I'm not a scientist and don't pretend to be one, but I do accept that the Theory of Evolution is a good explanation of how life on our planet came to be as it is now.
I'm mainly interested in these discussions between creationists and 'evolutionists' because fundies are so upset bt Darwin's theory.
I note that it seems to be only those of the creationist/intelligent design persuasion that go on and on about 'microevolution' and 'macroevolution', so can someone tell me if these are even scientific terms? Or are these terms cooked up by scientifically illiterate people? *************************************************************** 11-10-05, 04:44 PM Scotty
quote: microevolution One entry found for microevolution.
Main Entry: mi·cro·evo·lu·tion Pronunciation: -"e-v&-'lü-sh&n also -"E-v&- Function: noun : comparatively minor evolutionary change involving the accumulation of variations in populations usually below the species level - mi·cro·evo·lu·tion·ary /-sh&-"ner-E/ adjective
quote: macroevolution One entry found for macroevolution.
Main Entry: mac·ro·evo·lu·tion Pronunciation: 'ma-krO-"e-v&-'lü-sh&n also -"E-v&- Function: noun : evolution that results in relatively large and complex changes (as in species formation) - mac·ro·evo·lu·tion·ary /-sh&-"ner-E/ adjective
For More Information on "macroevolution" go to Britannica.com
Get the Top 10 Search Results for "macroevolution"
11-10-05, 04:50 PM newnickname The "yes, limited evolution, but not a lot of evolution" idea is common in Creationist misinformation.
Scientifically, there is no difference between the mechanism of micro- and macro- evolution. One means change within a species, and one means enough to change to amount to a new species. It's the same mechanism, just more of it. Saying you can have one without the other is like saying you can take two steps but not ten steps. Creationists who propose that 'micro' is possible but not 'macro' need to tell us what mechanism they propose that limits evolutionary change. How do two isolated groups know when they have changed too much from each other? What stops the changing?
11-10-05, 05:24 PM bunkboy That's not actually true with living things. You are really oversimplifying.
Large changes usually result in living things that can't reproduce. That's a barrier to taking those 10 steps, isn't it?
If you accept macro, you must admit it only over a long period of time, from 1 step to 100,000 steps. With macroevolution, the theory of evolution is now completely dependant on very long expanses of time, and there are large gaping holes in those expanses that only imagination can fill.
11-10-05, 05:29 PM FredPuli
quote: Originally posted by bunkboy: That's not actually true with living things. You are really oversimplifying.
Large changes usually result in living things that can't reproduce.
What examples of large changes resulting in things that can't reproduce do you have in mind?
11-10-05, 05:35 PM GarColga
quote: Originally posted by bunkboy: That's not actually true with living things. You are really oversimplifying.
Can you tell us what you know about the evolution of non-living things?
11-10-05, 05:49 PM FredPuli The real problem is this isn't it? Some Christians find it unpalatable to believe that man, made in God's image, God whose son was sent among them in human form, could ever have been made by God by evolving man from some primitive ancestor, an ancestor common to other forms of life, other species.
The same Christians may readily accept that other species have evolved from some common ancestor. He or she may readily accept that that common ancestor is extinct. The Christian must surely accept that there are species which survive as unique both in plants and animals. There is only one species extant of gingko biloba for example. But to think that God let humankind evolve is sickening. No amount of scientific evidence of the evolution of any or everything else can have him wish to accept what to others is pretty obvious viz. that man is being supremely arrogant to imagine himself different in not being the result of evolution
11-10-05, 09:01 PM bunkboy
quote: The real problem is this isn't it? Some Christians find it unpalatable to believe that man, made in God's image, God whose son was sent among them in human form, could ever have been made by God by evolving man from some primitive ancestor, an ancestor common to other forms of life, other species.
I find lies unpalatable.
What I find humorous are evolutionists who posture about being intelligent and sophisticated and look down upon the poor simple religionists.
I may be at the wrong web site. I was hoping for intelligent debate, but I wonder if I've stumbled into a gathering of high schoolers and old, bitter Vietnam era protesters.
Is anyone here college educated?
11-10-05, 11:45 PM newnickname To answer the original post:
11-11-05, 07:39 AM FredPuli Bunkboy: If man did not evolve then homo sapiens had no ancestry. It must have been fully formed at the time of its creation. It had not evolved from any earlier form but always existed as the one species. That means that there must have been a moment when a pair of fully formed, sexually mature, humans were created. If not then how did the first homo sapiens arrive: it could not have come from some non homo sapiens parent, could it, since there never were nor could have been non-homo sapiens in its ancestry? And it could not have been a human baby or human embryo or even a human cell since these require existing human parents to make and raise them.In short mankind arrived from nowhere, but as a man and a woman.There cannot have been an endless history of humans producing humans; it has to start with a first pair, or perhaps, many first pairs (one for each race?), being spontaneously created .
What date to you give for this event? Is it later than the creation of other higher forms of life? Is it later than that for dinosaurs ? Later than the nautilus, a sea creature which is with us still but seems to have survived the disappearance of the dinosaurs ? Or later than the first mammals?
And what was the world like, in which these new , freshly created, humans first appeared?
Of course this puzzle is easily solved if we assume that humans as we have them now gradually evolved, and the further we go back the simpler the life form that is the ancestor . In fact the easiest explanation is that all life forms can be traced to some common ancestral primitive organism but then that would be a lie, wouldn't it ? Wink
11-11-05, 07:45 AM Elexina
quote: Originally posted by bunkboy: Is anyone here college educated?
Oooh, ouch. That one hurt, didn't it? Wink Maybe you could answer the questions posted to you, Bunkboy, instead of hurling insults?
11-11-10:00PM FredPuli Is the insult meant to be in the innuendo that we are college educated or in an innuendo that we are not college educated? Or is it that someone among us, if not several or all, has had a college education but has not benefitted from the education? (American insults are so difficult sometimes Big Grin)
11-12-05, 03:44 AM bunkboy I usually don't get responses that I am accustomed to from people who have taken college level courses.
Many of the responses I get here are from people who are too insecure to allow facts to shape their beliefs; some, like babthrower and juanruiz who are too prejudiced to think clearly or respond freely; and others, like newnickname seem to make a game out of misquoting my posts, and that reminds me of elementary school playground interaction.
I try to phrase my posts in as simple and logical a language as possible, but obfuscation is inevidable in responses, and it leads me to wonder whether I'm being understood.
11-12-05, 08:55 AM frankvan
quote: I usually don't get responses that I am accustomed to from people who have taken college level courses.
Before you dislocate your shoulder patting yourself on the back, we'll accept that you have taken college level courses. Did you complete any ? There is a place in your profile conspicuously devoid of credentials. Modesty, perhaps?
11-12-05, 10:16 AM newnickname
quote: ...newnickname seem to make a game out of misquoting my posts...
Please point out where I have done this - I will correct my mistake and apologise.
11-12-05, 11:39 AM GarColga
quote:
obfuscation is inevidable
Oh yes!
11-12-05, 11:41 AM FredPuli Bunkboy: What's the answer to my enquiry, above, of you beliefs (and facts) and resulting argument ? Let me try to put it in post-graduate terms
Premisses 1) Man exists as only one species 2) Man has always existed only as one species 3) Man has never evolved from any earlier form, any ancestor
Questions:1) How were the first man and woman created? 2) Were they created as man and woman, complete and mature, without having any previous life on this Earth?
[I had thought a belief in either creationism or Intelligent Design not to be a belief in some modernised version of God creating Adam , but your own case seems to argue for just such a conclusion ]
02-22-06, 09:51 AM socratus Evolution. It was a hot summer day. In the zoo, near the cage of gorilla the gapers gathered. They laughed and threw bits of fruits and bread into the cage. And gorilla was twirling round in the narrow cage, not finding enough room for itself. Our eyes met and I saw agonizing pain in the eyes of gorilla. Its eyes were human ones. I gazed at it in astonishment. Then I transferred my glance on the people. They laughed and their eyes were brutal, soulless. Silently I observed this picture. Ones, having learned to walk on two feet and speak using human voice, preserved the ferocious hatred. The others, in the skin of an animal, already possess the human origin. Links of one chain, of one evolutional civilization.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed, 02-22-06 10:16 AM
03-11-06, 12:12 PM babthrower It's hard to define 'species' expecially in asexual organisms.
So I'll just pick sexual organisms. For a long time, an organism was said to belong to s species if it could interbreed and produce viable offspring (in nature) with members of that species. (So an artificial mating, such as joining egg and sperm in a lab, didn't count.
So in microevolution (which is a word invented by Creationists) changes can occur and be transmitted to offspring. We see them in artificial selection e.g. dog breeders selecting for certain traits and producing a new 'breed'.
But according to Creationists, some divine force or miracle would occur just at the point where mutations were about to generate offspring into the gene pool which could not mate with the 'founders' of the gene pool. They could only produce offspring when mated with each other.
Such would occur in artificial selection when a tiny dog, such as a Mexican Hairless, was produced, which could not mate in nature and produce live offspring with the original genetic stock of dogs.
God would not allow the Mexican Hairless to mate and produce live offspring because that would make them a new species. That would be macroevolution, a word invented by Creationists, which describes this impossible latest step. And god made all the species that were ever meant to be about 6,009 years ago, when he made everything else.
So if a pair of Mexican Hairless escaped into the wild, god would prevent their offspring from surviving. Spawn of the devil, I guess.
(Some Neo-Creationists will allow that god could have created everying about 10,000 years ago, up from the original 6,009 years ago as determined by Dr. Ussher. But the purists say that's a bunch of perverted crap, and non-biblical, and you're hell-bound if you believe it.)
03-11-06, 02:56 PM DorianGreyed " And god made all the species that were ever meant to be about 6,009 years ago, when he made everything else."
James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, and Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College in Dublin was highly regarded in his day as a churchman and as a scholar. Of his many works, his treatise on chronology has proved the most durable. Based on an intricate correlation of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean histories and Holy writ, it was incorporated into an authorized version of the Bible printed in 1701, and thus came to be regarded with almost as much unquestioning reverence as the Bible itself. Having established the first day of creation as Sunday 23 October 4004 BC, by the arguments set forth in the passage below, Ussher calculated the dates of other biblical events, concluding, for example, that Adam and Eve were driven from Paradise on Monday 10 November 4004 BC, and that the ark touched down on Mt Ararat on 5 May 2348 BC `on a Wednesday'. - University of Pennsylvania at Lock Haven
You have to admire that last part. "On a Wednesday" makes it all the more believable. A nice touch. Roll Eyes
03-21-06, 08:07 PM babthrower
Why don't Creationists ever celebrate Adam 'n' Eve's birthday?
Mind you, they have to adjust for the calender change, or they'd be two weeks out.
03-21-06, 08:33 PM juanruiz
quote: Why don't Creationists ever celebrate Adam 'n' Eve's birthday?
Those sinners? Never! Better that they hadn't been born!!!
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,
Posts: 2007 | Location: Boise, Idaho, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
