no scientist alive today understands macroevolution

[Guest]

There is no evidence. It's all speculation or extrapolation.

If you disagree that there's no evidence.....give me one.

No, I'd have to look it up, and it's not that important to me. Do you think some scientists think that there is evidence?

[betsy]

No, I'd have to look it up, and it's not that important to me.

It's important to your argument, that you be able to support what you claim.

I'm throwing the challenge on anyone who says there's evidence for macro evolution. Give one.

Do you think some scientists think that there is evidence?

Read the OP article again.

Assumption, or gross extrapolation is not evidence.

Edited May 17, 2016 by betsy

[Guest]

It's important to your argument, that you be able to support what you claim.

It stops being fun when you have to work at it.

[betsy]

It stops being fun when you have to work at it.

Of that's the case, you shouldn't be getting into serious discussions if you can't defend your position.

If you're not serious, I'll just have to ignore you.

Edited May 17, 2016 by betsy

[Guest]

Of that's the case, you shouldn't be getting into serious discussions if you can't defend your position.

If you're not serious, I'll just have to ignore you.

I'm not getting into serious discussions.

[The_Squid]

There's no gravity in space. And gravitational pull is strong on earth.

Tide goes in.... Tide goes out..... No one can explain that!

LOL

[GostHacked]

It's important to your argument, that you be able to support what you claim.

Right so let us know when you have evidence of what you are claiming.

[cybercoma]

Tide goes in.... Tide goes out..... No one can explain that!

LOL

NSFW language

[Guest]

Betsy, what evidence are you looking for? Speciation events?

Every offspring produced via sexual reproduction contains slight genetic differences from its parents. These can accumulate over time and with the right selective pressures, either natural or human induced, can eventually lead to species that can no longer interbreed. Evidence of speciation can be traced through the fossil record, but we also have living examples in ring species.

I'm not sure if you are familiar with the concept but basically a population of organisms spreads into different environments. The subpopulations that now inhabit different habitats face different natural selection pressures and thus different traits are favoured. Over time the groups inhabiting the new areas begin to significantly differ from one another and eventually can no longer interbreed.

Anyway, there are several living examples that include organisms from the original population that still inhabit the original habitat and the living offshoots that have spread into new habitats. DNA testing of the offshoots that can no longer interbreed shows they are both ancestors of the same original population.

Since evolutionary change is typically quite slow and pressures that force a population to change typically wipe out the older genetic variant, living examples of ring species are rare but a there are current examples of fish, birds and reptiles that have evolved in this manner. Here is an example of a species of salamander that spread down the west coast of the US. Separated by a large valley the various subpopulations faced different environmental pressures and built up genetic variations to the point that they can no longer interbreed. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/05/2/l_052_05.html

[betsy]

Betsy, what evidence are you looking for? Speciation events?

Every offspring produced via sexual reproduction contains slight genetic differences from its parents. These can accumulate over time and with the right selective pressures, either natural or human induced, can eventually lead to species that can no longer interbreed. Evidence of speciation can be traced through the fossil record, but we also have living examples in ring species.

I'm not sure if you are familiar with the concept but basically a population of organisms spreads into different environments. The subpopulations that now inhabit different habitats face different natural selection pressures and thus different traits are favoured. Over time the groups inhabiting the new areas begin to significantly differ from one another and eventually can no longer interbreed.

Anyway, there are several living examples that include organisms from the original population that still inhabit the original habitat and the living offshoots that have spread into new habitats. DNA testing of the offshoots that can no longer interbreed shows they are both ancestors of the same original population.

Since evolutionary change is typically quite slow and pressures that force a population to change typically wipe out the older genetic variant, living examples of ring species are rare but a there are current examples of fish, birds and reptiles that have evolved in this manner. Here is an example of a species of salamander that spread down the west coast of the US. Separated by a large valley the various subpopulations faced different environmental pressures and built up genetic variations to the point that they can no longer interbreed. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/05/2/l_052_05.html

Sorry, Slick. Your source is outdated. Ring species is not evidence of macro evolution.

In fact, there are no ring species!

It’s official: there are no ring species

Readers who were taught about ring species as evidence for evolution in high school are due for a surprise: it now appears that there aren’t any, after all. There were only a few alleged cases to begin with, but now, they’ve all been discredited. The last “good example” of a ring species has just been struck off the list, in a new paper by Miguel Alcaide et al. in Nature.

“What’s a ring species?” I hear some of you ask. In a recent post titled, There are no ring species, which is well worth reading, evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne describes the process whereby ring species supposedly originate:

There were only a few cases of ring species in Nature to begin with, but as Jerry Coyne acknowledges in his latest post, the last one has now been debunked:

A while back, when I said in the comments of an evolution post that there were no good “ring species,” a few readers asked me what I meant by that. “What about the salamander Ensatina eschscholtzii? Or seagulls in the genus Larus? Aren’t those good ring species?” My answer was that those had been shown not to be ring species in the classic sense, but there was still one species that might be a candidate: the greenish warbler Phylloscopus trochiloides around the Tibetan Plateau.

But now that one, too, has been struck off the list of ring species, leaving no good cases.

Another textbook icon goes the way of the dodo. How many of my readers remember the herring gull (illustrated at top, courtesy of Wikipedia) from high school?

http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/its-official-there-are-no-ring-species/

Edited May 17, 2016 by betsy

[betsy]

Betsy, what evidence are you looking for? Speciation events?

Every offspring produced via sexual reproduction contains slight genetic differences from its parents. These can accumulate over time and with the right selective pressures, either natural or human induced, can eventually lead to species that can no longer interbreed. Evidence of speciation can be traced through the fossil record, but we also have living examples in ring species.

There is no evidence for speciation, either. It's all assumption or prediction.

Speciation in action?

In the summer of 1995, at least 15 iguanas survived Hurricane Marilyn on a raft of uprooted trees. They rode the high seas for a month before colonizing the Caribbean island, Anguilla. These few individuals were perhaps the first of their species, Iguana iguana, to reach the island. If there were other intrepid Iguana iguana colonizers of Anguilla, they died out before humans could record their presence.

Evolutionary biologists would love to know what happens next: will the colonizing iguanas die out, will they survive and change only slightly, or will they become reproductively isolated from other Iguana iguana and become a new species? We could be watching the first steps of an allopatric speciation event, but in such a short time we can't be sure.

We have several plausible models of how speciation occurs — but of course, it's hard for us to get an eye-witness account of a natural speciation event since most of these events happened in the distant past. We can figure out that speciation events happened and often when they happened, but it's more difficult to figure out how they happened. However, we can use our models of speciation to make predictions.....

Also, ring species are convincing examples of how genetic differences may arise through reduced gene flow and geographic distance.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/evo_45

Your source only proved what I've been saying: what you'll find for alleged "evidence," are mere assumptions and gross extrapolations.

Of course, with the latest about ring species (refer to my source above)....that kinda slammed the door on that.

Edited May 17, 2016 by betsy

[BubberMiley]

Give an evidence for macro evolution

"The evolutionary course of Equidae (wide family including all horses and related animals) is often viewed as a typical example of macroevolution again from the broad viewpoint after a notable accumulation of previously microevolutionary changes. The earliest known genus, Hyracotherium (now reclassified as a palaeothere), was a browsing herbivore animal resembling a dog that lived in the early Cenozoic. The preferred evolutionary explanation is that as its habitat transformed into an open arid grassland (which we can reconstruct through pollen and seed records), selective pressure acted so that the animal become a fast grazer (as recorded by dentition changes etc.). Thus elongation of legs and head as well as reduction of toes gradually occurred, producing the only extant genus of Equidae, Equus." -Wikipedia

[betsy]

"The evolutionary course of Equidae (wide family including all horses and related animals) is often viewed as a typical example of macroevolution again from the broad viewpoint after a notable accumulation of previously microevolutionary changes. The earliest known genus, Hyracotherium (now reclassified as a palaeothere), was a browsing herbivore animal resembling a dog that lived in the early Cenozoic. The preferred evolutionary explanation is that as its habitat transformed into an open arid grassland (which we can reconstruct through pollen and seed records), selective pressure acted so that the animal become a fast grazer (as recorded by dentition changes etc.). Thus elongation of legs and head as well as reduction of toes gradually occurred, producing the only extant genus of Equidae, Equus." -Wikipedia

Sorry, BubberMiley.....but even that, offers no evidence for macro evolution.

DNA sheds new light on horse evolution

Ancient DNA retrieved from extinct horse species from around the world has challenged one of the textbook examples of evolution -- the fossil record of the horse family Equidae over the past 55 million years.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, involved an international team of researchers and the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) based at the University of Adelaide.

Only the modern horse, zebras, wild asses and donkey survive today, but many other lineages have become extinct over the last 50,000 years.

ACAD Director Professor Alan Cooper says despite an excellent fossil record of the Equidae, there are still many gaps in our evolutionary knowledge. "Our results change both the basic picture of recent equid evolution, and ideas about the number and nature of extinct species."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091210092001.htm

[betsy]

"The evolutionary course of Equidae (wide family including all horses and related animals) is often viewed as a typical example of macroevolution again from the broad viewpoint after a notable accumulation of previously microevolutionary changes. The earliest known genus, Hyracotherium (now reclassified as a palaeothere), was a browsing herbivore animal resembling a dog that lived in the early Cenozoic. The preferred evolutionary explanation is that as its habitat transformed into an open arid grassland (which we can reconstruct through pollen and seed records), selective pressure acted so that the animal become a fast grazer (as recorded by dentition changes etc.). Thus elongation of legs and head as well as reduction of toes gradually occurred, producing the only extant genus of Equidae, Equus." -Wikipedia

Your source is not that accurate.

The oldest known fossils assigned to Equidae date from the early Eocene, 54 million years ago. They used to be assigned to the genus Hyracotherium, but the type species of that genus now is regarded to be not a member of this family.

The other species have been split off into different genera. These early Equidae were fox-sized animals with three toes on the hind feet, and four on the front feet. They were herbivorous browsers on relatively soft plants, and already adapted for running. The complexity of their brains suggest that they already were alert and intelligent animals.^[1] Later species reduced the number of toes, and developed teeth more suited for grinding up grasses and other tough plant food.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equidae

Some refer to that as a fraud.

The inconsistency of the theory of the evolution of the horse becomes increasingly apparent as more fossil findings are gathered. Fossils of modern horse species (Equus nevadensis and Equus occidentalis) have been discovered in the same layer as Eohippus.155 This is an indication that the modern horse and its so-called ancestor lived at the same time.

The evolutionist science writer Gordon R. Taylor explains this little-acknowledged truth in his book The Great Evolution Mystery:

But perhaps the most serious weakness of Darwinism is the failure of paleontologists to find convincing phylogenies or sequences of organisms demonstrating major evolutionary change... The horse is often cited as the only fully worked-out example. But the fact is that

the line from Eohippus to Equus is very erratic.

It is alleged to show a continual increase in size, but the truth is that some variants were smaller than Eohippus, not larger. Specimens from different sources can be brought together in a convincing-looking sequence, but there is no evidence that they were actually ranged in this order in time.

156

All these facts are strong evidence that the charts of horse evolution, which are presented as one of the most solid pieces of evidence for Darwinism, are nothing but fantastic and implausible fairy tales. Like other species, horses, too, came into existence without ancestors in the evolutionary sense.

http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/natural_history_2_12.html

Edited May 17, 2016 by betsy

[Guest]

Sorry, Slick. Your source is outdated. Ring species is not evidence of macro evolution.

In fact, there are no ring species!

http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/its-official-there-are-no-ring-species/

Did you even read blog post you cited? In it, Coyne doesn't refute the idea of one population leading to subpopulations that can no longer interbreed. That fact is still very much intact. He acknowledges that the original population of salamanders produced eventual subpopulations that could no longer interbreed and thus a speciation event occurred. Coyne simply highlighted that at some points, subpopulations could not physically interact with neighbouring populations.

We still have living examples of populations of organisms leading to new populations that cannot interbreed, with living intermediate transition examples.

[Guest]

Quotes from the blog you cited:

But first, what is a ring species? Ring species constitute one big and supposedly continuous population in which the attainment of biological speciation (to people like me, that means the evolution of two populations to the point that they cannot produce fertile hybrids were they to live in the same place in nature) does not require full geographic isolation of those populations. Rather, speciation in that continuous population occurs through a gradual spread of the range of the animals, coupled with selection in different places that causes their genetic divergence.

Based on these results, everyone has now concluded that the formation of this “ring” involved sporadic and important episodes of geographic isolation between populations, so it’s not the classic “continuous gene flow” scenario involved in making a ring species. As Wake himself said in his 1997 paper (reference below), “The history of this complex has probably featured substantial [geographic] isolation, differentiation, and multiple recontacts.” (You can read about the Ensatina story in greater detail at “Understanding evolution,” a great site produced by U.C. Berkeley.)

Well, that’s a bummer, but it still shows how geographic isolation by distance can promote reproductive isolation and speciation.

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/07/16/there-are-no-ring-species/

Do you see how Coyne was just commenting on how neighbouring subpopulations were geographically isolated at times?

Edited May 17, 2016 by Guest

[betsy]

Did you even read blog post you cited? In it, Coyne doesn't refute the idea of one population leading to subpopulations that can no longer interbreed. That fact is still very much intact. He acknowledges that the original population of salamanders produced eventual subpopulations that could no longer interbreed and thus a speciation event occurred. Coyne simply highlighted that at some points, subpopulations could not physically interact with neighbouring populations.

We still have living examples of populations of organisms leading to new populations that cannot interbreed, with living intermediate transition examples.

We're talking about classical ring species. It's been debunked.

Edited May 17, 2016 by betsy

[betsy]

Quotes from the blog you cited:

But first, what is a ring species? Ring species constitute one big and supposedly continuous population in which the attainment of biological speciation (to people like me, that means the evolution of two populations to the point that they cannot produce fertile hybrids were they to live in the same place in nature) does not require full geographic isolation of those populations. Rather, speciation in that continuous population occurs through a gradual spread of the range of the animals, coupled with selection in different places that causes their genetic divergence.

Based on these results, everyone has now concluded that the formation of this “ring” involved sporadic and important episodes of geographic isolation between populations, so it’s not the classic “continuous gene flow” scenario involved in making a ring species. As Wake himself said in his 1997 paper (reference below), “The history of this complex has probably featured substantial [geographic] isolation, differentiation, and multiple recontacts.” (You can read about the Ensatina story in greater detail at “Understanding evolution,” a great site produced by U.C. Berkeley.)

Well, that’s a bummer, but it still shows how geographic isolation by distance can promote reproductive isolation and speciation.

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/07/16/there-are-no-ring-species/

Do you see how Coyne was just commenting on how neighbouring subpopulations were geographically isolated at times?

There's no evidence for speciation!

It's all conjectures and predictions. Refer to post #86.

Edited May 17, 2016 by betsy

[cybercoma]

Sorry, BubberMiley.....but even that, offers no evidence for macro evolution.

See. So even when you are presented with the evidence, you go on to pretend it doesn't exist.

Pack it up everyone. betsy doesn't care about evidence. She just wants a soapbox.

[Guest]

We're talking about classical ring species. It's been debunked.

Are you hoping to fool me or yourself with these type of responses?

We have living examples of populations of organisms that spread into different environments, face different selection pressures and minute genetic changes accumulate to the point that they can no longer interbreed with members of their parent population. This evidence is not in dispute, so how do you respond?

Edited May 17, 2016 by Guest

[betsy]

Are you hoping to fool me or yourself with these type of responses?

We have living examples of populations of organisms that spread into different environments, face different selection pressures and minute genetic changes accumulate to the point that they can no longer interbreed with members of their parent population. This evidence is not in dispute, so how do you respond?

You're talking about allopatric speciation!

Edited May 17, 2016 by betsy

[Guest]

You're talking about allopatric speciation!

You tried to claim that speciation relies on assumption, yet in this case we have living examples of ancestral populations and their various subpopulations that can no longer interbreed. In the example I presented there is no assumption, no fossils, no gaps. Just living examples that can and have been genetically tested.

You used a disingenuous source that weakly tried to explain away this evidence with label semantics. The label "classic ring species" does not apply yet the living example of speciation is still there for all to see. This level of trickery presented by your source may placate the faithful like Moore docs do for the left and Breitbart or Beck does for the right but we can all see it for what it is.

So you have been presented with living evidence of speciation that doesn't gel with your world view. What do you do with it? Are you willing to read beyond semantics and possibly challenge your current beliefs?

That's what I did when you claimed more relevant knowledge of ring species. I investigated and quickly found out your source was playing a semantic game. One that probably caught you as well. Though I was skeptical, I went in expecting that what I know about speciation and isolated populations could change and welcomed the opportunity to learn more.

You claimed that evidence is important to you, so I hope you are skeptical but still investigate it. We all know that biological evidence and the creationist world view are incompatible so I wish you good luck with this journey.

[betsy]

You tried to claim that speciation relies on assumption, yet in this case we have living examples of ancestral populations and their various subpopulations that can no longer interbreed. In the example I presented there is no assumption, no fossils, no gaps. Just living examples that can and have been genetically tested.

You used a disingenuous source that weakly tried to explain away this evidence with label semantics. The label "classic ring species" does not apply yet the living example of speciation is still there for all to see. This level of trickery presented by your source may placate the faithful like Moore docs do for the left and Breitbart or Beck does for the right but we can all see it for what it is.

So you have been presented with living evidence of speciation that doesn't gel with your world view. What do you do with it? Are you willing to read beyond semantics and possibly challenge your current beliefs?

That's what I did when you claimed more relevant knowledge of ring species. I investigated and quickly found out your source was playing a semantic game. One that probably caught you as well. Though I was skeptical, I went in expecting that what I know about speciation and isolated populations could change and welcomed the opportunity to learn more.

You claimed that evidence is important to you, so I hope you are skeptical but still investigate it. We all know that biological evidence and the creationist world view are incompatible so I wish you good luck with this journey.

You gave the description for allopatric speciation. I'm telling you, just like speciation - it's just an assumption, or extrapolation.

My previous source is corroborated by this other source. Check out the list of references at the bottom.

There is nothing disingenous about the message.

Allopatric speciation is a mechanism to evolve reproductive isolation; it is caused by the accumulation of genetic differences between populations while they are geographically isolated.

Here, we studied a simple stochastic model for the time until speciation caused by geographical isolation in fragmented populations that experience recurrent but infrequent migration between subpopulations.

We assumed that mating incompatibility is controlled by a number of loci that behave as neutral characters in the accumulation of novel mutations within each population.

However, very few theoretical studies have examined the process of allopatric speciation because it tends to be regarded as ‘theoretically trivial’ [5,6].

As a consequence, almost all of the theoretical studies of speciation conducted within the last few decades have focused on sympatric speciation in which species diverge spontaneously as a result of adaptation to different niches, habitats or mate choice

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3915844/

Edited May 18, 2016 by betsy

[betsy]

Slick, on 17 May 2016 - 6:49 PM, said:

You claimed that evidence is important to you, so I hope you are skeptical but still investigate it. We all know that biological evidence and the creationist world view are incompatible so I wish you good luck with this journey.

If someone claims otherwise, shouldn't evidence be important to you, too? Or, to anyone who wants to be informed?

I have a solid basis for my rejection of macro evolution......and I supported that with facts!

So I hope you become skeptical....and investigate on your own, with an open mind.

Even sympatric speciation, is also based on an assumption, or extrapolation.

Imagine that your family has lived in one house for many years. In fact, it's the only house your family has ever lived in. Now, imagine that your sister moves out of that house and into a house in a nearby neighborhood. She begins her own family there, and through the years, her family continues to grow and live in this new house.

When your family separated, you became different groups of people from the same common ancestor. Eventually, you might even evolve enough to feel that there are more differences between you than similarities. When this happens in nature, it's called sympatric speciation.

You might be wondering how one species can become two separate species, even though they still live in the same area. This can happen in a variety of ways, but let's look at a hypothetical example to understand the process better.

Sympatric speciation occurs if interactions are so limited between these groups that mating no longer occurs between them. Each new population of flies will have genetic variation in its gene pool, which is the collective genetic information for the group. As they continue to mate with other members of their new group, these variations will become more prevalent in the population.

Over a long enough period of time, an entirely new species might develop.

http://study.com/academy/lesson/sympatric-speciation-example-definition-quiz.html

Everything you'll read about the so-called "evidence" for macro evolution from legitimate sources, is peppered with assumptive terms.

Edited May 18, 2016 by betsy

[Guest]

Shouldn't evidence be important to you, too? Or, for anyone who wants to be informed?

I have a solid basis for my skepticism......and I supported that with facts!

Even sympatric speciation, is also based on an assumption, or extrapolation.

http://study.com/academy/lesson/sympatric-speciation-example-definition-quiz.html

Everything you'll read about the so-called "evidence" for macro evolution, is peppered with assumptive terms.

Yet, I gave a concrete living example of two populations of organisms that can no longer interbreed despite having recent common ancestors that still exist and can still be genetically tested. There is no assumption in the example I provided to you. Your post here doesn't apply or make sense in this context.

Your world view is incompatible with the evidence. If, as you have claimed, you go where the evidence takes you, I urge you to explore the evidence in this area and ask questions and challenge what you have been told to believe.