Hypermacroevolution? Hypermicroevolution

Nice to see you working on the problem. As I recall, "body plan" first came up in relation to the genetics involved in variation, the claim being that we see every kind of variation in elements such as -- well, maybe we could call them "adornments" -- word just popped into my head -- but not in body plan.Adornments -- hair, fur, color, skin, size, shortening, lengthening or elongating, (even some personality traits I suppose) and that sort of thing: All that varies and may vary enormously, while the basic body plan remains recognizable no matter how it gets pushed and pulled and stretched and so on. This basic unevolvable thing we're calling "body plan" is a matter of how the creature both looks and behaves I think.This would have to be worked out through a lot of examples and tests of course.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

right, becuase we have some immediate problems.one is cattle and pig. they both have the same basic body plan--four legs, hooves on each one, a head, tail, backbone. They have a brain, stomach (the cow's is just in four parts, not actually four different stomachs), liver, bladder, lungs, etc.here's another problem--how different is a hoove to a nail? Unless I'm mistaken, they aren't that different. so perhaps the best thing to do would be to drop body plan from definition of kind.you would agree that horses, cattle, and pig are each their own kind, no? what part of each's body plan is different enough to give them their own, unique, body plan?I don't know how to separate their body plans--they look enough alike to me. Maybe you or mjfloresta have some ideas on this?

---

All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

This is what we are trying to define. Yes, this is the problem. But you have no problem telling them apart, do you? This is what I mean by how it's an intuitive thing. None of us has a problem telling a pig from a cow from a horse. Whatever the defining characteristics are that make it possible to categorize them as easily as we all do is what we're looking for. It's worth spending some time on I think.But also, again, MJ didn't propose body plan in this sense anyway; but as the genetic barrier that separates Kinds from each other that he figures will eventually be recognized in the genome.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

problem is, we need the definitions here and now, and the criteria here and now. we can't wait for something that may come ten or twenty, or never, years into the future.In Linneus' classification, pigs and cows are bovines--they would be of the same kind. (I think there both bovines--has to deal with organ setup, somehow)horses are ungulates, related to tapirs and rhinos. But, intuitively, you would want to put them each into their own kind, by body plan.so I would advise dropping body plan from the kind class. Without being to make in objective, which, if mjfloresta is right, won't happen for some time, we'll have to stick with being able to interbreed and produce offspring.which means some scientists are gonna have to get messy and unethical.
ironic, ain't it--the protectors of morality (in your alls eyes) having to resort to unethical procedures.

---

All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

I'd like to play with the body plan idea for a while still, but it doesn't have to take up this thread.Would it be possible to interbreed a cow and a pig? I'm sure that if we work at it we can make a start toward saying why we know they aren't the same Kind based on mere observation of body plan.What Linnaeus' system has simply can't be taken as our reference point except in the loosest possible sense.About interbreeding simians and homo sapiens, I would guess that probably somebody somewhere has already tried it.About the criterion of interbreeding and producing offspring, I want to keep the caveat on the table that even within the Kind there will probably be types that this is impossible for, because of their greater genetic separation from each other, loss of genetic information in the former processes of differentiation or speciation. At this point some other criterion has to enter. But I'm also aware that as soon as we allow this exception, it can become the basis for objecting that even if you can't interbreed simians with people that's no proof they aren't related. More stuff to think about.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

throw out genetic deterioration with the kind idea. I know you link it to the fall, and, unfortnuately for you, the fall is a biblical idea, and would be very difficult to prove.Especially since genetics, without ToE, does not show a deterioration of genetic variation. It's just one more subjective critiria that needs to be thrown out.here's why? Kind is from the bible, and we're finally getting an objective definition, but in genesis, we have "and the cattle according to thier kinds", "beasts of the earth according to thier kinds". So we have one animal, cattle, that has several kinds within it.your frog example--that there might be some frogs incapable of interbreeding with other frogs, would fall into the cattle example. Make them two separate kinds.That gives us a concrete, objective definiton to work with, no?kind--a group of organisms sharing a common ancestor due to the ability to interbreed with each other.

---

All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

Well, Kind is a Biblical idea too. We're committed to finding evidence for all these things. We don't need to prove the Fall as such, but genetic deterioration ought eventually to be provable. Oh I disagree. I see this deterioration the same way I see the body plan. It's just a matter of finding the evidence and the definitions that bring it out for others. Well, buffalo, yaks etc? Depends on what the word means in the Biblical context. Perhaps it's broad enough to include camels and sheep. I'd have to study it more. But yes, the Biblical terms are ambiguous. All we know for sure is that different kinds that are still identifiable is where it all started. It didn't start with single-celled creatures in the primordial soup. We are trying to work from genetics. Nope. A frog is a frog. I'm talking about speciation, a frog that developed from a parent population with the inability to interbreed with it. We know it's the same kind for that reason. Taxonomically it's either a frog or it's unclassifiable due to inability to get precise enough definitions. No. Sorry, we have to hold to the creationist premises through all of this. That's our job. Sounds like a candidate for what we're looking for, but we do have to retain that caveat or exception.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Faith writes: Again with 'evolutionist definitions'? You have been shown this characterization is not right. Still you say it. Well, if analyzing motives is the project: Your remarks about harassment are all in the service of feeling martyred, I would suppose.Demanding greater precision is fair game. For your definition to qualify as science it has to be precise--precise enough to be usable, precise enough to meet new situations.The people who raise legitimate questions now are showing you the questions a valid definition has to answer sooner or later. This is useful information, whether you welcome that information or not.You don't have to answer every question right away. But it would be foolish to ignore any. This is news you can use.Talk to any scientist who has been through the peer review process. You feel harassed and discouraged here? No points are awarded in peer review for pure motives. None are deduced for impure ones. Your work holds up or it doesn't. Professional scientists will tell you not much credit is awarded in their field for 'starting to define' anything. Put out a body of work that makes people rush to the lab to replicate your findings. Then you will know acknowledgment. Put out a body of work that can be replicated, and you will know appreciation.Until then, the absence of warm fuzzies seems fair enough. You don't acknowledge the value of the real information people give you. See what I mean?Edited by Archer Opterix, : Reworked sentence.

---

ArcherAll species are transitional.

and if it never is?
we use it as part of the defintion, and then we're stuck with something subjective. that's what I want to try to avoid.as to the cattle, buffalo, yak, etc.
I was trying to make the point that there are several kinds of cattle--cattle being singular here.
as compared to kinds of beasts, beasts being plural.
unless the translator's screwed up, then anything which is incapable of breeding with another organism is not in the same kind as that other organism. that way, we can still keep it objective. otherwise, by including the frog example, we have a subjective part.and as you may have gathered, I'm trying my damndest to avoid it.
see where I'm coming from on that, now?Edited by AdminJar, : edited to fix code

---

All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

Faith writes: I applaud your interest in verifying a thesis by experiment--seriously--but this looks like one to save for later.You have a lot of matters to square away first. If your definition of 'Kind' proves to be genetically verifiable--as it will have to--there would be ways to determine these possibilities in the lab without causing inconvenience to actual simians or humans.(I do remember reading about some Stalin-era experiments in this area. If memory serves, the project suffered from a shortage of volunteers and inadequate technology; the results were inconclusive.)

---

ArcherAll species are transitional.

And is Faith ready to agree that man is only of the simian kind, Pan sapiens sapiens?

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

or perhaps, chimps move back t the genus Homo? and the rest of the simians go there too? just a thought.

---

All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

I really hate being absent from this thread all day but that's life;I've been reviewing the content of the day's posts and it seems that the major topic de jour has been the request to define "body plan"; While I have thoughts on this area, I'm curious as to where this area of inquiry arose since I don't recall it being fundamental to the thesis I've proposed in this thread. If anyone needs feels that such a determination is necessary within the context of this thread, I'll gladly indulge in it; Otherwise, i'd prefer we leave it for another thread since personally, I'm not all that sure what context it fits into in this thread.

Since I was so happy to have a possible definition of Kind in kuresu's list of hybrids I was probably the one who brought up body plan as a contribution to the definition. Sure, save it for another thread and let's get back to the topic.

Delineating body plans would certainly aid in the understanding of Kinds. I just figure that since we've rolling right along in this thread we would save room in this thread and deal with body plans in another (and here I am wasting valuable thread space with this post).