Thanks for attempting to answer my question:
Coyote writes:
To those who accept microevolution but rebel in horror at macroevolution, here is a question. I have asked this a number of times, but have yet to receive a suitable answer.
What mechanism prevents a lot of little micros from adding up, over time, to a macro? And how does this mechanism know when to stop the little micros from occurring, lest they add up to that macro.
How do it know?
Analysis:
That's a really good question. I will try to dress my answer up nicely so that you might think it is "suitable".
The answer lay in the concept of genetic capacity. There is a limit to any genome. Now science is very young here, but you will see this term used widely in the literature. It always reflects a limit within the genome.
And that limit doesn't apply when there are mutations. A mutation can change the status quo.
For instance, in dog evolution, you can get a great dane, but you cannot get a dog the size of brontasaurus. The same applies in the opposite direction, you cannot get a dog the size of an ant. There is a limit on size as well as just about every other feature of the dog.
Not so. Going back into the fossil record you can see that with sufficient micros the changes go up to that "boundary" and charge charge right on past it. That is all the little the micros adding up to a macro.
You can breed cows to produce more milk, but there is a limit to how much milk any cow can produce.
But with enough time and selection pressure you could breed something other than a cow.
Now to have evolution in the first place you need mutations, drift, and selection. In every documented case of a "beneficial" mutation the genetic capacity for the benefit is existant in the population. That means that if that beneficial trait is selected then certain other traits are lost in the non beneficial populations. Over time, genetic capacity is diminished and not increased.
Not so. Mutations can produce new capacities! Remember the recent
E. coli study where the little critters, through several micros, evolved the ability to eat another food in their environment? That was a new capacity! It was not present in the original population. It took either two or three separate mutations (micros) but added up to a new beneficial mutation. And because that species was defined on the basis of its diet, it formed a new species in doing so. "Genetic capacity" was increased, not decreased.
We see the gentic capacity of certain traits selected from a population, but we never see the genetic capacity of the entire genome increased. That is what is needed to produce the type of evolution from bacteria to man. Simple genetic capacities increasing over time. But we do not see this in nature. What we see in nature is degradation and stasis. We don't see the gradual increasing of genetic capacities. But we do see big imaginations.
Not so. We do see "genetic capacity" change or even increase. Your ideas of "degradation and stasis" are probably influenced by the concept of "the fall" but have no reality in biology and genetics. Another example: the mutation(s) that allowed for lighter colored skin among early Europeans. That allowed people to move farther north, as with lighter skin the body produced more vitamin D from the weaker northern sunlight. That is an example of a new trait, an increased capacity, and something that was not there originally.
But you have been sidetracked from the original question. What is the
mechanism that prevents those micros from adding up to a macro?
You presented several tentative answers, but they neither addressed the main question nor were they correct.
Your primary claim was that there is a "genetic capacity" which limits differentiation, but evidence shows that this is not the case.
I consider that you have not suitably answered the question of a
mechanism preventing macroevolution.
Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
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