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To: b_sharp
What the heck is macro-evolution?

Good day. Here's an article from Discovery.org that might clear things up:

The Scientific Controversy Over Whether Microevolution Can Account For Macroevolution

263 posted on 10/08/2005 7:27:08 AM PDT by Michael_Michaelangelo (The best theory is not ipso facto a good theory. Lots of links on my homepage...)
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo
The Scientific Controversy Over Whether Microevolution Can Account For Macroevolution

That's not even much of a quote salad--just the bluff toward one. The "meat" of the article is just that, three quote-mines. This creationist source is using the exact same three, in the same order, with almost the same caveat. With both articles undated, it's hard to say who is stealing from whom. Neither would I rush to say that Probe ministries is stealing from DI, given Johnson and Well's history of cribbing from Duane Gish.

There is no such controversy in science. No one is saying that an actual other mechanism exists or needs to be posited. I think the last person to propose anything other than "microevolution" to account for "macroevolution" was Goldschmidt of the "hopeful monsters" and, no, that's not what punctuated equilibrium is about. IOW, nobody in the last 60-70 years has taken up the other side to make a debate.

Here is the actual full text of the Andrew Simons 2002 paper. It clearly describes "the controversy" as between different models of how lengthening the time scale affects selection pressures, not whether variation and selection are operating at all. I assume the other two quotes are equally "good."

268 posted on 10/08/2005 8:10:21 AM PDT by VadeRetro (I'll have a few sleepless nights after I send you over, sure! But it'll pass.)
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo
Thanks for the link but it really doesn't help me understand what the poster considers macroevolution, nor does it provide mechanisms that could potentially prevent changes in morphology.

Although the article didn't directly mention the fruitfly tests, they are the most common tests cited to prove the most mutations are bad hypothesis.

The tests done with fruit flies were done to prove morphology changes are produced by changes in the gene. It did its job quite well. The problem with deleterious mutations they encountered was due to the size of the gene modification needed to enable observation of the changes. Had they used smaller modifications, they would have been unable to see any changes. This shows, not that most mutations are deleterious but that large mutations tend to be deleterious. The vast majority of mutations in nature are not deleterious but neutral.

What I find interesting about this claim is that the change from artiodactyl to cetacean does not need any large scale changes but was accomplished through small morphological changes akin to those that produced munchkin cats.

352 posted on 10/08/2005 8:15:14 PM PDT by b_sharp (Free Modernman and SeaLion from purgatory)
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