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Unbrainwash me (Evolution Novice)

AceofSpace

New Member
arg-fallbackName="AceofSpace"/>
Good morning, League!

Back story: I came across a video of Aron Ra saying that he would explain evolution to anyone until they understood it (my paraphrasing) and I am taking him up on his offer. He recommended that we do it in here with y'all. So hi.

What I get: I understand micro evolution (I think? with like viruses and breeds and stuff) and the vaguely the concept of macro evolution. I definitely do not understand how/when micro evolution becomes macro evolution. (Or why are there marine mammals. Like I get it, but I don't get it.)

I also don't get the (literally forgot what I was gonna write here).

Back story of the back story: I was raised in a American conservative Christian new-earth-creationism-then-old-earth-creationism homeschooling family. There are many things I don't know. I personally am no longer a Christian (probably best described as an anti-theist agnostic), but I am missing a lot of understanding how the world actually works.

My disorder: I have a disorder that... well, fucks with my memory. My memory is great until it's not. I apologize in advance for all of the times you will have to refer to something you said previously. It is just how my brain is wired. Not a lot I can do about it except have things repeated until I get it permanently.
 
arg-fallbackName="*SD*"/>
The above image is the best way I can describe the difference between micro and macro (anything) evolution. I was looking for an actual image I saw years ago but I'm unable to find it, so I just scribbled this on a piece of paper and took a picture of it.

The only difference, as far as I'm aware, is the time scale. You have lots and lots of very small changes occurring over time, all micro. When you look at the starting point (perhaps the time you began observing) and then the current point, those small changes will each add up to be a significant change, so macro.
 
arg-fallbackName="*SD*"/>
Perhaps an analogy would also be useful. If you have a brick, you can lay it down and now you have one brick on the ground, then you get another brick and arrange it with the first brick. To start with you only had one brick, each one you add would be a micro change. So if you took a picture of the ground before laying any bricks, and took a picture each time you added one, each would be a micro change. Macro is like the first picture before you added any bricks at all, and the very last picture once you've finished building the house.
 
arg-fallbackName="BrachioPEP"/>
You may find the response I gave (to ther difference between micro and macro evolution) helpful, here, but Aron, I or someo ne else can add to it if needed:

 
arg-fallbackName="AceofSpace"/>
The above image is the best way I can describe the difference between micro and macro (anything) evolution. I was looking for an actual image I saw years ago but I'm unable to find it, so I just scribbled this on a piece of paper and took a picture of it.

The only difference, as far as I'm aware, is the time scale. You have lots and lots of very small changes occurring over time, all micro. When you look at the starting point (perhaps the time you began observing) and then the current point, those small changes will each add up to be a significant change, so macro.
Perhaps an analogy would also be useful. If you have a brick, you can lay it down and now you have one brick on the ground, then you get another brick and arrange it with the first brick. To start with you only had one brick, each one you add would be a micro change. So if you took a picture of the ground before laying any bricks, and took a picture each time you added one, each would be a micro change. Macro is like the first picture before you added any bricks at all, and the very last picture once you've finished building the house.

I get the "little bits equal a lot" sort of thing but were is the cut off. Like I can have a million ants and they will always be a million ants. They have to show destruction to the environment on a certain scale to be an infestation.

I can just layer a bunch of bricks and it just looks like a bunch of bricks. If I didn't know what a house was and I was layering on a rocky surface, it could just look like rocks on top of more rocks, right?

What counts as a "significant change"? Because to me, a pug vs a german shepherd is huge. But that's just breeding? Or the flu virus mutates every year. but it's still "the flu"?

I feel like micro evolution should be Holy Toledo, that's not the same any more! evolution and macro should be called something else entirely.
 
arg-fallbackName="AceofSpace"/>
You may find the response I gave (to ther difference between micro and macro evolution) helpful, here, but Aron, I or someo ne else can add to it if needed:


Thanks. I understand that evolution doesn't start and stop, it is constant. and that humans are the ones putting labels on stuff. But isn't it just organism one through a million? Is that just because we named stuff before we figured out how that all works?

Like where do scientists label marco vs mirco?
 
arg-fallbackName="AceofSpace"/>
You may find the response I gave (to ther difference between micro and macro evolution) helpful, here, but Aron, I or someo ne else can add to it if needed:


Imma gonna have to read this again later. I'm not understanding like 90% of it right now, I think.
 
arg-fallbackName="AronRa"/>
Ace of Space? I have a shirt that identifies me as the Ace of Clades. :cool:

First things first, we have to get to definitions.

Evolution: Unless otherwise specified, the scientific context always refers to an explanation of biodiversity via population mechanics; summarily defined as ‘descent with inherent [genetic] modification’: Paraphrased for clarity, it is a process of varying allele frequencies among reproductive populations; leading to (usually subtle) changes in the morphological or physiological composition of descendant subsets. When compiled over successive generations, these can expand biodiversity when continuing variation between genetically-isolated groups eventually lead to one or more descendant branches increasingly distinct from their ancestors or cousins.

Microevolution is “Small scale” evolution within a single species / interbreeding population.
Macroevolution is “Large scale” evolution between different species / populations: The emergence of new taxa at or above the species level.

Many creationists say they accept microevolution but that they don't accept macro. Yet they usually say they accept speciation as well. This proves they don't know what they're talking about, as "speciation" (the emergence of new species) is macro, not micro.

It used to be that the cornerstone of the creationist's argument was that no one had ever seen a new species evolve. Carolus Linnaeus, the "father of taxonomy" lived a century before Darwin, and he was a creationist who thought that species could diversify a bit, of course, through selective breeding or other means, but he thought that the emergence of new species was impossible. Darwin realized that a new variety of finches on the islands of Galapagos weren't just varieties of the same species, they were different species, each with distinctly unique characteristics depending on their island. We now have a biological species concept for sexually reproductive animals, that they qualify as new species when they become so physically or genetically distinct that are either unable or unwilling to interbreed with each other. The point is that Darwin realized a mechanism whereby new species could evolve, which is why he wrote his book "On The Origin of Species".

Now that speciation events have been directly observed and documented dozens of times, both in the lab and in naturally-controlled conditions in the field, creationists have turned to a straw-man misrepresentation of evolution, arguing that any new species of fruit fly or finch is "still a fly" or it's "still a finch", which of course it would have to be according to the evolutionary law of biodiversity, following a branching tree pattern determined by diagnostic traits, and the law of monophyly, that "you can't grow out of your ancestry". Instead, creationists misrepresent macroevolution as if it is "one 'kind' of thing giving birth to another fundamentally different 'kind'." They don't understand any part of what macroevolution really is, and they don't want to.

To start with, evolution is change at the population level. A good analogy to understand this is to look at how Latin evolved into Spanish, French and Romanian, via cladogenesis, (diversifying into new varieties) and how Latin evolved into Italian by anagenesis, where the original variety transformed into the new one over time. In each case, there was never a first Spaniard born amongst Latin-speaking people. But if you look into early writings in the interim, you will find documents that are not the original form of Latin anymore, yet nor are they quite Spanish yet either.

Another important point is that there is no such thing as a "kind". This is a term creationists cannot and will not define. It is used to obfuscate and cloud the issue in their own minds so that they themselves will not understand what they dare not risk believing.

Finally, the mechanisms at work in microevolution never stop. They continue on throughout macroevolution too. Those are the Darwinian mechanisms of Natural and Sexual selection, but other scientists have identified other mechanisms since then, such as Endosymbiosis, epigenetics, and most important of all, genetic drift, which is the constant accumulation of new genetic variance via mutations, distinguishing every individual from each of its siblings, from its parents and from its offspring.

Before I begin to explain any more, do you understand and accept all of this so far?
 
arg-fallbackName="AceofSpace"/>
Haha I'm looking up like 3 words every paragraph.

Ace of Space? I have a shirt that identifies me as the Ace of Clades. :cool:

Sounds like a cool shirt. (had to look up what a clade was)


First things first, we have to get to definitions.

Evolution: Unless otherwise specified, the scientific context always refers to an explanation of biodiversity via population mechanics; summarily defined as ‘descent with inherent [genetic] modification’: Paraphrased for clarity, it is a process of varying allele frequencies among reproductive populations; leading to (usually subtle) changes in the morphological or physiological composition of descendant subsets. When compiled over successive generations, these can expand biodiversity when continuing variation between genetically-isolated groups eventually lead to one or more descendant branches increasingly distinct from their ancestors or cousins.

Microevolution is “Small scale” evolution within a single species / interbreeding population.
Macroevolution is “Large scale” evolution between different species / populations: The emergence of new taxa at or above the species level.

So far so good

Many creationists say they accept microevolution but that they don't accept macro. Yet they usually say they accept speciation as well. This proves they don't know what they're talking about, as "speciation" (the emergence of new species) is macro, not micro.

It used to be that the cornerstone of the creationist's argument was that no one had ever seen a new species evolve. Carolus Linnaeus, the "father of taxonomy" lived a century before Darwin, and he was a creationist who thought that species could diversify a bit, of course, through selective breeding or other means, but he thought that the emergence of new species was impossible. Darwin realized that a new variety of finches on the islands of Galapagos weren't just varieties of the same species, they were different species, each with distinctly unique characteristics depending on their island. We now have a biological species concept for sexually reproductive animals, that they qualify as new species when they become so physically or genetically distinct that are either unable or unwilling to interbreed with each other. The point is that Darwin realized a mechanism whereby new species could evolve, which is why he wrote his book "On The Origin of Species".

This is answer to my question earlier. Thanks.

Now that speciation events have been directly observed and documented dozens of times, both in the lab and in naturally-controlled conditions in the field, creationists have turned to a straw-man misrepresentation of evolution, arguing that any new species of fruit fly or finch is "still a fly" or it's "still a finch", which of course it would have to be according to the evolutionary law of biodiversity, following a branching tree pattern determined by diagnostic traits, and the law of monophyly, that "you can't grow out of your ancestry". Instead, creationists misrepresent macroevolution as if it is "one 'kind' of thing giving birth to another fundamentally different 'kind'." They don't understand any part of what macroevolution really is, and they don't want to.

To start with, evolution is change at the population level. A good analogy to understand this is to look at how Latin evolved into Spanish, French and Romanian, via cladogenesis, (diversifying into new varieties) and how Latin evolved into Italian by anagenesis, where the original variety transformed into the new one over time. In each case, there was never a first Spaniard born amongst Latin-speaking people. But if you look into early writings in the interim, you will find documents that are not the original form of Latin anymore, yet nor are they quite Spanish yet either.

Another important point is that there is no such thing as a "kind". This is a term creationists cannot and will not define. It is used to obfuscate and cloud the issue in their own minds so that they themselves will not understand what they dare not risk believing.

Yeah, I feel that so hard it hurts.

Finally, the mechanisms at work in microevolution never stop. They continue on throughout macroevolution too. Those are the Darwinian mechanisms of Natural and Sexual selection, but other scientists have identified other mechanisms since then, such as Endosymbiosis, epigenetics, and most important of all, genetic drift, which is the constant accumulation of new genetic variance via mutations, distinguishing every individual from each of its siblings, from its parents and from its offspring.

Before I begin to explain any more, do you understand and accept all of this so far?


I think I'm good so far. Gonna ignore the psychosomatic chest pain. What's next?
 
arg-fallbackName="Nesslig20"/>
In my opinion, this video (which I helped with the script) corrects some of the common misconceptions people have about evolution.
So it would be a good starting point, I would say.

 
arg-fallbackName="AronRa"/>
I think I'm good so far. Gonna ignore the psychosomatic chest pain. What's next?
You mentioned in your OP that you have a problem with your memory. I wonder if I do too, because I got engrossed in other projects and completely forgot that I was involved in this discussion too. Please accept my sincere apologies.

Anyway, as I said, if you only understand microevolution by itself, you'll pretty much have macroevolution down too, as it is just a continuation of the same processes, albeit slightly accelerated, as I'll explain in a moment. Humans have an average of 128 mutations per zygote (Giannelli et al, 1999), right from the point of conception. From there, we accumulate more, as our cells will mutate again, perhaps thirty more times over the course of our lives, and some of these subsequent mutations can be passed on to our children too, usually with no more effect than those we recognize as family traits. If novel features enjoy the benefit of fortune over the course of population genetics, whether they help attract mates, improve reproduction, protect offspring or what have you, then those traits will eventually spread throughout the whole population.

Remember that the parent gene pool actually does more to inhibit new aberrations than to promote them. A smaller gene pool is much easier to influence, so what you usually get are more significant changes emerging in smaller colonies that have been genetically isolated from the main population.

To explain that another way, you understand that if there were no people on the planet except for one isolated homogeneous community, then when that growing population expands into other lands, those who are now isolated by great barriers and/or distance will accumulate their own unique mutations that will not be the same ones as those that continue to emerge in the ancestral population. They will grow apart genetically, such that after several generations of isolation, both groups will become increasingly distinct, both from each other (cladogenesis) and from their ancestors as well (anagenesis). Such that if some outside alien observer finds a lone wanderer in "no man's land", they will be able to tell which of the two populations that traveler came from.

Eventually, they may get to the point where the two groups are distinct—where a trait now held in common by every member of one group is not shared by any member of the other group. This is known either as a subspecies or a breed, depending on whether it was naturally evolved or artificially bred. If the two groups resume interbreeding, then all that may meld together again as if it had never been. But if they’re isolated long enough, they will continue to drift further apart both physically and genetically until it becomes difficult to interbreed at all anymore. Eventually, they’ll only be able to sire infertile hybrids, if they can still produce anything living. At the point when two sexually reproductive populations can no longer interbreed with viable offspring, then they have become two different species. This is the most significant level in the whole of phylogenetics, when the daughter strain is now unrestrained by the once-dominant parent gene pool and is therefore free to express an even greater variance, thus continually widening the gap between them. This is a practical parallel of what creationists call the addition of new “information.”

Thus, “species” is the only taxonomic division that is genetically significant, and it is also the only one of the old Linnaean ranks with an applicable definition. Consequently, it is the only level of taxonomy that can be objectively determined, and the act of speciation is the only event in the contested scale of evolutionary history that could ever be observed, even if we had a time machine. So it is the only possible point of division between the largely unnecessary distinctions of macro-and microevolution.

Do you accept everything as described so far? Let me know if you have any questions.



F Giannelli 1, T Anagnostopoulos, P M Green; Mutation rates in humans. II. Sporadic mutation-specific rates and rate of detrimental human mutations inferred from hemophilia B. American Journal of Human Genetics. 1999 Dec;65(6):1580-7. doi: 10.1086/302652.
 
arg-fallbackName="*SD*"/>
Man it is so cool to get a reply from Aron Ra. I really like how he writes things. He is easy to read.

He's a fairly regular contributor here, but I'm pretty sure he has quite a busy schedule so sometimes takes a while to reply.
 
arg-fallbackName="AceofSpace"/>
You mentioned in your OP that you have a problem with your memory. I wonder if I do too, because I got engrossed in other projects and completely forgot that I was involved in this discussion too. Please accept my sincere apologies.

Anyway, as I said, if you only understand microevolution by itself, you'll pretty much have macroevolution down too, as it is just a continuation of the same processes, albeit slightly accelerated, as I'll explain in a moment. Humans have an average of 128 mutations per zygote (Giannelli et al, 1999), right from the point of conception. From there, we accumulate more, as our cells will mutate again, perhaps thirty more times over the course of our lives, and some of these subsequent mutations can be passed on to our children too, usually with no more effect than those we recognize as family traits. If novel features enjoy the benefit of fortune over the course of population genetics, whether they help attract mates, improve reproduction, protect offspring or what have you, then those traits will eventually spread throughout the whole population.

Remember that the parent gene pool actually does more to inhibit new aberrations than to promote them. A smaller gene pool is much easier to influence, so what you usually get are more significant changes emerging in smaller colonies that have been genetically isolated from the main population.

To explain that another way, you understand that if there were no people on the planet except for one isolated homogeneous community, then when that growing population expands into other lands, those who are now isolated by great barriers and/or distance will accumulate their own unique mutations that will not be the same ones as those that continue to emerge in the ancestral population. They will grow apart genetically, such that after several generations of isolation, both groups will become increasingly distinct, both from each other (cladogenesis) and from their ancestors as well (anagenesis). Such that if some outside alien observer finds a lone wanderer in "no man's land", they will be able to tell which of the two populations that traveler came from.

Eventually, they may get to the point where the two groups are distinct—where a trait now held in common by every member of one group is not shared by any member of the other group. This is known either as a subspecies or a breed, depending on whether it was naturally evolved or artificially bred. If the two groups resume interbreeding, then all that may meld together again as if it had never been. But if they’re isolated long enough, they will continue to drift further apart both physically and genetically until it becomes difficult to interbreed at all anymore. Eventually, they’ll only be able to sire infertile hybrids, if they can still produce anything living. At the point when two sexually reproductive populations can no longer interbreed with viable offspring, then they have become two different species. This is the most significant level in the whole of phylogenetics, when the daughter strain is now unrestrained by the once-dominant parent gene pool and is therefore free to express an even greater variance, thus continually widening the gap between them. This is a practical parallel of what creationists call the addition of new “information.”

Thus, “species” is the only taxonomic division that is genetically significant, and it is also the only one of the old Linnaean ranks with an applicable definition. Consequently, it is the only level of taxonomy that can be objectively determined, and the act of speciation is the only event in the contested scale of evolutionary history that could ever be observed, even if we had a time machine. So it is the only possible point of division between the largely unnecessary distinctions of macro-and microevolution.

Do you accept everything as described so far? Let me know if you have any questions.



F Giannelli 1, T Anagnostopoulos, P M Green; Mutation rates in humans. II. Sporadic mutation-specific rates and rate of detrimental human mutations inferred from hemophilia B. American Journal of Human Genetics. 1999 Dec;65(6):1580-7. doi: 10.1086/302652.


1stly) Thank you for sharing you knowledge. I'm still having to look up a lot of stuff, but I am slowly getting it. I was watching a documentary with my god son about sharks and coral reefs. I was understanding more of what they were saying about the isolation of the species on the separate islands and the invading species. Thank you. This is really helpful.

2ndly) About species and subspecies/breeding, I had to reread it a bunch of time but I think I have it.
I think I was too hung up on hard definitions. Like a horse and a donkey can have a mule, a horse and a pig can't, but they are all three separate species. Horses and donkeys are more closely related, so they can sometimes produce infertile offspring and on very rare occasions a fertile one. But they are still separate species. I need to think in terms of the wild population and not a few at some farm.

Lastly) Memory is a butt sometimes. haha

What's next?
 
arg-fallbackName="AceofSpace"/>
In my opinion, this video (which I helped with the script) corrects some of the common misconceptions people have about evolution.
So it would be a good starting point, I would say.



Fun video. I don't understand most of that he is saying though. (Sometimes my brain shuts off.) I'll try watching again when I can.
 
arg-fallbackName="AronRa"/>
About species and subspecies/breeding, I had to reread it a bunch of time but I think I have it.
Indeed I think you do, or you're well on your way. I think we're over the hurdle.

As you noted, horses and donkeys and zebras are equines. Species in the same genus may be able to interbreed. The more distantly-related they are, the more likely their hybrids will be infertile, not viable or impossible. Equines are Persissodactyls, odd-toed ungulates (hoofed animals). Their closes living non-equine relatives are rhinoceros. Pigs, on the other hand, are artiodactyls, even-toed ungulates. Their family, Suidae is more closely-related to hippos, and quite far removed from horses. I made a video about that, if you're interested.


I'm glad you referenced Jackson Wheat. He is a good source. For my own approach to the evolution of dogs, I made a couple videos about that too.


And an associated one about cats.


I offer these videos only as a courtesy. I will also be happy to answer any direct questions you may have, especially if you have any objection to, or need clarification on the information provided.
 
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