Speciation events

lbhandli:
However, one other way we know that new species appear is that we observe them:John Paul:
I don't know of any learned Creationist since the time of Linnaeus that didn't agree speciation occurs. The problem is when taking the observed instances of speciation and falsely extrapolating that data to mean all of life's diversity started at some unknown population of single-celled organisms that just happened to have the ability to self-replicate. The observed data of evolution fits the Creation model of biological evolution like a tailor-made glove. We observe organisms adapting to their environment in order to survive and no matter what humans do to interfere with nature, organisms always resemble their ancestors, which is not what we see if the current ToE is applied.
The Lord our God did not Create every species, didn't have to with the knowledge that the Creation would go out and fill the available environmental niches because each one had the genetic information to do so and do so fairly rapidly. Natural selection would then keep the organisms that adapted correctly.------------------
John Paul

Percy, my apologies for the absence. Some things just can't be helped.Percy:Much more recently than Linnaeus both ICR and CRS have interpreted kind as synonymous with species. Duane Gish of ICR for years gave presentations denying that speciation was possible. All the speciation FAQs at Talk.Origins are there specifically to rebut the long-held Creationist position that speciation cannot occur. It has recently become more fashionable to interpret kind as a higher level of classification, but that doesn't change history.John Paul:
I can't control what other Creationists believed, proposed or thought about speciation at one time. Whatever that was it appears to have changed. The problem could have been with the definition of species. I am not even sure what state it is in now (the definition of species). And once a solid definition of species "evolves", how could we test it on all the extinct fauna?But anyways, here is what AiG says about speciaition:
Speciation Conference Brings
Good News for CreationistsAs for the "history" of what Creationists claimed, what about the "evolution" of the theory of evolution? Where does it stand now? Is the Modern Synthesis still reign supreme? Or has it been replaced? I can never get a straight answer.Percy:
As you've mentioned, there is more than one Creation model, and I'm not yet familiar with the specifics of what you're advocating. But if you're retaining the Genesis account of creation by God of kinds of plants and animals then your model doesn't fit the data since the data clearly goes back to a time when there were very few kinds at all, and certainly none that we know today like fish, birds and livestock.John Paul:
I advocate that all life is descended from the originally Created Kinds. Actually they could have been just dropped off by "aliens" for all I care, but I infer from the evidence that descendants tend to resemble their ancestors, more closely than humans resemble bacteria (if indeed bacteria was the "first family" of life on Earth).
Also by "back to a time", do you mean the lower down in the strata we look? You do know that not every organism that has lived and died gets fossilized. Entire populations have not been represented in the fossil record according to Phil (an evolutionist on the OCW DB). That coupled with the fact we have barely 'scratched the surface' looking for fossils, gives us a very incomplete and fragmented record to be basing any inferences on. Now that we have directly witnessed catastrophes depositing many layers of sediments in a short time frame also puts a damper on the old line "the further down in the strata you go, the older the objects are that are found there," because in fact it doesn't matter in what layer they are found, the objects could have been deposited at the same time.

[I've edited this post to add a missing quotation mark. The previously missing definition of macroevolution is now visible. --Percy]Larry, my apologies to you too for my absence.Larry:
No, speciation doesn't demonstrate that the diversity of life came from common ancestors. However, the genetic data does.John Paul:
You mean the way evolutionists interpret the genetic data. Or do we have the genetic data that shows procaryotic organisms can evolve into eucaryotic organisms or vice versa?Larry:
Another great source of information on common descent is a series of evidence on the talkorigins.org cite that lists 20 lines of evidence.
http://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/John Paul:
I've read that before. It is not a good sign when we (Creationists & evolutionists) can't even agree on a definition of a word. The word in this case is macroevolution. By the definition used on your link, Creationists are evolutionists! Creationists generally use these definitions (for what it's worth):

evolution, biological n.
1) microevolution-the empirically observed phenomenon in which exisiting potential variations within a gene pool (or population of organisms) are manifested or suppressed among members of that gene pool over a series of generations. Essentially a synonym for genetic variation. Often erroneously extrapolated (through semantic redefinition) to ?prove? the possibility of ?macro evolution?; 2) macroevolution-the theoretical concept that biological evolution takes place on a large enough scale to cause organisms to mutate over time into completely different organisms via the addition of entirely new organs and structural features, via the creation of entirely new genetic information.As for pseudogenes & retroviruses being evidence for the theory of evolution, look again:Pseudogenes:a description of the problemLarry:
How else, other than through common descent, can you explain this evidence?John Paul:
Common Creator, common mechanisms.

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[This message has been edited by Percipient (edited 08-21-2001).]

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[This message has been edited by Percipient, 11-24-2001]

Larry:
The question then is where is the barrier? If not at speciation exactly where are the limits for population change and the evidence for it.John Paul:
The barrier would lay in the protein structure. Its 3-D structure can't be manipulated too much or else it will no longer bond to the other proteins it once bonded to.Biochemical Limits to Evolution: The Untold StoryThen there is the "information" issue. Dr. Lee Spetner has an ongoing dialog with Dr. Ed Max about that very topic. Which can be read here:A Scientific Critique of Evolution[/b]and continued HereLarry:
Molecular evidence shows very clear commonalities between closely related populations that reduce steadily as evolution would predict, as the move farther away genetically. Why would this be?John Paul:
Molecular commonalities are also predicted in the Creationist version of biological evolution and ID. And, at least in the Creation version, similarities would also be reduced in the evolutionary process. The 3 major differences in the theories are 1. The starting point (what organism or organisms started the evolution process); 2. What direction is the evolutionary process taking; and 3. To what extent can organisms evolve.
Point 3 is your barrier question. A good observation ccan be made by all of our experimentations with organisms. In all of our experiments with bacteria, not once after billions of generations, has bacteria evolved into anything else but bacteria. Dogs are still dogs, cats are still cats and fruit flies are still fruit flies. Our own experiments cry out "there's a barrier."me from earlier:
As for the "history" of what Creationists claimed, what about the "evolution" of the theory of evolution? Where does it stand now? Is the Modern Synthesis still reign supreme? Or has it been replaced? I can never get a straight answer.Larry:
What literature were you reading in attempting to answer the question?John Paul:
What would you recommend? My post was based upon the claims made by evolutionists on the No Answers in Genesis DB who said I was debating against an old version of the ToE when talking about the Modern Synthesis. I am aware of Punk Eq. but didn't think it had replaced the MS.John Paul:
I advocate that all life is descended from the originally Created Kinds.Larry:
Then you need to define kind in terms of the standard taxonomic classification system so we can evaluate such a claim.John Paul:
If fair is fair, then what was that allged first population of living organisms? What is the evidence that single-celled organisms can evolve into multi-cellular organisms?me from before:
Actually they could have been just dropped off by "aliens" for all I care, but I infer from the evidence that descendants tend to resemble their ancestors, more closely than humans resemble bacteria (if indeed bacteria was the "first family" of life on Earth).Larry:
Then how are we able to construct a tree of life such as Doolittle does off of genetics? What would account for such a pattern other than common descent?John Paul:
But common descent from what? The way you guys talk about it it is more like common ascent. Where is the evidence to support that chart? What evidence is there that procaryotes can evolve into eucaryotes, as shown on his chart? Interesting, yes. Indicative of reality, doubtful.Larry:
This doesn't make any sense. In a catastrophe you would find fossils jumbled together.John Paul:
Not really. Many organisms would most likely be destroyed by the catastrophe and not be around to fossilize. Also it would depend on what was living together at the time of the catastrophe. If only reptiles lived on an island that suffered a volcanic explosion, I wouldn't think we would find horses in the sediments left behind.
Animals (other than us) seem to have an ability to tell when a catastrophe is going to happen. They tend to go where they think it is safe. I am sure that animals wouldn't huddle together (that is all different types of animals in one place), so this would also act to seperate the organisms and thus their fossils.

Larry:
This doesn't address the evidence. It is an assertion with no support behind it. Why would a common creator place the same retroviri insertions (non-functional) at the same place in the genome? There is no function, there is no loss of function in this case, there is simply an insertion by outside agent of a DNA sequence that does not code. Why and how would a designer do this?John Paul:
No one said a Common Creator did it. It is a result of processes that occurred after evolution started.This was answered in the link I gave but here it is cut and pasted:"So I think there is a mechanistic process that has produced many of the Pseudogenes that we have, rather than a random process. If the Pseudogene is truly defective and if the mutations are truly found in patterns (not random), then the idea that it's a common mechanism is possible. Viruses have enzymes that, under the same conditions, do repeatable reactions.If the DNA in Humans, Chimps, Monkeys, etc., are very similar, then if they are all infected by the same virus, would we expect the virus to do the same thing in the different species? I think so.The "dreaded endogenous retroviral sequence common to both chimp and human DNA" is probably the major example of Common Mechanism. Viral enzymes (proteins) react with specific DNA sequences. If both chimp and human DNA have the same active sites, I would expect the viral proteins to react in the same exact way to both human and chimp.Common descent or common Ancestor is not the only answer."------------------
John Paul

Percy:
ICR and CRS, the two foremost Creationist organizations, still teach that speciation is impossible.John Paul:
OK, sticking with speciation events only, where in the ICR or the CRS can I read that advocate that species are fixed? When I type in speciation into their respective search engine I get articles that talk about it as though it is a known fact of life. Usually these two orgs agree with AiG, and Ham talks about speciation, Natural Selection, descent with modification, as if he had no problem with them.Percy:
Their adherents participate in Creation/evolution discussion sites like this all the time.John Paul:
I've posted on several boards and have never read where a Creationist posted species are fixed. Next time you read one, please point it out to me (pretty please, it would be like observing a living fossil ).Percy:
That's why I pointed out to you that this viewpoint is still alive and kicking when you said that no one since Linnaeus had believed this.John Paul:
I appreciate that but to me that is more myth than reality.The reason I inquired about the Modern Synthesis is because on another discussion board (NAiG) I was told that version of the ToE was outdated/ replaced in the 1980s when molecular biology took off. I thought it was suspicious when no one could cite the literature that explained what the changes were and what the tenets of the new version are. That is why I asked...What Creationists need to do, and from I have read it is an ongoing process, is to discover what the "Kind" is. That study is called Baraminology-Ligers & Wholphinsback to Larry's original post:
As well as two FAQs on talkorigins.org in the Evolution section. We observe new species evolving with some frequency and therefore it is not a real objection to say that evolution has never been observed.John Paul:
As I have stated, evolution isn't the debate. To think it is shows some people do not understand the Creationists' PoV.Larry:
Some go further, and claim that even if speciation occurs, it can't continue because of limits to genetic change. To make such a claim you need to demonstrate such a barrier.John Paul:
Why isn't up to you to show that evolution, on the scale you believe, is allowed? Some empirical evidence would be nice. With genetic engineering we should be able to manipulate an organism's genome to see what happens. But alas, bacteria always remain bacteria, a virus always evolves into a virus, a dog remains a dog, all this with intelligent intervention meant to speed up the evolutionary process. Right now all the data tends to support a barrier does exist but we just haven't identified it yet.Larry, the rest of your post we can go to a new thread and discuss. We can keep this thread to speciation events...

john paul: With genetic engineering we should be able to manipulate an organism's genome to see what happens. But alas, bacteria always remain bacteria,larry:
You have ignored by specific response to this. And why would one expect an entirely domain to appear? Such a strange requirement.John Paul:
Sooner or later an organism very different from the original would have to appear or else all life would still be some unknown population of single-celled organisms. Nothing even close has come as a result of trying to do so.johnpaul:a virus always evolves into a virus, a dog remains a dog, all this with intelligent intervention meant to speed up the evolutionary process.larry:
You continue to ignore my previous specific response. Would you care to respond specifically or not?larry from an earlier post:
No, they are saying there is a limit to the rapidness of change. Which no one denies.
As I specifically said, a dog into a cat is not predicted by evolution. Any single step is going no farther than speciation. An event that turned a dog into a cat would be evidence of creation actually.John Paul:
I didn't say a dog would/ could evolve into a cat, but with all the tinkering we have done with mumerous organisms not once has anything fundamentally different (as in procaryotes and eucaryotes; reptiles and mammals or birds). Bacterial experiments involved more than just a single step and yet nothing would lead anyone to believe a proc can evolve into a euc. Nothing.larry from an earlier post:
The specific patterns of genetic commonalities also happen to follow a pattern that matches several nested hierarchies including those observed in the fossil record and taxonomic classification. These clearly are compatible with common descent--what specifically in creationism accounts for these hierarchiers? Especially what accounts for the non-functional nested hierarchiers we observe?John Paul:
First, non-functional needs to be defined. I am aware of research that shows the previously thought of "junk" DNA isn't really junk. Also viral insertions have been shown to attach to specific DNA sequences, regardless of the organism that contains those sequences and once there they do get passed along.
Common descent really isn't the issue. It's common descent from what? We don't even know what the first populations of single-celled organisms were. How do we know we can get here from there when we don't even know where there is? A Common Creator using common processes is as viable for hierarchies as is common descent.The Junk Dealer Ain't Selling That No More The article is at the bottom of the page.Pseudogenes: Are they non-functional