Definition of Evolution

Well, to be fair, science as a general rule of thumb must base its fledgling theories with observation, testing of hypotheses, and repeating the processes. Neither of those fit the criteria for the theory of evolution.Darwinian macroevolution has never been directly observed, to which you might reply, it takes years and years to accumulate enough minor gradations. Its like trying to watch fingernails grow!But the thing is, fossils are snapshots in history. And in the same way you might not be able to see one's fingernails or hair grow, directly, you can still see clear evidence of it from those snapshots.The fossil record is inept in answering these questions because we do not see any clear examples of transitional forms. Indeed, this has long been the problem for evolutionists. But the argument is brought up so much now or days against evolution that it is not as widely admitted as it was in the past.The second tier is with the fact that evolution cannot be duplicated in a lab. For instance, the Drosphila Melanogaster, which is your average fruit fly. Numerous scientists have bombarded these fruit flies with X-ray radiation, among other techniques, in order to mutate them. Well, it worked remarkably well. They were able to produce offspring with eyes missing and wings growing out of their heads. But I suppose the point is, no bionic fruit fly was ever the bi-product of these experiments. (No dragonflies, houseflies, horseflies, butterflies, were ever bioengineered-- just fruit flies and lots of them).Of those that actually survived essentially produced monstrosities with horrible deformities that certainly would have eliminated them in the wild. Natural selection works against the typical evolutionary model because it does not further the advancement of mutations, but rather, tends to weed out any aberrations.The Drosophila has been no exception to the rule. Even more damning, the fruit fly is molecularly very simple in relation to that of a human. What is worse, their lifespan is not even a thousandth to that of the average human lifespan. What does this mean? Essentially, it means that the fruit fly has the physical ability to evolve more readily than that of a human being. The fruit fly is relatively simple with a genome, composed of four pairs of chromosomes, of about 13,000 genes.Aside from this, they breed at a much quicker rate. So, then, surely in 80 to 90 years of experimentation, their generations would be into the hundreds of thousands. Compare that figure to humans. In 80 or 90 years, how many generations have come out of your immediate family? Most likely, about three generations, and maybe four in that amount of time.If ever there were a prime candidate for proving macroevolution, the Drosophilia would be it, and yet, nothing even comparable has ever been established.Lastly, they cannot repeat the results of the experiment because they cannot simulate it in the lab to begin with.Therefore, I scarcely see how dissenting objections to evolution should be viewed with such scathing anger. (Not you, but in general) For how ever misguided you'd like to say creationists are, they have some very reasonable objections to the theory.Having said that, they have to respond to some very reasonable postulates presented by evolutionists until a solid consensus can't be found in some appreciable way. Edited by nemesis_juggernaut, : typo

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"God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners." -Sren Kierkegaard

Wow. One giant post of inanity.First, your objection to the fossil record. There are clear transitionals in the fossils. Furthermore, I believe they are called foraminifera, but they have essentially the entire evolutionary history (in fossils). Unfortunately, I can't find a link to the evolutionary history I'm thinking of. Which means I might have the wrong organism in mind. Someone on this board knows what I'm talking about though, I suspect.Second, the D. melanogaster experiments were not designed to test evolution. See, evolution has two parts. Natural Selection and [/b]Mutation[/b]. Tell me, did those experiments include natural selection in the design? No. They were designed, if I recall correctly, to test specific effects of mutations in certain genes. In order to design an experiment to test evolution, you not only need to cause mutation (such as with radiation), but have a selection factor. The drosophila melanogaster experiments were not designed to test evolution!Oh, by the way, the human genome consists of 20-25,000 genes. The fruit fly? Around 13,000, like you say. So we have maybe twice the number of genes, but ten times the number of chromosomes. How many did you think we humans have?

You may be thinking of Smooth Change in the Fossil Record although it does not cover forams. Forams are widely studied, parttly because they change so much in the fossil record and partly because they are incredibly useful in cross-correlating strata between differnt drill holes in exploring for oil.

Really? The 5th example seems to be about forams and has a link to an extensive article on the foraminifera.TTFN,WKEdited by Wounded King, : No reason given.

How long have you been posting here NJ? Surely you can do better than this old canard... Of course, all known species are in fact transitional, but here is one example of a recently discovered "transitional fossil" (to use the informal term). It was all over the news two years ago. The best thing about it is that it wasn't found by accident - paleontologists searched geological structures of a certain type and age, thus demonstrating the predictive capacity of the physical evidence used to support the TOE.Tiktaalik - WikipediaEdited by RickJB, : No reason given.

About your fruit fly speciation claims, experiments of all different sorts have been performed on Drosophila melanogaster, not just the mutational experiments you mention. This excerpt from Wikipedia's article on Speciation briefly describes an experiment that produced speciation in the laboratory using only available variation and artificial selection: I also believe you're inaccurately describing the mutational experiments, as here: Though not impossible, bombarding fruit flies with X-rays is unlikely to produce such specific mutations. The experiments you're describing sound like the gene-splicing experiments where they would do things like splice extra wing genes into the genome of fruit fly eggs, or remove or block the eye genes.So anyway, when you go on to say: This is clearly wrong, since we've observed speciation both in the lab and in the wild multiple times. Your observation about the slowness of speciation in longer-lived species is accurate, but this comment about the fossil record is also clearly wrong: There are many examples of transitional forms in the fossil record, if for no other reason than that all species are transitional, except those that go extinct. The fossil record is full of finely gradated series of species change. What is less common in the fossil record is transitions at the higher levels of classification such as class and order.You were probably just responding to something someone else said, but I thought it important to respond to your errors, but I think this may be drifting off-topic. You're lack of familiarity with the fossil record and with speciation experiments isn't an issue in this thread, and probably disqualifies you from the discussion anyway.--Percy

You're right and you're wrong here Percy.You're right in dismissing Nem's argument principally because the intent of all of the mutational experiments he refers to was never to duplicate evolution in a lab. You are also right in saying that a technique such as x-irradiation or any other broad spectrum mutagen is unlikely to produce specific results in the sense of a result which has been prespecified as a desired outcome, but you are wrong to the extent that a specific mutation may simply be a distinct and localised one.The most famous example of a large scale mutagenic screen would be Wieschaus and Nusslein-volhard's screen of embryonic lethal mutations induced by exposure of the males lines to ethylmethylsulfonate (EMS). As in almost all such screens the intention is not to in anyway duplicate evolution but rather to severely genetically disrupt the organism to the point where an identifiable phenotype is produced which can then be traced back to a particular genetic lesion.Several homeotic mutations of the type NJ refers to have been induced with x-irradiation. Ed Lewis produced a number of classic homeotic mutations using x-irradiation, such as the transition of halteres to wings. Perhaps that is a bad example since that particular mutation is thought to reflect the evolution of the halteres as a derived form of wing.TTFN,WKEdited by Wounded King, : No reason given.Edited by Wounded King, : No reason given.

But this is, y'know, a huge great enormous honking lie, isn't it? Yes, but that is a great huge lie with, like, great big neon lights all over it saying "THIS IS A LIE" in capital letters, isn't it? Because these "dissenting objections" are a bunch of lies, which deserve "scathing anger".Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Drosophila Melanogaster has an average generation gap of just under two weeks, meaning about thirty generations in a year, thus meaning about 3000 generations in a century. 3000 does not equal hundreds of thousands.Doesn't one of the EvC members have a signature quote which says something about pseudo-science thriving on innumeracy?Because people have been experimenting on fruit flies for nearly a century does not mean that any one experiment has lasted that long. Most, like the 35 generation one that Percy described above, would only take a year or two.If I combine your comment above with this.... ..... it looks as though you might be an evolutionist in disguise, trying to make out that creationists are not only stupid, but also entirely ignorant of the sciences that they comment on. There are loads of transitionals, and so many examples have been given on these threads during the time you've been giving the site the benefit of your wisdom that you shouldn't need to be shown any more.Edited by bluegenes, : No reason given.

It should also be noted that the Drosophila experiments are very different than animal breeding, and that animal breeding has an important difference from natural selection in the wild.Fruit flyologists, as far as I know, have never tried to use fruit flies to demonstrate macroevolution. All fruit fly experiments, as far as I know, have had to goal to study individual mutations to get insight into basic genetics and maybe population dynamics. So it is not surprising that experimenters have never bred anything different from a fly: besides what you mentioned, I will point out that no one has ever tried to breed anything that is macroevolutionarily different.Now, even if they tried, there would be a big potential problem. When humans breed animals and plants, they have specific goals in mind, unlike natural selection in the wild. If, for example, experimenters wanted to produce, by the breeding of fruit flies, an aquatic fishlike worm of some sort, this may be impossible. Not only may it not be possible to get morphological states in between that are viable, but there may be genetic and developmental roadblocks that would make the goal impossible; you may not be able to get there from here.This isn't a problem in the wild since there is no attempt to reach a predefined goal. Variations are produced in many different directions; some directions are weeded out, leaving a few successful variants; these then produce young with variations in all sorts of directions, and the successful ones are weeded out. Thus, natural selection "chooses" a "path of least resistance" that may meander around a bit, but may finally reach a state that is different from the original form. And this final form will probably not have been predictable in advance -- I mean, starting with lobe finned fish, would anyone have predicted a descendent like a humming bird?So what has and has not been produced in a laboratory with Drosophila tells us nothing about what is or is not possible in the wild. Besides, even if something radically different were produced in a laboratory, the response would either be to mumble that it is still the same "kind" despite its differences, or to say that this proves it requires an intelligent designer to produce the change.

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I've done everything the Bible says, even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff! -- Ned Flanders

No, please don't hold back for my sake... Tell me how you really feel. Shouldn't evidence for macroevolution be so completely abundant so as to be self-evident? Should it really be necessary that you have to find some obscure creature that might qualify, if the theory is as strong as it claims? What was the function then? If my memory serves correct, they were looking at specifically homeobox sequences to see if intentional tweaking could speed up speciation. The mutants were so badly mutated that there was no hope for survival as a wild phenotype. I even said that natural selection weeds out aberrations such as these. We're talking about flies with antennae growing out of their eyes and other bizarre mutations. Obviously that's hardly a beneficial mutation.I think part of the problem was that homeobox genes only turn on or off other genes that are already extant. I think at the time they were hoping for something far more grand. Even supposing that is the case, I'm curious to know if any acid tests have been conducted, and if so, what did it consist of? Whether it was half or 4 times as many is beside the point. The point I'm making is that they are simpler than that of humans, procreate much faster, are more prone to mutation, etc. The point is that they are a much coveted test experiment for evolution, but it yielded unfavorable results unworthy of defending the theory.

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"God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners." -Sren Kierkegaard

What is macroevolution and how is it distinct from microevolution? How should it show up in the fossil record that is different from microevolution? Seeing as we KNOW (documented) that your memory is faulty (to put it kindly), perhaps you should look into this and see what the purposes of the experiments were. One clue would be to look at the first articles on HOX genes and the dates of the experiments on fruit flies. Another would be to search for articles on speciation and fruit flies.You know -- ground truth your facts before spouting nonsense. Again. Except that the experiments reinforced the theory of evolution: conclusion? your impression of the purpose of the experiments is false, again. Statements of fact aren't based on feelings. The fact that you can easily ground-truth your assumptions to show they are faulty before posting means that they are inane when you don't.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : subtitle

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Hi NJ,I see a lot of people have replied to your previous post. Just so you don't miss out my comments on Drosophila mutational screens in my reply to Percy I'll give you some relevant highlights. Since you have given us absolutely no reference point for any experiments whatever it is hard to tell how well your memory serves you. Must mutational screens have historically been intended to disrupt the organisms genetics severely enough to produce a significant phenotypic difference, frequently one which compromises the viability of the embryo. The initial mutagenesis is usually entirely untargeted and when a phenotype is identified it can then be traced back to the genetic cause.The vast majority of mutational experiments have nothing to do with evolution except in as much as the genetic information gained from them may be relevant to evolution.I certainly haven't heard of any experiments to 'tweak' homeobox genes to speed up speciation, and Evo-Devo is my field. Considering you haven't even identified any experiments whatsoever it seems a bit strange that you are now telling us how disappointing they were. Why not actually give us references to some actual papers NJ?TTFN,WK

Yes, I was aware of the argument when it was discovered. Naturally, I remain unconvinced. And this is due in part that it is incomplete. We know nothing of the hindquarters, yet we're told that its essentially a missing link.I wonder that if mudskippers were extinct right now, if evolutionists would make the argument that they were really creatures in transition from water to terrestrial, or vice versa.

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"God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners." -Sren Kierkegaard

It occurs to me that getting a creo to define this distinction is as much an exercise in futility as the search for the chimerical definition of "kind."To a creo, microevolution is the observable and incontrovertible change in organisms that even the most blinkered of the faithful cannot deny. Macroevolution is any level of change that requires relying on the fossil record, a known tool of Satan, to establish. Fruit files can "microevolve" into different fruit flies (the same "kind"), but will never "macroevolve" into emus (a different "kind").It's sort of a self-moving goalpost. If we can directly observe a certain change, then it's micro. If we can't, it's macro. This enables them to continue to preach to the choir that macroevolution has never been observed, and therefore, in their through-the-looking-glass view of science, it's never been proven.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat