Hypermacroevolution? Hypermicroevolution

Seems to me that organisms with an exoskeleton would be a single body plan. Organisms with a backbone would be a second. How does this fit?Edited by Michael, : fumbled the spelling of "chitinous"Edited by Michael, : let's just leave the "chitinous" out

Doesn't work. Need a definition that covers the distinction between the dog body and the cat body and the horse body and so on.

Faith writes: Did you just say that Noah took a pair of the 'kind' that includes the dinosaurs?You are now postulating a 'kind' grouping that is larger than an entire superorder. Do youknow what a superorder is? Dinosauria is a whopping big category, and I'm not talking about the physical size of some individiuals. It's diverse. You are talking about a huge array of creatures exhibiting, if you will, a vast array of 'body plans.'The Bible says Noah took ravens and doves onto the ark. Ravens and doves would therefore represent two different 'kinds.' Taking a single pair of the Kind 'birds' to cover both was not an option.Yet for the superorder Dinosauria one pair does the job. Did you really mean to say this? I guess you did. Wow.I would like to know more about the science of this. If Noah has to take ravens and doves, on what basis does one pair suffice to cover the entire range of ankylosaurs, titanosaurs, hadrosaurs, prosauropods, coelurosaurs, oviraptors, iguanodonts, brachiosaurs, diplodicids, tyrannosaurs, ceratopsians, stegosaurs, allosaurs, baryonyx, archaic birds and modern birds?We haven't even begun to consider other varieties of ancient creatures that do not fall into the superorder Dinosauria. We still have a vast number of reptiles, mammals and creatures that resist clasification as either (therapsids, pelycosaurs, etc.) to account for. Obviously not. But your term Kind is not useful at all. It's all over the place.The taxonomic system is at least based on reality. The criteria are objective and address observable features. If one thinks a creature belongs in the catogory 'placental mammals' one knows how to make the case. There is a definition to meet and observable features to account for.Your term 'kind' meant something like a family when we got started, then a species when you started talking about breeding, and now it has been blown back to absorb an entire superorder of creatures! 'Kind' means the ability to interbreed. Objective criterion. Gotcha.You are therefore asserting that all the varieties of the superorder 'Dinosauria' could interbreed.Ankylosaurs, in your view, could breed with oviraptors could breed with iquanodonts could breed with sauropods could breed with stegosaurs could breed with archaic birds could breed with tyrannosaurs could breed with ceratopsiands could breed with modern birds.Given the fact that not even all modern birds can breed with each other (doves and ravens!), why do you find this credible?

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Archer

Before we spend any more time bashing modern taxonomy it's worth noting that it is NOT based on evolution. Carolus Linnaeus was a Creationist who died two decades before Charles Darwins birth. The original definition of a species was "a creature created independantly by god", the modern system generally ammends this to a creature which is sexually issolated. With much debate over whether it must be unable or unwilling to reproduce. Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family & Genus were then decided on pure supposition but have proved a sensible framework for evolutionary studies.Interestingly it was Linnaeus (Once again a creationist) who placed humans in the primate order.In a letter to Johann Georg Gmelin dated February 25, 1747 (112yrs B4 Orgn Of Specs.)Linnaeus wrote:"It is not pleasing that I placed humans among the primates, but man knows himself. Let us get the words out of the way. It will be equal to me by whatever name they are treated. But I ask you and the whole world a generic difference between men and simians in accordance with the principles of Natural History. I certainly know none. If only someone would tell me one! If I called man an ape or vice versa I would bring together all the theologians against me. Perhaps I ought to scientifically",He seems kind of scared to say what "he ought" around "the theologians".

Nobody is "bashing taxonomy." Linnaeus' system simply doesn't work well enough for our present purposes.

Sure. But you get differences of body build between humans. Some humans are pretty flexible, while others are stiff. This hardly seems a difference of "body plan". The elephant's trunk is still a nose. The tusks are still teeth. The thick legs are still legs.

I didn't mean that to sound negative, just to point out that the Linnean system does use interbreeding or "sexual isolation" to seperate species.
Which if anything is a credit to the reasoning which has independantly reached the same conclusion on this board in the concept of a "kind".A major debate in taxonomy is whether artificial or exceptional breeding such as between lions and tigers should be seperate species, once again mirrored on this board. I'm just saying that the system being evolved independantly here does have many similiarities with the modern Linnean,
which is great.

That's what I said. Just in case. The point is WE DO NOT KNOW, and in the case of dinosaurs we'll never know because we won't be artificially inseminating fossils. OK. That group will have to be sorted as to what constitutes a Kind by someone other than me. Yes. There is ambiguity in how the term is used in the Bible, and ambiguity about what was included on the ark. But what we are after is the ORIGINAL kinds, because we know they were the progenitors of the whole group after them. It doesn't matter. Break it down if that's necessary. All I was saying is that whatever the Kind is, one or a dozen of them, it was represented on the ark. The ability to interbreed is going to be foundational, even if it doesn't perfectly fit what was on the ark. We have no way of knowing what was on the ark with such precision, but I think interbreeding makes an objective start on the original Kinds at least. If you can figure out how to determine this with fossils, please let us know. Don't get too far ahead. This is a project that would take time. First define Body Plan. Kind will not violate such classifications. No, that's a mistake. Defining species in terms of breeding is wrong. Many obvious members of a Kind are defined as separate species by that evolutionist system, because they don't or can't interbreed with the parent population. The virtue of the classification of interbreeding MJ introduced is that those won't be excluded from the Kind because we are assuming that while they don't, they probably can interbreed with other types of the Kind. And if they can't, well, a frog is a frog is a frog whether it can interbreed with other frogs or not.Some interbreeding is possible at the genus level. If interbreeding is possible, those are members of the Kind. That's pretty clear, woudln't you say? It's a good enough classification. And again, it may also be a member of the Kind if it can't interbreed. Where did I ASSERT any such thing? Please reread the above if you still think that. Said no such thing. My language was tentative. Thing is we don't know and may not be able to know. But I'll say this: I think stranger things than evolution postulates are possible in reality. Is there some genetic barrier to their interbreeding or could it be done artificially? Since one is a clean bird and one unclean I woudl expect that they are two different Kinds anyway.Why do I find what credible? You are reading way too much into my very casual/tentative thoughts on this subject.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Based on a book called 'Noah's Flood' by Ryan and Pitman. Great read. Takes you through all the evidence for the Black Sea flooding and the origins of the flood myths.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Faith writes: It won't. Church and state and all that. But creationists can raise it themselves. They already have organizations that raise money, they already have organizations that claim to conduct creationist reasearch. There are plenty of pieces in place for a full-scale effort of this sort.How many expeditions have been funded to locate the ark? How much money gets raised for theme parks? How much money gets spent on court cases trying to get creationism into schools--where it always gets tossed out, in large part because of the poor evidence to support it?Time to go get that evidence, I'd say. Well, yes, there's always that.It's a big reason creation 'research' organizations stopped funding research. No guts, no glory.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Grammar.

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Archer

Well then, maybe there is another term that would get it across better to you, or maybe there is none. We are looking for a meaning of "body plan" -- or whatever term works best -- that defines human beings of ALL builds in a way that distinguishes them as a group from chimpanzees; and cats from dogs and elephants and deer and mice and so on. I guess you aren't thinking along the same lines I am. This is how it is subjective and intuitive. No matter. I'll wait and see if MJ comes up with a better definition. Yes but according to the body plan idea the thickness of the legs is definitive, in combination with the tusks and the trunk.Apparently we will have to wait for more people who intuitively know what we're talking about to begin to define this or we'll be arguing such irrelevant categories forever.

If it's definitive, define it.Keep in mind your definition has to account for fossil pachyderms as well.

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Archer

Hey,
I was wondering at what point does Creationism preclude Evolution. Is it against creationism to believe that the "kinds" on the Ark could naturally evolve into more species, say the Ark frog into the green tree frog and poison arrow frog. Or even further down the line is the rapid evolution of the influenza virus, or the evolution of anti-biotic resistance in bacteria acceptable.

This is what we've been talking about all along. This is microevolution and we are saying that all the kinds on the ark evolved in this sense into many varieties down to the present.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

My my, so impatient. We're working on it. MJ will no doubt have something to say. And we may have to wait for others who know intuitively what we are talking about before we can get the definition hammered out, as I've said many times.