Clades and Kinds

Yes. It is impossible to "evolve out of" a clade. Once a lineage enters a clade, it is there for ever and ever, amen. Even if we lost all our limbs and rolled on the ground, we'd still be in the primate clade.

The odds of this are as close to zero as you can get. The paths to get from a specific starting point to a specific ending point that's so different is practically zero. I'm not going to say it can't happen, but I feel confident in saying it won't. It almost certainly wouldn't be called a cow, and it certainly wouldn't be called a bird. It would get a scientific name, and that scientific name would either be what people used, or some common name would be developed. The cow-bird-thing would still be in the same clade as cows, it would belong to the vertebrate clade, the mammal clade, the cattle clade, and quite probably the bird-like cattle clade.

A simple primer on clades:Take the "tree of life." At the base of every branch is the last common ancestor of all the species attached to it. If you cut the branch at the point it connects to the tree or a bigger branch, you've just cut off a clade. You'll notice, unless you get way out to the tiny branches or leaves, you've got more places you can cut off clades.Each clade encompasses all the branches attached to it, so it's the last common ancestor and all descendants of that ancestor. As such, there is no way to have a clade where smaller branches are cut off from it. For example, you can't have a clade that encompasses all mammals but not humans, since humans share a common ancestor with other mammals that is more recent than the last common ancestor of the other mammals.

It's when you say stuff like this that shows you have no idea how evolution works, and indicates that what you raila aginst, or deny as being real, is not what we actually think is real. For you to make an informed decision between option A and option B, doesn't it make sense to know what both options are?

But whenever you talk about evolution, what you're talking about is NOT evolution. You've created this definition of evolution in your mind, which you reject, but fail to see that your definition is not the one anyone who believes evolution uses. It's like me saying CHristianity proposes that all snakes can talk to me, therefore I reject all Christianity since it is impossible for snakes to talk. What I'm rejecting is not what others are accepting, so me refusing to consider Christianity on those grounds is wrong, at best, and lying at worst. How about evolution?You haven't given an option of evolution. You've given option A (ICANT's interpretation of creation, which is pretty close to most people's conecption) and option B (ICANTs interpretation of evolution, which is completely different from what most people accept as a definition for evolution, which is my point) You have a book, written by men, who claim that God said he didn't do it that way. It is also a book full of allegory, parable, song, and allusion, so it can't be known for sure that the description on the book is supposed to be taken literally. Yeah, evolution: Life exists, somehow, whether through natural or supernatural means. It then began, through imperfect replication, to change, and through that change, new life forms have arisen that are distinct from the previous lifeforms. This process is enough to explain all the current and past life, as we know it.Added By Edit: The problem is, you have no idea what evolution claims, entails, or requires, and yet you've convinced yourself that you do to the point that you can reject it. I'm suggesting, maybe you shouldn't do that until you're understanding of evolution is at least on the right track. There are a lot of epople here who can help you, if only you'll open yourself to knew knowledge instead of shtting out the light and then complaining that it's so dark.Edited by Perdition, : No reason given.

That's exactly my point. It's a misunderstanding and is completely wrong from what Christians actually believe...as is your idea of what evolution is. That's a good definition, but you seem to go from there to incorrect conclusions based on that. I don't know why you would be surprised that all animals are "fully formed" even if they're different from their parents, as you stated earlier as a reason to doubt evolution. Evolution would demand that any animal that survived gestation would be fully formed, so the fact that we find that does not, in any way, pose a problem for evolution. Do I believe it's possible? Yes. DO I believe it actually happened? No, and I won't until we're shown some evidence, any evidence, of something that is supernatural. Does the truth care what I think? Not a whit. DOes evolution care where the life came from? Not a whit. Science has done nothing of the sort, and in fact, has given us a number of avenues to investigate that seem to show exactly how it could happen. The biggest path to follow: chemistry, since we are, in fact, merely chemistry ourselves. Quite correct. Which is why evolution doesn't care where the first life came from, nor how many life forms were first, nor how long it has been since the first life forms. Evolution would work just as well if all extant creatures had been created as they are in the past week. Now that they're here and procreate imperfectly, they will evolve. It's a necessary outcome of imperfect procreation and differential survival. Tautologically true. It all depends on your definition of macroevolution, I guess. Macroevolution, to me, is merely a lot of microevolution. Arguing that microevolution has a limit somewhere is a faith statement. Saying that I have no evidence for a limit, and until I am shown such evidence I will discount it is logic.

But one doesn't have to do with the other!! Why do you keep conflating the two? Evolution works NO MATTER HOW or even when life started, so what does it matter how or when it started? It just makes no sense. It's a new field that has been seriously looked at for only a very short time. You must have a very high level fo esxpectation for scientists if you expect them to figure out all the intircacies required to create life if you expect them to do it in only a couple decades. You must consider them nigh on gods. I doubt RAZD would post a link saying there was no evidence of macroevolution when he consistently says there is. Speciation has been observed, is that macroevolution? What amount of change is required for you to consider it macroevolution, and why would you expect that amount of change isn't possible? And the very next line says:

quote:

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Instead, we reconstruct the history of life using all available evidence: geology, fossils, and living organisms.

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Seems to be listing the evidence for macroevolution. That's weird, if it is trying to say there isn't any. If this were true, I'd agree with you. Isn't it lucky, then, that we DO know how it took place and have evidence for it? We can't see the entire process of something that takes thousands of years, however, we can see each and every step if we look at different areas of thew world, and we can see the effects of it. You don't have to be able to see the whole thing to be able to put the puzzle together, otherwise I'd never have been able to do it as a kid without looking at the top of the box.