nephilimiyr said:
I see that the belief in evolution is based not on actual evidence but on our theory, ideas, preconceptions, instincts, and prejudices. It's the thought or the belief that micro-evolution goes to the step of macro-evolution. I only see this based on our theory, ideas, preconceptions, instincts, and prejudices about how things logically ought to be, how they in all fairness ought to be, or in how evolutionists would prefer them to be. I don't see the evidence that says micro-evolution has turned into macro-evolution, it simply hasn't been tested to an end nor has it been proven.
That's because you haven't looked for the data. Like all theories, macroevolution is a set of statements about the physical universe. In this case, the basic statement of macroevolution is that all species have a common ancestor. From this you can make several deductions of evidence we ought to find if the statements are true.
What you seem to be saying is that we have to directly observe what you call macroevolution. That isn't true. In fact, no part of science really does direct observation, with the exception of some behavioral studies which are filmed in real time. Instead, science always studies what occurred in the past. Often the recent past, but the past.
Let me give you a simple example. In chemistry mixing an aldehyde and an organic acid results in a chemical reaction that gives a class of chemicals called ketones. Ketones are the compounds that give the typical smell of fruits. The banana, apple, strawberry, peach, etc smell is due to ketones.
So, you sit in chemistry class and mix the acid and aldehyde. Then you smell the ketone. Did you actually
observe the molecule of acid react with the molecule of aldehyde? No. They are far too small to see. What you have done is inferred the reaction -- in the past -- because of what you smell in the present. d
Macroevolution -- common ancestry -- works the same way. Half of
Origin of the Species is evidence of macroevolution. Have you read
Origin? If not, then your statement "I see that the belief in evolution is based not on actual evidence but on our theory" is pure garbage. You don't "see" anything because your eyes are completely shut!
Let me give two more examples. If macroevolution -- common ancestry -- is correct, we would expect
all living things to share at least
one characteristic in common. And they do. They all share the same genetic code. That is, the same triplet bases code for the same amino acids in every organism. There is no reason this has to be so. For us AAA could be alanine but for corn alanine could be coded by CCC. It wouldn't make a bit of difference to us eating an ear of corn. We break the proteins down to amino acids and the DNA down to single nucleotides. So, we have alanine from corn and adenosine (A) and cytosine (C) from corn. So it would be no problem for our DNA to have AAA for alanine. We take the alanine from corn and put it in our proteins.
Yet all organisms
do share the same genetic code. That is evidence for macroevolution.
Another example. If macroevolution is true, then DNA sequences and genes would show a pattern of inheritance between all different species that have that type of gene. Cytochrome c is present in all organisms that use oxygen in respiration -- from bacteria to plants to animals. Well, the sequence of bases in the cytochrome c gene should not be independent observations between species, but should be related by the historical connections. If macroevolution is true.
Phylogenetic analysis is based on the analysis of DNA sequences, and thanks to new technology of automated DNA sequencers and supercomputers, now large data sets of of hundreds or thousands of DNA sequences, each of which has thousands of nucleotides, are now routinely being analyzed.
"As phylogenetic analyses became commonplace in the 1980s, several groups emphasized what should have been obvious all along: Units of study in biology (from genes through organisms to higher taxa) do not represent statistically independent observations, but rather are interrelated through their historical connections."
DM Hillis, Biology recapitulates phylogeny, Science (11 April) 276: 276-277, 1997. Primary articles are JX Becerra, Insects on plants: macroevolutionary chemical trends in host use. Science 276: 253-256, 1997; VA Pierce and DL Crawford, Phylogenetic analysis of glycolitic enzyme expression, Science 276: 256-259; and JP Huelsenbeck and B Rannala, Phylogenetic methods come of age: testing hypotheses in an evolutionary context. Science 276: 227-233, 1997.
There you have it, massive evidence from study of DNA for macroevolution.
Now, both cases are testing the theory against what the universe
really is.
Finally, remember that Darwin's book was
Origin of the Species. That's because species is the only biological reality. All the "higher taxa" are simply groups of
species. Once you have speciation, you are done. Macroevolution. And there have been hundreds of instances of observed speciation -- both in the lab and in the wild. We can discuss particular cases whenever you are ready.
The testing of macro-evolution is still on going. The results of the tests that have been conducted should be made public but conclusions should not be made by anyone until all the evidence is in. I say that not all the evidence is there yet.
1. Of course the testing is still going on. The testing of
every accepted theory is still going on. Whenever you drop a rock you are testing gravity. Every transoceanic airplane flight is a test of round earth. Testing is never done.
2. The results have been made public. That you haven't seen the evidence speaks more for your closed eyes than it does for the evidence.
3.
All the evidence is
never in for any currently valid theory. Evidence is only "all in" for theories that have been falsfied. When the theory has been tested again and again, you reach a point where you accept it as (provisionally) true. That point has long since been passed for evolution. Darwin convinced everyone very quickly that macroevolution -- common ancestry -- was correct. What took longer was the mechanism of the modification -- natural selection.
Macroevolution has been so well tested that we have, quite frankly, run out of them. Phylogeny was one of the last tests not run that could have falsified macroevolution. It failed to do so. Instead, it supported macroevolution. The only evidence anyone can think of now that we haven't tried or found would be finding mammalian fossils in Cambrian of pre-Cambrian strata.
Neph, your argument is based on personal ignorance of the data. Argument from ignorance is not a valid argument.
