Lets face it, Macro- evolution is a load of hogwash. There's no mechanism that can be recognised for an organism to want to shift from it's comfortable 'self' into something it probably doesn't want to be. Now Micro-evolution, what a fantastic concept; allow your creations to flow with the tide, as long as the improvements are beneficial. As for the weakest, allow intelect to evolve(in the micro sense of course)so it can have an exiting existence looking at ways to improve and put right those who are weak.
We're all too frightened to ackowledge it, but I think it's about time we grew up and realised Darwin should have stayed on his Beagle and invented another theory. Give it a few years and unlike the geological strata, links will be made making Macro evolution the Norse god of yesteryear. Brilliant concept , but totally flawed. If you get in touch Richard, I'm not a creationist, in the derogatory sense you'll no doubt put it, but just some one who thinks evolution is todays opium for the masses, limiting their total existence to three score and ten. I don't personally know whats what, but if my mrs had a genetic mutation Im sure I wouldn't want to share it with her,(even if I could)

Oh my gosh you have totally convinced me ! and without any evidence or alternate theory........... truly amazing.

Blueboy-- The pleasure was all mine. Nice to see you can recognise, like me, that you have been fed a load of garbage for the last few decades or so, gosh, you are clever. P.S.- Pray tell me, do the geological layers show the transformation of species then. It must do, judging from your 'well informed' acidic reply'. By the way, old prince Charlie might come out with the odd 'gosh' but he is, like evolution, a product of the imagination, and not real. Please don't patronise the English, very few go around saying 'gosh.'
Ok , bud

Gosh, I do.



So what does microevolution do?

Why, if Evolution is wrong, are we here then?

You can't just say a theory is wrong without providing evidence of an alternative.

Absolutely

It's called Fossil Succession, and to my knowledge has never been upturned or found to be invalid.

In a nutshell, it states that as you go backward through the geologic layers (and time), the fossils contained in those layers become simpler in form and the younger more complex forms dissappear from the record.

http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/fossils/succession.html

also:



http://www.leeric.lsu.edu/bgbb/1/fos_measuring.html

So if macro evolution doesnt happen what allows for new species to come about on earth? You do realize all macro evolution is, is micro evolution in a longer period of time right?

And the only thing you will get to see in your lifetime is more and more and more evidence of evolution.

blueboy--micro, isn't evolving, (ultimately into another form, unlike the macro 'gosh' miracle) it's adjusting through the intrinsic homeostatic necessity of the cells and organs to adjust, according to nutritional input and the extrinsic environment. Darwin's tortoise didn't become longer necked on one island because of an inner urge to develop into another creature,(maybe a coincidence seeing that he was a tortoise many millions of years ago)his need for nutrition kicked off the intrinsic system. to build more elasticated cells (collegen) in the neck. You might think that two micros make a macro, but the changes are micro in order to preserve the species as it is, albeit with a little touch here and a little touch there. Just I suppose, like your crocodiles and the good old celeocanth, ( bless that hand forming creature) Don't tell me they peaked because they had found their perfect environment. Over hundreds of millions of years, even these gold standards must have suffered from a little bit of wind.

Evolution is a religion, just like the other religions of the world. whereas the others need faith to believe in them, evolution needs just that little bit more, and the ability to stand being slapped around the head by the latest 'fact' every five minutes, only to find 'on reflection' many moons later, that maybe, just maybe, there may be a flaw in that particular theory. (when the excitement has died down of course) I can't show you an alternative to your theory (don't forget its only a theory) but I can bet that even Mr Dawkins has experienced, like most of us, a moment or an episode when he had to stop and wonder 'what was that? and inside klnowing it wasn't of this earth or time. I think that the answer is not meant to be found. And that just adds to the spice of life.

So if you have one species, that becomes physically seperated in to two different groups, and they both microevolve to suit their own, now different needs, how can they possibly both remain the same species?

heh thats the beauty of evolution they cant remain the same species, this blue boy is throwing in big words thinking he knows what hes talking about with no evidence to back up his claims, hes just trying to get a rise out of us...

how an can evolution be a religion? its a scientific fact proven over and over again
go to the Spirituality vs Skepticism forum this has been argued about over and over again, you will see all the evidence that stacks up on side of evolution.

Weird, i think i agree with Blueboy actually, micro evolution makes sense...well it fits in with some stuff i've read, you know Desmond Morris, the Naked Ape Richard Dawkin, the selfish gene etc.

Blueboy, is what you mean basically that our evolution is based on change through our gradual adaptation to our environments? for the purpose of survival.

If this is the case then thats what i thought evolution was anyway , and if it wasnt, then i totally disagree with the "usual" evolution theories because evolution in terms of adaptation to environment makes perfect sense to me!

I dont know if i am grasping this discussion properly, but thats how i view it

What did Darwin mean by "inner urge" as you put it Blueboy? How do you know he was not simply refering to the same thing as you except with an older language?

hmmm, i'm going to go off and revise for this one, seems it could be interesting

NICE ONE
nn23

Thats your view, and if you think a god created us why would it give us such powerful brains capable of great feats of logic and critical thinking? Of course, you havent given a single shred of evidence against Evolution, which, if you open your eyes, you'll find there is mountains of evidence for, and you accuse evolution of being a religion itself?

You're free to believe whatever you want but if you're going to argue about it provide good evidence.

I think the single most profound example of macro and micro evolution is the Hyiod bone.

While it is very useful today in practicaly every animal species, as that it provides an ancor for the base of the tongue, it is a reminent of when organisms were forming in the warm seas some billions of years ago. It's just never left us.

http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comment...ion_of_the_jaw/

Wow you dont even understand evolution. The turtles need for nutrition didnt kick off an intirnsic system to build more elasticated cells in the neck. Those that had the longer cells had an evolutionary advantage over those that didnt. Evolution selected those with naturally occuring longer necks to survive, breed and pass on those genes to their offsrping. Its that simple.

Once again you are completely clueless as to what evolutionary theory states. Those characteristics that enhance an animals survival in his environment are passed on to his offspring.

And you cant even begin to fathom the amount of time it takes for speciation to really occur from say ancestral land dwelling mammal to its current whale and dolphin descendants. Think MILLIONS of years. At every step along the way micro evolution is occurring.

awww that read a bit harsh

When looking at what Blueboy is saying, i think its possibly the same thing. The nature of natural selection is that the best suited for survival survives and this happens via long term adaptive changes to environment being passed genetically. I think he possibly has a problem with the frilly terms that get used like "evolution selected" and this is the part where i agree.

To say "evolution selected" is innacurate and unscientific and implys a certain personification of evolution which can understandibly move the term into religious realms. In saying that, i do feel that although Blueboy has a point about the catagorisation of natural selection, he should perhaps of looked into what he was saying a bit more to provide a better argument for his point, and then he might not have been faced with this quite acceptable entourage of critique.

Blueboy, where did you get your information about the micro and macro perspectives of evolution?....i believe that they actually are part of the same thing, and perhaps not in as much conflict with each other as your topic implys.

NICE ONE!!
nn23

Can't an eskimo shack up with an african? While we're at this point, if (according to macro evolution) change involves an unlikely beneficial genetic mutation, does this mutation happen to one of the sexes, or are we led to believe that it happens simutainiously, to both?(now that would take some swallowing). if it is the former, can the unmutated partners genes accept what would be 'soiled goods'? Eskimo's and africans can mix, but I think the genetic code is a bit more particular who it shares it's bed with.

Blueboy, does the macro/usual evolution theory not agree then that its adaptation to environment being passed through the generations? Does that idea not incorporate the mutation of genes due to environmental adaption?

Regards
nn23

Mutations occur to individuals, which are then able to be passed on to offspring. Whether it occurs in the mother or the father is irrelevant, and no, it doesn't need to occur in both. Mutated genes can be accepted, that doesn't mean that they're going to work.

Humans only split recently, and different nationalities have in fact evolved slight differences. Had they been completely isolated for a longer period of time, speciation could occur.

One genetic mutation might be beneficial in one environment and and not so in another environment.

In regards to the mutation happening simultaneously in both sexes, thats not how evolution works. We will take the turtle example again. One turtle has a neck that reaches .2mm, yes just .2mm its miniscule, further then all the rest of its species. Now this just so happens to allow this particular turtle to reach those fruits and berries that none of its species can. It has an evolutionary advantage over the rest. Those turtles with shorter neck mutations cant eat as much, even though most of their necks are just .5mm shorter on average. They cant eat as much and therefore arent as able to survive their environment, especially in times of trouble, droughts, floods etc. Now what happens is that that turtle with a .2mm longer neck passes his genetic material on to his offspring. He also is able to have more offspring because he has enough energy to mate with more females then the average turtle.

In the next generation 1/100th of his offspring has the same genetic mutation for a longer neck, 2 females and one male. So out of 300 hundred babies he fathered only 3 have the same genetic mutation that confers an added benefit to their survival probability. But thats 2 more then the previous generation.

Now multiply these small changes over the course of millions of years and I really dont see how you cant see small changes adding up.

Very good, that fits with my understanding of evolution. And how is this arguing with what Blueboy is saying? Does anyone actually know what their arguing against? Maybe this discussion would take a little more direction if people asked a few more questions in order to understand what it is actually that Blueboy disagrees with.

Blueboy, the above stated a very good definition of my understanding and perhaps many others understanding of evolution theory, i think it even employed some of your points which is what confuses me about this topic somewhat. What part of what is stated above bothers you about the theory, or is it something else that relates to the theory that bothers you?

If something seperate from what is stated above bothers you about the theory, what is it?

r
I had a quick look at your profile nn, or should I call you 23? If your a girl, you look quite nice, if your a bloke, forget I said that. Listen, I kicked this off simply because , on a personal level, I just think macro-evo doesn't ring true. For a theory to work, it needs to account to everything it is supposed to affect. Eg, gravity pulls, not some objects,but 'all' objects. (Now why it does , and what is its power source? is another thread away) In evolution, it appears that the arguement is a progression of species, onwardly going into the future. But what is the purpose? Is it satisfying some unwritten necessity or law? What the bloody hell are we doing with species that have totally ignored evolution? (dragonflies, crocodiles, etc). Anyway I don't think we'll ever have an answer, so do you want to talk about the Beatles or some other group?

There is no purpose, there is nothing it's trying to fulfill, it's not a conscious decision, it just simply happens.

Say we have a wild dog, it gives birth to a litter of ten puppies. Eight of these puppies have thin fur, two have thick fur; and it's a very long and cold winter. Which puppies are likely to survive the winter? Right. The two with thick fur. So which puppies will grow and give birth to the next generation? The two that survived...and so the next generation will have the thicker fur because they inherited it from the parents. The genes for thinner fur will eventually be filtered out as the dogs with thin fur aren't able to survive.



Just because they've stayed relatively similar doesn't mean they haven't evolved. But they've just stayed so similar because there aren't any factors pushing them to change.

hmmm, wouldnt the argument then be that perhaps they didnt evolve because they did not need to? in someways, are all animals not evolutionary left overs?

hmmm, and i dont know how the others feel, but i find it a little difficult to decifer your point when you quote somebody elses post without specifying why? Are you in agreement with them? What part do you agree with? To whos enquirey are you applying the quote? Blueboy to me you are not making an awful lot of sence, and even if this is because of my own stupidity, i am willing to learn if only you give me the information.

Nah I'm just as confused as you are.

Carini, I get your drift. But I think it is also the case that plants evolve. If that is true, in order to survive, would not(in the case of the Galapogos islands) the food source of the plant evolve, so it would be out of the reach of the tortoises?

"Lets face it, Macro- evolution is a load of hogwash. There's no mechanism that can be recognised for an organism to want to shift from it's comfortable 'self' into something it probably doesn't want to be. Now Micro-evolution, what a fantastic concept; allow your creations to flow with the tide, as long as the improvements are beneficial. As for the weakest, allow intelect to evolve(in the micro sense of course)so it can have an exiting existence looking at ways to improve and put right those who are weak.
We're all too frightened to ackowledge it, but I think it's about time we grew up and realised Darwin should have stayed on his Beagle and invented another theory. Give it a few years and unlike the geological strata, links will be made making Macro evolution the Norse god of yesteryear. Brilliant concept , but totally flawed. If you get in touch Richard, I'm not a creationist, in the derogatory sense you'll no doubt put it, but just some one who thinks evolution is todays opium for the masses, limiting their total existence to three score and ten. I don't personally know whats what, but if my mrs had a genetic mutation Im sure I wouldn't want to share it with her,(even if I could)"

That sounds extremely wack..

Please correct me if im wrong but. Macro-Evolution is an ACCIDENT. Things just dont go from comfortable to "okay I want to merge with this". It happens by luck and chance.

Second off.

Micro-Evolution is wack, you cant just sit back and let things "Evolve" in their enviroment and play no role...So lets take away medicine,Gene therapy,Doctors, All the things that help us stay alive... And lets watch our enviroment "Evolve" .....That sounds pretty darwinish to me. Survival of the fittest. It doesnt happen bro.

Do you know how long it would take to just let micro-evolution to work...At this point I dont think it would.

Yes, that is what I said.

But how does this contradict the point of macro evolution?

edit:oopsy, its moved on loads since i wrote this, i'll just read through

I'm with ya dude

Blueboy, if you want to discuss something, you need to let us know what it is, were not psychic

What part of raptors statement did you agree/disagree with and why? its quite simple.

The plants do also evolve, it's essentially an arms race, like what we have with technology: You make a sword, your enemy makes a shield; you make a gun, your enemy makes a bulletproof vest.

Plants have evolved loads of different ways to try and prevent herbivory, they've got spines (thorns), they have poisonous chemicals. A group of plants called Hollow-thorn Acacias even evolved a mutualistic relationship with ants, which protect the plant from herbivores. But the herbivores will keep evolving new features to get past these defences, it won't ever end.

Keep in mind that some plants will also try to attract herbivores, what do you think fruit is for? They're just vessels used to transport seeds, and animals are needed to help spread them.

Is that what Macro evolution claims to be? I thought that the mechanism was actually better known as natural selection=adaption which makes macro quite relavent. I was of the understanding that macro evolution was the process by which micro evolution takes place.

I'm not sure that macro denies or contradicts this...indeed perhaps some schools of thought that incorporate the macro perspective do but in general, i think it supports this. I think the only difference from what i am able to deduce is that the micro gives more specification of the adaptions that took place from species to species.

Actually Darwin never disagreed with microevolution...

Darwin, on the other hand, saw no fundamental difference between microevolution and macroevolution. He asserted that "Certainly no clear line of demarcation has as yet been drawn between species and sub-species — that is, the forms which in the opinion of some naturalists come very near to, but do not quite arrive at, the rank of species: or, again, between subspecies and well-marked varieties, or between lesser varieties and individual differences. These differences blend into each other by an insensible series; and a series impresses the mind with the idea of an actual passage." (Darwin, 77)...
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroevolution )

Yes, there do appear to be many different perspectives on evolutionary change, but they are generally in acceptance that it took place, they only seem to clash on the prospect of how. And these clashes are only between perspectives that take things to extremes. Which extreme perspective are you disagreeing with Blueboy? To simply say macro is not definative for there are many schools of the macro perspective that encompass the micro perspective and vice verca.

Yes they are in an ever evolving state. Now these plants might not grow out of reach of the turtles though. Say you have a plant that produces berries. The problem is that only the berries that are actually eaten by an animal actually can grow. So only seeds that are pooped out in a heap of turtle crap have enough nutrition surrounding them to grow. This would keep those plants that have berries within range of the turtles mouths breeding. Its like a feedback loop. Plants with berries that are too high for the turtles to eat dont reproduce because they cant get their seeds into a pile of turtle poop. Turtles with necks that are too short dont survive or get as much nutrition as their counterparts with longer necks and therefore arent as able to pass their genes on to the next generation.


This is a very simplified case.

In response to your other replies, evolution is always occuring. It never stops. Just becasue the body form of a creature hasnt changed dramatically over millions of years doesnt mean its not evolving.

Ok , Ok, I'm beaten. Where's your church? One final flurry though, it is stated now that it is thought that life was kicked off from space (metiorites, etc). I was wondering how the evolutionary process worked there, before arriving on planet earth? Any thoughts?

Crikey mate, get your calculator out and try and work out how many ACCIDENTS it would need to account for every living thing on the earth. And, Oh, I don't know about your part of the world, but ACCIDENTS usually end in disability or death in England.

The beginning of how life started is still a mystery to everyone. No one knows how or where it started. It's very possible that a few ancient cells remained encased within in asteroid or meteorite that broke off a primitive planet a long time ago and then crashed into earth. I personally dont think this is the case though.

I think that life will arise, as a consequence of natural laws at work in the universe, anywhere it can. There are 70 million billion stars visible to telescopes, thats 70000000000000000000000. Many more we cant see. Life producing conditions exist elsewhere in the universe. We arent alone.

Evolution keeps life going in the face of an ever changing environment. The process was exactly the same before it arrived on earth, if thats the case.

My Aunty, who works in the catholic church asked me to answer these:
Why, if we have evolved from monkeys and other animals from other things, then why havent we evolved any more? Why havent the monkeys evolved into other human forms? Why are we still seeing monkeys in the zoo??

Just something to think about

We share a common ancestor with the apes, and going further back a common ancestor with monkeys, we arent evolved from the monkeys you see today. The common ancestor we're all descended from would be alot like a monkey though.

The reason we haven't evolved any more is because we haven't had the time, and frankly we may have hit an evolutionary dead end because our societies ultimately defeat survival of the fittest.

We are still evolving, so are monkeys and every other animal in the world.

Why haven't monkeys evolved in to more human forms? Well, why would they? They evolve to suit their own needs, not to fulfill some sort of a goal to become a human.



We didn't evolve directly from the monkeys you see today, but we all came from a common ancestor. Humans are just one branch of a much greater tree; with other primates making up the rest. We're all evolving individually, to suit our own needs.

Our ancestors benefited from being able to stand up straight so they evolved bipedality (two legs), they benefited from intelligence and so evolved larger brains, and so on.

While the ancestors of marmosets for example, benefited from having stronger tails, sharper teeth etc.

I know that!!!

But why arent we seeing it? Shouldnt something have happened to us since the roman empire?

This was my aunties argument, im just bringing in other points of views to have a look at, to explore other questions!!!

Ive learnt what you said in Biology, and i am not disputing the evidence. My aunties argum,ent was, why aftyer this long have we "stopped"- and i know your propbably thinking that evolution occurs after long periods of time- but how long, and why so long??

Humans have technology which pretty much allows us to work past natural selection, at least far better than any previous species.

In the wild animals which are weak are unable to survive and so their genes are slowly removed from the gene pool; but with humans that doesn't happen, we have medication and technology to ensure a great number of people survive, so the gene pool isn't being filtered out. Get what I mean? Although that's not entirely true as natural selection does still have an effect, which can be seen by looking at changing allele frequencies.

If you're talking about obvious physical changes, well, how many 2000 year old Romans have you seen to compare?

2000 years since the roman empire is nothing, its like a raindrop in an ocean. It takes thousands of years for small changes to affect a species makeup and hundred of thousands to millions of years for a species to evolve so much that it can be cant even be recognized as being related to its predecessors.

Take a a look at this. This is a description of the timeline of earths history as a 24 hour clock. It took 4 billion years for animals to evolve backbones. Or on this clock 21+ hours out of a 24 hour day. Now the first evidence of life we have is from about 3.5 billion years ago in the form of stromatolites. So it took about 3 billion years for life to evolve a spine.

http://www.amnh.org/education/resources/rf...pages/clock.htm

we haven't stopped, if you look at the current generation of teenagers, most of them are taller than previous generations. but it's much slower now because these days with the technology we have we are able to change the environment to suit us which then means that our physiology doesn't need to adapt as much (e.g. if someone lives in a cold environment all we have to do is put on more clothes or put the heating on, as opposed to our bodies adapting and growing fur). why does it take so long? well it's been said already in this thread, each generation plays a part and makes a change but usually it's a very small change, it also takes awhile to phase out those who have the physiological disadvanatage, especially since the human population is so big in numbers. if we have a major natural or man made disaster which forces us to change then things might move along quicker but as it is atm we have no real need to have any major changes.

Lol, that what i was taught in biology! And i can see, and almost agree with that theory (as it still is a theory isnt it???? as it cant be proved without flaws....?) Anyway, there are always many relgious people who will come back for a fight, (like my aunty).
I was only making a different point, with different views!!!

I agree with what has been said, but still blieve there was a creator to put it all their to begin with, even though something may of had to make the creator!!! It just gets too confusing!!

I don't necessarily disagree, I'm just here to answer questions.

If anything I guess I'm agnostic. There might have been a creator served as a catalyst for the universe's creation, or even one who's watching everything right now, or maybe not at all. I just don't believe any one knows yet, religion was created by man.

What ever the truth is, it's not going to be in the form of religion or mythology. It'll be part of science.