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Okay, the creationist argument is that macro evolution can't happen but micro evolution can, yet macro evolution is just a built up of microevolutionary changes.

So what exactly stops the minor changes from building up to into bigger changes?

And please don't suggest that your god prevents speciation from happening...

2007-10-29 03:47:55 · 17 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture Religion & Spirituality

17 answers

Natural selection is a logical process that anyone can observe (and it was actually a creationist named Edward Blyth who seems to have first wrote about it in 1835–37, before Darwin). We can look at the great variation in an animal kind and see the results of natural selection. For instance, wolves, coyotes, and dingoes have developed over time as a result of natural selection operating on the information in the genes of the dog kind.

But natural selection can only operate on the information already contained in the genes. And there are clearly limits. For instance, you can’t breed a dog to the size of an elephant, much less turn it into an elephant.

The different dogs we see today have resulted from a rearrangement or loss of information from the original dog kind. That is why you can breed wolves to get to chihuahuas, but you can’t breed chihuahuas to get to wolves.

And the thing is, what are they? Dogs. What were they? Dogs. What will they be? Dogs. The same could be said for Darwin’s finches, peppered moths, and so forth. There is a big difference between subspeciation (variation within a kind) and transspeciation (change from one kind to another).

2007-10-30 12:05:55 · answer #1 · answered by Questioner 7 · 0 0

Macroevolution isn't an process. It is a study of large scale change. Creationists try to create the impression that it is an entity in order to set a moving goalpost fallacy (we've observed this happen, but "macroevolution" requires more change that degree has not been observed).

There is just evolution, which is sound science. Macroevolution cannot be defined as an entity because there is no clear definition of where it begins. There is no mechanism that defines macroevolution or prevents the accumulation of small changes.

2007-10-29 13:03:20 · answer #2 · answered by novangelis 7 · 2 0

Nothing prevents it. However selection pressure can slow it or speed it up.
If an enviroment is stable then it will tend to select for the same traits and variations away from that will be limited.
When the general habitat of a species is changing at a rate that variation can match then speciation will tend to follow in a general trend and the generation of new species will be separated by time and almost unobservable at any foxed point in time.
If the habitat varies depending on location and allows niches oe separation of a species population then species can vary and differentiate separated by space instead of time.
Some species are separated by differences as minor as breeding during a different time of the year in response to seasonal differences in their location, some bird species by differences so slight as having a different song. They might even look the same, but they can not breed together.
Please be aware that I am talking about species in these examples and not races or varieties. Some varieties of a species may look much different but the cross and hybridize quite freely often yielding intermediate forms. Corn is a prime example, dogs are another. Corn is also an excellent example of soeciation because forms that look identical are often not cross fertile and are in fact separate species, no longer the sane "Kind"

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Lion of Judah needs to do a bit more research. Speciation has been observed in bacteria and viruses as well as larger animals.
What Liar of Judah has decided to do is demand you show that you can make the change not merely at the species level but at the order of Phylum. LoG is demanding not that you show a new type of fish from fish, but is demading a new type of tree from a fish, in short, a Crocoduck.
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Bobby Jim likely does not realize that Mules are sterile and their existence is what means Horses and A s s e s are different species in the same Genus.

2007-10-29 11:18:08 · answer #3 · answered by Y!A-FOOL 5 · 3 0

It's not built up microevolutionary changes, it's multiple microevolutionary changes on a small scale. It's like telling me that that the palamino over there is going to evolve into a giraffe simply because it has spots like a giraffe. It's not going to happen. Even with "similar genetic structure" that evo's love to use. It just won't happen. EVEN IF the trees were to grow 50 feet taller and all the grass dies so that the horses would not be able to eat. The horse would not evolve so that it could eat. It would die off. Think about the dodo.

2007-10-29 10:58:26 · answer #4 · answered by tcjstn 4 · 0 1

Speciation has already been established in Creation.
Adaptation is micro evolution.
Genetics itself prevents macro evolution.

Differences in canines for example is an example of micro evolution.
Horse breeds (Donkeys, Burrows etc.) is the same thing.
Mules are the result of such cross breeding within the species.

2007-10-29 11:02:01 · answer #5 · answered by Bobby Jim 7 · 0 1

Capnarlo, yuor answer = full of fossilized dinosaur poop.

You incorrectly assume that your faith in God gives you the superhuman ability to have existed and observed the full course of existence from the beginning of the planet to the present day. Are you qualified to say that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that macroevolution is impossible, and therefore that you are confident you know exactly what happened to the world over millions (MILLIONS, not tens, not hundreds, millions) of years?

This is impossible, your answer is holy as Swiss cheese, and doesn't taste nearly as good.

2007-10-29 11:01:50 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

I will tell you that God prevents certain things from happening and you will accept it, if you have already made up your mind on the subject then leave, and don't even bother asking questions you have made up your mind on.

As for your question.

That depends on how "macroevolution" is defined. Scientists have seen bacteria exchange genetic material. They have seen bacteria become antibiotic resistant. They have seen bacteria become bigger from mutations. But have they ever seen bacteria become anything other than bacteria? No. Have they ever seen one type of bacteria, such as E.coli, become some other type of bacteria that is not (in this case) E.coli? No, they haven't. In fact, with over a hundred years of work with E.coli behind us, (at 20 minutes per generation time, that's over 2 1/5 MILLION generations of E.coli minimum that have been witnessed), and despite forcing or encouraging mutations, they still cannot get anything but E.coli. So it's your call. Is that macroevolution? By some evolutionists' standards it qualifies.

2007-10-29 10:59:23 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0 2

Nothing prevents macroevolution.

But some things prevent people from seeing macroevolution - mainly a lack of understanding of the vastness of the time involved.

2007-10-29 11:00:27 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 4 0

macroevolution and microevolution really aren't different things. They are shorthand terms to help in understanding the theory. Macroevolution is, in essence, just a whole lot of microevolution over a long period of time.

2007-10-29 10:58:35 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1 0

Creationists' arguments don't hold water, a 16 year old with basic biology can rip apart their "arguments".

2007-10-29 10:59:11 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 3 0

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