Does microevolution logically include macroevolution?

When you alter existing information, by definition you have new information.

Right. And all that stuff comes by slight, successive changes to what was there before. If it's not the same as it was before then indeed, it is different. What else would "different" mean?

What do you think you need to use legs? Muscles, bones, a nervous system to control them - fish have all that.What do you think fish would need to use legs that they don'thave, besides legs?

Um, no, I'm not. I'm merely making the rather obvious observation that when you alter existing information, you're adding new information. In many species, there isn't. Humans have only 46 chromosomes, you know. Somewhere around 14,000 different genes. Do you think that's a record, of some kind? That there aren't other species with more genes, more chromosomes? Except, obviously, a car.

Those genes are indeed present. They're present as the genes that connect fins to the nervous system, etc.Brilliant quote, by the way. It pretty much proves my case - it takes very, very little information - possibly even one single gene - to give rise to drastic phenotypical change.I mean, what did you think it said? Did you really think that one single gene could have encapsulated all the information to grow a leg?

But you know this can't be true, right? We know that mutations change genetic information, right? Change what's already there?And we've alrready agreed that when you change what's there you've added something new. So we know mutations are adding new information. But it is. Your quote shows that a single gene can cause these kinds of changes.There's only 14,000 genes in the human genome, remember when I told you that? Since that's true, the way that you understand the genetic basis for phenotype must obviously be wrong. There's simply not enough genes for there to be one gene for the bones for a finger, one gene for the muscles in a finger, one gene for the skin on a finger, one gene for the nerve connection, one gene for the part of the brain to move the finger, one gene for the part of the brain to percieve the finger - you get the idea. There's no way there's enough genes for all that genetic detail, if all those things have to be their own genes.Genes don't work the way you think they work. A single gene can "turn on" a leg or turn a fin into something else, even if it doesn't contain the information to do so. It simply tells other genes to use the information they contain in a different way. The quote you posted doesn't say anything about fins.

But you already agreed that changing what is there is new information.I'm sorry but I don't understand the problem. Do you believe that you can agree that changing is adding, but continue to act like you did not agree? And you agreed that "different" was "new." I'm sorry but I don't understand the problem here. Yes, they do. Genes are controlled by signals from other genes. Many genes exist whose sole function is to control the expression of other genes. But I've just proved to you that that's not the way genes control phenotype. There's simply not enough genes for that kind of genetic information to be encoded in the genome. Your genome is not a "blueprint", there's not a little map of your body encoded into your cells somehow. I'm sorry? What theory is that, exactly? Who do you believe is working on it? No. Neither do we have bone placement genes, nervous system layout genes, or any of the other fake genes you've been making up in your posts.It's going to be very difficult for you to understand the genetic basis for evolution if you don't know anything about genetics, and aren't willing to learn. No, it's really not. Haekels' chart doesn't show gills, it shows that human embryos share structures called "pharyngeal arches" with fish and bird embryos that, in fish, develop into gills; in birds they develop into parts of the ear, and in humans they become parts of the jaw as well as the ear.It's a brilliant proof of the fundamental principle of evolution - evolution proceeds via modifications to what is already there (gill structures in fish embryos), not by inventing brand new structures from whole cloth.

Pretending? Did you, or did you not post these words?

quote:

---

I mean you can say it is new because it is not the same as before

---

and these?

quote:

---

Do you want me to say new? then yes its new.

---

So we're agreed that changing information means new information. I don't see what the problem is. Well, aside from you trying to act like you didn't say what you said. Right. And, as we've agreed, it - the information - arose via modification to what was there, before.

What, about transposons? Look, I'm married to an invertebrate molecular phylogeneticist. I know all about transposons, and they're not a "theory of macro-evolution" separate from other genetic models; they're simply a mechanism for how genes distribute to an organism's offspring.They may indeed be a mechanism of species change, of course. But they're simply mechanisms of evolution, not "theories of macro-evolution." Did what? These aren't "theories of macro-evolution". (The big tip-off for you should have been that the word "macro-evolution" appears in neither of these two abstracts.)

You're free, I guess, to define "new" however you like, but now you need to show how your definition is necessitated by evolutionary theory. I've already proven that the genetics of development shows that descent with modification is more than enough "new" to explain the evolution of new traits; so far you have yet to address those arguments.Anytime you're prepared to do so is fine with me.

You don't seem to understand that I dealt with this, several posts ago. The gene for "leg" doesn't have to contain the information for legs; it simply has to change the way other genes use the information they contain.For instance, consider the gene for polydactyly - having extra fingers. Persons who have this gene - which is dominant, oddly enough - have one or more extra digits.Now, the gene for this doesn't contain the information to make fingers. It's far too small to contain all that. Yet, persons with the gene never have fingers without bones or skin; they always have sensation in them and usually motor control, as well. All the gene does is tell other genes to do what they usually do, in one extra place.Stephen J. Gould wrote a whole series of essays on the subject of how genes can give rise to traits without containing the information for them. They are collected in a book called "Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes", and I suggest you check it out. But genes aren't words. Here are two genetic sequences. You tell me which has the most information and why:ATAAATGGCA
CGGCATAGCCThere's no point in using analogies involving English words because genes aren't words; words encode meaning within the context of a complex system of symbols and referents that exists only as a human construct; genes encode polypeptide chains comprised of amino acids. Then you need to stop debating. You're not going to find the answers in the debate. If you have questions about genes and evolution, then you need to study. I'm sure we can reccomend some books if you're really interested in doing that. You don't seem to understand that I did take an open-minded approach. I studied all the information and in the end, evolution proved to be a legitimate scientific theory and creationism and intelligent design proved to be bankrupt.Not only did I do this, but all evolutionists have. That's why evolution is a scientifically accepted theory and creationism finds support only among the religious, who believe that they have no other choice but to support it. If you're going to pick and choose what answers you will accept before you've even looked at the evidence, then how open-minded can you honestly claim to be?

Or potentially helpful, if the enemy is indeed not attacking. It all depends on the selective effect of environment, which can't apparently be figured into your calculations of "specified complexity." Gene duplication and polyploidy are two different things.Genes, or even subsequences within genes, can be and often are duplicated without having to duplicate the entire chromosome.

I've been looking but I don't see where you've proven that a new gene has to have "specified complexity" in order to be beneficial. In fact it's pretty obvious that this isn't the case at all. The same new gene can be a beneficial mutation in one environment, and a detrimental one in another environment. Since one gene can be beneficial or detrimental without changing in any way, we know that "specified complexity" isn't necessary for beneficial mutations. But it turns out that that's not really all that important. Only about 10%, maybe, of the length of a protein is the actual binding site - the only part that actually has function. And in the genes themselves, over 90% of a genetic locus is useless, junk DNA or "introns" - sequences that are transcripted but eliminated before protein synthesis occurs.Even discounting the introns, you can monkey with about 60% of the genetic instructions for your average protein before you even begin to appreciably affect it's chemical function.The word analogy simply doesn't hold up. It's absolutely useless in this context and all it's doing, really, is giving you false ideas about the role of information in genetics. It's going to be very hard for me to understand your view. I already mentioned that my wife works in the genetics field. She's doing research every day that wouldn't even be possible if evolution, specifically common descent and what you term "macro-evolution", were not fundamentally true.It's like you're telling a pilot's wife that you have doubts that airplanes actually fly. If evolution isn't true then what do you think people like my wife are doing in the lab all day? Don't you think that, if her research were impossible to perform, as it would be if evolution were not true, she would have noticed by now? Indeed you will. The reason for that is that creationism is fundamentally wrong. So wrong, in fact, that anyone who holds the position of creationism is either ignorant of the facts, fundamentally dishonest, or outright doesn't possess the intelligence necessary to understand the issue. Don't get your panties in a knot - this is true about anybody who holds a fundamentally, demonstratably wrong position. It's true about Holocaust deniers, it's true about supply-side economists, it's true about flat-earth proponents, and it's true about people who reject the most scientifically verified theory of the 20th and 21st centuries.Naturally, someone so ignorant, dishonest, or mentally handicapped is not an appropriate candidate for a science-related field. I wouldn't hire a Holocaust denier as a historian; I wouldn't hire a flat-earther as a geographer, and I wouldn't hire a creationist as a biologist. I'm sorry if that seems discriminatory or intolerant, but tolerance doesn't mean that we give lies or idiocy an equal weight to fact. Creationism is demonstratably wrong. Evolution is demonstratably accurate. Someone who cannot recognize this clear and obvious fact is not qualified to be a scientist, just as someone who can't tell the difference between diesel and gasoline isn't qualified to be an auto mechanic.

Well, now you're contradicting yourself. If information loss can be beneficial, and modification of a duplicated gene is no gain, then new information is not needed for macro-evolution. Apparently you can go all the way up without needing new information - you just need a source of novel genes, which you already agree that we have.

An existing gene, or parts of an existing gene. Not sure what you mean by "photocopy effect."