When micro = macro ...

Verbs? Verbs? You're arguing verbs?This message has been edited by Theus, 08-27-2005 05:11 PM

You're not going to offer evidence, are you?Adieu,
Theus

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Veri Omni Veritas

I am "Arguing" organically.What is the kind of "evidence" tha qualifies??

light produced kinesis vs locomotion, yes,...something like that.see also Kant "Introduction to Logic"

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In enlarging our knowledge, or perfecting it in its extensive quantity, it is well to consider how far a cognition is consistent with our ends and capacities. This consideration concerns the determination of the horizon of our knowledge, by which is to be understood the due proportion of the sum total of the congnitions, to the capacities and ends of the subject.

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The horizon may be determined:-
1^O. Logically, according to the cognitive faculties as far as the understanding is concerned. In this case we have to judge: how far we can go in our knowledge; how far we must go in it, and how far certain cognitions serve, in a logical point of view, as means to this or that main branch of knowledge as our end.

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2^o. Aesthetically, according to Taste as far as feeling is concerned. The man who determines his horizon aesthetically, seeks to arrange the science according to taste of the public, that is, to maie it popular, or , generally speaking, to acquire only such knowldege as can be generally communicated, and in which the unlearned class take pleasure and interest.

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3^o. Practically, according to Utility as far as the will is concerned. The practical horizon, being determined according to the influence that a cognition has on our morality, is pragmatical,and of the greatest importance.

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(207) Thus, the horizon concerns the estimation and determination of what a man can know, and what hemay know, and what he ought to know.

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p31 1963 The Philosophical Library same ref last verse same as the firstSeems to me evidence for this horizon may not be what you require? Just asking??This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 08-28-2005 12:02 PMThis message has been edited by Brad McFall, 08-28-2005 12:04 PM

I don't really believe in evolution because I don't want to. Though I am a Christain I certainly do not limit an all powerful God to any possibility. Evolution would make sense for adaptability and survivability. Yet I believe that the information for adaptation and survivability was in us at the beginning. I believe that faith is required by anyone to believe in something we cannot really know.
Wether or not evolution takes place, which I know small mutations happen all the time. And they really must be small. My first question would be: What is the definition of a Species?Another thing I'm wondering about evolution is if spontaneous generation occured why did we evolve from self-reproduction to sexual reprodution?
To me it makes no sense why it would favor the survival of any species. And where and when was the drive for survival evolved into existance?
When the first male or female mutant was born how did he or she automatically have all the necessary equipment to have a drive, know where to fulfil that drive, and know how to reproduce with the opposite sex?
Another thing is would the first living spontaneously generated being already have fully developed and coded DNA? If so where did the DNA language and code come from?
Now I do not really care about the study of evolution of the proof of it's validity. My concern is in is there actually a purpose to my life greater than what I can think up?
I believe there is as long as faith is required. I believe that textbook evolution is a religion based on materialistic( I only believe what I can see) and yet atheistic scientists still have to rely on they faith and imaginations to believe that all we can see is all there really is. So as long as they have faith, they have a religion. Now as I understand this religon of modern materialistic evolution is being taught as fact in text books all around the world.
Such as the spontaneous generation hypothesis. So for all of those materialists who believe in matter I ask you what is a the root of matter? I believe the answer is absolutely nothing.... material. But do we know what this really is? As I understand the root of material is photons.. basically light rays. and beyond that we can only imagine. But My faith tells me they are built on a word. Or commanding wisdom of a supreme intelligence. Information. A code. Well would this code have any substance that is Material? I would not. For this understanding is as of yet beyond our understanding and that can only be answered by faith. No microscope will ever be able so see this word. Only the fruits of it's purpose.

Mammuthus have pointed out a peer reviewed article about a mutation in a snail in a lab that changed their shell's shape and structure, which made them unable to mate with the old population. By all definition, this single mutation in shell shape literally created a new species of snails.The search engine is down so I can't find it now.

cuz I'm way out of my league here, but let me give you a YEC's view.I believe in micro-evolution, of course. I believe that species can variate. However, I believe there is a genetic limit to how much a species can variate.So, there are ring species (or whatever). For instance, there is a sea gull version A that gave rise to sea gull version B that gave rise to sea gull version C. Sea gull version A can mate with version B, and version B can mate with version C, but version A cannot mate with version C. That's a ring species. But, they are all still sea gulls, aren't they?Or, in the case of the snails with differing shell chirality...they are all still snails, right?Do these gulls and snails provide unquestionable proof for the idea that all living things (from banana trees and crabgrass to krill and blue whales) evolved from some "amoeba" that spontaneously generated from "pre-biotic" ooze somewhere 3 billion years ago?You can only observe the micro-evolution. You can believe that the fact that micro-evolution occurs means that macro-evolution has occurred...if you wish. But you cannot observe macro-evolution. As I understand it, macro-evolution is almost, by definition, unobservable...i.e., it occurs over such long periods of time that it cannot be observed by humans.--JasonThis message has been edited by TheLiteralist, 08-30-2005 05:20 AM

ya.....and if we KNEW what TIME was other than as a "variable" in biological form-making and translation in space(change)then we might be able to guess not reflectively (some do that today) what the shape(s) of the largest scale of mutated forms not extinct has been and even turn that into what might be given those classes not extinct formally (whehter it looks like a Kantian grass bank(baraminologically) and/or the difference of stair step or an inclined plane. Then biology would be in the place physics is in going to Mars. We are not and there is some elite feeling that we CAN NOT ever get here (there will never be an ability to send "robots" determinately to life on unknown places) without already finding them there(we dont really have anything like a deductive biogeography even started for life on this mother of a planet.

Why would you get in trouble? I don't think you're beyond MY league at least IMO in a way what you write is true, even though we don't agree!
Part of the purpose of this thread was to discuss the fuzzyness of the concept "species" (and "macro"-evolution). Depending on your own idea of what differences are sufficient, you can categorize two related organisms as belonging to a different species. So we could read your last line as meaning "upto this degree or type of genetic change I consider the organism belonging to species 'A', and once it shows greater genetic differences (later in the line of procreation) I will start to consider it belonging to species 'B' " In that sense, there is indeed a limit to how much a species can variate. A limit of how much and what kind of difference we, as observers, tolerate. Again illustration of the fuzzyness, and importance of convention: if you would know nothing else about C and A aside from the fact that they can not mate with each other, you would be inclined to immediately accept them as different species. But simply on their "looks" alone, or how they live, it doesn't seem to be warranted to categorize them as such. What makes the difference? It's just convention.Are they still "seagulls"? First of all that just depends on what we would still call "seagulls", and what would no longer be called "seagulls". Since both descend from "seagulls", it will in a way always remain correct to call them "seagulls". If some of them move land-inwards, it will start to sound odd after a while, obviously Secondly, we might be seeing nothing but the first steps here towards something which you would more easily accept as "speciation". Since C and A are reproductively seperated, they will now grow apart more and more since they can no longer mix. If both lines keep existing for sufficient additional time, they will produce organisms that will no longer be so obviously closely related. Because the micro-evolution continues. Exactly the same issues... IMO they illustrate that the "magical hurdles" which are supposed to exist by some, don't need to be magical at all. They are not on their own "unquestionable proof" but are part of a much bigger collection of lines of evidence that support and illustrate the same conclusions. Exactly how much piled-up micro-evolution constitues macro-evolution? Yes indeed, it is "fuzzy" and much more easy to define "in retrospect" just like speciation! I would say that the "unsurmountable" division between micro- and macro-evolution that you suppose, is an unnecessary additional assumption. Micro to macro is not just "belief" but logical consequence. Are there any indications that the micro-evolution is somehow limited by natural borderlines? You could say "by definition", but I think "by nature" is better. That something can't typically be observed over "human" timescales really doesn't have to mean that it was essentially defined for that purpose or that it is impossible? Compare it to the theories about the evolution of stars: in that issue we are just as well unable to watch the lifecycle "live" in front of our eyes.- Annafan -

Don't worry about the search engine, I have already referenced the same paper earlier on in this thread.That paper does not show that this single mutation has definitely created a new species in and of itself, and certainly not under laboratory condtitions. A recent paper in PLOS, only e-published so far in fact, has modelled this sort of single gene chiral trait as a factor for reproductive isolation and they suggest that the simple appearance of this trait is insufficient to produce reproductive isolation as the trait is so unstable that gene flow is very likely to reoccur (Davison, et al., 2005).TTFN,WK

Hi Annafan,Well, you seem to be a bit like me...not really caring to be too debate-y about the issue (though sometimes I do get that way). I'd love to hear Wounded King comment on this issue, but here is my thought: that centuries of artificial selection might indicate (to some degree) that there are limits to what can happen to a species genetically.Dogs, for instance, have been bred for a long time...and now we so many weird varieties of dog...but they are all dogs...all of them...from chihuahuas to great danes.But I don't know how justified I am in using this for "evidence."--Jason

Why would evolution predict that they would stop being dogs? Wouldn't evolution predict that the term "dog" would encompass a growing variety of organisms, until "dog" was as broad a term as "mammal"? That's an approximation of how evolution works, and the artifical breeding of dogs is a great example.Dogs are dogs because they're descended from dogs. There's no way to sever descendancy. The first population of dogs were descended from a group of organisms that weren't dogs, but all dogs today belong to that same group. Non-dogs give rise to dogs, but dogs won't give rise to non-dogs.

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Are there any indications that the micro-evolution is somehow limited by natural borderlines?

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I'd love to hear Wounded King comment on this issue, but here is my thought: that centuries of artificial selection might indicate (to some degree) that there are limits to what can happen to a species genetically.

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The centuries of artificial selection have been specifically to accentuate or decentuate specific traits rather than to explore the entire range of morphological variation possible within a species. In and of itself the variation we see in species diversified by artificial selection don't really suggest any borderlines other than those associated with extreme artificial selection of a trait to the detriment of the animals general fitness, in the colloquial sense, and probably to its evolutionary fitness in the absence of human intervention.I don't believe there are any particular 'natural borderlines' to what micro-evolution can achieve. There may be some theoretical islands of fitness which simply can't be reached by any pathway, so there are perhaps some limits to the morphologies which can be achieved from a particular genetic starting point, but these may only be extreme solutions for which other simpler alternatives exist conferring similar fitness. I severely doubt that such 'limits' have any significant impact on the exploration of the mutational possibilities of living organisms.TTFN,WK

Agreed...Let's look at the dogs again, btw. I think we can agree that there are some pretty extreme varieties of dogs. "Literalist" takes it for granted that they are a good example. I would argue that, if we didn't have prior knowledge, it would not be *obvious* to categorize them all as belonging to the same species "dog".If an alien would land on earth and start to map lifeforms, the first drafts of the mappings would probably put some of these "dogs" into seperate categories since there are good reasons (big differences)? I mean that in the sense that they maybe wouldn't use "dog" as a base category in their language, but instead a few categories "higher up".

Yeah, exactly. Can you imagine the furor among alien taxonomists as they struggled to decide whether or not to classify Chihuahua as dog or rodent? Sure. "Dog" might be a taxon as broad as say, "ruminate".