randman

I don't have a lot of time, but I consider the widespread use of micro-evolutionary changes as examples of macro-evolution when trying to debunk Creationists to be one of the many reasons I don't bother with Talkorigins anymore.
First of all t he Creationists incorporate micro-evolutionary changes into their models. So if you a re going to refute their claims of a lack of transitional fossils for macro-evolution, it should be pointed out by Talkorigins exactly what the critics are saying.
Think of it like the Adam and Eve thing. Mitochondrial Eve can indeed be powerful evidence for creation, but as the Creationists on AIG have pointed out, it is not definitive since it could be a bottleneck or some such scenario explains it. In other wrds, when discussing a controversy, the difference in propoganda and informative articles is that the other side's argument is properly addressed. In my view, Talkorigins takes an appoach more similar to propoganda.
My opinion, but I prefer to read other links by evolutionists than the Talkorigen, stuff which I don't respect.

randman

In the 1980s, someone challenged me to look into the evidence for evolution for myself. Gould's comments on the fossil record and a number of other things convinced me that evolutionary theory was wrong.
I am not going to recite the things I have read over the past 16 years, but I will state that I don't think the web as far as the average person was even around back then.
And, it is funny how you resort to arguing from authority, but I doubt you will accept it if I do.

Dr Rick

A common ancestral link does not lend support to creationism and is predicted by evolutionary theory; every living thing shares a common ancestor. How could it be any other way?

<strong> What links do you recommend?

Daggah

Um, macroevolutionary change and microevolutionary change are, for all intents and purposes, the same thing.

randman

If they are the same thing, then why do we not see species gradually changing into anot her one in the fossil record.
Moreover, they are not the same thing. One is change within a certain domain, and another is a major shift outside of that potential domain.
Furthermore, the context here is that AIG uses micro-evolutionary changes as an attempt to debunk creationist models which have the same chanegs, as if there is a controversy. The intent appears to be to fool the reader into thinking the creationits are unaware of, and do not accept micro-evolution, when in fact the exact opposite is true. To my mind, this is extremely disingenious. You may choose to argue that mirco-evolutionary changes add up to macro-evolution, but that does not necessarily prove that is the case. Certainly, the examples such as Darwin's finches are not examples of macro-evolution. The best you can argue is they are steps within macro-evolution, but to present them as such is to avoid and evade the argument with deceptive statements.

tgamble

I wonder if you actually read Gould's books or saw him quoted in creationist works.
In any case, it might be an idea to read his more recent comments.

The supposed lack of intermediary forms in the fossil record remains the fundamental canard of current antievolutionism. Such transitional forms are sparse, to be sure, and for two sets of good reasons — geological (the gappiness of the fossil record) and biological (the episodic nature of evolutionary change, including patterns of punctuated equilibrium, and transition within small populations of limited geographic extent). But paleontologists have discovered several superb examples of intermediary forms and sequences, more than enough to convince any fair-minded skeptic about the reality of life’s physical genealogy.

The first “terrestrial” vertebrates retained six to eight digits on each limb (more like a fish paddle than a hand), a persistent tailfin, and a lateral-line system for sensing sound vibrations underwater. The anatomical transition from reptiles to mammals is particularly well documented in the key anatomical change of jaw articulation to hearing bones. Only one bone, called the dentary, builds the mammalian jaw, while reptiles retain several small bones in the rear portion of the jaw. We can trace, through a lovely sequence of intermediates, the reduction of these small reptilian bones, and their eventual disappearance or exclusion from the jaw, including the remarkable passage of the reptilian articulation bones into the mammalian middle ear (where they became our malleus and incus, or hammer and anvil). We have even found the transitional form that creationists often proclaim inconceivable in theory — for how can jawbones become ear bones if intermediaries must live with an unhinged jaw before the new joint forms? The transitional species maintains a double jaw joint, with both the old articulation of reptiles (quadrate to articular bones) and the new connection of mammals (squamosal to dentary) already in place! Thus, one joint could be lost, with passage of its bones into the ear, while the other articulation continued to guarantee a properly hinged jaw.

<a href="http://www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/gould_leviathan.html" target="_blank">http://www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/gould_leviathan.html</a>

or, heaven forbid, look at more than just one scientist.

Kosh

You've pretty much evaded all the questions I
put to you. Are you going to answer them?

ps418

You mean comments such as:

"Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists -- whether
through design or stupidity, I do not know -- as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. The punctuations occur at
the level of species; directional trends (on the staircase model) are rife at the higher level of transitions within major groups."

Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory"
Science and Creationism, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 124.

Or these, from <a href="http://www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/gould_leviathan.html" target="_blank">Hooking Leviathan by Its Past, in Dinosaur in a Haystack (1997).</a>

. . . paleontologists have discovered several superb examples of intermediary forms and sequences, more than enough to convince any fair-minded skeptic about the reality of life’s physical genealogy.

The anatomical transition from reptiles to mammals is particularly well documented in the key anatomical change of jaw articulation to hearing bones. Only one bone, called the dentary, builds the mammalian jaw, while reptiles retain several small bones in the rear portion of the jaw. We can trace, through a lovely sequence of intermediates, the reduction of these small reptilian bones, and their eventual disappearance or exclusion from the jaw, including the remarkable passage of the reptilian articulation bones into the mammalian middle ear (where they became our malleus and incus, or hammer and anvil). . .

I don’t mean to sound jaded or dogmatic, but Ambulocetus is so close to our expectation for a transitional form that its discovery could not provide a professional paleontologist with the greatest of all pleasures in science — surprise.


Gould's comments convinced you that evolutionary theory was wrong? Which part of evolutionary theory? Which of Gould's books and/or articles did you read? I'm assuming that you've actually read Gould for yourself, and are not relying on second-hand quotes.

Daggah

We do. Furthermore, we also see the historical record of transition in other forms of evidence, such as in cytochrome C sequences. I noticed that in another thread you quite conveniently ignored what I had to say. Funny, that.

True, but they're still the same in a matter of degree. A 100 page book and a 1,000 page book are both still books.

So how about you finally point out, once and for all, the genetic barrier preventing lots of minor adaptations adding up to a major adaptation?

RufusAtticus

Randman,

You appear to not understand what evolution, macroevolution, and microevolution refer too. The distinction between macro- and microevolution is due to historical and academic reasons, not biological. There is absolutely no difference in the biological mechanisms that produce macroevolutionary changes and and those that produce microevolutionary changes. Both are the result of evolution.

Evolution is the heritable change of traits or frequencies of traits in populations over time.

Microevolution refers to evolution apparent with in a population/species.

Macroevolution refers to evolution apparent among populations/species.

However, you seem to be defining microevolution as "biology that doesn't contradict my interpretation of the Bible" and macroevolution as "biology that does contradict my interpretation of the Bible." That is the only way you can be claiming that Galapagos Finches represent microevolution and not macroevolution. :rooleyes:

-RvFvS