What are some examples of macro-evolution occurring in the present?

Question

My Christian friend has stumped me. Please don't talk about "micro-evolution" stuff please.

Answer 1

Those are not very good terms. As AIG says about micro and macro-evolution, "These terms, which focus on 'small' vs. 'large' changes, distract from the key issue of information. That is, particles-to-people evolution requires changes that increase genetic information, but all we observe is sorting and loss of information. We have yet to see even a 'micro' increase in information, although such changes should be frequent if evolution were true. Conversely, we do observe quite 'macro' changes that involve no new information, e.g., when a control gene is switched on or off."

And yes, creationists believe in speciation; take a look at this:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/RE2/chapter4.asp

Answer 2

Macroevolution is an irrelevant term in science that no one actually uses. Evolution is evolution, the only difference is time scale. Large changes require large amount of time. Even then what I might consider significant enough to be considered macroevolution your friend might not.

As humans haven't been around that long, and have kept records even less, there few examples, and by creationist standards, none.

In animals, we have induced evolution through artificial selection. We took the wolf and made Great Danes and chihuahuas. Whether this is macroevolution is debatable. However, if you knew nothing about dogs, then the three would be species as they are definately repoductively isolated (more so than wolves and coyotes). So this would be an example fo speciation.

Bacteria evolve faster due to their short generation time, but due to their "simplicity" not many people ever seem they as evidence for macroevolution. Since the industrial revolution, bacterial have evolved new metabolic pathways to degrade unnatural compounds such as nylon and chlorobenzene. These are much more impressive changes than they seem, since it shows to creation of new genes that previously did not exist at all.

In the end it comes down to what your friend considers macroevolution. The fossil record provides the best evidence we have for evolution over long time periods.

Answer 3

You cannot talk about macro-evolution without micro-evolution, because they are the same thing. As another answer has said, the only difference is time or generations of reproduction. Macro is micro over many generation.
Some people would suggest that micro-evolution is change occurring as an adaptation without a new species being formed, and macro where a species has split into two or more distinct species. There are examples of this, but not which may have occurred and/or are readily visible, within our life time.

The Cichlids, a type of fish that live in a large lake (Lake Tanganyika) in Africa, have, due to lake levels rising and falling over millions of years, formed from one species, into many species.
As lake levels fall, a group of fish will be split, and become isolated from one another over many generations, food sources will change, mutations and genetic drift (as occur in micro-evolution) will occur and adaptation will ensue. after many thousands of years, and many generations of isolation, the lake levels will rise, and the fish will again begin to interact, but may have become different species, due to the mutations and drift. They may have developed slightly different colours, mating rituals, or their genetic material may be slightly incompatible (like horses and donkeys) due to drift and adaptive mutations. In any case, they are different species.
Ask your friend how a pet cat and a Lion just happen to look the same. The answer is that they had a common ancestor, with many years of isolation, adaptation and mutation causing many occurrences of speciation.

Answer 4

Plants, specifically, wheat and rye within not that many years ago. 30 to 50% of all now plant species are posited to come about by polyploidy. Drosphillia in the lab in the last 50 years or so. Just a few of the observed or experimental occurances of speciation ( macroevolution ) Go here for much on this.

http://www.talkorigin.org

It is doubtful that your christain friend would consider the evidence, when they have such a comforting delusion.

Trouble is, Ethan Lowe, there is no scientific evidence for your intelligent design nonsense, but plenty of evidence for simple gene duplication leading to new information in the populational genome and the individual geneotype.

Answer 5

Evolution(macro and micro) is happening every moment. It is difficult to pinpoint something happening 'at present' because all life is evolving at present. The results, though, may not be noticeable for years.

Answer 6

Example Of Macroevolution

Answer 7

there aren't any documented examples of Macro evolution.

Micro evolution is happening all of the time.

45 years ago when I grew up was extraordinary to encounter people that were 6 feet tall. Back then the average height was 5 feet 7 inches tall for a man.

Today the average height is 5 foot 10 or 5 foot 11.

That is because of better health preventative procedures, and plentiful food.

Answer 8

Macro-evolution is evolution at or above the level of the species. It a concept that is extrapolated from micro-evolution, or changes within a species (e.g. bigger horns, different colors, etc.), but there is NO documented evidence of it ever occurring, at least in the Darwinian sense (I will explain what I mean later). In fact, as more fossils are being discovered, the evidence supporting Darwinian macro-evolution has shrunk drastically because paleontologists have determined them to be separate species.

Two examples that make you question the possibility of macro-evolution:
1. E. coli has not mutated to a new species of bacterium even though we've subjected it to so many mutagens over many generations. The same goes for Drosophilia fruit flies.
2. Dogs have been bred over the years to look and act drastically different (pug vs. German shepherd). Yet they have not evolved to different species.

I don't deny that there are different species of animals (e.g. cats), but I don't agree with the Darwinian explanation; The Darwinian model predicts gain of genes and information that lead to more complex creatures (e.g. lesser common cat ancestor gives rise to more complex cat descendants), which scientific evidence has not been able to support. There is another plausible model (Intelligent Design theory) that predicts that there was a common cat ancestor but loss of genes through subsequent filial generations resulted in divergence of the alleles to the point where they become separate species of cats (common ancestor cats contained diverse alleles but over time different species emerged because they completely lost the genes to the point where breeding is impossible). This is what I guess I would call "de-evolution".

Just look at the scientific evidence that is out there and see which model makes more sense. Good luck!