If you accept microevolution

[jamesmorlock]

Simply because they are identical.

Consider an analogy:

Imagine that you can travel across the universe by walking. You have an infinite amount of time to do this, but you must make your journey by taking small steps. You have no destination, but you can go anywhere and you must never stop walking.

A thousand years pass. Where are you now? Further.
A million years pass. Where are you now? Even Further.
A billion years pass. Where are you now? Far, far away.

For every iteration of time, you will have traveled further and further. It is inevitable, for every small step takes you further. It is not possible to not travel far.

Microevolution is the small step. Macroevolution is the collective of small steps over a large period of time.

When walking for billions of years, how can you not be far away from your starting point?

[nygreenguy]

Which original claims?

Start with the original claim that large amounts of microevolution necessarily produces macroevolution.

Large amounts of "microevolution" may not always give rise to "macroevolution" but "macroevolution" is always* the results of large amounts of "microevolution"


*always in the biological sense since we know there are usually some exceptions to everything.

[sfs]

Without additional information, this statement isnt exactly correct. This first presumes there IS a peak. This all depends on the heterogeneity of the fitness of the genotypes. Secondly, there must not be much selection pressure. If you are a tillman person, you may not this this is ever a possibility while grime leaves a bit of space for reduced selective pressure.

Also, if there is a "fitness peak" (theorized, not actual) then its hard to say if its a true peak. We only get peaks when we reach the biological limit of evolution in that environment. It a borderline argument to incredulity.

We can also have epistasis which can supplement existing genes in order to alter the fitness landscape.

I don't understand all of your caveats (why must there not be much selection pressure for there to be a fitness peak?), but I completely agree that my statement was no more than a cartoon version of selection. But it was a cartoon making a point, which is that a model of evolution as an endless, unfettered random walk is wildly unrealistic.

[sfs]

Large amounts of "microevolution" may not always give rise to "macroevolution" but "macroevolution" is always* the results of large amounts of "microevolution"


*always in the biological sense since we know there are usually some exceptions to everything.

If you're willing to stick polyploidy, which is not at all uncommon among plants, in with the exceptions, I'll agree with that (noting, though, that "large amounts" is vague enough to cover a lot of ground).

[Autodidact]

If the first mutation makes the organism slightly worse, and the second makes it slightly worse again, and so on, eventually the organism won't do too well.

And thus will go extinct, at which point all of those mutations lose their relevance.

Actually, no, it won't. In reality, the deleterious mutations will occur and then be weeded out by natural selection (as Goat has pointed out). That's the point: you're ignoring natural selection.

I must not be making myself clear. What I'm describing is natural selection. I agree with you, whether by an individual not surviving to reproduce, or an entire species going extinct, deleterious mutations are automatically removed. Rather neat system, really.

Which original claims?

Start with the original claim that large amounts of microevolution necessarily produces macroevolution.

But they do. As I said, 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 5, and micro + micro + micro + micro = macro. It's unavoidable. Macroevolution by definition is an accumulation of microevolutions. That's how the whole thing works--bit by bit.

At this point in our knowledge of Biology, we know that ToE is correct, and there is no such Biblical barrier, as well as we know anything in science.

We know that because we have strong evidence for common descent, not because we can determine from first principles what the effect of a large number of mutations will be on an organism.

No, it is because it is empirically supported. Science doesn't work from first principles, for the most part, but from empirical observation.
[/quote]

So your claim is that we know that there is no barrier to indefinite genetic change based on empirical evidence, but not based on empirical evidence for common descent?

Sorry, I don't understand what you're saying or where you're getting it from. There is tons of evidence for common descent. To the extent that I understand you, no, that is not my claim.

That's the only meaning I can take from your response. Okay, just what empirical evidence are you talking about, that isn't based on common descent, show that?

Is your question: What is the empirical evidence that macroevolution happens?

Also, note that it was the claim that we can know from first principles that there is no barrier to indefinite genetic change that I was disagreeing with. Like when you wrote in another recent post, "All that I'm saying is that a sufficient quantity of micro-evolution, by definition, produces speciation." If something is true by definition, then it is true from first principles, not based on empirical evidence. So do we know that sufficient microevolution necessarily produces macroevolution based on empirical evidence, or based on definitions?

Both. The definitions are derived from observation.

I don't think making some mainstream uncontroversial descriptions of the state of modern Biology can really be considered an anti-creationist barb. Believe me, when I shoot off some anti-creationist barbs, you'll know it.

The odds are good that, if you're disagreeing with a biologist, then what you're describing is not mainstream, uncontroversial biology.

I'm lost again. ToE is mainstream, foundational, uncontroversial Biology, and that is all I'm asserting.

Anti-creationist barbs would include statements such as that Creationists believe myths or don't understand ToE. I merely pointed out that ToE is correct, which is completely uncontroversial within Biology.

[Autodidact]

In other words, to use another analogy, 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 5. If you add up enough ones, you can't avoid reaching 5. If you add up enough micro-evolution, you get a new species.

There are two problems with your analogy, and they represent the misunderstandings that I'm trying to correct. First, quite often evolution is not adding 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 . . , but rather adding 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 - 1 + 1 . . . That is, evolution often represents small wobbles (either in allele frequency or in phenotype) around a nearly stable point. For example, the Grants' work on finches showed beak length being driven by selection toward larger beaks, and then back toward smaller, and to larger again, and so on, depending on the weather that year.

Yes, I see what you mean.

But looking at it another way, it's still mutation + mutation + mutation. It's all mutations.

[qutoe]Second, new mutations only have a decent chance of fixing in the population if they are neutral or beneficial. Once an organism has reached a local fitness peak, however, there are no more beneficial mutations to make, so only neutral ones will accumulate. Now it may be that some selectively neutral mutations will have enough functional effect that the organism can gradually change visibly, but probably not to any great degree: most aspects of an organism are well adapted to its environment, and any change will be deleterious. So new mutations will not keep adding to old ones; purifying selection prevents them. Now there are various mechanisms for overcoming that conservative tendency, but it is not as simple as random mutations accumulating freely.[/quote] Yes, that's all correct as well, which is why we don't see new species proliferating at the rate that YEC's end up asserting that they do, e.g. all 600+ muridae species descending from a single pair pair of ur-mice in the last 6000 years, or one new species every ten years. We don't observe that because, as you note, while there are speciation pressures, there are also anti-speciation pressures.

[Autodidact]

Without additional information, this statement isnt exactly correct. This first presumes there IS a peak. This all depends on the heterogeneity of the fitness of the genotypes. Secondly, there must not be much selection pressure. If you are a tillman person, you may not this this is ever a possibility while grime leaves a bit of space for reduced selective pressure.

Also, if there is a "fitness peak" (theorized, not actual) then its hard to say if its a true peak. We only get peaks when we reach the biological limit of evolution in that environment. It a borderline argument to incredulity.

We can also have epistasis which can supplement existing genes in order to alter the fitness landscape.

I don't understand all of your caveats (why must there not be much selection pressure for there to be a fitness peak?), but I completely agree that my statement was no more than a cartoon version of selection. But it was a cartoon making a point, which is that a model of evolution as an endless, unfettered random walk is wildly unrealistic.

I don't think anyone is positing such a model.

[nygreenguy]

Without additional information, this statement isnt exactly correct. This first presumes there IS a peak. This all depends on the heterogeneity of the fitness of the genotypes. Secondly, there must not be much selection pressure. If you are a tillman person, you may not this this is ever a possibility while grime leaves a bit of space for reduced selective pressure.

Also, if there is a "fitness peak" (theorized, not actual) then its hard to say if its a true peak. We only get peaks when we reach the biological limit of evolution in that environment. It a borderline argument to incredulity.

We can also have epistasis which can supplement existing genes in order to alter the fitness landscape.

I don't understand all of your caveats (why must there not be much selection pressure for there to be a fitness peak?), but I completely agree that my statement was no more than a cartoon version of selection. But it was a cartoon making a point, which is that a model of evolution as an endless, unfettered random walk is wildly unrealistic.

Fitness peaks can be either those who just have the highest fitness, or an "insurmountable" barrier to further evolution. This means there is some physical restraint on further evolution. Body size can be an example for insects.

The second example is less common than the first. So, if you have higher fitness than anyone else, there is lots of selective pressure on THEM to out-compete YOU which eventually puts pressure on YOU to evolve to keep up.

[Sum1sGruj]

Micro/macro evolution are moot points. How exactly do evolutionists think this 'proves' common descent when no mechanism for common descent has been found?
Does one ignore the fact that everything that has been observed with mutation, recombination, etc. is not potent enough even in theory to prove common descent all the way from jelly at the bottom of a sea vent?
Additional information to the genome is limited and comes short of anything significant to the grand scale of a common descent hypothesis.


I'm just going to throw that out there. I'm willing to debate it thoroughly if someone wants to do so

[Goat]

Micro/macro evolution are moot points. How exactly do evolutionists think this 'proves' common descent when no mechanism for common descent has been found?
Does one ignore the fact that everything that has been observed with mutation, recombination, etc. is not potent enough even in theory to prove common descent all the way from jelly at the bottom of a sea vent?
Additional information to the genome is limited and comes short of anything significant to the grand scale of a common descent hypothesis.


I'm just going to throw that out there. I'm willing to debate it thoroughly if someone wants to do so

Uh.. pardon me, but the mechanism for common decent is well shown. You are incorrect, since variation followed by a selection process (the most common being natural selection) can produce the complexity we see today.

Evidence for this can be found in not only the fossil record, but genetics.

[Sum1sGruj]

Uh.. pardon me, but the mechanism for common decent is well shown. You are incorrect, since variation followed by a selection process (the most common being natural selection) can produce the complexity we see today.

Evidence for this can be found in not only the fossil record, but genetics.

That's simply not true. Sure, one can show that organisms enhance, but there is not enough to conclude that organisms are capable to have come from microscope jelly.
To say we have concluded that is quite absurd, actually. It's been a stumped issue for a while now, but that doesn't stop naturalists from promoting it as much as they can.
The theory of evolution is a scientific theory, as it is about change of organisms. Common descent, however, is a hypothesis because ToE is incomplete, and so is the fossil record.