Clades and Kinds

Hi Meldinoor, I've said for some time that the argument is not really evolution but common ancestry, and the argument is over how many original common ancestors were involved.Clades are a great way of expressing it.Enjoy.

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Hi Blzebub, Yes, but there is a distinction made in biology between evolution occurring within a population - your standard evolutionary process, but here referred to as microevolution - and the differentiation between species that occurs after a speciation event - where each species continues to evolve by microevolution within their populations, but there is no longer any transfer between the daughter species and thus they inevitably diverge. That divergence results in greater and greater difference between the now isolated populations.The distinction made by creationists is of "large scale change" by some other mechanism than normal evolution.Berkeley University has an excellent site on evolution:
See Evolution 101 and you can click through the pages or use the menu on the top to jump to topics of interest.For further discussion. There is a discussion of cladistics\phylogenies begining on the third page.See microevolution, speciation, and macroevolutionEnjoy.

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Hi Meldinoor, always good to learn new things. And that there isn't any different mechanism for macroevolution, all the changes are due to microevolution in isolated populations. Macroevolution is the development of trees by descent from common ancestors, and the important event is speciation, as that forms the branches.This is what cladistics tracks. I personally prefer cladistics over classical taxonomy, as it does away with the confusion caused by family, order, etc classifications, which are only due to arbitrary human naming designations. Message 12
Another thread that addresses this common creationist PRATT is Dogs will be Dogs will be ??? and I never got very far with that thread, where I start with the thesis that eohippus is analogous to dogs.Enjoy

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Hi ICANT, I can see you are struggling with this concept, when it is really very simple. If we say there were N kinds on the ark, then this would define N clades that exist today where all modern species can trace their lineage back to an original kind on the ark. Speciation since the ark landed and the animals dispersed would account for the number of species in the world today, but speciation is a branch in a line of descent from a common ancestor. Because the dinosaurs that birds evolved from and mammals are different clades, and you cant evolve back into your ancestry to then go up a different branch, nor can one branch cross over and connect to another branch.What cows could evolve into would be something analogous to a bird, they could become small (like your midget horse?) and then grow a membrane like a flying squirrel, and then take the step to be similar to a bat.They would then be members of the yellow clades below:

 dairy cow -- double udder dairy cow
\
     
midget cow -- flat foor midget cow --|extinct|
\                   \
      
gliding cow        burrowing cow -- otter-like cow
\                   \
        
flying cow          mole-like cow

They would NOT be members of the flat-foot cow clade, although flying cows, burrowing cows and their descendent mole-like cows and otter-like cows would all be members of the midget cow clade and the dairy cow clade.and the end result is that flying cows, mole-like cows and otter-like cows would be noticably different even though they are related by common ancestry. When dinosaurs evolved into birds there were no birds for them to "cross-over" to, rather what they evolved was a system of flight that was analogous - but not identical - to pterosaurs. Those dinosaurs could not evolve into pterosaurs, only something similar in ability for flight.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : pterosaurs

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Hi ICANT Nope.Those are examples of Creolution.Enjoy.

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Hi ICANT I've been better, and I've been worse. Thanks. OR to admit that your definition of macro-evolution is not the way it is used within the field of biology in general, or the the field of evolution in specific.Look through the Berkeley site on evolution:
Evolution 101 - Understanding Evolution
and see if you can find the word "transmutation" there. Notice that there is a section there that specifically addresses macroevolution, and notice that they talk about the gradual transformation over time of populations through the mechanisms of evolution, mutation, migration, genetic drift, and natural selection. Note that what they show in the discussion of macroevolution are the trees formed by common ancestry and cladistics.To do what you are asking would take a different mechanism, one that does not exist, and one that is not necessary.Enjoy.

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Hi ICANT, Thanks. Which just proves that it is useless to keep trying to use it, as all you will cause will be confusion. And this is an example of that confusion. Macroevolution - as used in biology in general and in evolution in specific - has been observed and thus is an observed fact. Every case of speciation is an example of macroevolution: it results in additional species, and it results in the formation of a branched tree of descent. Color me surprised that you would seize on that statement. Let's start with this one instead:

quote:

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Macroevolution is evolution on a grand scalewhat we see when we look at the over-arching history of life: stability, change, lineages arising, and extinction.

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Lineages arising = speciation
Change is ongoing in all known species
Extinction is also an ongoing process, just look at all the "endangered" species.Thus we do see macroevolution occurring, the different evolution of different species within their ecologies as they react to the changing conditions around them and to each other: the larger picture.

quote:

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Definition: What is Macroevolution?

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Macroevolution generally refers to evolution above the species level. So instead of focusing on an individual beetle species, a macroevolutionary lens might require that we zoom out on the tree of life, to assess the diversity of the entire beetle clade and its position on the tree.

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In other words macroevolution is the patterns of diversity and change that occur as individual populations evolve within their part of the matrix of life.Macroevolution is NOT about the formation of new or novel features or traits: that occurs within populations by microevolution.Let's try an analogy:... microevolution is the writing of books, new books are constantly arising, and new editions of books are constantly being made, some with new covers or new artwork that are not in the originals, and meanwhile some old books are lost and ignored, ...... while macroevolution is the librarian documenting of all the different books and the way they are organized by content and author. The library does not cause any new books to be written or new editions to be published. Surprisingly individual organisms are born fully formed, fully developed for their age, complete and ready for the world. Any such organism, if fossilized, would also appear "all of a sudden fully developed"Curiously, there are many lineages that are known, transitions that occur from one form to another through direct lineages of related species, and more evidence is uncovered every day.That some species seem to appear suddenly does not mean that this is so for all species. Amusingly I have just listed some of this evidence that you claim does not exist. Claims are easy. A type, a sort, a variety, a breed, a set, a tribe, a group, a class, a family, etc etc etc.A dog will mate with a dog and produce more dogs, and thus reproduce after their kind, but there is no necessary restriction that dogs cannot evolve or that they have not evolved from some earlier animal, such as wolves.We can look at the fossil record and fine animals analogous to dogs (convergent evolution does that -- it's how come sugar gliders and flying squirrels are so similar), and then see what has evolved from those animals, and from this we can see how dogs are not limited to remaining similar to modern dogs by evolution.HOWEVER: all of this is not really on the topic of nested clades, rather about the validity of "large" changes in the natural history of life on earth. Perhaps another thread might be more appropriate. Dogs will be Dogs will be ???:

quote:

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Back to the original quote:

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"The fossil record shows variations of all sorts of things but will time turn a dog kind into something that we would say is clearly not a dog? "
Beretta, Message 7

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So what would you like this to become?

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Would a horse be enough? Would you dispute that a horse is clearly not a dog?

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So the questions that creationists must answer are:

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(1) If your definition of macroevolution is different from evolutionary biology what is it?
(2) Why do you think it is a valid definition?
(3) How much change is necessary?
(4) Why isn't the difference between cat and fox a valid criteria?

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We'll start with those - and see what turns up.

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Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : sEdited by RAZD, : kinds of kinds

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