Increases in Genetic Information

Sure. You've already acknowledged that your statement about horses and mules was erroneous and that you meant to talk about the offspring of horses and donkeys.But more importantly, your central error in this thread is this one: The point you are trying to impose as fact is clearly erroneous. The majority of the posts here are intended to argue that it is an error.It is enough to establish new species that groups are isolated from mating so that they evolve into two sufficiently morphologically distinct groups of animals. One way for that to happen is through cross fertility becoming absolutely impossible. But it is enough that the two population groups occupy separate habitats and then develop differently. That is the case for lions and tigers.In support, here is a definition of species from wikipedia. Emphasis added by me.

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In biology, a species (plural: species) is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, the difficulty of defining species is known as the species problem. Differing measures are often used, such as similarity of DNA, morphology or ecological niche. Presence of specific locally adapted traits may further subdivide species into "infraspecific taxa" such as subspecies (and in botany other taxa are used, such as varieties, subvarieties, and formae)

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So what is the error I am charging you with? The error is cherry picking a definition of species, and then blaming the rest of us for not agreeing on your definition of macro-evolution when your definition is based on the definition of species.Consider this to be my answer as to why lions and tigers are a separate species.For completeness, I suppose I should cite an example of a lie. I won't use the statement that I don't support my broad statements. That's for another time. But here is a lie: Nonsense. You specified no such thing. You hadn't even cited any numbers for comparing genes for either bacteria or humans; you cited base pairs numbers only. You also claimed that an amoeba "doesn't have nearly as many genes" as did humans when in fact, the amoeba had 2/3 as many as genes as humans. I'll qualify the latter as mere hyperbola rather than a lie.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Can you support the statement that all apes are incompatible with humans in this way? I have no reason to believe that they humans can breed with apes, but I don't see any reason to argue either way.That said, the theory of evolution does not require that every step on the evolutionary path consist on offspring which cannot interbreed with any of their ancestors. It is enough that such things do not happen too frequently to prevent development and change.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Are you trying to suggest that Taq was actually trying to argue that life evolved from a potato, and that is not far more likely that he was simply trying to suggest that neither base pair count nor coding gene count (as you later said you actually intended) is an appropriate measure of complexity.The fact is, nobody is claiming that common descent means that all multi-cell life evolved from a bacteria even if a prokaryote was the first life form. In support of that I cited the same wikipedia article you cited for the proposition that a prokaryote was the first life form, which shows that eukaryotes may have developed separately.

I did not misquote you, nor did I add a slant. The only numerical values you quoted was of base pair counts. Do you agree that this comparison is of no relevance, emphasis mine? So yes, you did directly use base pair count as a measure of genetic information. Neither of the numbers above is restricted to coding genes. And no coding gene comparison is presented in your post.

Then I'll tell you what I am doing. I am purposefully trying to present your arguments in the light that I see them. I understand you to be making the following bad arguments.1. People who disagree with you are disagreeing with your definition of the term 'species' for the purpose of avoiding your arguments.2a. Speciation requires that inter-fertility be genetically impossible.
2b. Speciation requires a loss of diversity compared to ancestor species.3. Common descent requires that the most recent common ancestor is bacteria-like.Your welcome to point out a single lie that I have told. I've already noted one or two of yours.

Nobody is accusing you of having that opinion. Taq assumed that you and everyone else would agree that a potato was not more complex than a human. That's why citing the greater gene count for a potato makes an argument. Yes, but that was after you made a comparison based strictly on base pairs. I don't see any where that you refined the definition of greater genetic information to only be coding genes.

Sure jbozz21. Unfortunately for you, the entire discussion here is available for anyone to review, and the record suggests an entirely different result. It's true that you don't find the reasons given to be convincing, but I don't think anyone expected any differently.

Morphology is not a substitute for classification, it is part of the classification scheme for calling things different species.Here is yet another reference discussing the definition of species
A Glossary of Zoology Terms

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The term species can be defined as a group of individual organisms that are capable of interbreeding to produce fertile offspring in nature. A species is, according to this definition, the largest gene pool that exists under natural conditions. Thus, if a pair of organisms are capable of producing offspring in nature, they must belong to the same species.
Unfortunately, in practice, this definition is plagued by ambiguities. To begin, this definition is not relevant to organisms (such as many types of bacteria) that are capable of asexual reproduction. If the definition of a species requires that two individuals are capable of interbreeding, then an organism that does not interbreed is outside of that definition.

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Another difficulty that arises when defining the term species is that some species are capable of forming hybrids. For example, many of the large cat species are capable of hybridizing. A cross between a female lions and a male tiger produces a liger. A cross between a male jaguar and a female lion produces a jaglion. There are a number of other crosses possible among the panther species, but they are not considered to be all members of a single species as such crosses are very rare or do not occur at all in nature.

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As long as you continue to require that lions and tigers are the same species, then we all know you are simply swimming upstream on the definition.

Nice source.When we look elsewhere we find that Ivanoff made three attempts to breed humans with chimpanzees. I'm not aware of any other attempts.Humanzee - Wikipedia

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Ivanov reached Conakry in November 1926 accompanied by his son, also named Ilya, who would assist him in his experiments. Ivanov supervised the capture of adult chimpanzees in the interior of the colony, which were brought to Conakry and kept in cages in the botanical gardens. On February 28, 1927, Ivanov inseminated two female chimpanzees with his own sperm.[citation needed][dubious — discuss] On June 25, his son inseminated a third chimpanzee with his sperm. The Ivanovs left Africa in July with thirteen chimps, including the three used in his experiments. They already knew before leaving that the first two chimpanzees had failed to become pregnant. The third died in France, and was also found not to have been pregnant.[citation needed][dubious — discuss] The remaining chimps were sent to a new primate station at Sukhumi.

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From your ICR reference:

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One problem is humans have 46 chromosomes--apes 48--and for this reason the chromosomes will not pair up properly even if a zygote is formed.

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And yet we know that we can form zebra/donkey offspring despite a much larger chomosome number mismatch.

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Donkeys and wild equids have different numbers of chromosomes. A donkey has 62 chromosomes; the zebra has between 32 and 46 (depending on species). In spite of this difference, viable hybrids are possible, provided the gene combination in the hybrid allows for embryonic development to birth. A hybrid has a number of chromosomes somewhere in between.

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Of course the idea that the chromosome count difference disproves Darwin in some way has been long since debunked.Not going to look it up tonight but we've previously discussed a human with a pair of chromosomes short of 46 who was able to produce offspring.But the short of it is that we have three attempts to produce human/chimpanzee from male human donors, and nothing else for any other apes.

Apparently citing references is the wrong approach with you.

We're getting "hung up" on that point because it is a central part of the OP. I am not sure that jbozz21 has another serious point to make. He is well aware that scientists use a fuzzy definition. In fact, Jbozz21 wants the discussion to be about 'kinds' rather than 'species', but he wants to achieve that by redefining species rather than trying to define kinds.Jbozz21 has said that scientists classify organisms such as lions and tigers as the same in what may be a deliberate attempt to make macro-evolution look like micro-evolution because micro-evolution is believable.From Message 81Yes, he does later say that it is not his call whether the skewing is deliberate, but only after saying that some scientist want a fuzzy definition.What I would suggest is that jbozz21 untether his definition of macro-evolution or whatever it is that he calls evolution from the term 'species' because that term already has a scientific meaning that works against him. Whatever the definition of species is, he clearly does not want people citing lions and tigers as evidence of macro-evolution.And I doubt that any of us would have pointed to lions and tigers (or horses and zebras) in a discussion of macro-evolution. When a creationist talks about macro-evolution, what is expected is a definition of macro-evolution that refers to "kinds", whatever that means, rather than species.Having said all that, if Jbozz21 does start referring to kinds, it is possible that more ridicule will follow. But at least the discussion would be honest.

AIG provides similar advice on the Microevolution vs Macroevolution debate as well. Saying that macroevolution does not occur is also on the list of Arguments that should never be used. I also see some remarks about "species" vs. "kinds" that are germane.

Not you. But then noone is anyone accusing you of saying anything about mutations. Below is what you actually posted. That's right, your post accounts only for "most" variations within species, which is completely consistent and not in any way contradictory to the position of people who say that mutations do play a role in creating variation. Bluegenes correctly pointed out exactly that bit of reality.You seem to be a bit off your game today[1]. Not only are your posts replete with logical and factual errors, the above being an example of a logic error, you have the gall to accuse people who point out those errors of being the ones making you look bad.Well, no. You are doing that all by yourself. Your aggressive blustering and excuses for your errors just draws attention to the fact that you are extremely careless about your claims. You are suppose to vet your own sources rather than relying on us to do it.[1] Not that your reasoning is ever much to talk about. But usually you aren't quite this bad.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

duplicateEdited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Several such examples of mutations that provided new information have been given. Why is it additionally necessary to show a selective advantage.After all, whether a variation provides a selective advantage or is neutral, or possibly even detrimental is a function of external factors. A change is not inherently advantageous. It should be enough to show a mutation and to describe an advantageous environment if the goal is merely to show that such a thing is possible.As has been pointed out, your refusal to allow any inferences in the evidence trail means that you are insisting on direct evidence only.