suddenly in the Cambrian

In the scheme of things it’s a fairly trivial point, but as far as I could tell you’ve dishonestly added the word “suddenly”.

This sort of deliberate misrepresentation makes it difficult to take anything you say seriously.

It’s self defeating if you’re looking for a reasonable discussion.

 

[xianghua]

Nope! The simplest kind of eye is just a patch of skin that is sensitive to light.

see here:

Eyespot apparatus - Wikipedia

"Besides photoreceptor proteins, eyespots contain a large number of structural, metabolic and signaling proteins. The eyespot proteome of Chlamydomonas cells consists of roughly 200 different proteins."

do you have any counter source?

 

[Lobster Johnson]

see here:

Eyespot apparatus - Wikipedia

"Besides photoreceptor proteins, eyespots contain a large number of structural, metabolic and signaling proteins. The eyespot proteome of Chlamydomonas cells consists of roughly 200 different proteins."

do you have any counter source?

Worms don't even have that. But if you think about it an eye is basically cells for detecting light, and worms have that.

Annelid Vision - Photoreceptor Cells as Visual Sensors.

...In some clitellates photoreceptor cells are distributed within the epithelium of the epidermis and do not co-occur with supporting pigment cells, and thus are only capable of sensing light and dark...
...These photoreceptor cells fall into a category called extraocular photoreceptor cells (EOCs), which have uncharacterized functions at this time...
...Dermal light cells or EOCs often do not even fall within traditional definitions of an eye or even a photoreceptor cell (Ramirez, Speiser, Pankey, & Oakley, 2011); however, they have been shown to mediate behavioral responses across many taxa, such as shadow and withdrawal responses...
...In annelids, these cells have also been shown to mediate withdrawal reflexes, escape, and orientation along the dorso-ventral axis and are present in both clitellates and polychaetes...

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

see here:

Eyespot apparatus - Wikipedia

"Besides photoreceptor proteins, eyespots contain a large number of structural, metabolic and signaling proteins. The eyespot proteome of Chlamydomonas cells consists of roughly 200 different proteins."

You need to remember that Chlamydomonas has been evolving for as long as we have.

 

[hellothere]

Many creationists (and sadly, some biologists) seem to believe that 'macroevolution' is substantively different from 'microevolution.'

Short answer - it isn't, it is just many rounds of microevolution resulting in speciation.

Creationist propaganda site "CreationWiki" states:

Macroevolution is a purely theoretical biological process thought to produce relatively large (macro) evolutionary change within biological organisms. The term is used in contrast to minor (microevolution) changes, and is most commonly defined as "evolution above the species level".​

Not surprising that such people would lie to their target flock. Surprising that so many take it at face value.

From a reliable source, we see that 'macroevolution' is:

"One of the most important tenets of the theory forged during the Evolutionary Synthesis of the 1930s and 1940s was that "macroevolutionary" differences among organisms - those that distinguish higher taxa - arise from the accumulation of the same kinds of genetic differences that are found within species."​

- "Evolutionary Biology, 3rd Ed." 1998, p. 477. D. Futuyma.

That is, macroevolution is produced via multiple rounds of speciation. Or put another way, macroevolution is a pattern created by multiple rounds of speciation.

Macroevolution is NOT 'an event' that needs to be 're-created.' It is an observed pattern.

If it wasn't different you wouldn't need to be posting this. It's different in that macroevolution says animals can mutate so many times that they turn into a different species entirely. It's been proven that mutations have limits. When constantly mutating fruit flies, scientists found that the flies would at best get different color eyes or longer or shorter legs. After generations of mutating, the flies would eventually become so deformed that they are unable to reproduce or just die. So all subjects die long before becoming a new species. No study conducted has proven macromutation within the animal kingdom.

 

[Speedwell]

If it wasn't different you wouldn't need to be posting this. It's different in that macroevolution says animals can mutate so many times that they turn into a different species entirely. It's been proven that mutations have limits. When constantly mutating fruit flies, scientists found that the flies would at best get different color eyes or longer or shorter legs. After generations of mutating, the flies would eventually become so deformed that they are unable to reproduce or just die. So all subjects die long before becoming a new species. No study conducted has proven macromutation within the animal kingdom.

You're going to have to move your goal posts. Speciation has been observed, both in the lab and in the wild. Those fruit-fly experimenters weren't attempting to produce new species.