UPDATE: So far NO IDEAS as to how the theory of evolution can be falsified have been proposed…To make things worst, nobody so far picked up any of MY SUGGESTED IDEAS how to falsify evolution – now clearly numbered from 1-4.
It makes one wonder what the bases are for believing in the theory of evolution if no one seems to even want to at least try to falsify it…
Please keep in mind that by falsifying evolution you can refute many claims by the proponents of ID!!! Isn’t it what Darwin’s faithful want to do?
This OP is just a prelude to hopefully many future ones, where I would like to focus on the specific examples of how to falsify the theory of evolution…
This OP gives everyone an opportunity for the input on no doubt the many available ways how to experimentally falsify evolution…
As most of you know, Darwinists and post-Darwinists, for unknown reasons, are reluctant to experimentally prove their beliefs, so by the series of the OPs on the many possible ways of falsifying evolution, we can hopefully encourage Darwinists and the like, to do so for their own good… I could definitely help with that…
Here are some ideas on how to falsify evolution that I have come across so far:
How a walking mammal can evolve into an aquatic one?
1. Just as an example, let’s say I would like to evolve some aquatic functions…
How long would it take for me to see some evolutionary changes, if I spend most of the day in the water and what would they be? How about several generations of water-lovers? Can someone make a prediction, as evolutionists often do?
2. How about growing a bacterium without a flagellum, knockout the genes for the flagellum, or make the flagellum not fully functional and see whether the bacterium will evolve anything at least resembling a flagellum or evolves a better functionality of it…
3. How to evolve a function of an existing appendage that is no longer in full use to fully function again? How to make emus and ostriches to fly again?
4. How about finches? Since their beak size seems to change within one generation, could they evolve into another species within short period of time if put under selective pressure or something?
Let’s come up with ideas and put some organisms under selective pressure or whatever makes the organism evolve, and see if we can falsify evolution, so that we can end the speculations, once and for all, about who is right and who is wrong; Darwinists or Intelligent Design proponents…
Let us not hear any excuses anymore!
Let experimental science speak the truth!
I don’t think anybody in the right frame of mind would object to what I propose here… unless…. one doesn’t have the confidence in his or her preconceived ideas that could potentially be exposed…
Let’s begin!
I guess it is hard for some to imagine what a new body plan could mean especially if they believe in land-walking-whale that looked more like a wolf evolving into a fully aquatic whale…Does anybody need a picture of whale?
For some, try to imagine the conversion of a motorcycle into a submarine…
Yes, and I’ve explained why those objections are stupid playing with words, in the first case because I was not referring to speciation rates themselves but to the causes of differences in speciation rates, and in the latter case because it’s an absurd stretch to say that extinction is a change in allele frequencies in a population. No allele frequencies might change up to the moment of extinction, and then all of them change to zero, assuming that means anything at all when there’s no population for the change to happen in. I don’t think there’s any value in either of your claims other than a chance to make macroevolution equal microevolution. Certainly no biologist would accept your arguments.
Are we? Can you find that definition of “macroevolution” somewhere? I’m not familiar with it. (Incidentally, when you put new text into blockquotes, it means I have to do extra work when quoting in reply.)
Because it makes the term meaningful. Otherwise “macroevolutionary processes” means nothing that “evolutionary processes” doesn’t already. Why do you insist that it must include microevolution?
You’re bluffing. Who has made that claim?
J-Mac,
There you go Mung – my point proven to perfection. Creationists use the term ‘body plan’ without knowing what the heck they mean.
Uh, yeah, what relationship do a nuclear reactor and steam turbine have with a piston engine?
I love creationist analogies, they’re complete nonsense. Whales are made up of bits and pieces of ancestral terrestrial organs modified for aquatic existence, while subs are made mostly of parts unrelated to those in terrestrial vehicles.
Glen Davidson
The confusion continues…It’s painful to watch…
I’m going to wait long enough until the confusion is settled on one or more confusion…
This best way to know it happened is when keiths repeats the confusion with confidence as if he resolved the confusion himself…
No need to go to comedy clubs… 😉
I see it differently. I don’t see that as him saying that a whale is an example of a new body plan. If he is saying that, then yes, I agree with you that would be a misuse.
But that’s not the same as saying a wing is a body plan or a heart is a body plan, which were the examples you provided. You were claiming Creationists were confusing “body plan” with just any old macroevolutionary innovation.
My specialty. 🙂
Mung,
You’re right – as with your claim, it was something I recalled seeing, but not something I can locate.
Can we step back for a moment and ask why it is so important for some people that macroevolution be coupled to microevolutiion? How would it harm evolutionary theory in any way of they were decoupled?
Well, when I said you were bluffing I didn’t mean by that that you had to be wrong, because there are plenty of nonsensical things said by both sides. I hope we can agree on that!
So in your view every new birth and every death is evolution in action, because allele frequencies changed. Is that right?
Mung,
Yep!
Mung,
That’s kind of a reductio ad absurdum version, but it does logically have to be the case. Whether it is useful to atomise it to that extent is another matter. Large scale change in allele frequency is composed of lots of 1’s.
Exactly!
Mung,
If you define evolution as “change in allele frequencies”, then any change in allele frequencies constitutes evolution.
Does a birth change the allele frequencies in a population? Yes. Does a death? Yes.
Now, the more interesting cases of evolution are those that involve many births and many deaths. But would you seriously argue that there’s a threshold number of births or deaths below which evolution is not taking place? What would the threshold be, and how would you justify it?
John,
This is becoming surreal.
You are arguing that it’s fine to define “macroevolution” as “accumulated microevolutionary change”, yet insisting that “macroevolutionary process” must exclude accumulated microevolutionary change.
When your reasoning leads you to an absurdity, it’s time to reconsider your reasoning.
Can we step back for a moment and ask why it is so important for some people (like keiths) that macroevolution be coupled to microevolutiion? How would it harm evolutionary theory in any way of they were decoupled?
Mung,
It’s definitional, Mung. It wouldn’t harm evolutionary theory in any way.
The question is about useful definitions, not about the truth of evolutionary theory.
Thank you. You’re arguing over definitions. Good for you!
Of course we are. You’re only now realizing that?
Damn, Mung.
No. No. You may be arguing over definitions, but it does not follow that John is.
In any event, continue on. Arguing over definitions is what word-lawyers do, after all.
Mung,
Please consider enrolling in a remedial course in reading comprehension. The gulf between you and J-Mac is much narrower than you seem to realize.
keiths:
Speaking of reading comprehension: It occurs to me that Mung is probably pleased by my remark, because it implies that he is catching up to J-Mac.
I can resolve your dilemma. I don’t argue that it’s fine to define “macroevolution” as “accumulated microevolutionary change”. That’s a useless definition. And I see good reason that not all macroevolution (under some definitions) needs to occur by a macroevolutionary process. The point of talking about a macroevolutionary process instead of just an evolutionary process is to distinguish those processes unique to macroevolution. Some processes involved in macroevolution are not macroevolutionary processes because they aren’t unique to macroevolution. Why are we even arguing about this?
Genetic studies show that we are closely related.
I love it when keiths quotes himself. Who better to cite in support of what you believe than your own self?
It’s definitional!
Mung,
Given your poor reading comprehension, you should be grateful. It gives you a second chance to understand.
I am grateful. Can you imagine a world in which you didn’t have to quote yourself in order to support what you had already said?
So, I go to see this engineer and ask him to design a land walking animal resembling wolf-Pakicteus that will be battery operated. So, he draws the body plans and builds the toy. I look at it and say: I changed my mind. Now I want you to change the wolf-Pakicteus into a whale without changing the body plan…
The engineer looks at me and says. Are you crazy? Who do you think I am? A magician?
I hope people get the point…with one exception of course… 😉
J-Mac:
J-Mac doesn’t realize that he’s the exception who doesn’t get the point.
As Allan says, J-Mac is the gift that keeps on giving.
keiths:
John:
Don’t forget that you’re trying to supply examples of “macroevolutionary processes”, under your definition. The rate itself is not such a process, as we’ve discussed. Speciation is not such a process, because you’ve (surprisingly to me) disputed that it is macroevolutionary. So what are these “causes of speciation rates” that both a) qualify as macroevolutionary processes and b) do not involve changes in allele frequencies?
Allele frequencies would be changing, as I explained to Mung, unless all of the remaining organisms were genetically identical. And even then the absolute frequencies would be changing, though the relative frequencies would not.
There is a population for the change to happen in. There is one individual left (unless multiple remaining individuals die at the same instant). The change happens to that population. The population size goes from one to zero, and so do the various allele frequencies.
First of all, I’m not claiming that there’s any particular value in conceptualizing extinction as “a change of all allele frequencies to zero.” I’m simply pointing out that such a description is true, which means that extinction, which you’ve stipulated to be a macroevolutionary process, does not exclude microevolutionary change, contrary to your definition.
Second, I’m not arguing that macroevolution equals accumulated microevolution, though that is an accepted definition, as you’ve acknowledged. Alan Fox is the one making that argument.
My position aligns with Allan Miller’s, as far as I can tell. We both argue that macroevolution isn’t merely accumulated microevolution, but we certainly don’t argue that macroevolution excludes microevolution, as you do.
John,
First, it’s hardly “useless”. I’m surprised to see a smart guy like you making such a sweeping and ill-considered statement.
Second, you wrote this:
You tacked on the word “process” specifically to distinguish “macroevolutionary process” from “macroevolution”. So my point is valid:
…where that accepted definition is the one mentioned above: macroevolution as accumulated microevolutionary change.
And when I asked:
…you didn’t respond by saying “I don’t accept that definition of macroevolution.” Instead, you wrote:
So again, you were trying to distinguish “macroevolutionary process” from an accepted definition of “macroevolution”.
John,
It doesn’t follow that those processes cannot involve microevolution.
For example, Allan and I both regard speciation as a process unique to macroevolution, but that hardly means that speciation doesn’t involve microevolution. It does, but it also involves more than that, and it’s the additional stuff that makes it a uniquely macroevolutionary process.
keiths,
Yep, broadly in agreement (two amateurs agree, yay! 😉 ). I think it legit to include cumulative micro in ‘macro’, but that’s just a personal preference, binding on no-one.
Interesting discussion of the duelling viewpoints here. (I’d be tempted by the book but for the price).
We have PGs staying so only a small window of opportunity to comment.
Seems there’s a bifurcation between definitions and establishing what extra processes apply when talking of macroevolution or microevolution.
The classic definition of evolution as “change in allele frequency over time” seems eminently reasonable to me. Speciation as separation of one gene pool into two, the initial trigger being some sort of separation event (allopatry, sympatry) that allows evolutionary processes (I’ll even permit genetic drift its part). (Just occurs to me, thinking about sympatric speciation in African lake cichlids , there’s a useful term in microniche.) I could define “microevolution as the smallest possible change in one allele in one individual in one species population.
Semantically, I can agree that loss of a species by extinction is a change to zero in allele frequency. Hardly seems worth the effort of typing.
I’m still wondering what additional processes occur during a macroevolutionary process that don’t happen during an evolutionary process.
If you have a reasonable working definition of macroevolution, sure. My question remains. What additional processes are you including in macroevolution that don’t happen in microevolutionary events?
Dabbling in the semantics, that doesn’t make much sense to me. Adaptive or non-adaptive evolution carries on in exactly the same manner just with a different outcome in allele frequencies, depending on which germ-line you follow. There’s a blurry moment of separation. Is that “macroevolution”? Why call it anything other than speciation?
An illustrative example could help me a lot here.
To answer that, we’d need to define “argument”! 🙂
Could you expand on that? If I understand you correctly that implies that the separation process in speciation does indeed not involve any change in allele frequency.
Alan Fox,
Gene flow (microevolution) is constrained by the boundaries of the population. When a lineage splits, gene flow is still constrained by the boundaries of the population(s), but additional mechanisms come into play in delimiting the area within which genes can flow.
Some basic ‘forms’ do better than others – witness the adaptive radiations of bats and birds, for example. The differential between those that take off (ahem) and those that don’t isn’t simply reducible to gene flow in a population, nor even in several.
Full disclosure, I used to believe that back in 2008 when I first alighted on the creation-evolution debate. So Mung isn’t wrong. I don’t remember where I got that idea from, probably another poster who had the same misconception.
I was quickly set straight by Simon Gunkel back then (susu.xp back on the old richarddawkins.net forums).
IIRC he defines microevolution as changes in allele frequencies below the species level. And macroevolution as changes in allele frequencies “above” the species level? Actually I remember him mentioning it not too long ago on Sandwalk, so let me google that:
http://sandwalk.blogspot.dk/2015/07/the-two-mistakes-of-kirk-durston.html?showComment=1437580074813#c7568903885432823568
I see there is arguments between John Harshman, Larry, and Simon there too. I guess the take-home message of that whole thread on Sandwalk is that there actually isn’t any single agreed upon definition of macroevolution.
@ Allan
I don’t think my querying the usefulness of “macroevolution” as a describing word has much to do with my doubts about genetic drift.
From what has been said above, seems to me the discussion regarding macro/micro is largely semantic. With genetic drift my remaining reservations are regarding the undue emphasis on the process, which is the tendency for one of any alleles to fix randomly in the absence of any selective bias.
Perhaps a subject for another thread.
Rumraket,
Thanks, Rumraket. I’m going there now and I may be some time!
Just spotted this!
Fine with that, in the general case, separation of niches?
Of course.
This I don’t follow. What is it that you think I’m reducing? What else is happening that isn’t adaptive and non-adaptive evolution guided by the immediate niche environment?
Must go!
Rumraket,
Yep, Simon and I had a few exchanges. I think I generally came off worst!
Alan Fox,
The differential; the pattern. Each lineage is separately micro-evolving. But there is a pattern at a higher level, which falls within the purview of ‘macroevolutionary process’.
We are rather fixated on the behaviour of sexual species. Sex defines the boundaries of their populations. While recombinational crossover exists, we have a mechanism that allows individual loci, as subdivisions of a genome, to ‘flow through’ that population. But when a gene-impermeable barrier arises, for whatever reason, we have a collection which consists of more than just the members of one population. Viewed across the divide, the entire genomes are ‘alleles’, in an equivalent sense to the within-population alleles of ‘microevolution’.