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microevolution versus macroevolution

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Pete Harcoff

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I'm going to leave the issue of two cats and Noah's ark aside for a moment (otherwise, you'll have to explain to me how those two cats overcame the problem of inbreeding; a very real biological issue).

Defining dogs and cats isn't quite as black & white as you might think. Cats and dogs share an number of extremely similar traits (shared by all members of the Carnivora line). Furthermore, if I lined up a Lynx and a Coyote, those two animals seem a lot more similar than a Lynx and Tabby or a Coyote and a Chihuahua (at least in terms of certain macroscopic features).

But defining which animal is which is besides the point. If a cat-like ancestor population can diverge and produce the variety of felines we see today, what is preventing them from a particular branch diverging further to the point where we might no longer consider it a "cat"? Or, going backwards, what is preventing a common ancestor with both dog and cat-like traits from eventually evolving into separate cat and dog lines?

A better example than dogs and cats, might be cats (family Felidae) and civets (family Viverridae), which share closer traits with cats than dogs. What would prevent a common ancestor to those two groups producing (via genetic variation), two separate lines of animals which we would classify as Felidae and Viverridae?


Even humans do this to some extent(Eskimos vs. Africans). There are differences in apperance and the different arangement of genes, but they are still humans.
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Keep in mind one thing, though. Those 'cats' I posted as examples are not of the same species (and to the best of my knowledge cannot interbreed; someone please correct me if I'm incorrect on this point).

Humans, however, are the same species, therefore we can all interbreed and produce fertile offspring.
 
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Pete Harcoff

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Originally posted by Tinman
In regards to dogs, are the Great Dane and the Chihuahua seperate species or the same ? I'm no expert on dog anatomy, but surely they're incapable of breeding naturally.
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They are classified as the same species, Canis familiaris (the domestic dog). I'm pretty sure they can interbreed successfully (whether it's practical or not is another story). If left alone long enough, I wouldn't be surprised if they diverged into separate species.
 
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Stormy

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Pete : I am guilty of ignoring your question.

But I have already explained this to you in my thread "Just the Fact, please".

Christians are not into this evolution thing to the extend that evolutionist are. We do not have an evolutionary creed that we all agree to. So if I tell you what I think that does not mean that another Christian might not tell you something entirely different.

It is really easy actually to understand what I believe in regard to evolution.

I believe that which is true. That which has supporting factual evidence.

It happens that I can find Biblical agreement with these facts.

When the theory becomes imagination and produces the impossible that is where I bail out.

It happens that this is where the Bible also differs from the Evolution Theory.


Here is a question for you.

You tell me that all life came from an original single cell and evolved into anything from vegetation to humans.

So this should be easy for you...

Which came first the chicken or the egg??
 
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Pete Harcoff

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DNAunion

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Pete Harcoff:  I'm going to leave the issue of two cats and Noah's ark aside for a moment (otherwise, you'll have to explain to me how those two cats overcame the problem of inbreeding; a very real biological issue).
Click to expand...

 

DNAunion: Just to make sure we are all on the same page, inbreeding does not cause deleterious mutations: all it does is increase the TENDENCY of getting them together in a single animal.  That doesn't mean that every population that inbreeds will die of.  In fact...

 

Inbreeding is a part of evolution.  Take a founder/flush event.  A single pregnant female (or a small group of related animals) can migrate to a new area that is not populated by that species and "found" a new population.  You already have evolution because you have a change in allelic frequencies (the small group cannot possibly carry all alleles of all genes and at their same frequencies over from the parent population).  Heavy inbreeding will occur.   Yet not only will the population not die out, it will quickly increase in number.  What typically happens is that then, once the population gets too large, competition for resources increases too much and the carrying capacity of the new location is surpassed: the population's numbers drop off quickly leaving only a few members.  Inbreeding will occur again.  Yet the population will again increase in number.  After several rounds of rapid population growth and rapid population decline, and equilibrium point will be reached, giving a stable population - one that went through multiple rounds of inbreeding.

 

 
 
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DNAunion

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Stormy: Which came first the chicken or the egg??
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DNAunion: Wrong question. Better is...

Which came first, the chicken or the chicken egg??

The original question is simply answered. There were dinosaurs that laid eggs, and they came before chickens. So the egg came before the chicken. Simple.

But that answer deals with two completely different things: dinosaurs and chickens. It does not solve the riddle that perplexed people for generations - it doesn't break the "unbreakable cycle".

People considered the following:

1) All chickens come only from preexisting chicken eggs

2) All chicken eggs come only from preexisting chickens

Therefore, you can't have a chicken without a chicken egg, yet you can't have a chicken egg without a chicken. So which came first?

The real question has nothing to do with dinosaurs or such (yet I can almost guarantee you that if I hadn't posted this, you would have been handed something like "The egg, obviously, because dinosaurs laid eggs a long time before chickens were around".
 
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blader

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If you don't want to hear about that idea, you'll have to find a forum where people don't talk about it. Check the forum title to see what this forum's about. If you don't want to talk or hear about it, there's plenty of other forums on this website.
 
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MSBS

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Have you considered the other side of the coin?  Maybe "evolutionists" come here for some actual dialog.  Maybe some of us are looking at ways to reconcile what reason and experience have shown us with christianity and christian doctrine.  Not everyone I'll grant you.  Some just look at you as dogmatic and superstitious, but others don't.....so why do you insist on grouping everyone together?

Acting superior?  To tell the truth what I've seen a lot of exclusivity on the YEC side.  You MUST believe this about biology or that about cosmology or the other thing about geophysics or you can not possibly be a TRUE christian-- with the definition of a TRUE christian encompassing a very narrow group of people, that seems to exclude most people that actually consider themselves christians.

One more thing lambslove.  If this is so peripheral to your faith, why are you expending so much emotion on it?  If it doesn't matter why take the time out to post?  Why seek out the "Science, Creation, & Evolution" section of the "Open Discussion & Debate" area of this forum and then go on the attack against people that are posting within the guidelines set forth by the moderaters of the forum?  You might say this is a peripheral issue to you, but your actions show that that is not the case.
 
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Stormy

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Pete: I am sorry that some people would like to silence your questions.

You said....


Look at your example. You will have to admit that this is nothing more than what the Bible speaks of... Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds.

But this is also the "proof" that evolution hangs its extravagant claims upon. This is not what I am denying. This is nature at work. We can see it and know that it is true. It is true today as it was from the beginning.

I bet you will agree with me that this is a line of cats...

They will always and forever remain cats.

Next time that you look at the "theory" please take notice that where its claims are of macroevolution... You will find nothing but jargon and graphs.

Science says that it can not allow God into the equation. Therefore it must instead find a natural answer to the complexity of life. But is macroevolution really natural? Or is it completely unnatural to this Earth?

Now comes the rolling of the eyes... And the exclamations that Stormy just does not understand!

On this we can agree!

And I never will give credit to Evolution and its macro concept because the proof is non-existing.

Life never ever made transformations across the natural barriers that are evident to our world.

Here is a link.

dinosaur

77 Million years ago this guy was a dinosaur munching on magnolias. His line became extinct because of a catastrophe. But if that had never happened. His ancestors would still ALL be dinosaurs and they could still find their magnolia feast if they to my yard.

May God Bless us All.
 
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lithium.

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Stormy, A theory in science can't and will never be proven or have proof of the theory only evidence that scientist have found that work with the theory. There will never been proof of macroevolution only evidence. The more we learn about our DNA we will understand macroevolution better as you probabaly know we have just really started learning about human DNA because we finally have it mapped but there is so much data.

But scientist think macroevolution is real because of the closeness of human DNA and other animals in the world. But you probably already know that.
 
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lucaspa

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Pete Harcoff

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Why? If the Felidae family continues to diverge, do you not think it possible that eventually a species will form that we would no longer classify as a "cat"?


Next time that you look at the "theory" please take notice that where its claims are of macroevolution... You will find nothing but jargon and graphs.
Click to expand...

Please, Stormy. Jargon and graphs tend to be part of every science, not to mention mathematics (I wonder what my former math profs would say if I claimed their textbooks were nothing but jargon and graphs )


Science says that it can not allow God into the equation. Therefore it must instead find a natural answer to the complexity of life. But is macroevolution really natural? Or is it completely unnatural to this Earth?
Click to expand...

Stormy, I hate to break it to you, but this example of Felidae divergence IS macroevolution (common ancestor, reproduction and variation, etc). There's nothing different (in terms of the evolutionary mechanism) about this, versus a common Felidae (cats) and Viverridae (civets, genets, etc) ancestor. The only difference is that over a longer period of time, you'll end up with a wider range of variation. But the species -> species mechanism is exactly the same.


Life never ever made transformations across the natural barriers that are evident to our world.
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You claim there is a natural barrier. What natural barrier? What is preventing (via reproduction and variation), species from diverging to the point where we would no longer even consider them part of the same "family" (as opposed to the same species or genus, like our cat friends there)?


So, you don't think that via reproduction and genetic variation (exactly the same mechanism that produced the variety of cats we see today) over the course of 77 million years, Brachylophosaurus canadensis might eventually wind up as something we'd no longer consider the same reptile? What would prevent this particular dinosaur from evolving?
 
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jon1101

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Originally posted by Stormy
Life never ever made transformations across the natural barriers that are evident to our world. 
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I think the key to advancing this discussion and the creation/evolution debate as a whole is to fully divulge and analyze this/these often-alleged natural barrier(s) that so often come up but are so rarely defined.

-jon
 
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Pete Harcoff

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Allow me to go abstract for a second. Maybe this will help some people understand where I'm coming from.

Suppose I take a recursive mathematical function, say, adding 1 to the previous sum to produce a new sum.

For example, I'll start with 1 and add 1 to it.

1 + 1 = 2

Then I take the sum (2) and add 1 to it again:

2 + 1 = 3

If I keep doing this, I'll eventually wind up with a series of numbers:

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,... etc

In between any two adjacent sums is a slight variation (a variation of 1). Yet, the further you travel between any two sums is greater variation (in between 1 and 9 is a variation of 8, for example).

If I keep adding 1 to the previous sum, I can theoretically go on forever (...,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,...,1000,1001,1002,1003,... etc).

Stormy, you're telling me that there is a barrier somewhere in there. That I can go, for example, to 99, but I can't go to 100. I'm not doing anything different than going from 98 to 99 (adding 1). But something is preventing me from going from 99 to 100. I'd like to know what that something is.
 
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Rising_Suns

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You know, in the end, all this bickering that people do about whether evolution is true or not is a waste of time and i'm guilty of it just like everyone else. We could all better use our time by loving others and spreading the word instead of trying to prove a point to someone who will never accept your point. Science is great, ideally speaking. But in reality, the people behind science sometimes have other motives other than discovering truth, as many creationists are also guilty of. From now on, I am going to stick with what I can be effective in. Thanks.
 
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