Extent of Mutational Capability

Nor could that ever happen, according to evolution. Indeed, if that were to happen, then it would disprove evolution. Only creationists will claim that that is what evolution would require, but that is because they have no idea what evolution is. They have no clue.The creationist "counter-argument" is utterly false and should be disregarded.

Welcome to the fray, Greg. Sorry my first reply was so short, but I only had a couple minutes before having to rush out the door to work. I do hope we can have some good discussions.Like you, I started to dig into the "creation/evolution controversy" to ascertain the truth. That was about 35 years ago and what I discovered almost immediately was that all the creationist claims turned out to be false; none of them could stand up under scrutiny. While most creationists don't understand the science behind their claims nor the claims themselves (all they know is that they sure do sound convincing), I have also encountered instances of deliberate lying and dishonesty. I described that initial learning experience on my webpage, Why I Oppose Creation Science.Like I said, that has been my own experience, but I ask that you not jump to conclusions about me. I should also point out that I do not oppose the idea of Divine Creation, but rather a particular theology, "creation science", which I consider to be false and damaging to Christians' faith. On my quotes page, I quote members of Answers in Genesis who say the same thing, that relying on false claims can endanger one's faith; eg, Dr. Jonathan Sarfati and Dr Don Batten.My basic position is that if you wish to oppose evolution, then I must insist that you do so honestly and truthfully and that you do address evolution itself and not waste everybody's time attacking false ideas that are mislabeled as being evolution. Therefore, I must warn you from using "creation science" claims not only because I have found them to be dishonest and false, but also because they misrepresent evolution, science, religion, and just about everything that they can lay their dirty paws on.Your experience is with theology whereas mine is with science. In the 1980's, it was still popular for creationists to use young-earth claims to support the belief expressed by John Morris of the Institute for Creation Research:

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"If the earth is more than 10,000 years old then Scripture has no meaning."

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Here is the context for that from the 1986 International Conference on Creationism (ICC):

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{Glenn R. Morton, practicing petroleum geologist and staunch creationist, asked John Morris of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR)}, "How old is the earth?" "If the earth is more than 10,000 years old then Scripture has no meaning." Morton then said that he had hired several graduates of Christian Heritage College {which formerly housed the ICR}, and that all of them suffered severe crises of faith. They were utterly unprepared to face the geological facts every petroleum geologist deals with on a daily basis.

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(Corroborated by Glenn Morton in Why I left Young-earth Creationism)

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One of the discussions I would like for us to have would be whether John Morris is correct. I believe that he is wrong. Since theologies are Man-made they are fallible and prone to error. If your theology turns out to contain error (which is inevitable), then why throw out your entire faith? Why not simply correct your theology? That's an example of the kinds of questions that we should be discussing.Well, it turns out that the young-earth claims are the easiest to refute and hence are the most vulnerable. As a result, experienced young-earth creationists have become notorious for going to great lengths to avoid discussing those claims with knowledgeable outsiders (though I'm certain that they share them freely with fellow believers). But if you have some young-earth claims you'd like to discuss, then I would welcome discussing them with you.Or you could start to research them yourself, now that you are aware that they have problems. To that end, one resource I recently found is a series of videos on YouTube:
How Creationism Taught Me Real Science. It is a series of 40 videos by Tony Reed. The general format of each video is that he starts out "encountering" a creationist claim, finds that it sounds convincing, and decides to check it out, to verify it. And of course the claim falls apart under inspection. Besides the content, the title of the series really appealed to me because it echos my own experience, that by studying "creation science" and researching its claims I have learned a lot of real science. Responding to my suggested topics in this topic would be off-topic, something that the administrators keep an eye on. If you want to follow up with any of them then I suggest that you start a new topic in which to do that.Again, welcome and I hope we can have some interesting and constructive discussions.Edited by dwise1, : emphasis on not taking this off-topicEdited by dwise1, : Repaired broken link.

The terms macroevolution and microevolution are defined differently by creationists than by scientists. The scientific definition, as per Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroevolution):

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Macroevolution is evolution on a scale of separated gene pools. Macroevolutionary studies focus on change that occurs at or above the level of species, in contrast with microevolution, which refers to smaller evolutionary changes (typically described as changes in allele frequencies) within a species or population. Macroevolution and microevolution describe fundamentally identical processes on different time scales.

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Hence, when speciation has occurred, then so has macroevolution.Creationists redefine macroevolution to occur well above the species level, hence also redefining microevolution to be responsible for speciation.Part of the problem is that while "species" seems to be a simple enough concept, in nature it can be difficult to define definitively. This is known as the species problem. For example, we commonly think of different species as being reproductively isolated, which for the most part is true. However, that does not necessarily mean that closely related species are incapable of reproducing, but rather that they either do not have the opportunity to try or have different mating behavior. Creationists take advantage of this confusion by apparently defining macroevolution as requiring the genetic inability to interbreed, thus redefining hybrids as only proving "microevolution."In other words, the entire macroevolution/microevolution issue basically boils down to semantics, a game that creationists love to play since their only goal is to convince their audience (and themselves), not to actually learn something.The creationist approach is to invent "basic created kinds", AKA "baramin". Originally, they were used in order to keep the Ark from being overcrowded: instead of two of every single species of animal, it only needed to carry two breeding representatives of each basic created kinds. Hence instead of all feline species, it only needed two members of the basic felid kind. Dogs, wolves, foxes, hyenas by the basic canid kind. All worms by the basic worm kind. Etc. And then after the Flood each pair started breeding and evolving at an incredibly rapid rate (almost instantaneously), though creationists call this "simple variation within basic created kinds."Basically, this idea suffers from broad disagreement among creationists as well as a lot of hand-waving on their part. Still, it does serve its basic purpose of convincing creationists and those they wish to mislead.But it also proves macroevolution. In the "basic canid kind", a lot of canids, especially the wolf-like ones, are very compatible genetically and can freely interbreed. However, two types of jackel cannot. And other canids, such as South American canids, true foxes, bat-eared foxes, or raccoon dogs, also cannot interbreed with wolf-like canids. True reproductive barriers had evolved within the "basic canid kind." Macroevolution happened! See https://en.wikipedia.org/...id_hybrid#Genetic_considerations.The same holds true of the "basic felid kind" -- see felid hybrid. That "baramin" consists of two branches: Pantherinae (tiger, lion, jaguar, leopard, snow leopard and clouded leopards) and Felinae (including all the non-pantherine cats). A lot of hybridization can occur within the Pantherinae branch and a lot within the Felinae branch, but none across the genetic divide between the two branches. Yet again, true genetic reproductive barriers evolved with a "basic created kind". Macroevolution happened!And don't even get us started on the "basic worm kind". That "simple" "baramin" is filled with reproductive barriers.No, there are no genetic limitations that could prevent macroevolution. Regardless of how creationists will play semantic games to redefine it out of existence, it still happened.BTW, you may find the article on speciation edifying. Or at the very least informative.You might also want to read up on cladistics, which is how we construct evolutionary trees. Please note the branching nature, such that descendant species branch off from their ancestral species and never jump to another separate branch. Hence a species that evolved from cats would still be cat, just different from its ancestral cats; it could never jump over to the canid branches and hence never become a kind of dog. This important concept is called "nested clades." It's a simple enough concept, rather obvious actually. Funny how creationists can't seem to understand it.So learn a bit about cladistics so that you can appreciate that crying out "But they're STILL MOTHS!!!" is just as stupid as "Why are there still monkeys?"and "Men have fewer ribs than women."

What's even funnier is that while creationists claim that a very sharp and unmistakable line separates humans and apes, such that you can easily determine whether a hominid fossil is 100% human or 100% ape, they cannot agree with each other on individual fossils. Individual creationists cannot even decide, classifying the same fossil one way one time and then the other way later.Refer to Joe Foley's page on talkorigins.org, Comparison of All Skulls.

It's not so much that creationists are obsessed with using labels, but rather that science and creationism are two fundamentally different endeavors and it shows in everything that they do.A couple decades ago, a creationist on a different forum made me realize this basic truth about creationism: the fundamental purpose for everything that they do is convincing people. They want to convince themselves and everybody else that their theology (YEC) is true and they do that by convincing everybody, especially themselves, that science (especially evolution and any evidence that the earth is old) is wrong. Later, I started writing a web page based on my analysis of the
Fundamental Differences Between Scientists and Creationists -- it is still incomplete, but I have posted it without links to it for just such occasions as this. These fundamental differences affect everything that scientists and creationists do as well as the outcomes of both endeavors.Basically, scientists want to discover more about the universe; to their questions they seek answers as well as further, more interesting questions. They base their research on the research of others (AKA, standing on the shoulders of giants), so they have a vested interest in verifying the research of others. If a scientist made a mistake in his research or even committed fraud, then that verification process will discover that and correct it, along with ruining that scientist's reputation in the case of fraud or shoddy work.Basically, creationists are only interested in persuading others with the ultimate goal of converting them. Believing that they already have the answers, they have no actual questions. So they do not seek new knowledge, but rather they seek convincing-sounding arguments to use to convince others and themselves. When they base their work on the work of other creationists, they do not try to verify those other claims, but rather the true test is how convincing those other claims sound. Therefore, even when those claims are exposed as being false, they will continue to be used just because they sound so convincing. If a creationist does shoddy work (if?) or even if he commits outright fraud (again, if?), that will have absolutely no effect on his reputation just so long as his claims still sound convincing.Scientists use language and terminology to try to describe what they observe and to communicate that information with each other as accurately as possible. They try their best to keep that communication truthful and accurate.Creationists use language and terminology solely for the purpose of persuading others, even if that persuasion requires deception. Therefore, they will change the meanings of words to suit their goals. This leads to "semantic shifting", changing the meanings of the words in quote-mining scientific sources in order to change what that source actually said -- though they own lack of understanding of the science that they are misrepresenting would also be a factor. We can cynically observe that creationists' use of language is like what lawyers do in their arguments as they are trying to persuade the members of the jury. Yes, by redefining words they seek to redefine the world, but more importantly they seek to persuade others and themselves that falsehoods are the new truth.

Greg, undoubtedly you feel overwhelmed by the replies. Please bear with us and stay in the discussion.One point that has been raised is the problem of definitions. What we have observed through decades of experience is that creationists give scientific terminology new definitions upon which they then base their arguments. Obviously, when both sides use the same words but with different meanings, the only possible result is confusion and increased misunderstanding (both of which works to the creationist's advantage in his endeavors to persuade). Therefore, the first order of business should be to address the meanings of the terms we use.As has also been pointed out, creationists use the terms "macroevolution" and "microevolution" quite differently than scientists would, plus those terms are fairly obsolete in science. Furthermore, we have observed many instances of creationist misunderstanding of evolution and how it is thought to work -- commonly rather gross misunderstanding. The creationist redefinitions of the terms "macroevolution" and "microevolution" appear to be grounded in such misunderstanding and reinforces their lack of comprehension. And then their questions about and challenges to evolution are all based on those misconceptions such that we find ourselves being challenged to prove true ideas which are completely false. A possible analogy might be for a flat-earther to challenge us to explain why the people in South Africa don't fall off the earth since they're walking around up-side-down.Your question appears to be based on a misunderstanding of evolution and of what macroevolution means:

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Is there any known process or element in the genetic make-up of animal organisms, or else anything within biology, that would actively stop or act as a barrier to so-called 'macroevolution’. In other words, anything known to genetics that would prevent transformation or mutation from one animal category to another, i.e., any process that would preclude, for example, an ape-like form evolving into a human being, a dinosaur evolving into a bird, and so forth.

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"... from one animal category to another". What do you have in mind? Your examples don't help, because they are actual instances of an actual understanding of evolution. Are apes, hominids, and humans really different "animal categories"? They are all primates, so they are all in the same "animal category" in that respect. Similarly, dinosaurs and birds are in the same "animal category", in that the ancestors of birds were theropods, which were a kind of dinosaur. Are birds and lizards in the same "animal category"? Yes, in that they are both part of at least three larger groupings: chordates (vertebrates), amniotes (eggs), and diapsids (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diapsid). Did birds evolve from lizards (as I've heard at least one creationist claim)? No. Lizards are descendents of Lepidosauria, which is a different branch of diapsids than archosauria, the ancestors of dinosauria, then theropods, then birds.Your reference to "... from one animal category to another" sounds like you think evolution says that it requires something like a modern lizard to evolve into a bird or a cat into a dog. Birds and lizards share common ancestors, but they are on quite separate and different branches and cannot jump from one branch to another. Dogs and cats share a much more recent common ancestor, but yet again a cat cannot jump branches to evolve into a dog. Not only does that grossly misrepresent what evolution says, but evolution actually says that that would be impossible.Instead of asking us to prove a mistaken idea about evolution, it might be more fruitful to ask questions about what you think evolution does. Has part of your year-long investigation been to examine creationist claims to see whether they are true? If you had taken that approach by testing whether how creationists describe evolution is true, then you would have gotten further along in your endeavor to learn the truth.That is why I recommended that YouTube series, How Creationism Taught Me Real Science. He starts with a creationist claim that sounds convincing and then examines it. Part of that process is looking at what science actually says, AKA real science.Even if you don't watch any of those videos, that should still be your approach. Start with a creationist claim and first find out if it's accurate.But do stick with your investigation. And stay onboard here.Edited by Admin, : Fix YouTube link.

Greg, resources such as the Wikipedia article, Mutation, should help answer your questions about the limits of genetics. It describes the various types of mutations that can happen. There seems to be a lot of confusion about mutations in the creationist literature, but what should always be remembered is that the only types of mutations that are of interest in evolution are changes that can be inherited. If the mutation cannot be inherited, then it is of no use to evolution and hence of no interest in these discussions. Inheritable mutations are always genetic (as opposed to environmental factors affecting embryo development, such as the effects of thalidomide) and always happen in the germ cells (eg, sperm, eggs) -- hence the distinction in the article between germline and somatic mutations.Inheritable mutations of interest include base substitutions, insertions and deletions, insertion of entire sections, transposition, disabling of sections (eg, through copy errors), retro-viral insertions, etc. Finding the same copy errors and retro-viral insertions in the same places in different species can be used to trace how they are related to each other. We can also find where entire chromosomes have either split apart or fused together, thus changing the number of chromosomes in the descendent species. For example, gorillas and chimpanzees have 48 chromosomes while humans have 46. We find that human Chromosome 2 is the result of two ancestral chromosomes having fused end-to-end; that did not happen in the case of all other members of Hominidae, including gorillas and chimpanzees; from the article on mutation:

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Changes in chromosome number may involve even larger mutations, where segments of the DNA within chromosomes break and then rearrange. For example, in the Homininae, two chromosomes fused to produce human chromosome 2; this fusion did not occur in the lineage of the other apes, and they retain these separate chromosomes. In evolution, the most important role of such chromosomal rearrangements may be to accelerate the divergence of a population into new species by making populations less likely to interbreed, thereby preserving genetic differences between these populations.

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So there is a lot of leeway in how much genetic change there can be.Another resource that could help you understand evolution would be the essay, Introduction to Evolutionary Biology at the archive site for the talkorigins newsgroup -- newsgroups were the original Internet forums established long before the Internet went public in the mid-1990s. The TalkOrigins Archive site, talkorigins.org, is an excellent source of information about the "creation/evolution controversy" and real science.

Um, huh?"Gene merging"? What is that? Could you please provide some examples?Gene duplication is a different matter which we have seen happen many times. Such as in multiple alleles. The genes for hair color: BB for black, Bb for black, bb for blond. Yet there is also brown and several shades thereof! Because there are more than one gene pair for hair color, multiple alleles. Strictly binary black/white completely fails to explain the wide range of hair color, whereas the existence of multiple copies of those genes does explain it very well. And yet there are no hybrids between the two major branches of cat, Pantherinae and Felinae, hence none "from tabby to tiger" as you have just so falsely stated. Your own "cat kind" has a built-in reproductive barrier across which no hybrid may pass. Just what the fuck is that supposed to mean? And whoever claimed that it was supposed to happen?Do please be extremely specific in answering that question. Part of this test is to see whether you have any clue at all what evolution actually is.

I'm sorry, but just what are you talking about? Coyote wrote: So just what the hell are you talking about? Just exactly and precisely what is the "it" in your message?

Bullshit! Since you are a ferenner (Amarikan for "foreigner"), that means that you are spouting nonesense.First, gene duplication does happen. The magical word is "multiple alleles." One gene for hair color: black or white. No, there are multiple gene pairs of hair color, even ones that allow for all possible shades of brown and blond. One gene for skin color, black or white? No, yet again there are multiple gene pairs of skin color, even ones that allow for all possible shades of brown and "brown-ish". So your bullshit lies about the lack of gene duplication is just that, pure bullshit. Just what nonsense are you talking about? We already know that that is complete and utter bullshit. Tigers are Pantherinae and tabbies are Felinae and there are no hybrids between the two. Your "basic created cat kind" is split between two groups who cannot interbreed between themselves. AKA macroevolution!!!Just what the fuck are you actually talking about??? Please define your terms with the greatest precision that you can. Only then can we actually talk.

Well, what the OP was thinking is not at all clear since he has neglected to post anything since then.So then what "gene merging" is supposed to mean remains a mystery. Unless it is a common creationist term in which case you are obliged to explain it to those uninitiated into your own particular Mystery. What the fuck are you talking about???????????????????????????????????????????????????????Explain yourself!!!Edited by Admin, : Reduce number of question marks.

This may not translate well.[ qs ]this is the text you want to quote [/ qs ]
OK, it did after all.Remove the spaces and it should work. To test it, type what you think should work, then press the Preview button. If that worked, then press the Submit Reply button. If not, then make the necessary corrections and press the Preview button as many times as is necessary.And if that did not work, then simply go back to your previous post and edit it, though do please also log in your reason for performing that edit.

And do please keep your head out of your culo.Who claims that one kind can evolve into another?Do please be very specific about that. And about what it is supposed to mean by " one kind {evolving} into another". I do indeed mean extremely specific.

From Message 28: Looks suspiciously like you are arguing that your idea of "evolution" requires that at some point a dog would have to "evolve" into a cat, or vice versa. But just to be sure, we ask you were talking about and specifically what you meant by "kind". Eventually, you finally told us in Message 54: Uh, OK. Three days and five hours before you posted that, I posted in Message 9: Tabby to Lion hybrids? Where? Tabby? That is all within Felinae, but does not cross over into Pantherinae. From Leo? Across Pantherinae, but not into Felinae. All within the same "basic created kind."What about the "basic worm kind"? What about the "basic insect kind"? What about the "basic fish kind"? What about the "basic bird kind"? Genetically-based reproductive barriers all over the place.And among hybrids, what about the different kinds of hybrids? What about fertile hybrids and infertile hybrids? What's the difference? Why should there be a difference?Evolution answers those questions. Your misrepresentation of evolution does not.

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BTW:Using a "quote-block" just to separate other information from this forum-usage message:

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BTW, CRR (and Greg, too), in order to see how we perform our mark-up magic, simply go to the applicable message and click on the peek button. That will open a window that displays the raw marked-up text of the message. There is also a help page somewhere on this site which gives a more complete explanation of the mark-up features, but it's been so long that I forget how to find it again. Also, for the mid=..., look at the (exempli gratia) "Message 54 of 100" and right after it you will see a dim "(793144)". That is the message ID, which is what I used in the mid=793144. There is also an analogous tid=19287 for inserting topic names and links. Look in your web browser's URL for t=19287 to get the topic's ID.

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To play with any of this, go to any message and click a reply button and write your "reply". At any point, click on the Preview button to see what your "reply" would look like. As long as you do not click on the Submit Reply button, your "reply" will not be sent. Then simply close that tab in your browser (or the browser itself) and your practice piece will go away.

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The very basic syntax is very similar to HTML, only with square brackets instead of angle brackets. And some of the keywords are different. It should not be hard to work with once you have acquainted yourself with the basics.

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Oh, and we can also use HTML, like with the HR I did above. Though sometimes HTML can "go stupid" here, such as usually happens to me with HTML tables.

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Waiting for answers to your questions is not a reason for refraining from participation.My own religious orientation is Unitarian-Universalist (UUs). A buzz-word we hear often is "To question is the answer." If we were the KKK, people would wake up to find a burning question mark on their front yard. Our dual UU history is filled with many progressives who have all supported our modern world, without whom we would have been entirely and infinitely worse people. Here's a hint: Twilight Zone's Rod Serling was a Unitarian-Univeralist -- just where did you think his morality stories came from?.A buzz-word slogan from UU is, "To question is the answer." Remember that burning question mark on your front yawn? As I understand it, that slogan came from the Vietnam War and was a call for everybody to question the Establishment. And yet that basic question applies to all theology. Since all theology is fallible Man-made ideas.