It’s interesting that you raise this topic as I’ve just been reading a paper on m-DNA and, without explanation, they have noticed distinct separation between species or 'Islands in sequence space', as the article puts it. Here is the
simple version and the more
technical paper on which the simple version is based.
Neatras wrote:"Inherent species limitations" is nonsense language that's used to disguise the fact that the poster is stubbornly saying "kinds only produce more of their own kind." I'm charitable enough to correct his language so that his backward beliefs are at least internally consistent, even if they are nonsense. I'm still waiting for Creationists to posit
any, and I mean any genetic mechanism that forces members of a population to remain fixed around some sort of genetic template. There is no such thing, and as a result this idea is blown out of the water. Too bad, so sad.
As for the idea of a “genetic mechanism that forces members of a population to remain fixed around some sort of genetic template�, I, unfortunately, don’t know of one, yet it continues to be case in several long running experiments. If you are of the mistaken belief that we have not observed it because we haven't observed enough generations to notice the change, let's look at some things we have observed, remembering, change by DNA mutation is dependant upon 'generations' and not 'time',
per se, that is what should be considered. This can be done by a 'time period' comparison, if you wish, to simplify the understanding of generational change -
Drosophila melanogaster: the fruit fly. Scientists have been studying them for over a hundred years. Fruit flies take about a week to mature from egg to adult and reproduce, laying up to 500 eggs in a lifetime, thus, producing 50 generations in a year (
link). Over the 100 years of study, since published in Science magazine in 1910, some 5000 generations have been observed. (Try calculating the number of actual fruit fly @ 500 per generation - 500x500x500 . . . . or 5x10
5000). Yet, what have we observed over this period? They have observed multiple mutations . . . . yet, they are still fruit flies. Even by careful selective breeding of various mutations and keeping them alive, they have produced offspring with 4 legs instead of 6; 2 pairs of wings, 1 functional, 1 not; no eyes; 4 eyes; all manner of configurations, most of which needed to be nursed in ordered to survive to maturity, but they are still fruit flies. Also, these mutations were just variations of the existing fruit fly genome, no new information.
Another example is
Escherichia coli which under the right conditions "can divide every 20 minutes. This means that in just 7 hours one bacterium can generate 2,097,152 bacteria.� (
“Bacteria� (2016), Microbiology Online). Bacteria, therefore, would be ideal candidates for studying asexual evolution. After one century of studying bacteria, scientists have seen over 2,600,000 generations of bacteria produced—the equivalent of over 78,000,000 years of human evolution (assuming a 30 year human generation). In spite of all of that time for evolution,
bacteria are still bacteria. Just like 'dogs are still producing dogs' and 'sheep are still producing sheep'.
Let me remind you of Lenski's on-going experiment with
E. coli. It basically asks the question: "How evolutionary change can occur in
E. coli under a restricted diet in lab conditions?" The 30-year exercise remains extremely repeatable. It uses very direct measurements, even to the level of analysing time-stamped, freeze-dried bacterial genomes from generations long past (
links). Now Lenski's research clearly shows 'microevolution' or adaption occurred in these bacteria but it took 33,000 generations and about 10 trillion individual
E. coli in order to merely duplicate one gene and damage another (
link). And they are still
E. coli. This would be an example of "something like A begets a different style of A - maybe a cursive A or a Roman script or perhaps Comic Sans or Century Gothic" but it certainly is nowhere near 'macro evolution'. This is an example of high-confidence science, being testable, observable and repeatable.
Richard Lenski’s ongoing study of
E. coli has documented many minor genetic changes over 67,000 generations. One particular change—the development of an ability to metabolize citrate—was hailed by some as a marvel of evolutionary accomplishment. Upon determination of the genetic changes, however, all of the genetic components were already present; the new ability had resulted from changes in the expression of two existing genes (
link &
link).
In a study that was 10 million times as large as the Lenski study, malarial parasites developed resistance to chloroquine. The genetic changes in this case included an accumulation of four to eight point mutations in one gene. The malaria that evolved resistance were also found to be at a disadvantage when chloroquine was not present. (
link). Yet the malarial parasite still remained a malarial parasite.
The science or rather the results of several scientific experiments have shown that while life forms speciate so as to adapt to the new environments, these changes have never gone beyond the Family taxonomy level which supports the Biblical model of several created kind or families multiplying according to their kind. Can anyone post scientific research to the contrary? What the biological boundary is, I don’t know but there appears to be one. Then, again, it may simply be a matter of Divine edict just as when God said, “Let there light and there was light�, He also said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.�
Again, can anyone show scientific evidence to the contrary?
Have a good day,
Still small