https://phys.org/news/2017-11-galapagos-species.html

Interesting and will surely be used in future arguments from the two usual sides. I know that the Noah's Ark Museum claims only a few species were saved during the flood and all the different ones we have now are from new species coming after the flood. (I don't accept that but just saying)

Martin Q. Blank said:

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Creationists like to claim a "kind" cannot evolve into another "kind."

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all acknowledge that it's a human construct used for classification purposes and not much else.

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Then a "kind" is a classification such that it cannot evolve into another "kind."

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Where do you scientifically draw that line? And be specific. It has to be testable.

Then it doesn't exist

Martin Q. Blank said:

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Aggrad08 said:

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Then it doesn't exist

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Explain.

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There's no line at which a group of living organisms cannot evolve. No magic shutdown switch that prevents it from accumulating mutations over time until members of the group become something new and form a new group.

Martin Q. Blank said:

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Dr. Watson said:

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Martin Q. Blank said:

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Quote:

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Creationists like to claim a "kind" cannot evolve into another "kind."

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Quote:

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all acknowledge that it's a human construct used for classification purposes and not much else.

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Then a "kind" is a classification such that it cannot evolve into another "kind."

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Where do you scientifically draw that line? And be specific. It has to be testable.

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The line is drawn wherever a creature cannot evolve into another.

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So Noah just needed single cell bacteria on the ark?

Martin Q. Blank said:

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Dr. Watson said:

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Martin Q. Blank said:

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Aggrad08 said:

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Then it doesn't exist

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Explain.

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There's no line at which a group of living organisms cannot evolve.

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You said be scientific. That's not a scientific statement, but one of faith.

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That is a scientific statement borne out by over a century of research and evidence. If you think it's wrong, show your evidence.

Martin Q. Blank said:

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Dr. Watson said:

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Martin Q. Blank said:

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Dr. Watson said:

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Martin Q. Blank said:

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Aggrad08 said:

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Then it doesn't exist

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Explain.

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There's no line at which a group of living organisms cannot evolve.

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You said be scientific. That's not a scientific statement, but one of faith.

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That is a scientific statement borne out by over a century of research and evidence. If you think it's wrong, show your evidence.

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I'd like to see the scientific paper in which "There's no line at which a group of living organisms cannot evolve." is the hypothesis and the paper supports it with evidence. I think it's a statement that could not possibly proven or disproven.

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I'd still like you to provide a scientific definition of a "kind" that we can test.

Dr. Watson said:

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When creationists can scientifically define a "kind," they can engage in a legitimate debate. Until then, it's all about cherry-picking the scientific work that might, on its surface, not invalidate their beliefs.

On the actual article, the Grants' work is incredible and they've been doing it for decades. They've shown already how dramatically the environment can impact natural selection in just one generation. Given an isolated environment without predation, it makes sense that sexually compatible species could produce a viable hybrid that quickly establishes itself. Could help explain the radiation of new species following extinction events.

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I would say kind is synonymous with the term syngameon.

Except we have examples of reproducing hybrids which cannot mate with either parent species. By that definition they are a new "kind."

Aggie4Life02 said:

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Dr. Watson said:

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Except we have examples of reproducing hybrids which cannot mate with either parent species. By that definition they are a new "kind."

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New species, not new syngameon. Creationism doesn't deny speciation. They deny common descent.

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Except many of them do deny speciation. We've had long arguments here with folks claiming "macroevolution" is impossible and they draw that line at speciation.

You're going to have to spell out how you're using syngameon more concretely. Because I've seen it used to refer to a population irrespective of species capable of trading genes. You're still talking about drawing artificial lines against evolution at some point.

Dr. Watson said:

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Aggie4Life02 said:

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Dr. Watson said:

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Except we have examples of reproducing hybrids which cannot mate with either parent species. By that definition they are a new "kind."

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New species, not new syngameon. Creationism doesn't deny speciation. They deny common descent.

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Except many of them do deny speciation. We've had long arguments here with folks claiming "macroevolution" is impossible and they draw that line at speciation.

You're going to have to spell out how you're using syngameon more concretely. Because I've seen it used to refer to a population irrespective of species capable of trading genes. You're still talking about drawing artificial lines against evolution at some point.

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I can't speak for anyone else, but there is no problem Biblically with the concept of speciation. The problem is with common descent.

My understanding was always that a species was a kind of organism that can produce viable offspring. Therefore, a horse is a species, a donkey is a species, but a mule is not. When mules mutate enough that the can make more mules among themselves, but can't breed with cows or horses, we have an evolved speciation.

People are trying like mad to create this.

I would be surprised if this bird study found this. It's a fair critique that anything less was an attempt to move the goalposts.

Aggie4Life0 said:

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I can't speak for anyone else, but there is no problem Biblically with the concept of speciation. The problem is with common descent.

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I won't even go that far. I believe that God created man in his own image, and that this is the form he was aiming for. How that happened doesn't really matter to me.

BusterAg said:

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Aggie4Life0 said:

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I can't speak for anyone else, but there is no problem Biblically with the concept of speciation. The problem is with common descent.

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I won't even go that far. I believe that God created man in his own image, and that this is the form he was aiming for. How that happened doesn't really matter to me.

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Of course he did. What I'm saying is that many of the animals created at the beginning lexperienced speciation later after generations of offspring and genetic mutations.

So God prefers the long game and created man by starting with bacteria 3 billion years earlier. What's the problem?

Aggie4Life02 said:

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amercer said:

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So God prefers the long game and created man by starting with bacteria 3 billion years earlier. What's the problem?

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The problem is that's not how God said it happened.

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Many people seem to dispute what He actually said.

I don't see what this bought you besides moving the goalpost away from speciation since we already proved it can be done. As far as I can see it's merely an attempt at working around their previous denial's obvious conflict with concrete data. The previous argument was "macroevolution" cannot happen (without a reason), only microevolution. And we would say, look at this study, see here how we demonstrate that its very much the case.

Now you are saying "super-macroevolution" cannot happen (again without a why)

You are still left with the same issue. We see change, and you need it to stop. Does it really matter where? Species, genus, class, phylum. You just need it to stop so somewhere along the line or common decent has no holes in it. So tell me why it stops.

The other issue you have is you need change that's absurdly rapid. You need a few select animals on a boat to turn into every species we see to day in the historical blink of an eye and simultaneously explain why we don't see such rapid speciation today.

Aggrad08 said:

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I don't see what this bought you besides moving the goalpost away from speciation since we already proved it can be done. As far as I can see it's merely an attempt at working around their previous denial's obvious conflict with concrete data. The previous argument was "macroevolution" cannot happen (without a reason), only microevolution. And we would say, look at this study, see here how we demonstrate that its very much the case.

Now you are saying "super-macroevolution" cannot happen (again without a why)

You are still left with the same issue. We see change, and you need it to stop. Does it really matter where? Species, genus, class, phylum. You just need it to stop so somewhere along the line or common decent has no holes in it. So tell me why it stops.

The other issue you have is you need change that's absurdly rapid. You need a few select animals on a boat to turn into every species we see to day in the historical blink of an eye and simultaneously explain why we don't see such rapid speciation today.

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The change stops because all changes result from the degradation of the generic code. Mutation cannot add genetic information to the gene pool. Also, once a certain level of degradation takes place, that gene line will die off.

dargscisyhp said:

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Haven't you already been shown multiple ways in which mutations can and do add information?

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Mutations do not add information. Duplicating genetic material and/or changing existing genetic material isn't the same as adding information.

It's akin to randomly changing an operating systems binary code and thinking that eventually you will get a new application, such as a word processor or an image editor.

Aggie4Life02 said:

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dargscisyhp said:

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Haven't you already been shown multiple ways in which mutations can and do add information?

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Mutations do not add information. Duplicating genetic material and/or changing existing genetic material isn't the same as adding information

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Right, you've stated this before. The question is why do you believe this in light of all the information to the contrary?