I just think it is too simplistic. With erosion, there is maybe 1 or 2 mechanisms. Very simple ones - maybe chemical erosion (acid rain, etc) and physical erosion (friction of water and rocks). These are very simple processes, and they are additive - that is, over a long period of time, the effects add up in a relatively simple way. Add erosion to erosion and you just get a smaller piece of rock, until there is nothing left in that area and the rock matter has gone somewhere else. No problem.

The mechanisms of microevolution are greater in number and much more complex. Genetic drift, speciation, natural selection, and adaptation are all in play. They effect the organism, and each other. This process isn't at all simple, and it certainly isn't strictly additive or easily quantifiable over long periods.

Yes, the creatures will be different, but how different? How far can microevolutionary mechanisms take it? I say not that far - until I see additional mechanisms or combinations of mechanisms that convince me otherwise.

"Yes, the creatures will be different, but how different? How far can microevolutionary mechanisms take it? I say not that far - until I see additional mechanisms or combinations of mechanisms that convince me otherwise."

Do they have to be all that complex, though? Granted, this is a working theory, not a law, but if you look at the changes we DO observe, it is reasonable to think that there would be massive differences over the course of a million years, with climate change, etc., adding to the momentum.

To me it is a matter of never being able to dip your foot in the same river twice. I think it takes MORE of a stretch of the imagination to think that the processes we see would somehow stall or slow instead of continueing to gradually change the animal over thousands of years as their requirements for survival change.

I admit that there is the necessity of genetic mutation over time, but even without it the change in creatures over that span of time in separate ecosystems with different requirements for survival would be immense. All we are talking about is making predictions based upon what we see.

I think that it is more unscientific to imagine that the changes we see wouldn't continue, and cumulatively so, over vast amounts of time wherein we KNOW that the climate and environment changes.

I'm not staying it will stall or slow. The microevolutionary processes will continue to happen. I am just saying that there is only so much that they have the power to do (with what we know at this time). There is a boundry to how much they can change things, at least as far as our observation has gone. They can make changes here and there, create things that are technically seperate species with different attributes, but even these are fundamentally very similar to their "parent species". (one of the best examples they list on your wikipedia speciation link is a new kind of horsefly that eats different foods - but it is still very much a horsefly in all other respects).

Additionally, you are still claiming that they accumulate or are somehow explicitly additive. This may be true, but it could also be that the changes could reverse in response to some stimulus, start and go back, travel in a cycle tied to climate or any number of other things. Who knows what patterns would develop. There is nothing to say it is so linear over long timescales.

This idea of accumulation of many different changes is central if you want to make the whole macro thing work - but we don't know that this is definetly the case. The "snowball effect" or "additive erosion" example works IF it is the case. That is a big "if" as far as I am concerned.

I'm going to wrap up my comments because I am shortly leaving for a camping trip that will extend through the holiday weekend, so I won't be online.

Proponents of synthesis evolution see the already known microevolutionary processes as a magic bullet, or holy grail that can accomplish anything genetically as long as you add enough zeroes at the end of the year count. I'm just not buying this without more evidence of the long-term mechanisms involved.

If macroevolution occured or is occuring, going from one thing to something fundamentally very different, then it is using some genetic or macroevolutionary mechanism that we haven't found yet. If it's not occuring, then we have to look elsewhere as to how we got all the stuff we have around our planet.

There is nothing wrong with it being correct or incorrect, but it is wrong to go parading it around as indisputable prematurely. I'm not saying anyone here is, but many do, (for various less than scientific motivations) and in the process they smack of zealotry reserved for religions of old. (Ha! there is my feeble attempt to get back onto the actual topic of the article . . . )
I just don't think we should go crusading until we figure things out more solidly.

Thanks for the discussion all, it was very interesting! I think we got down to some fundamental issues in this discussion.

Anyway, there is lots of stuff we only mentioned in passing (like current seemingly stable species, punctuated equilibrium, transition fossils, etc), so I am sure you guys can continue your discussion without me.

Adieu!

"Additionally, you are still claiming that they accumulate or are somehow explicitly additive. This may be true, but it could also be that the changes could reverse in response to some stimulus, start and go back, travel in a cycle tied to climate or any number of other things. Who knows what patterns would develop. There is nothing to say it is so linear over long timescales.

No, I'm saying that it would be fairly unscientific to assume that they WOULDN'T accumulate over time when there's no data to suggest otherwise. Why would we think that creatures who are constantly adapting would just stop?

What you appear to be saying to me is that even though we know the soil erodes off mountains, we can't be sure if it would keep right on doing so, and therefore we can't really assume anything about erosion in the long term. Science is ABOUT predictions, though. If you predict things you've already witnessed, it isn't much of a prediction.

I could understand your hesitance if, say, we were creating new drugs based upon these predictions, or if the fate of the human race somehow hung on their accuracy. In reality, though, this impact of mistakes in the predictions are fairly nonexistant, and so I don't see why scientists shouldn't have the freedom to hypothesize so long as they don't declare what they are doing 'truth'.

Many are, and that's where you'll see me jump on them when they declare that parents had better make sure no one is teaching otherwise, as in the article I wrote last week. To me, though, evolutionary science is simply looking at the overall makeup of the fossil record we have, and making predictions based upon their study of it, and genetics, and other fields.

And what is wrong with that? That is what science is all about. Only the most hard-line creationists claim that all
species that ever lived on the earth were all alive and the beginning and only extinctions have occured. If you don't believe that, then you have to accept that new species appeared. If you accept that, you have to grant science a little leeway on figuring out how it happened, right?

have a good trip. Make yourself an account here when you get back. Your discussion is welcome.

have a good trip. Make yourself an account here when you get back. Your discussion is welcome.

ditto

I'm really gonna miss NBI. So whatyathink Baker, he majored in Science or what?

have a good trip. Make yourself an account here when you get back. Your discussion is welcome. ditto I'm really gonna miss NBI. So whatyathink Baker, he majored in Science or what?

For the record, have just read your exchange with Baker, I will echo Baker's and KFC's recommendation.  And wishes for a good trip.

No one is saying it does. We see the small changes we see over hundreds of years to the species around us, just like we see small changes in land due to erosion. We aren't silly enough to claim that those changes would just miraculously stop with erosion, but for some reason people can't predict what all these little changes in species would amount to over a billion years

Actually, the more generations of animals we study, the more it does seem to disprove the concept of macroevolution. Take the fruit fly, for instance. One of the reasons it is so invaluable for study is that we can observe so many generations in an incredibly short amount of time. Yet in the millions of generations studied in various labs around the world, not one single wasp has been produced from those generations of fruit flies. Not even a good transitional species. They all remain (quite boringly, and predictably) fruit flies). And the fact is, YES, the very fact that you (and others) are tossing out adaptations of lab rats as examples of evolution means that you are (in defiance of every principle of scientific research) using those adaptations of proof of a rather extraordinary claim without providing the extraordinary proof. You are, in short, demanding a level of proof from creationists that you are yourselves unwilling to provide.

I'm not a man of science, Baker. You could fill VOLUMES with what I do not know. Frankly, I do not know how the species we know today came to be, nor is it relevant to the things I need to do to advance in life. But what I DO know is that I see both sides accusing the other of being full of beans without providing adequate support to fully support their position. In the case of the secular scientist, it is especially appalling, as they feel they must build their case by belittling my faith as superstition or something even less substantial. And because their thesis hinges on a direct attack on me and what I believe, I will stand up and defend my position with what I DO know. And what I DO know is this: that most scientists are rather poorly trained in the scientific method, and that their arrogance and dependence upon their presuppositions greatly hinders their research. I'm not saying scientists should begin their research presupposing the existence of God, but I AM saying they should NOT begin their research presupposing the NONexistence of God, as so many do.

I've rambled on long enough. We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

"Yet in the millions of generations studied in various labs around the world, not one single wasp has been produced from those generations of fruit flies. "

*screams*
*pulls out hunks of hair*

The model you are talking about wouldn't even predict that fruit flies would change. There would need to be factors that cause speciation to be WARRANTED, and a LOT of change in between. Sharks aren't a whole lot different than they were millions of years ago, because they haven't faced much to cause them to need to.

99% of the species that ever walked, crawled, swam, or flew are all extinct. In light of that, do you think you can actually predict that a single, simple and hardy subspecies of fly, with no evolutionary stresses would change just for our viewing pleasure? It would be a 'monkeys writing Shakespeare' level coincidence if it happened.

I understand your perspective, and I think from my blog you can tell I share it for the most part. When I see statements like your fly/wasp one, though, I see the other side throwing yet another baby out with the bathwater. I don't like close-minded secularists who don't bother to understand intelligent design, and, with all due respect, I don't like critics of evolutionary theory who make unrealistic demands on science.

As believers, we have only a few choices.

• We can believe that in the beginning God created all species, the earth was insanely crowded with diverse creatures, and 99% of them are now exinct. This would pretty much invalidate the fossil record as any kind of tool completely, because we'd have to see modern animals living alongside trilobytes.


• We can believe that the fossil record is reliable, and that God makes creatures just appear every few million years when similar creatures have gone exinct. That would be suspect for the same criticism you have, Gid, because no one has seen a species just appear out of thin air.


• ...or we can believe that there is an insanely ingenius physical process that God created as the engine of creation.

I don't see how anyone but people who need the creation story to be literally true could be offended by that. We salute God's ingenuity in terms of the miracle of birth, rainbows, and a million other physical wonders we see every day. Our faith seems to be tested when we are asked to believe that we have more humble beginnings ourselves.

Vanity, perhaps?