Evolution is a basic, biological process

Well, we don't call natural selection evolution.We call natural selection and random mutation evolution, because when you put those two things together, you get evolution. It really is just that simple. I'm sorry, what's a "kind"?If one kind of organism changed into another, how would you know? Given two organisms, how would you determine if they were two species in the same kind, or two similar species from two different kinds? Assume the two organisms are not interfertile.This message has been edited by crashfrog, 01-26-2005 16:42 AM

You don't quote what you're responding to, Message 1 doesn't specifically mention natural selection, and no recent post mentions it, so it's hard to tell who you're correcting.Anyway, I agree with you that it would be an error to call natural selection evolution. Natural selection is an aspect of evolution. When there's a desire for brevity, evolution is often described as descent with modification through natural selection. Of course, there's more to it than that, but it's a good starting point. By "kind" I'm guessing you mean the Biblical kind from Genesis. The term "kind" has no formal definition within biology, so before I'd feel comfortable in a discussion using that term you'd have to provide a firm definition. The definition of species is complicated enough without introducing a term with no formal definition.If we define macroevolution as change from one species to another, then macroevolution has been observed, both in the wild and in the lab. But if we define macroevolution as change from one kind to another, then I have no idea what that means.You can't define kind by simply providing examples, such as dogs and hyenas are different kinds but dogs and wolves are the same kind. That doesn't help. As an example, the definition of species when sexual reproduction is involved says that a species is a breeding population of organisms, and that species boundaries occur when the organisms are incapable of interbreeding. The full definition is more detailed, of course, since dogs and wolves are different species but can interbreed. Anyway, we'd need a similarly detailed definition of kind. It would have to have a set of criteria that we can apply to organisms in general to determine whether they're the same or different kinds.--Percy

I didn't necessarily agree that the rest of the Bible is historically accurate. The basic histories of the Jewish peoples appears to correlate with other historical records, but things like the Great Flood is merely a mythical recounting of many floods which occurred along the rivers where civilization began -- it would have been physically impossible for Noah to have gathered 2 of all species, or for enough water to have covered the earth to a sufficient depth to put the arc on Mt. AraratRe the book of Genesis. your comment It's not the same principle. The person(s) who wrote the book of Genesis, had relatively little knowledge of the world compared to what we have today, so the person(s) wrote about the world and its origins based upon what they did know. But to argue that the explanation of the world as we know it, given in the book of Genesis, is superior to the accumulation of knowledge since Genesis was written, especially what has been learned over the past few hundred years, is sheer nonsense.Arguments like these are interesting, but off the point. I maintain that the Scientific explanation of the process of evolution is vastly superior to the Creationist explanation and I have yet to have anyone provide a real refutation of that statement without invoking the supernatural.If you have one, I’d like to read itSoplar

Hi TimThere seems to have been a number of responses to your message, but I’d like to add mineThere is certainly a lot of confusion re this issue. I thought I pretty well understood things until I joined the forum — it has been most helpful in clarifying things, at least for me.Re the confusion between Evolution and Creation.First let us examine some FACTS:A mountain of data/observations has been collected over the last 200 —300 years. Some of this is:

• layers of rocks have been examined all over the earth that can be dated by either sedimentation rates, radioactive decay, etc that show a that the lowest layers were formed over 2 billion years ago(e.g., Grand Canyon)
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• Thousands of species, most now extinct, are found in these rocks. The species found in the earliest rocks are single celled, while the species found in the latest rocks are humans

I’m sure you are familiar with this data.A large number of people have labored to explain these and other data. Scientists use the term Evolution to describe the transition from the earliest life forms to the latest.Charles Darwin was the first to publish a book about this process. In his book he asserted that the evidence showed that life has evolved from lower forms to higher forms via Natural Selection or survival of the fittest.As noted in my previous postings, Darwin had no idea how this worked, but now we know that the process has been driven by mutations caused basically by DNA copying errors.Thus with regard to your statement First, short term evolution can be observed by looking into a microscope and observing the evolution of antibiotic resistant bacteria.Second, as mentioned above, the data showing that evolution has occurred has been observed many times.Finally, it is true that no one has actually observed macro evolution occur since it is impossible to observe a slow process that occurs over millennia. Scientists arrive at the conclusion of Evolution as the most reasonable explanation of the data,In reflecting on the Evolution — Creationism debate, I believe it hasn’t been properly drawn. As I implied in a previous posting, the key questions are:

1. Is the conclusion that the data shows that life has evolved from lower to higher forms over millions of years, what scientists call the process of Evolution, incorrect? And if so why?
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2. Which explanation of the process is most correct: the Scientific explanation or the Creationist explanation (see below*)? And why?

*Creation is the Creationist explanation for the process of evolution, and is, as I understand it, that a supernatural Creator created the world as we can observe it approximately 10,000 years ago.Soplar

What on earth makes you think that? It is an different, even opposite, explanation of how everything (or in this case, life) came into existence. If evolution is the process by which one cell gave rise to all the life we see in the earth today (hard to say such a thing without chuckling), then Creationism is NOT an explanation for that process because Creationism posits that an all-powerful Creator CREATED various kinds of organisms independently of each other.How is that an explanation of the process of evolution? You've said that many times throughout this thread and it's bugged me the whole time.--TLThis message has been edited by TheLiteralist, 01-27-2005 05:18 AM

Hi Soplar. I'm really enjoying your posts. Not bad at all for a physics type . However, I find that one of the biggest challenges in the EvC debate on both sides is mutual misunderstanding of the terminology we argue about. Most evo biologists either consider the term "macroevolution" to be useless, or define it narrowly as simply speciation (I hold to the latter when I use the term at all). Before we can make statements like the above, we need to make sure the people reading it understand how we're using the words. Using the narrow definition, macroevolution has in fact been observed. Creationists have a prediliction for defining it either as some kind of major saltation - the "macroevolution = lizard from a chicken's egg" or at best a strawman of evolution along the lines of "dogs becoming cats". This can lead to significant confusion obviously, and often simply talking past one another.I guess my question is: How are you defining macroevolution here? It appears you are using it the way many paleontologists do: a sense of "divergence between lineages leading to significant morphological change over geologic time scales". If so, you are correct: it is impossible to observe such change over our limited lifespans. The problem using the paleontological definition outside of its narrow scientific context is of course that it leaves the term open to spurious accusations of "different interpretations" since it depends both on how we analyze a particular fossil sequence and how we interpolate gaps in the record, not to mention how we differentiate between "cousin" and "direct descent". Paleontologists generally don't bother to constantly state "we're not claiming ancestry for this particular fossil, we're claiming that a hypothetical ancestor of this lineage would have the characteristics we find in this fossil". Creationists gleefully misinterpret this lack of clarifying statements.Just a suggestion for future reference. Keep up the good fight!

IYI
I had specifically written to Henery Morris, trying to find out if creationists "predicted" the gaps. I had read subsequently that some ICRers were dismayed in debate that evos had taken up the place of this gap as theirs. That is HOW it comes about that creos might fell disposed to place MORE significance in the word "macro" than your correct analysis lead withstanding. I find discontinuous systematics to be able to void this hermenutic AND still possibly "interpolate" the gap. But THEN you would have said that DOING THIS, would not be science. I happen to think that Gould DID go to the species level with too much imagination.I just can figure out than, who to really associate sans debate the word "interpolate" with given that I myself suggested that CREATIONISTS might have predicted or now retrointerpolated the placements where the gaps are the same facts but different interpretations on each side of the sand in the sediment.This was over a decade ago or so and so there has been changes. Your post is very clear and good.

Hi guys!
I'm new, as you can see, so please be patient with me !Thanks for all the feedback!!Let me clarify what I meant by my comments on the usage of the term 'evolution' - We all see the processes of natural selection and speciation etc. happening before our very eyes; this is an undeniable fact of science. What I am uncomfortable with, however,is the extrapolation from those processes we see around us, to get the 'big picture' of how evolution (from single-cell organism to human) took place.
In other words, 'evolution'(for want of a better term! LOL!)on a small scale, ie mutations causing changes to organisms within a species or even creating a new species, is happening all the time and is observable. That is what Darwin saw and I agree 100% with his findings! But to then say that because organisms change on that small scale, that is evidence of evolution on the 'grand scale', is a jump of logic not too far removed from the Just-so Stories!
I have never been provided with SOLID facts to back up the theory - I just get pointed to examples of adaptation and speciation as if that is evolution itself! The solid facts needed (such as transitional forms) should be revealed by the fossil record as Soplar points out. But all the record shows is full formed organisms that don't show any signs of change such as would be needed for evolution to have taken place. As to the apparent order (from simple to complex), if you look into the issue further you will find that it isn't nearly so clear-cut as people would like to make out. The argument for evolution using the fossil record appears to be unreliable at best.I've probably made that about as clear as mud, but there you are!?!By the way, thanks to TheLiteralist for your sane comments! it's nice to know I'm not completely on my own ! Cheers mate!

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Watch out for the distraught lizard and its lost boomerang!

Oh, I don't know. I think you'll find that, if you polled the people most familiar with the topic, that this IS evolution. Small-scale, to be sure, but thus far no critic has been able to show where the indissoluable barriers are between small-scale evolution over the short term and large-scale evolution over geological time scales. Hey, maybe you could be the first? Umm, I think you may be using a rather idiosyncratic definition of transitional. In scientific parlance, a "transitional form" is represented by an organism that contains features found in two (or more) taxa. Birds with reptilian bodies and tails, not to mention teeth and snouts, would seem to fit the bill.Of course, all organisms are "fully formed". The taxonomic classification of something that is only "half formed" is "dead". Perhaps you could explain what you mean by "don't show any signs of change"? And how whatever that is would be expected by evolutionary theory? I think you need to get a bit more specific. What part of the various lines of evidence revolving around the fossil record do you consider unreliable?

Thank you for your kind words about my post. Someday I hope to be able to understand you to the point of discussing some of the interesting ideas whose outlines I can occasionally dimly discern in your posts.

You're going to have to clarify what exactly you mean by "fully formed". When you say that you think the fossil record should contain creatures that aren't fully formed it brings to mind images of animals with legs that stop at the knee because the rest of the leg hasn't evolved yet, or animals with lungs and hearts that haven't yet connected to the cirulatory system.Obviously no such animal could ever have existed, since if they did they'd be dead. No animal will ever have existed with a body only partly cabable of keeping it alive until reproduction (ignoring deformities of course, i'm talking generally here). What will be observed however will be a trend from one form to another consisting of a series of "fully formed" individuals with parts that all function properly.Take for example the transition from reptile to mammal. Mammals have a complex inner ear that reptiles don't have. Instead reptiles have a series of bones in the jaw that mammals don't have. The fossil record shows a transition from reptile like creatures (with extra bones in the jaw) to mammal like creatures (with extra bones in the ear). I don't have the pictures to show you, but i'm someone here has the link. It's shown a lot on this forum so i'm sure you could find it somewhere, probably in a thread about transitionals.

Why? What's the fundamental difference between a small change to some genes and a big change to some genes?The only thing that separates the morphology of species is the content of the genes. With natural selection and mutation, we have a process that provides unlimited change to those genes. I don't see the jump from small changes between species to large changes between species to be a jump at all; it's a smooth gradient, just as between "near" and "far" or between "tall" and "short." That's because they are. What would a "sign of change" be in an animal that is dead? Remember that the fossil record isn't a movie, where it changes before your eyes; it's a collection of dead animals. To the contrary, the fossil record is exactly what we would expect if evolution is accurate (and exactly the opposite of what we would expect if creationism was accurate) - a series of dead, fully-formed animals, arranged by recentness, that taken together show a smooth transition between the morphology of different species.The fossil record is exactly what evolution predicts.

Even though evolution is largely dominated by anglosaxon scholarship I do suspect the popular appearence and use of the e-word IS differnt across the pond. We hear the word so often here in advertisments for things not biological that perhaps we do not have mostly pointers to real cases and thus have the sense of abetter criticism of it? I dont know. Full-formed might just be say, a duck with web feet, a sider that is not a bee, and the hold fast of a plant in fast moving stream and this would not relieve the burden placed on the word "order" in the post.

We're on different sides of the pond so I only really have the British usage of the word to go on. Evolution isn't as controversial over here as I gather it is in the USA. In fact I don't think many people give it all that much notice, not anymore than they give anything in science any notice anyway. I do agree that it is a widely used word though and probably not many people know what it means in a biological sense. I'd definately be interested to know what the poster meant by "fully formed", or more to the point what attributes a "partially formed" animal would have while still being alive.

Hello again!Thanks for your feedback!First, in reply to Quetzal — that is exactly the point I was making in my 1st post — I don’t think that you should call adaptation, speciation etc., evolution! If the ToE is correct, then adaptation and speciation are only the tools used in the greater process of evolution. So I would suggest that to say that these processes are synonymous with evolution is rather like saying mixing ingredients is actually the cake itself, if you get what I mean.Crashfrog — The difference is that mutations that cause adaptation/variation/speciation are always either a loss of genetic information or a reshuffling of already existing information. To produce an entirely different organism, there must be an increase in genetic information, which doesn’t ever take place. The possibilities for variation are not unlimited. The very fact that we are able to classify organisms points to that being the case. If the possibilities for variation were endless then there would be so much overlapping of morphology between classes that any attempt at categorization would be hopeless! It would be impossible to identify any characteristic as an organism’s distinguishing feature since it would be possible for any organism to have the same feature.To Quetzal and happy atheist - By ‘fully formed’ I mean that the organisms are in a highly developed state; they represent the finished article, if you like. They are either all one thing or all the other; and don’t show the kind of onward, upward, evolutionary mutational change that would be expected. They are not in any kind of intermediate stage of development. They appear more-or-less identical to their modern relatives. There are in fact no undisputable transitional forms or ‘half-way houses’.Even Stephen Jay Gould said, "The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution." and "All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt."Dr. Colin Patterson, Senior Palaeontologist at the British Museum of Natural History in London admitted, "... I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. I will lay it on the line - there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument."All those disputed fossil organisms that apparently show signs of evolution are clearly recognisable as reptiles, mammals or birds etc. albeit with certain unusual characteristics. Is it inconceivable that these organisms could just be variations within a species or a different species, rather than being on the way to becoming another organism altogether? Or is it just that we’ve programmed ourselves to think that change of any sort equals evolution? This is what I meant in my 1st post about the use of the term — I think it’s branded about far too freely and it simply results in confusing the issue.As to the supposed ‘smooth transition’ of the fossil record, I beg to differ [I don’t suppose that’s a surprise to anyone though!?!] The more we study the record the more it is evident that it is nowhere near that simple. There is no sequence, smooth or otherwise, between the morphology of the different species! People talk about ‘the missing link’ but in reality all the links are missing! There are no links from single celled organisms to invertebrates; from invertebrates to fish; from fish to amphibians; from amphibians to reptiles; reptiles to birds; reptiles to mammals; land mammals to sea mammals; non-flying mammals to bats; or apes to humans. They just aren’t there!One of the worst cases of this, of course, is the ‘Cambrian explosion’.
Dr Colin Patterson said about this, Most of the major groups of animals appear fully fledged in the early Cambrian rocks, and we know of no fossil forms linking them.
Dawkins says It is as though they [the Cambrian invertebrates] were just planted there, without any evolutionary history.Just as an aside, the trilobite appears in the Cambrian rocks and yet it has one of the most complex eyes in the whole of the animal world. Where does this fit in with the ‘smooth transition’ from simple to complex life?The reality is that just one discrepancy like the Cambrian explosion, in what should be a smooth sequence (if the ToE is correct) ruins the whole picture.
Darwin, himself, in The Origin of Species admits that, The number of intermediate varieties which have formerly existed must have been enormous. Why then is not every geological formation full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated chain; and this, perhaps, is the most serious objection which can be urged against my theory.On the other hand, the sudden appearance of fully formed organisms is exactly what we would expect to see if the Creation model is correct.P.S. Yes I do realize that half-developed organisms couldn’t survive and I am also aware that the organisms in the fossil record are no longer alive !!! LOL !!! Thanks guys!!!Regards, Flying Dodo