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Author Topic:   Best Evidence Macro-Evolution
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


(2)
Message 84 of 164 (654600)
03-02-2012 10:45 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by idscience
03-01-2012 5:17 PM


macroevolution is the only explanation
Okay, so the animals are evolving. There's no questioning that. But gross morphological change takes many, many, generations. You cannot point to something and say: "See this right here, this is macroevolution". We're going to have to infer it.
Now, when we look back at the fossil record, we see snapshots of various species. When we see a string of similiar species with minor changes between them showing gross morphological change over many multiple species, we can infer that macroevolution has happened. We have the mechanism that through mutation and selection, minor changes are made to the populations of the one species, and they build up until the species gradually looks like something completely different. Shrink a leg here, flatten an arm there, yadda yadda, you can mould one form into another with a whole bunch of very minor changes. Whales is a good example:
Or horses:
So we have one explanation here, that the later species evolved from the earlier ones.
How else do you propse that those species got there? We have no other mechanism for the emergence? Just saying: "It could have been common design" doesn't help us at all. It could have been god poofing them into existence too, but we don't have any reason to suspect that it was. With evolution, we do have an explantion, and it works. So where else could Rodhocetus come from if not a previous common ancestor with Dalanistes? I mean, how else do you get an animal here besides from another animal giving birth to it? If the animal has to come from a previous animal, then obviously macroevolution is a necessity.
Further, take the nested hierarchy. There isn't one single example of a species that falls outside of the nested hierarchy. Once you get backbones, everything derived from that has backbones and nothing else above it does. Today, there isn't a single animal outside of birds that has feathers. One explanation is that they stem from a common ancestor. Once feathers emerged, and we have examples of the stages of that emergence that look like this:
Once they emerged, all the bird species that come after that have some variation of the feather, and no species outside of birds have any feather at all. So how would that happen except for common ancestry? You can say: "it could have been common design" but again, that doesn't help us explain everything. HOW could it have been common design? How would that work at all? How would every bird have feathers and no non-birds have any feathers by design? Why not give the flying squirrel some feathers so he could fly better? The evolutionary explanation, that the flying squirrel is a mammal and not a bird so it could never have feathers, makes perfect sense but a designed explanation does not.
For me, that's the best evidence of macroevolution. The nested hierarchy, a working explanation from evolution, and no single example of anything that falls outside of either. Too, we have no other idea how animals can get here besides from other animals. Simply: Macroevolution works as an explanation and nothing falsifies it. Too, there is no other helpful explantion to compete with it. As it sits, from the evidence, macroevolution is the only thing we can infer.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by idscience, posted 03-01-2012 5:17 PM idscience has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 103 by idscience, posted 03-02-2012 4:50 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


(5)
Message 106 of 164 (654662)
03-02-2012 5:04 PM
Reply to: Message 103 by idscience
03-02-2012 4:50 PM


Re: macroevolution is the only explanation
That is my point, inference, guess, speculation, conjecture.
Well that's science for you... but the cool part is that it works! I mean, it put a freakin' man on the moon!
I'm pretty sure we can trust it with something as simple as the origin of species. Unless, of course, you have another method of investigation that works better? Or a different model and mechanism here for what we are discussing? I haven't seen it yet.
Until then, macroevolution is the only answer we've got.
There it is again infer.
You say that like its a bad thing... all of science is from inference, so what?
That's just the way it works, and it works great, dontcha think? I mean, here we are communicating over vast distances instantly via computers that science gave us. Why the sudden lack of trust when it comes to the origin of species?
I am not arguing that variations can effect species. The problem is the extrapolation to those changes will over billions of years turn a dinosaur into a bird, or, what ever you think that horse came from into the horse.
But that's what the evidence suggests. That's what science concludes. That's just the way this world is. Why do you say that's a "problem"?
The fossil record has its tree, molecular biology has their tree/trees. When DNA is followed it points to one tree, when RNA is followed it points gives a different picture.
All those trees are exactly identical.
I sure would like a response to the photoreceptor and flagellum.
They evolved just like everything else. How else (read: by what mechanism) could they have come about? Any ideas?
ABE: (added by edit)
From Message 105
I am interested in how it {macroevolution} occurs?
It occurs via the same mechanism as microevolution: Random Mutation + Natural Selection
Seriously. Its that simple.
Edited by Catholic Scientist, : see ABE

This message is a reply to:
 Message 103 by idscience, posted 03-02-2012 4:50 PM idscience has not replied

  
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