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Author Topic:   Peter & Rosemary Grant, Darwin's Finches and Evolution
RAZD
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(1)
Message 1 of 131 (725612)
04-29-2014 1:55 PM


The People Who Saw Evolution | Page 2 | Princeton Alumni Weekly&
quote:
The People Who Saw Evolution
After 40 years of research on Darwin’s finches, Peter and Rosemary Grant have written their valediction.
Peter and Rosemary Grant sit in a cave on Daphne Major Island in 2004. The cave generally was used for cooking; here, Peter is shown measuring the beak of a finch.
Peter and Rosemary Grant are members of a very small scientific tribe: people who have seen evolution happen right before their eyes.
For the Grants, evolution isn’t a theoretical abstraction. It’s gritty and real and immediate and stunningly fast. To witness evolution, they needed cameras, measuring instruments, computer databases, and advanced laboratory techniques for genetic analysis. Most of all, they needed to be there in person in the field, on the ground, enduring baking days and sweltering nights, cooking in a cave, sleeping in tents, and somehow sustaining themselves on a tiny island in the Galpagos that any reasonable person would declare to be uninhabitable.
Here’s what happened: In 1981, at a point in their research when they literally knew every finch on the island, a new bird arrived a large one, 28 grams. The interloper, labeled 5110 (every bird gets a number), likely came from Santa Cruz, a large island visible from Daphne. It looked a lot like a fortis, but also like a scandens. Genetic analysis showed 5110 to be a cross between a fortis and a fortis-scandens hybrid. They called it the Big Bird.
The Big Bird had a unique song and, when mature, shiny black plumage that was different from the indigenous Daphne birds. It also was extremely fit in the Darwinian sense and promiscuous, surviving another 13 years and mating with six females, producing 18 offspring. It mated with several fortis-fortis-scandens hybrids, then with fortis females, and began a new line of Big Birds that sang the song of the original immigrant.
Much more in the article.
Note that bird song is part of mate attraction, and thus a different song can lead to genetic isolation and a new species.
Their research is known for demonstrating natural selection from the 1980's drought, but that it hadn't reached speciation levels. It seems that this is closer, but still not definitive.

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Message 2 of 131 (725622)
04-29-2014 3:58 PM


Thread Moved from Proposed New Topics Forum
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Omnivorous
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Message 3 of 131 (725623)
04-29-2014 4:22 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by RAZD
04-29-2014 1:55 PM


I've admired the Grants since reading The Beak of the Finch in 1994.
I recall thinking about how soundly they had thrashed evolution deniers. Their data were so detailed, so right now: they captured clearly the kind of change in species that defines evolution.
That was naive, of course. I see at the bottom of the first page of your linked story (second comment) that someone posted material from the ICR which hand-waves away the work of 40 years with a few hundred words: more micro-but-not-macro nonsense, basically, because magic.
I recall thinking back in 1994 that the Grants didn't sound like quitters, and I suspected they'd stay. They look radiantly happy in the photos. Loving the truth will do that for you.

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."

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Taq
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(3)
Message 4 of 131 (725624)
04-29-2014 4:58 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by Omnivorous
04-29-2014 4:22 PM


I've admired the Grants since reading The Beak of the Finch in 1994.
We were assigned that book in my Senior Seminar at university (not long after that 1994 date). I really enjoyed it as well. What was so amazing is that they could follow every individual in an entire breeding population. I remember reading that they could use year to year changes in specific beak features to predict what that years rainfall was like.
Like you said, ICR has no option but to poop on good science, but what do you expect?

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Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3973
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 6.9


(1)
Message 5 of 131 (725632)
04-29-2014 6:24 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by Taq
04-29-2014 4:58 PM


Taq writes:
Like you said, ICR has no option but to poop on good science, but what do you expect?
I know, I know...but their work was so magnificent. And when I thought no rational person could deny its rigor and their findings, I was right.
I hope I never lose the ability to be astonished by willful ignorance and intellectual dishonesty. If and when that day comes, they will have succeeded in doing something to me that I don't want done.

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1435 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 6 of 131 (725636)
04-29-2014 11:11 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by RAZD
04-29-2014 1:55 PM


Sorry, this is only microevolution
I see somebody has already complained about an opinion given by ICR of this couple's work as not about evolution at all, but of course it isn't about evolution. Their work could have been done under the banner of Creationism just as well because it contributes absolutely zip to the ToE except the usual buttressing of the strange misconceptions people have.
Watching Evolution in action. Oh give us a break. You CAN'T observe evolution in the macro sense, all you can observe is the ordinary known variations of microevolution. There isn't even anything particularly special about the case of Big Bird, he's just a particularly hardy hybrid for pete's sake. Big Bird is an interesting fellow but he proves nothing about the ToE.
This is of course all about microevolution, known ways that animals change over time within their own genome. Adaptation, natural selection, are all occurrences within the built in range of the genetic potentials of the Species. There is absolutely nothing in any of this that supports the ToE. This kind of variation accomplishes the same thing in Nature as is accomplished domestically in breeding.
This ordinary fact of genetic variation is ALL Darwin observed, he mentally added macroevolution and claimed all these naturally occurring processes for his theory, but not one thing he ever observed supported anything more than microevolution. His different finches express only the various possibilities built into the finch genome and brought out under different circumstances. Sometimes this is the result of natural selection no doubt, by which a certain kind of food in the environment forces an appropriate new sort of beak to be selected in the population -- out of the built in range of possibilities in the genome. But really all it would usually take is the geographic isolation of small numbers from the overall population. This alone can bring about a change in a feature such as beak type over a few generations of inbreeding, and that change makes them gravitate to the sort of food that suits their beak type; there may also be selection factors involved but they don't have to be to any great extent. But it doesn't matter, whether selection is involved or not this is all about normal microevolution and says nothing about macroevolution.
This couple's work sounds quite heroic and meticulous in many ways, however, and should not be denigrated in itself, but it should be clearly criticized for claiming to be any kind of support for the ToE.
ABE: Oh yes, and since the usual inane question will surely come up, "What keeps microevolution from going on to be macroevolution?" and even "What is a Kind?" First I'd say just stick to the observed facts, there is no evidence for anything beyond ordinary known microevolution. But second I HAVE argued at great length that wherever you have genetic changes occurring and creating new breeds or races you also have a reduction in genetic potential to keep on changing. This is intuitively obvious if you just think about it.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by RAZD, posted 04-29-2014 1:55 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 7 by Omnivorous, posted 04-30-2014 12:00 AM Faith has replied
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Omnivorous
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Posts: 3973
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 6.9


(6)
Message 7 of 131 (725641)
04-30-2014 12:00 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by Faith
04-29-2014 11:11 PM


Re: Sorry, this is only microevolution
Hi, Faith. I'm going to violate my longstanding resolve not to respond to your posts (call it my penance for past sins).
I appreciate your effort not to denigrate the Grants' work.
But that distinction that you make to divorce small changes over short times from big changes over long times?
You make that distinction to preserve your belief in magic.
Without a young earth, the very notion of which flies in the face of everything we see; without invisible barriers to the accumulation of change, barriers found nowhere else, your beliefs would flounder. Within the realm of your own beliefs, you have (quite logically) deduced what science you must deny; that, and nothing else, determines what science you do deny.
But the entire body of science, not just evolutionary biology and geology, contradicts your beliefs: the age of the universe, the sufficiency of natural explanations wherever we look...the science that gave us flight and long lives is exactly the same science that determined evolution is a fact. If you were to examine other areas of research in any depth, you'd soon find more, much more, that you needed to deny.
The Grants set out to see what is really happening, just wanting to know the truth. Perhaps you set out that way once.
They succeeded.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nothing personal. Hope all is well with you and yours.

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by Faith, posted 04-29-2014 11:11 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1435 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 8 of 131 (725644)
04-30-2014 12:49 AM
Reply to: Message 7 by Omnivorous
04-30-2014 12:00 AM


You can't get evolution beyond microevolution
But that distinction that you make to divorce small changes over short times from big changes over long times?
You make that distinction to preserve your belief in magic.
Actually I make it on the basis of hard-thought-out observation and reasoning. It will of course always be the refuge of choice for my opponents to accuse me of magical thinking, but clearly you don't know what the term means. It is far more accurately applied to the ToE which is pure imagination.
Without a young earth, the very notion of which flies in the face of everything we see;
It' flies in the face of your PREJUDICE and your assumptions, not what you "see." I too once believed in billions of years. It was a shock to consider that could be wrong. When I saw that the young earth was probably right I had a really good laugh.
without invisible barriers to the accumulation of change, barriers found nowhere else, your beliefs would flounder.
"Invisible barriers?" Think again. What I said was that the only evidence is for the normal variations within a Species, and there is no evidence whatever for any variation beyond that. That's an actual fact. You start piling on the imaginative castlebuilding when you go beyond that actual observed fact,. HOWEVER, those "invisible barriers" are something even you with your hardened prejudice MIGHT be able to recognize IF you'd just stop for half a second and consider it honestly. When you create a new breed by limiting the numbers of individuals what you are doing is limiting their genetic potentials; that's how you keep unwanted features from getting in to your breed. This is a process of elijminating genetic potentials and reducing genetic diversity. This HAS to happen for new breeds to develop, or for new races in the wild to develop; it's a law of genetics if you will. So every new race or breed has a new limited collection of genetic possibilities by comparison with the Species at large. This is what microevolution IS at the genetic level. If you give it a little thought you might recognize that this means that wherever this microevolution develops a new breed or race, whether it's one of Darwin's finches or one of his specialized pigeons or his famous Galapagos turtles, they all possess their own necessarily limited genetic potentials. They HAVE to because "gene flow" or the reintroduction of genes for OTHER characteristics than those of the breed or race would mean you don't have that breed or race. It doesn't have to be a very large reduction but there must be a reduction. Getting a breed or race requires this limitation. The very reasonable conclusion I draw from this observation is that evolution itself is a process of limiting genetic diversity, and that being the case, if a particular race or breed keeps splitting further and further it MUST ultimately reach a point where there is no more genetic variability possible. THAT is the end of the line for evolution, and I propose that it is the functional definition of the boundary of the Kind beyond which no further vsariation is possible. Just THINK about this for a while. I've been thinking about it for years so you are at a disadvantage but I'm sure your superior mental abilities can overcome the handicap with a little work.
Within the realm of your own beliefs, you have (quite logically) deduced what science you must deny; that, and nothing else, determines what science you do deny.
I'd really appreciate it if you would cease and desist from making up stuff about how my mind works. You are wrong and it only serves to muddy the discussion, giving you a childish excuse to dismiss anything I have to say. If I take my beliefs as my starting point I nevertheless find that I am led to true observations and facts. You on the other hand with your prejudice against any sort of belief as any kind of starting point, are blind to the actual observations that support what I argue here. Try removing the log from YOUR eye first, you might see better.
But the entire body of science, not just evolutionary biology and geology, contradicts your beliefs: the age of the universe, the sufficiency of natural explanations wherever we look...the science that gave us flight and long lives is exactly the same science that determined evolution is a fact. If you were to examine other areas of research in any depth, you'd soon find more, much more, that you needed to deny.
Just another declaration of the Creed. I have disputed this generalization adequately many times and won't mess up this thread with more of it until it becomes necessary due to the ingrained blindness of my opponents.
The Grants set out to see what is really happening, just wanting to know the truth.
And I'm sure because they are assiduous workers that they found a lot of truth, but it has nothing to do with the ToE. It could just as easily, as I said, have been done in support of Creationism.
Perhaps you set out that way once.
They succeeded.
Perhaps you need to be slapped upside the face.
To wake you up to reality if nothing else.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Replies to this message:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 275 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 9 of 131 (725649)
04-30-2014 1:34 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by Faith
04-30-2014 12:49 AM


Re: You can't get evolution beyond microevolution
Hey, Faith, you remember how you were proved completely wrong about genetics?
I hardly see any point in you making the same mistakes again. Not in front of the same audience. It was funny the first time, now it's just boring.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by Faith, posted 04-30-2014 12:49 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 10 by Faith, posted 04-30-2014 3:24 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1435 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 10 of 131 (725655)
04-30-2014 3:24 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by Dr Adequate
04-30-2014 1:34 AM


Re: You can't get evolution beyond microevolution
Hey, Faith, you remember how you were proved completely wrong about genetics?
I hardly see any point in you making the same mistakes again. Not in front of the same audience. It was funny the first time, now it's just boring.
If it's boring then don't read it. And nothing's been proved against this argument, that's just your typical fallacious tactic of "poisoning the well," which is really quite underhanded of you. Basically it's lying.
You have nothing to say anyway, and should be given another twelve hours for a contentless post like this one, one of that 98% of your worthless productions that are against the rules of EvC, or indeed of reasonable discourse at all.
The reasoning I laid out in that post holds up and perhaps others will be able to follow it although you are unable to. To that end I will copy that paragraph here. I urge you to ignore it.
ABE: OR, if you are going to answer, then please give a very very brief statement of what you think proves me wrong. A sentence or two. Or link the particular post where this argument was supposedly defeated. Because there have been all sorts of strange winding paths this argument has been dragged down, all sorts of misreadings and the like, but I remember nothing that could be called proving it wrong. /ABE
What I said was that the only evidence is for the normal variations within a Species, and there is no evidence whatever for any variation beyond that. That's an actual fact. You start piling on the imaginative castlebuilding when you go beyond that actual observed fact,. HOWEVER, those "invisible barriers" are something even you with your hardened prejudice MIGHT be able to recognize IF you'd just stop for half a second and consider it honestly. When you create a new breed by limiting the numbers of individuals what you are doing is limiting their genetic potentials; that's how you keep unwanted features from getting in to your breed. This is a process of elijminating genetic potentials and reducing genetic diversity. This HAS to happen for new breeds to develop, or for new races in the wild to develop; it's a law of genetics if you will. So every new race or breed has a new limited collection of genetic possibilities by comparison with the Species at large. This is what microevolution IS at the genetic level. If you give it a little thought you might recognize that this means that wherever this microevolution develops a new breed or race, whether it's one of Darwin's finches or one of his specialized pigeons or his famous Galapagos turtles, they all possess their own necessarily limited genetic potentials. They HAVE to because "gene flow" or the reintroduction of genes for OTHER characteristics than those of the breed or race would mean you don't have that breed or race. It doesn't have to be a very large reduction but there must be a reduction. Getting a breed or race requires this limitation. The very reasonable conclusion I draw from this observation is that evolution itself is a process of limiting genetic diversity, and that being the case, if a particular race or breed keeps splitting further and further it MUST ultimately reach a point where there is no more genetic variability possible. THAT is the end of the line for evolution, and I propose that it is the functional definition of the boundary of the Kind beyond which no further vsariation is possible. Just THINK about this for a while. I've been thinking about it for years so you are at a disadvantage but I'm sure your superior mental abilities can overcome the handicap with a little work.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 9 by Dr Adequate, posted 04-30-2014 1:34 AM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
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Omnivorous
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Posts: 3973
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 6.9


(4)
Message 11 of 131 (725662)
04-30-2014 7:06 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by Faith
04-30-2014 12:49 AM


Re: You can't get evolution beyond microevolution
Your thoughts on genetic reduction as the engine of evolution are bizarre. The development of new breeds of dog (since you chose the breeding analogy) increases that species genetic variability: the mating of two dogs could produce anything from a pocket rocket pooch to a man-killing mastiff. How do you explain that with a reducing mechanism? Even once the species boundary is crossed, and the two species can no longer interbreed, the parent species remains. How does 1 + 1 = less than 1?
Also note that animal (and plant) breeders watch closely for new valuable traits and try to preserve them. Mutation--another demonstrable phenomenon you must deny--provides them.
You claim to have approached the data with open eyes, but your ideas fail to cohere at even the commonsense level. You turn your back on matters firmly established; you spin unevidenced could-bes to fill gaps in your own position and call it thinking.
Faith writes:
Perhaps you need to be slapped upside the face.
To wake you up to reality if nothing else.
If a slap in the face would give me a greater apprehension of reality, I'd take it and like it. To see more clearly, to understand more deeply: that is my "creed".
If a slap in the face would give you a greater apprehension of reality, you'd contort every muscle in your feisty little noggin to avoid it. To see what you want to see, to understand nothing that contradicts it: that is your "creed".
Faith writes:
I'd really appreciate it if you would cease and desist from making up stuff about how my mind works.
Says the lady who calls everyone who disagrees with her deluded.

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by Faith, posted 04-30-2014 12:49 AM Faith has replied

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1395 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


(4)
Message 12 of 131 (725666)
04-30-2014 10:04 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by Faith
04-29-2014 11:11 PM


Only Evolution
I see somebody has already complained about an opinion given by ICR of this couple's work as not about evolution at all, but of course it isn't about evolution. Their work could have been done under the banner of Creationism just as well because it contributes absolutely zip to the ToE except the usual buttressing of the strange misconceptions people have.
Curiously, I note that they said evolution rather than the ToE.
The process of evolution involves changes in the composition of hereditary traits, and changes to the frequency of their distributions within breeding populations from generation to generation, in response to ecological challenges and opportunities.
This is sometimes called microevolution, however this is the process through which all species evolve and all evolution occurs at the breeding population level.
Watching Evolution in action. Oh give us a break. You CAN'T observe evolution in the macro sense, all you can observe is the ordinary known variations of microevolution. There isn't even anything particularly special about the case of Big Bird, he's just a particularly hardy hybrid for pete's sake. Big Bird is an interesting fellow but he proves nothing about the ToE.
Again, I note that they talked about evolution rather than the ToE, and didn't mention "macroevolution" that I could see.
The process of evolution involves changes in the composition of hereditary traits, and changes to the frequency of their distributions within breeding populations from generation to generation, in response to ecological challenges and opportunities.
Amazingly that is precisely what they observed, over several generations, so indeed the were "watching evolution in action" during their 40 year collection of data. Just like Jane Goodall did with the chimps they identified each individual member of each of the birds species and could tell them individually apart. They also used genetics to trace the changes in hereditary traits from generation to generation, and that is how they KNOW that "big-bird" is a fortis-scandens hybrid.
They are careful (scientific tentativity) to refrain from claiming that speciation has occurred, because full reproductive isolation has not yet been confirmed, but it is rather obviously in process. There is difference in mating song and there appears to be a growing division between the older fortis species population and the "big-bird" descendants, fortis-fortis-scandens hybrids.
This is of course all about microevolution, known ways that animals change over time within their own genome. Adaptation, natural selection, are all occurrences within the built in range of the genetic potentials of the Species. There is absolutely nothing in any of this that supports the ToE. This kind of variation accomplishes the same thing in Nature as is accomplished domestically in breeding.
Again, I note that this article is about evolution rather than the ToE.
Perhaps that is why the article is about seeing evolution rather than seeing the ToE ...
This ordinary fact of genetic variation is ALL Darwin observed, he mentally added macroevolution and claimed all these naturally occurring processes for his theory, but not one thing he ever observed supported anything more than microevolution. His different finches express only the various possibilities built into the finch genome and brought out under different circumstances. Sometimes this is the result of natural selection no doubt, by which a certain kind of food in the environment forces an appropriate new sort of beak to be selected in the population -- out of the built in range of possibilities in the genome. But really all it would usually take is the geographic isolation of small numbers from the overall population. This alone can bring about a change in a feature such as beak type over a few generations of inbreeding, and that change makes them gravitate to the sort of food that suits their beak type; there may also be selection factors involved but they don't have to be to any great extent. But it doesn't matter, whether selection is involved or not this is all about normal microevolution and says nothing about macroevolution.
Darwin's observation (and Wallace's as well) was that evolution can result in new species being formed and Darwin's insight (and Wallace's as well) was that this was sufficient to explain the diversity of life seen in the fossil record and alive today.
Curiously, Faith, it does matter very much that selection is involved. Selection is half of the mechanism of evolution, it is a two-step feedback response system that is repeated in each generation:
Like walking on first one foot and then the next. Selection is the part of evolution that is responsible for the division of a parent species into reproductively isolated daughter populations, a process that is underway with the fortis-fortis-scandens hybrids being larger birds, larger beaks and different mating songs than the fortis population. Choosing mates depending on mating songs will allow sympatric speciation to proceed to develop reproductive isolation while occupying the same geological area.
If we looked at each branch linearly, while ignoring the sister population, they would show phyletic change in species (accumulation of evolutionary changes over many generations), and this shows that the same basic processes of evolution within breeding populations are involved in each branch.
So, without reproductive isolation being reached, we are in the process of observing a potential speciation event. This indeed is very much evolution in action being observed and documented by the Grants.
This couple's work sounds quite heroic and meticulous in many ways, however, and should not be denigrated in itself, but it should be clearly criticized for claiming to be any kind of support for the ToE.
Seeing as they don't claim it is support for the ToE, your continued obsession with this is rather curious. It's like complaining that observing the sunset every day should be criticized for claiming to support the theory of gravity ...
ABE: Oh yes, and since the usual inane question will surely come up, "What keeps microevolution from going on to be macroevolution?" and even "What is a Kind?" First I'd say just stick to the observed facts, there is no evidence for anything beyond ordinary known microevolution. ...
And a good thing too, because the observed facts are that evolution, with speciation, is sufficient to explain the diversity of life seen in the fossil record and in life today. Evolution can lead to speciation events where new species evolve, just as the Grants are observing and documenting in the Galapagos. Evolution with speciation results in nested hierarchies (as we have previously discussed):
"Reproduction after their own kind" is just another way of saying "clade" as far as I can see ... and thus the only significant difference - imho - between evolution thought and creationist conjecturing is how far back one dares to look for the original breeding populations for the clades of life we see in the fossil record and in life today.
The process of forming a nested hierarchy by descent of new species from common ancestor populations, via the combination of phyletic change in species and divergent speciation, and resulting in an increase in the diversity of life, is sometimes called macroevolution. This is often confusing, because there is no additional mechanism of evolution involved, rather this is just the result of looking at evolution over many generations and different ecologies.
Thus if "evidence for anything beyond ordinary known microevolution" were found it would be contrary to the scientific thinking on evolution and the ToE. There is a difference in quantity\degree of evolution between "micro" and "macro" (as the terms are used by biological scientists), but not a difference in quality\sort of evolution (as many creationists mistakenly believe).
Of course, the continued failure to see some process other than evolution does support the ToE ... just like the failure to observe something other than a sunset does support the theory of gravity.
The Theory of Evolution (ToE), stated in simple terms, is that the process of evolution over generations, and the process of divergent speciation, are sufficient to explain the diversity of life as we know it, from the fossil record, from the genetic record, from the historic record, and from everyday record of the life we observe in the world all around us.
We observe evolution occurring every day in living species, and what we are observing is the ongoing process of both "micro" and "macro" evolution -- because it is the same process. That this is occurring, today, is now well documented by the Grants in the case of the finches ... just another strong assembly of observational and genetic evidence added to the volumes of evidence already accumulated.
... But second I HAVE argued at great length that wherever you have genetic changes occurring and creating new breeds or races you also have a reduction in genetic potential to keep on changing. This is intuitively obvious if you just think about it.
Of course, dear Faith, we all know about your obsessive denial of the increase in genetic diversity that occurs. Sadly, for you, that does not invalidate the rather overwhelming evidence that this has occurred and will continue to occur. Your opinion, like any other opinion, is woefully inadequate at affecting reality.
Perhaps you could tell us what genetic reduction occurred or is occurring with these finches ...

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by Faith, posted 04-29-2014 11:11 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by Faith, posted 05-01-2014 6:07 AM RAZD has replied

  
Tanypteryx
Member
Posts: 4320
From: Oregon, USA
Joined: 08-27-2006
Member Rating: 5.4


(2)
Message 13 of 131 (725668)
04-30-2014 10:44 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by RAZD
04-29-2014 1:55 PM


Thanks for posting this story RAZD.
I have been reading about the Grants for many years and really admire their work.
Their work will stand as a shining example for future generations of field biologists.
Observing evolution, generation after generation, two lives truly well lived.

What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by RAZD, posted 04-29-2014 1:55 PM RAZD has seen this message but not replied

  
Taq
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Posts: 9944
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 4.8


(3)
Message 14 of 131 (725687)
04-30-2014 2:01 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by Faith
04-30-2014 12:49 AM


Re: You can't get evolution beyond microevolution
This is a process of elijminating genetic potentials and reducing genetic diversity.
All the while ignoring the fact that random mutation produces new genetic potentials and increases genetic diversity.
We've already seen your little song and dance.
Just THINK about this for a while. I've been thinking about it for years so you are at a disadvantage but I'm sure your superior mental abilities can overcome the handicap with a little work.
Just think about how each new offspring is born with mutations that increase genetic diversity. Just think about how a lack of interbreeding between populations will cause different mutations to accumulate in each population, resulting in divergence over time.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by Faith, posted 04-30-2014 12:49 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 15 by Faith, posted 04-30-2014 3:13 PM Taq has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1435 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 15 of 131 (725689)
04-30-2014 3:13 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by Taq
04-30-2014 2:01 PM


Re: You can't get evolution beyond microevolution
This is a process of elijminating genetic potentials and reducing genetic diversity.
All the while ignoring the fact that random mutation produces new genetic potentials and increases genetic diversity.
As what I wrote makes extremely clear, you do not get new races or breeds EXCEPT by reducing genetic diversity, meaning you do not get evolution at all; so if you DO have some process that increases it you are not getting evolution. The point is that you MUST have a loss of genetic diversity to get the kind of change that is called evolution. You keep wanting to add diversity into the formula for evolution, which only destroys the process of evolution. Obviously there is no increase in genetic diversity wherever you are getting new varieties or races. You wouldn't want it in domestic breeding and evolution won't happen if it occurs in nature either.
We've already seen your little song and dance.
And never understood it.
Just THINK about this for a while. I've been thinking about it for years so you are at a disadvantage but I'm sure your superior mental abilities can overcome the handicap with a little work.
Just think about how each new offspring is born with mutations that increase genetic diversity. Just think about how a lack of interbreeding between populations will cause different mutations to accumulate in each population, resulting in divergence over time.
It doesn't happen that way. Mutations or any kind of increase in genetic diversity, any kind of gene flow, interferes with the processes that bring about evolution. These require a reduction in genetic diversity to happen at all, as I very clearly explained in that little paragraph. I don't know what is happening with the mutations that do occur, but they cannot add diversity where there is evolution going on or evolution will simply not go on. As I clearly explained. To get a new race with its own phenotypic portrait as it were you have to eliminate the genetic material that interferes with the traits for that phenotypic portrait. Nature didn't produce the clearcut species we see today by mutation or anything that adds genetic diversity, but only by reduction of genetic diversity, that's the way it happens.
ABE: what you would get by the processes you describe would not be evolution of a new species but simply an increase in phenotypic variety within a population. But evolution is the selection of particular traits to get a recognizably new species, that's what microevolution is, that's what breeding is, and it has to be what the formation of new species in the wild is also. If by increasing genetic diversity you get your variegated population, if evolution is going to happen in that Species there will have to be an isolation of just part of that population, and that part will have a reduced genetic diversity all its own so that its own characteristic traits can emerge.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 14 by Taq, posted 04-30-2014 2:01 PM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 16 by Taq, posted 04-30-2014 3:52 PM Faith has replied

  
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