Pigeons and Dogs: Micro or Macro evolution?

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crashfrog, We Have NEVER observed mutations accumulating in the way the theory of evolution requires. Genetic homeostasis- the observed limit. Also we know that even the most beneficial mutation has a greater chance of being lost in a population than it does of becoming fixed, never mind taking over that population.

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False, as I physically demonstrate over here.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

--------------------------- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/...Organization of forelimb motoneuron pools in two bat species (Eptesicus fuscus and Myotis lucifugus).Ryan JM, Cushman J, Baier C.Biology Department, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, N.Y. 14456, USA. ryan@hws.eduThe present investigation provides further evidence of the conservation of motor nuclei in amniotes. The position of six forelimb and shoulder motor pools were mapped in two species of bat, Eptesicus fuscus and Myotis lucifugus. The intraspinal locations of motor pools were revealed by labeling with the retrograde neuronal tracer WGA-HRP injected into the bellies of six muscles: m. pectoralis, m. spinodeltoideus, mm. triceps brachii (long and lateral heads), m. infraspinatus, m. supraspinatus, and m. biceps brachii. The positions of the labeled motor pools were reconstructed from serial transverse and horizontal sections of the spinal cord. WGA-HRP-labeled cells were located midway between cervical spinal nerves four and five to midway between cervical spinal nerve eight and the first thoracic spinal nerve. Individual motor pools formed fusiform clusters of cells with little intermingling of neurons between adjacent motor pools. The pectoralis motor pool contained significantly more motoneurons than all other motor pools for M. lucifugus. The pectoralis pool in E. fuscus contained more motoneurons than the biceps, supraspinatus, and infraspinatus, but not the spinodeltoid or the triceps brachii. The biceps, spinodeltoid, infraspinatus and supraspinatus pools were located rostrally; the pectoralis and triceps pools caudally. The pectoralis pool was the most medial and the spinodeltoid pool was the most lateral. These data suggest that the locations of shoulder and forelimb motor pools are ontogenetically and phylogenetically conserved across tetrapods and independent of the function of the muscles in adults---------------------------(i.e., bats use the same neuron pools in their wings as we use in our arms)---------------------------
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/...
Full article: NCBIWe present 744 nucleotide base positions from the mitochondrial 12S rRNA gene and 236 base positions from the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I gene for a microbat, Brachyphylla cavernarum, and a megabat, Pteropus capestratus, in phylogenetic analyses with homologous DNA sequences from Homo sapiens, Mus musculus (house mouse), and Gallus gallus (chicken). We use information on evolutionary rate differences for different types of sequence change to establish phylogenetic character weights, and we consider alternative rRNA alignment strategies in finding that this mtDNA data set clearly supports bat monophyly. This result is found despite variations in outgroup used, gap coding scheme, and order of input for DNA sequences in multiple alignment bouts. These findings are congruent with morphological characters including details of wing structure as well as cladistic analyses of amino acid sequences for three globin genes and indicate that neurological similarities between megabats and primates are due to either retention of primitive characters or to convergent evolution rather than to inheritance from a common ancestor. This finding also indicates a single origin for flight among mammals.---------------------------(Summary: bats are not only genetically close to other mammals, but morphological changes match where they would be expected to be in their genome for a bat to have evolved from a mammal, and not where they would be in a bird's genome)---------------------------So, in short, once again, given your statement:

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If bat's wings were just elongated arms/ fingers then it would be a given that the genes that govern the limbs/ fingers were what mutated. What happens if embryology falsifies that notion?

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Once again, for the millionth time, evolution makes a correct prediction, and creationism an incorrect one.P.S. - As you may notice, we're all getting sick of your "There must be an ocean between New York and San Francisco, but I'm not going to tell you where I think it is, it's your job to find my proported ocean despite no evidence for its existance."------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."{Shortened display form of 2 URLs, to restore page width to normal - Adminnemooseus}This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 09-15-2004 12:49 PM

Geez, would you please stop giving us these irrelevant and outdated references?Denton's book was based on significant misundertandings and is, therefore, full of errors and misinformation. Although he hasn't formally renounced it, it's clear from his more recent writings that he no longer beleives his own claims.Are you to lazy to read curent and factual papers and books?

Bats having similar DNA of mammals is to be expected- they ARE mammals. However that can just as easily be used as evidence for a common Creator or the same intelligent designer.Do we even know what the alleged ancestor of the bat was? Where is the fossil evidence to support that?

As for homology I told you- Denton's book "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis". Don't blame me for your laziness to read the evidence that disputes your theory.JonF:
Geez, would you please stop giving us these irrelevant and outdated references?John Paul:
Nice assertion. Anything to back it up?JonF:
Denton's book was based on significant misundertandings and is, therefore, full of errors and misinformation. Although he hasn't formally renounced it, it's clear from his more recent writings that he no longer beleives his own claims.John Paul:
Again that was a nice assertion. Can you back it up?

John Paul, you make it seem as if all we know about morphology and genetics is beside the point when it comes to tracing lineages. If DNA evidence can reliably determine paternity in humans, isn't it to be expected that we'd consider it persuasive evidence of common ancestry elsewhere in nature?You forget that forensic and circumstantial evidence is accepted in court. To convict someone of plagiarism, a DA doesn't have to have eyewitness evidence of the copying process, just persuasive evidence (like spelling mistakes in the same places, for example) that two written artifacts are too similar to be considered separate acts of creation.If you're shown two genomes that have overwhelming similarities (especially mutations in the same exact spot in the genome, like the one that wrecked the vitamin-C gene in both humans and all other primates), you don't expect us to throw away everything we know about the DNA copying process and accept that the two artifacts are completely separate creations. We have good reason to suspect common ancestry.------------------
The dark nursery of evolution is very dark indeed.
Brad McFall

In addition to what Mr.Hombre said, you're moving the goal posts. You start off asking if we even know whether the same genes correspond (as if you expected them not to correspond). Evolution says they will. There's no reason they have to at all - (after all, why would God design the world to look like common lineages *every last time* instead of mixing and matching features?) - but, whatdya know, they do! (*every last time*). Now you're basically saying "of course they match up".They're not just the same genes, either - they show alterations to the DNA that mimics the exact way that we see DNA currently changing - frame shift mutations in addition to random substitutions, etc.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."[This message has been edited by Rei, 12-19-2003]

In re his total lack of comprehension (note especially that debunking consists of addressing the points raised in the work being debunked, unlike Berlinski on eye evolution): Michael Denton - Evolution: A Theory In Crisis:"Denton attempts to make scientific arguments over minor details in how natural selection proceeds look like the entire fact of natural selection is in question. He distorts Gould and 'punctured equilibrium' theorists to make false claims about the fossil record. ... Also on page 74, Denton makes the inane assertion that since 1859, scientists have only adopted an evolution framework in order to be "fashionable and intellectually respectable". He goes on to misrepresent reality by saying that "there was less need to justify the idea of evolution by reference to the facts". These statements in a book which largely ignores the facts are highly ironic. ... Finally, beginning on page 80, Denton begins to face the music and deal with the empirical evidence he previously stated doesn't exist. ... Denton postulates that unless someone can literally test and watch a process, it can't be considered empirical evidence. Later he accepts plate tectonics and other items which we know happened in the past based on his so called "circumstantial evidence" but he contradictorily won't allow a look at evolution based on similar "circumstantial evidences" ... Beginning on page 100, we get a taste of perhaps Denton's biggest methodological problem. He enjoys using very old sources which have little or no relevance to today's debate. Some of his sources are over 150 years old! They were written even before Darwin had a decent grasp on natural selection. His cites from "The Fossil Record" chapter are almost all from pre-1970 sources--with most of them coming from the 1930s and 1940s. Not only are these dated scientifically, but because of their antiquity they are hard to refer to in order to check for Denton's accuracy in quoting them. ... Again, on page 159, he makes the claim that living missing links are "required by evolution". Evolution by natural selection "requires" just the opposite ... After distorting the evidence to make it look as if none of Darwin's "missing links" have been found, Denton acts surprised on page 161 when some 600 million year old fossils don't turn out to be related to the species of today. He thinks this is somehow negative evidence even though we know that most of yesterday's species are not related to today's." Review of Michael Denton's Evolution: A Theory in Crisis"Denton seems to harbor much personal confusion about what non-saltational evolution actually is, and it is from this confusion that another one of his erroneous claims against evolution derives. He believes evolution is a random search process, that somehow mutation plus natural selection yields results about as random as macromutation:

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Ultimately, Darwin's theory implied that all evolution had come about by the interactions of two basic processes, random mutation and natural selection, and it meant that the ends arrived at were entirely the result of a succession of chance events. Evolution by natural selection is therefore, in essence, strictly analogous to problem solving by trial and error, and it leads to the immense claim that all the design in the biosphere is ultimately the fortuitous outcome of an entirely blind random process - a giant lottery. (Denton, 1987, p. 43)

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"And those are just the high points. In re his later writings, from Nature's Destiny: From the impossibility of evolution to the inevitability of evolution: Anti-Evolutionst Michael Denton turns into an 'Evolutionist':"'Nature's Destiny' is one long argument for the biocentric Fine Tuning of the Universe. In that sense it is a greatly expanded version of the chapter "The Puzzle of Perfection" in his Evolution: a theory in crisis(1986). However the Fine Tuning Argument does not only imply cosmological evolution, but it also implies biological evolution. And that is exactly what his previous book Evolution: A Theory in crisis attacked in the most thorough way. And biological evolution, that is the common descent of all life, is exactly what he defends now in Nature's Destiny. Not a limited version of evolution. No, complete naturalistic evolution from inorganic materials to the first cell to humans. {emphasis added - JRF} ... Denton presents 'new' evidence for the adequacy of the Darwinian mechanism of evolution (surprise!) and he tries to escape the randomness of the Darwinian evolutionary process by postulating 'directed evolution' (surprise!). ... Taken together with the previous argument, the whole argument eliminates Denton's 'last' obstacle to evolution and so there is 'nothing' with prevents him anymore from acceptance of the fact and mechanism of biological evolution. He could have known in 1986 the theoretical possibility of DNA's capacity, but was blinded by selfconstructed discontinuities in enzymes like Cytochrome-C. ... What was a challenge to evolution and Darwinism in 1986 is now evidence for directed evolution against a background of inevitable evolution {emphasis in original - JRF} ... I agree to a large extent with Denton's new evolutionary paradigm, but the complete lack of any explicit explanation of what was wrong in 'Evolution: a theory in crisis' is highly unsatisfactory. It certainly is unsatisfactory if one knows that Denton(1986) caused a lot of misunderstandings by non-biologists and other outsiders! Let the reader judge Denton's scientific integrity. To me this is dishonesty. Nature's Destiny could have been the most dramatic and instructive account of a paradigm change, if Denton fully accounted for the change, if Denton explained what was wrong in Evolution: a theory in crisis and why, but he did not."

The only people who make this argument are people who've never created anything.You're a famous car designer. You're responsible for designing the suspension on the 2004 Honda Civic. You're really good at car suspensions. An expert, even.You're on the team now to design a submarine. (Don't ask me why.) Why would anything you know about Civic suspensions be applicable? In particular why would you throw in a useless Civic suspension into the submarine?If you came across a submarine with a useless Civic suspension, what would you conclude? That it was designed by the same guy who designed the Civic ("Intelligent" Design), or that the submarine was cobbled together by modifying Civic parts (evolution)?Common components doesn't support the same designer, because no one designer would be stupid enough to include useless parts just because they used them in another design. You show your ignorance not only of biology but of the design process in general.

I don't think there is any bone-type fossil evidence of a pre-bat bat-like mammal. So? Why is that any kind of problem at all?

John Paul wrote:

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It's funny that you bring up bats because there isn't any fossil evidence for their alleged evolution. If bat's wings were just elongated arms/ fingers then it would be a given that the genes that govern the limbs/ fingers were what mutated. What happens if embryology falsifies that notion? BTW, homolgy has been falsified for years.Look up fossilization. If an organism isn't buried within 2 years tops it will not fossilize, it will deteriorate. Trace fossils left on the surface will erode.Flying squirrels glide, they don't fly. A variation of a regular squirrel. No big deal.

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It's a page back, but I have to comment on this post.This is possibly the most dis-ingenous post I have ever seen. What the heck goes on in the minds of these people? The first paragraph is just incredible. A bizarre, illogical eclectic collection of sentences purely designed to keep the flag waving at all costs.I honestly cannot imagine that anyone could do what he does in good faith. Either his agenda is to intentionally deceive in order to promote his faith, or he has such an emotional investment in Creationism that logical thought fails him.My greatest respect to you guys that can repeatedly respond to this stuff patiently and calmly. I sure as heck couldn't.

I am a creationist. While many creationists are conservative on what constitutes micro/macro change. Others like myself are liberal. all we need to do is keep it in kind. What's kind is a problem but we have severe time limits.
For example the snake at the fall lost his legs but was still a snake. Also because there was no death in the animal kingdom before the fall and afterwards nothing but then there must of been great structural change in bodies to deal with predation and being hunted.The change in dogs and piegans in a short time is a welcome thing to creationism. We need quick changes to account for the diversity and we call it micro change.
But a dog is a dog and not a kangaroo or halfway there.
The changes in dogs is minor or micro as it does not change its name as you admit.
Rob

What does that mean, exactly?Let's say that I present a hitherto-unseen quaduped mammal to you. By what method would you determine if it was in the dog "kind" or not?What makes some animals members of the dog "kind" and some others not? Some kind of Platonistic "dog" ideal? Or some kind of inherent dog-ness?

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But a dog is a dog and not a kangaroo or halfway there.
The changes in dogs is minor or micro as it does not change its name as you admit.

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So let me get this straight. Because we use the same name that makes them a kind? Good, then crocodiles and chimps are in the same kind because we call them "vertebrates". Insects and humans are in the same kind because we call them "animals".If that goes too far, then I can claim the same for you as well. We call certain dogs "dalmations" and others "St. Bernards" therefore they are different kinds.

For the discussion a dog is a dog does do the trick. it is another point about what a dog is and I agree that deciding what the divisions are is a problem.
For example I myself have no problem seeing bears and dogs as all from the same one that came off the Ark. I was impressed by how similiar the bear is to the dog and in the fossil record (post flood as I see it or post cret/ter line for you) how phrases like bear-dog were used and other examples of overlap.
I think I'm saying that for discusion between micro/macro we can use the present words that the world uses.
Rob