Posted by cougar on Nov 03, 2002 at 12:19
(63.228.205.209)
Re: phyletic evolution is a fantasy... (anyman)
First of all, by 1871, twelve years after the publication of the Origin of Species, Darwin no longer needed to try to convince people of good will and mental flexibility that evolution had occurred; that battle had been won. It's quite remarkable, but apparently there are still people who lack mental flexibility or good will, or both.
Second, your claim is simply wrong that....
"mutations are mistakes in the genomic copying process...they can do no more than (mis)edit already extant information... at best, both of these alleged evolutionary mechanisms can provide a recombination of all of the extant (already available) genetic information... they in no way add to or increase the gross or net total of highly specific complex genetic information... mutations... they generally lead to a loss of information...not one has ever been shown to add or increase the total pool of extant genetic...
Extremely extensive genetic change has been observed, both in the lab and in the wild. We have seen genomes irreversibly and heritably altered by numerous phenomena, including gene flow, random genetic drift, natural selection, and mutation. Observed mutations have occurred by mobile introns, gene duplications, recombination, transpositions, retroviral insertions (horizontal gene transfer), base substitutions, base deletions, base insertions, and chromosomal rearrangements. Chromosomal rearrangements include genome duplication (e.g. polyploidy), unequal crossing over, inversions, translocations, fissions, fusions, chromosome duplications and chromosome deletions.
And of course the genetic information specifies everything about an organism and its potential. Therefore, phenotypic change (the form, shape, and make-up of the organism) follows genetic change.
Further, almost every imaginable heritable variation in size, length, width, or number of some physical aspect of animals has been recorded. This is extremely important for common descent, since the major morphological (form) differences between many species (e.g. species of amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds) are simple alterations in size of certain aspects of their respective paralogous structures.
The terms macro- and micro- evolution were actually introduced by creationists like youself who wanted to differentiate between those variations actually seen in the lab (which they couldn't refute without looking silly) and those only seen in the fossil record over much longer time spans (which they're still trying to refute, regardless of how silly they look.) But you're right, macro-evolution is just micro-evolution which has been given more time.
You do a lot of hand-waving and claim there may be some "small" variations among organisms but there's no "big", "phyletic" variations. But here's a newsflash, A-man: The fact that you claim something does not in itself make it true. If you want to prove or disprove something, most people are going to want to see some evidence backing up your assertion. You don't supply any.
A-man then adds....
"...the good news is...we all gonna know the answers to all the important questions someday."
What, is this some vague reference to the "end of days" or the "second coming of Jesus Christ" or the "cosmic alignment" or something? Is this when you enter "heaven" and everybody who disagrees with you burns in hell? Does that make you feel superior, happy, like ingesting a huge slab of animal flesh?
Grrrr...