Why Darwinism is wrong

You are forgetting that new species have been observed to arise. This is part of the reason that many creationist sources now wish to define "kind" at some level higher than species. It is not longer tenable to say that speciation does not occur.As for the observation of long periods of time; that would be out of place in this topic. I suggest that if you don't agree with the accepted time spans that you take your argument to one of the more recently updated "Dates and Dating" threads. Your idea of "observation" is hopelessly inadequate.

Since this, as written, is so utterly wrong it might be a good idea to explain both what you meant to say and where you got such an idea from.

(sorry I used the wrong ID earlier)Originally you said: Did you mean "speciation" and not "mutation"?What do you think that evolutionary theory says about speciation?

"Probably"?? You said it. Did you mean to say mutation or speciation?The rest of what you said is not understandable to me at all. Perhaps you can explain more clearly? You have been given some examples by others. The reason I am asking is because you seem to have a number of things very confused. It may help if we can get your ideas of just what evolutionary theory says. Then we can continue to correct your misunderstandings.

Since it seems giving you real answers is more than you can understand right now I repeat that it may be useful for you to explain what your understanding is. That is a normal approach when trying to help someone understand something. You have to figure out what level they are at first. Then you tailor the explanation for them.It seems you need a lot of help. There are people here who might be able to help but you will have to put the work into that to get it going.

This particular exchange started when you posted: I asked you what you meant and eventually you said that your "probably" meant to say "speciation" rather than "mutation". I didn't get what you said wrong you said it wrong.If you would just try to back up and clarify what you do think then we could move forward.As for speciation and how it happens according to evolutionary theory. I agree that it happens by RM and NS. However, my understanding of the biology ( I am not a biologist) suggests that for much of the time there are additional requirements. One thing that can produce speciation is an interruption of gene flow within a population which effectively produces two populations. Once you have that condition then ongoing RM and NS will inevitably produce greadualy more diverse populations. Eventually some change will make interbreeding impossible and you have a speciation event.It seems to me to be a totally logical outcome of the basic mechanisms of RM and NS. It is also possible to find examples of it occuring today.

You don't even seem to be able to successfully parrot those who have done the research in the field.Until you show that you understand what it is you are argueing with it doesn't seem likely to be productive to discuss what is wrong with it with you.You can not examine and correct ideas that you don't understand. It is not at all clear that you do understand neo-darwinism.

Rather astonishing that. Geographical isloation is only one way to interrupt gene flow and I suspect a major one.I would be interested in a quote from the Mayr source on this topic.I would, however, agree that in theory NS is not needed once populations are isolated. All you have to do is get enough drift would you not? However, NS is very hard to avoid in the real world. So it will be acting as well. Certainly if the separated populations are actually geographically separated in different environments then NS will hasten the chances of speciation. I'll have to think of some direct falsifications (and could use some help from real biolgists on this) however if the theory is correct there are certain things we should observe in the wild. One of which is populations that are separated and moving in the direction of separate species. This has been observed. Ring species are another example.A falsification could be performed if a population was separated and did not show any divergance. Since populations have not only show divergance but actual speciation this particular falsification fails. Since you don't see the logic I will try to spell it out in simpler steps.1) Populations undergo genetic changes when mutations occur and selection or drift happens.
2) If two separate but genetic nearly identical populations are undergoing such changes but have NO gene flow between them the changes in each population will be different.
3) Enough changes can, if they are in the right places prevent fertile matings between the populations.What steps in that reasoning do you disagree with and why do you disagree?

Generally, we are polite enough here to take the time to copy a few sentences from our sources. Since you refered to a specific view of Meyr's you should also be, at the very least, willing to supply a specific reference and page numer. If the above is something you consider fair then my suggestion to you is that you read some articles and books on speciation. Then you would not have to ask how speciation is viewed by biology. This is a reisteration of an assertion that I don't think you have supported very well. If it acts every second (which is so extreme it may not be true but close enough to true in the big picture) then apparently you disagree wtith Mayr when you referenced him to say that NS had nothing to do with speciation. If it is always acting one can't say it didn't have anything to do with speciation.The second part of your statment is, I would have thought by now, redundant. We have already discussed RM as the source for new material for NS to act on. Do we have to back up to cover that again? If so it will be very hard to make much progress. I find this sentence very confusing. Speciation occurs every second but they are very few and can't be found? Could you try rewording it? Not all separated populations are, or have yet become, speparated species. Your example of humans is an atrociously badly chosen one. The reasons are that humans have not been separated long compared to their generation length and that there is still considerable gene flow.However, as a biologist you will be aware of many examples of such incipiant speciation. A number have been referenced on this forum. Please explan the difference between geographical locations and geographcal isolation. Perhaps you would like to reference the particular papers that make this distinction? More appropriate would be to explain why ring species are not an example of speciaion "in progress". I do not follow your chain of reasoning as to why this means that divergance has nothing to do with speciation. If two populations that , by some definition or another, start out considered as one species but then both undergo different genetic changes for a long enough period of time they will diverge will they not? Why would enough divergance not result in two populations that can no longer interbreed (for any number of reasons)? It is not helpful if you are going to appear to be deliberatly obtuse. However, since it seems you will need this made even more detailed and simpler I will have a go at doing that for you. In this case the populations are formed by spliting a population of fully interbreeding individuals. The two populations then have only the degree of genetic divergance that any individuals in a population have. In other words they are "identical" enough to operate as a single species. Why on earth would you suggest NS or isolation being the source of changes? Didn't you just say that NS doesn't create any new genetics. We already both understand that mutations will produce the changes.How long will they stay the same species if they are undergoing separate changes? That is the question? Why will they never reach the point of being separate species?

That wasn't the question was it? The issue was that your 'theory' performs worse than the current one. In that case it will not be adopted.Since you avoided that issue there is an implication that you actually agree that your idea performs worse. If you think it does not then address the issue at hand. Please refer to Message 128 and explain how your theory does account for what mick has refered to. Again you seem to have forgotten he posted and not answered the issue at hand.

You have a misunderstanding in your post. Let me help by discussing a point made by Dawkins in his "The Ancestor's Tale".First understand that I am simplifying things. It is not impossible for "instant speciation" to happen and it has been observed (IIRC) in plants. However for a sexual reproducting species I don't see how this can happen.This statement seems to be the core of your misunderstanding. Let us, for the moment, ignore the separation of a population into two. Let us take one population of sexually reproducing mammals. In fact, let us examine humans. ( If I recall they do reproduce sexually don't they? It has been awhile )Today any human can successfully breed with any other ( I am ignoring details like fetility problems of a very few etc.). If we went back 1,000 years in a time machine any human of *today* would be able to successfully breed with any human of the year 1,000 AD.Ok, now if our time machine was used to take a human of 1,000 AD to the year 1 (2,000 years ago) that middle ages human would be able to breed with the human of 2 millenia (2M) ago. Repeat, take a 2M human to 3M (3,000 years ago) and again they would interbreed, they are still the same species. Repeat, repeat and repeat.At each step back 10,000 years, 100,000 years 1,000,000 the "human" taken back 1,000 years would still breed successfully with the earlier one. Repeat, repeat, repeat and we are back 5 million, 10 million years. At every step the later "human" and the 1,000 year earlier one are the same species but at some point we have critters that could no longer interbreed with a modern human. A speciation event has occured. However, no one 1,000 year jump contains all the changes needed to cross that speciation barrier.Dawkins notes that eventually we are breeding fish of 300,000,000 years ago with those of 300,001,000 years ago and at not point was there a break.That is what would go on with your population G2, it would produce a species S2 without there ever being a point where the population was more than one species. If the population is *one* population if has the necessary gene flow to stop that from happening.At any intermidiate point trying a G2 individual with a G1 individual might produce offspring. They might or might not be fertile. The chances of a successful breeding might be high (if they have not accumulated a lot of genetic differences) or lower and lower as time goes by. There might be a sharp point in time where one of G1 and G2 gets a mutation that suddenly forbids successful breeding with the other group. But this would not be able to forbid successful breeding *within* it's group or the problem you bring up would occur. That is there can not be a parent to child change of species in this kind of population.There would not be "a larger and larger proportion of organisms in G2 being S2, and less being S1." Instead there would be a group G2 which is, all of them, less and less like those that are in G1. (Of course, changes are going on in both G1 and G2). The problem with this is that the definition of species is not as sharp as you think. Species are blurred both geographically and in time. It isn't that a species is organisms which can not reproduce but do not normally reproduce. Or don't reproduce very successfully(which then becomes a selective pressure to stop them from trying).As one would predict from evolutionary theory there are times and places where species are NOT sharply defined. When they have had time to grow far enough apart then they are very clearly defined but there are times when they are not.

How do you know it is the same person?Also JZ said they have a degree in biology and an MD does not constitute any particular strengths in biology (other than more relative to a degree in physics say).This message has been edited by NosyNed, 05-10-2005 06:51 PM

see The Collapse of DarwinismThis video is so very full of junk that we would enjoy a continued discussion of it.Take each bit that you think is the best part and describe it in your own words for further discussion.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 05-20-2005 01:41 AM