A list of puns related to "Microevolution"
When I asked about the number of animals on the ark this term kept popping up. What does it mean? And how does it differ from evolution? People said that microevolution is the reason there are way more species now then there were 4500 years ago. How does it work?
Why do creationists say microevolution is possible but macroevolution impossible? What is the physical/chemical/mechanistic reason why macroevolution is impossible?
In theory, one could have two populations different organisms with genomes of different sequences.
If you could check the sequences of their offspring, and selectively choose the offspring with sequences more similar to the other, is it theoretically possible that it would eventually become the other organism?
Why or why not?
[This post was inspired by the discussion at https://www.reddit.com/r/debatecreation/comments/egqb4f/logical_fallacies_used_for_common_ancestry/ ]
I often hear christians talking about how they believe in microevolution but not macroevolution. I would guess because they have to accept evolution in some form because of the obvious evidence. However they cant fully accept it because it contradicts their worldview. This obviously is confusing because to me because they are both evolution, so how can you accept one without the other?
In fact I have heard from another atheists that macroevolution and microevolution are not real terms used by scientists? Is this true? Is this distinction made in the scientific community or are these terms just weak attempts from religious people trying to rationalize their worldview with science?
Remember, creationists have basically three arguments against evolution: ignorance, incredulity and fraud.
This is /u/nomenmeum advocating all three.
The creationist argument against macro-evolution goes something like this…
>Macroevolution requires major changes to the essential body plans of animals. You are never going to turn a cow to turn into a whale by changing the color of its hair, even if you do this a million times over^1, just as you are never going to turn a car into a submarine by painting it a different color. Body plan changes are going to have to occur at a much more genetically fundamental level, and that means that they will require many simultaneous and intelligently coordinated mutations, which is prohibitively improbable.^2,3
> [...]
>And that is why macroevolution cannot happen by Darwinian processes. Macroevolution cannot be gradual, and it cannot be unguided^4. Any change affecting the basic body plan must occur in the genes that regulate embryonic development, genes that control the expression of many other genes that affect other genes that affect the fundamental body plan formation. But such a mutation in these genes that regulate the development of the embryo inevitably harms the organism because its effects are multiplied down the line in the process of embryonic development^5. The earlier the change, no matter how small in itself, the more catastrophic the effect, which explains why developmental biologists have never observed it to produce a viable animal.
>[...]
>But it is completely unreasonable to think that Darwinism can account even for the differences between humans and chimps, let alone those we see in less similar animals.^6
Ignoring that genetics is more than just changing colours, the genetic difference between you and ape is measurable, and so it does seem like a million, or a billion, tiny changes will eventually close that gap.
Mutations are occurring simultaneously, across the entire population. In the human population, every single viable SNP should be happening every generation, several times, despite the odds of any single SNP being very low. So, no, the odds that the mutations we need could arise in non-geological time is not that unusual. With recombination, these events can occur in parallel, as your algorithm demands but you insist is an impossibility.
The mutations a
It's come up in a couple of disparate threads, and I'd like to bring a few threads together in one place.
There seem to be two flavors to the distinction, but neither actually provides a concrete, testable standard. One is mechanistic - either there are processes that must occur for "macroevolution" to happen, but do not, or there are processes that prevent macroevolution (i.e. "genetic entropy", which, just so we're clear, is not real). The second is based on genome content. Evolution cannot generate new information/function/traits/whatever beyond some threshold, so "macroevolution" would be the addition of new information that was not previously present.
Neither of these standards hold up to close examination. In terms of limiting mechanisms, there are ideas like "irreducible complexity" (nope) and "genetic entropy" (see above). In terms of content, generating new "information" (quotes because information is never defined in a testable way) is trivially easy, and we've figured out the exact pathways for some new structure, new as in "did not previously exist in any form", like feathers.
Going one step further, I think it's fair to say that for many creationists, "macroevolution" would constitute evolution of the magnitude from one "created kind" to another. This is something we've explored recently, and came up with a number of examples (see the comments in that last link) of traits that should violate the implied hypothesis, related to the "content" objection above, that each "kind" was "frontloaded" with genetic diversity, and major new traits could not arise within each "kind". I think those examples cause problems for the second type of distinction described above.
Getting away from these two categories of ways to draw a distinction between "micro" and "macro" evolution, we've observed/are observing changes of such magnitude that, if "macroevolution" is inherently unobservable, it should make one question where the line is to the point where one mig
... keep reading on reddit ➡Over on /r/creation in a post titled "For those who think micro evolution occurs: where is the cut off between micro and macro evolution?", there are commenters who state that macroevolution is unobserved or can't happen, like you usually find in creationist forums. But one user, /u/gmtime, goes one step further and says creationists shouldn't use the terms microevolution and macroevolution, but should instead use the terms "observed mutation" and "inferred mutation." Why? Let's let him speak:
> That seems like a reasonable differentiation. Though it will cause lots of confusion. I'd drop the term evolution altogether and talk about mutation instead. Then it becomes observed mutation and inferred mutation, which actually point out what you're trying to talk about.
/u/apophis-pegasus rightly corrects this argument:
> Mutation is not evolution though. Mutation is a source of variation.
And gmtime punts this awfully ignorant argument into the sidelines:
> No it's not. Mutation is a gene changing in a way that it did not exist in the parents. Variation is a shuffling of the genes that do exist in the parents.
> Example: a brown father with straight hair and a brown mother with curly hair get a brown kid with wavy hair is variation; the information for the waviness was already available in the parents. The same parents getting an albino kid is mutation; neither of the parents had genetic information that caused the skin to become white.
> Evolution is the theory that a huge cascade of mutations will create all the different living organisms from the same (or same small set of) genetic root material.
> Talking about micro vs macro evolution muddles the waters, because what's actually the question is whether (inferred) mutations actual do lead to evolution.
It's incredible that someone who knows nothing about biology is trying to argue that we should use new terms because "evolution" is confusing, all while not understanding how mutations, inherited traits, gene expression work, and also while arguing that muta
... keep reading on reddit ➡I realise this isn’t an evolution debate sub, but I feel like this is the place that I could most likely engage with people that believe in microevolution but not macroevolution. If there’s a better sub please let me know.
Just a some quick definitions; by “microevolution” I’m referring to small adaptive changes within a species. A species of frog, for example, may adapt to survive in a more arid environment after migrating.
By “macroevolution” I mean one species changing into another. (Or into a different “kind”, however I don’t really understand how a “kind” is actually defined)
So onto my actual question; If we can agree that microevolution happens, then what process or mechanism stops those changes from resulting in a new species (or “kind”) over millions or billions of years?
What actually is it that stops these small adaptive changes from culminating into larger, over-all changes?
For an example; if a lizard has a mutation that produces a small flap of skin that grants it the slight ability to glide an extra few inches when it jumps away from a predator while being attacked, it will be more likely to reproduce and pass on its genetic information.
What’s stopping all the future mutations that would see that flap growing and being selected again as beneficial in a particular environment and eventually producing wings? Or gliders?
What’s stopping the lizard from developing wings or skins-flaps to glide?
What would prevent, at some point, the genetic changes making the organisms significantly genetically different that they can no longer breed with lizards that hadn’t been in the same environment and therefore hadn’t had the same genetic mutations? (Therefore making them a different species, by definition)
I hope this makes sense. Please tell me and let me clarify if it doesn’t.
I grew up in a conservative evangelical environment. As such, evolution was a theory no one believed. But some of the more “intellectual” people would claim that they believe in microevolution (“well of course I believe in microevolution, it would be ridiculous not to”) but wholeheartedly disagreed with macroevolution. They failed to realize that microevolution really feeds into macro, they’re just on different time scales. And it’s not as if they were all new earth thinkers, some people believed the world was appropriately old, just couldn’t fathom evolution. I think these people were woefully uneducated in the topic or were willfully ignoring the science.
I saw this question asked on DebateReligion but it went south pretty quickly, as expected.
I had read once an argument giving the plum as an example that there is this thing called 'genetic limit' beyond which mutations could not go and still keep the organism non-sterile. But I may be wrong.
This is a bit like saying you believe in seconds and minutes but a year or a decade is impossible. If you believe in microevolution, you must believe in macroevolution by simple logic. Microevolution simply means small changes occur via natural selection, genetic mutation etc.
Well if you add up a thousand or a million or a trillion small changes, you get big change, macroevolution.
Urantia book:
>The continuation of such biologic adjustments is illustrated by the evolution of teeth in the higher Urantia mammals; these attained to thirty-six in man’s remote ancestors, and then began an adaptative readjustment toward thirty-two in the dawn man and his near relatives. Now the human species is slowly gravitating toward twenty-eight. The process of evolution is still actively and adaptatively in progress on this planet.
The Darwinian argument for macroevolution goes like this…
Microevolution is true.
(In other words, very small beneficial mutations do occur and are selected for.)
Macroevolution is simply an accumulation of such changes over a long period of time.
(In other words, just as a small puddle will become a large puddle if enough drops of water fall in, so macroevolution will result from microevolution, given enough time.)
The first premise is true. The second one is not. Here is why: A puddle is not a highly integrated, functional system of interdependent parts. A living organism is.
Macroevolution requires major changes to the essential body plans of animals. You are never going to turn a cow into something as different as a whale by changing things like the color of its hair, just as you are never going to turn a car into a submarine by painting it a different color. Body plan changes are going to have to occur at a much more genetically fundamental level, and that means that they will require many simultaneous and intelligently coordinated mutations, which is prohibitively improbable for a mindless, unguided process like evolution.
As Stephen Meyer notes in Darwin’s Doubt,
“If an automaker modifies a car’s paint color or seat covers, nothing else needs to be altered for the car to operate, because the normal function of the car does not depend upon these features.”
However,
“if an engineer changes the length of the piston rods in the car’s engine, and does not modify the crankshaft accordingly, the crankshaft won’t run.”
And that is why macroevolution cannot happen by Darwinian processes. Macroevolution cannot be gradual, and it cannot be unguided. Any change affecting the basic body plan must occur in the genes that regulate embryonic development, genes that control the expression of many other genes that affect other genes that affect the fundamental body plan formation. But such a mutation in these genes that regulate the development of the embryo inevitably harms the organism because its effects are multiplied down the line in the process of embryonic development. The earlier the change, no matter how small in itself, the more catastrophic the effect, which explains why developmental biologists have never observed it to produce a viable animal.
Just as a simple example, if a fruit fly mutates in such a way that it gets an extra set of wings, it must also have the good luck to suffer a simultaneous mut
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