"Microevolution" vs. "macroevolution."

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all Darwin did was suggest how it might be possible, which was nothing more than observing that the principles of domestic breeding occur haphazardly in nature.

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Heh. Yeah, all scientists do is sit around and think stuff up.Actually, Darwin did quite a bit more that this. He spend most of his life collecting evidence and publishing it.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

Hi, Faith.

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Evidence for Natural Selection. He did a good job of proving that.

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Actually, it was the opposite. Common descent was accepted almost immediately; it took a generation or two before natural selection was common accepted as the mechanism for evolution.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

Hi, Faith. At the risk of being off-topic (alright, I know, I started it), I'll answer this question:

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And the idea of common descent was based only on the weird fact that the fossils appear to be graded in some way approximating the taxonomic tree, isn't that so?

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I don't think so. I think the fossil record was too incomplete at this time to make this kind of determination -- I could be wrong. All the fossil record at that time showed was that life becomes simpler as you look further down the geologic column, i.e. as you look further back in time. It's been a couple of decades since I read Origin of Species. I've read Descent of Man more recently, but the main concern in that book was sexual selection as a mechanism for evolution.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

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But you said the idea of common descent was already more or less accepted before Darwin found a mechanism to account for it, didn't you? And I thought that idea derived from the fossil record. If not, then what did it derive from?

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Sorry I wasn't very clear. What I meant was that Darwin's theory of common descent was accepted by the scientific community before his theory of natural selection. Both were accepted after he published his ideas, but it took longer for natural selection to be accepted. (I can't remember, though, where I read this.)As far as the evidence, I can't remember all the evidence for common descent that was used by Darwin; I assume that Linnaeus classification was important, and I know biogeography was also important. Looking at Percy's list of chapter titles, it appears that he was also aware of embryology and the existence of vestigial organs in various species.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

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OK , I'm going to second Subbie's original question, what is the difference between microevolution and macroevolution?

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I'm going to second PaulK's answer. Macroevolution is evolution that creationists will not accept.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)