Question about evolution and species.

[Iamme]

Anyone with any intelligence knows that sea algae turned into sharks, octopuses, crabs, whales, eels, trees, mushrooms, peanuts, tulips, cactus, oysters, skunks, poisonous snakes, scorpions, aligators, hippos, camels, turtles, birds, dogs, man, mosquitoes, worms, moles, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.. Isn't it obvious how all that did not stay as sea algae when it had the opporunity instead to turn into all those other things, so they could ocuppy sea land and air for various and better reasons?

 

[Chris L]

Creationists realize that the ark had a limited amount of room

Why? I mean if you are willing to believe in the whole magic boat thing, why can't it be bigger on the inside than on the outside (TARDIS anyone?). It makes as much sense as creating every known species from a small stock with the help of accelerated evolution. Which is to say, none.

 

[jasonpatterson]

I would say that the best evidence against such a hypothesis would be the lack of a genetic bottleneck in the species that would show that they were descended from an extremely small breeding population very recently, historically speaking.

DonExodus2 did a good video about this. Just to summarize, if there were only 2 of each 'kind' of animal, they would have been forced to undergo massive inbreeding, leading to some possibly fatal problems in the long run. He compares the fate of Noah's ark animals to that of the cheetah, an animal that did experience a population bottleneck and was badly damaged by it, as a species.

This is one of his earlier videos, he got better with production as time went on.

 

[Roboramma]

What's interesting is that if individual kinds could evolve into several different species in the course of several thousand years, it's pretty clear that they could undergo much much much greater change over the course of millions or billions of years.

The only question that remains is if they had that time or not: they've basically conceded the question of whether or not evolution is a possible explanation for the variety of life on earth, and are left arguing over the specific question of whether or not it did happen in actual history.

Of course, there is so much evidence for the latter that this conversation should have ended a long time ago.

 

[Complexity]

In the Religion sub-forum, I am arguing with a poster who claims that the 1.5 million cubic feet of space in Noah's Ark was enough to carry that animals because all the species we see today are the result of speciation occurring in the past 4400 years. In other words Noah took a pair of each "kind," not a pair of each species. There was no need to take a tiger, a lion, a jaguar, a cougar, a lynx, a leopard, and a cheetah. Any one of them would do because all the others would have evolved from that original pair of great cats.

This poster is insisting on some sort of scientific evidence that it is not possible for 5000 mammals, 11,000 birds and 8,000 reptiles to have descended from just a few animal species in the past four millennia.

Can anyone help?

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
ETA: feel free to admonish me about the foolishness of arguing with a Bible literalist.

Consider yourself admonished.

This person is insane and should be left to drool in solitude.

I think that reading a good science book would be a much more enjoyable and profitable way of spending your time. I'm not suggesting that you need to read one more than the rest of us, just that it would be a far better use of your time than playing Sisyphus to a fool.

I don't think we have any moral or ethical obligation to attempt to educate or correct these people. Life is too short to waste it on them.

 

[AvalonXQ]

What's interesting is that if individual kinds could evolve into several different species in the course of several thousand years, it's pretty clear that they could undergo much much much greater change over the course of millions or billions of years.

No. Conceding that it's possible for a given "kind" of animal to contain enough genetic information to be able to vary into a group of species, is not conceding that one "kind" of animal contains the genetic information to become every other "kind" of animal. Variation within a "kind" does not imply the ability to vary across "kinds". Most creationists take the position that genetic variation is not powerful enough to do this.

 

[paximperium]

No. Conceding that it's possible for a given "kind" of animal to contain enough genetic information to be able to vary into a group of species, is not conceding that one "kind" of animal contains the genetic information to become every other "kind" of animal. Variation within a "kind" does not imply the ability to vary across "kinds". Most creationists take the position that genetic variation is not powerful enough to do this.

What prevents these variations from progressing beyond a "kind"?
What is a "kind" anyway?

 

[kellyb]

Why? I mean if you are willing to believe in the whole magic boat thing, why can't it be bigger on the inside than on the outside (TARDIS anyone?). It makes as much sense as creating every known species from a small stock with the help of accelerated evolution. Which is to say, none.

Ooo...
Or maybe an angel dropped off a raygun at the entrance that miniturized all the lions, tigers, bears etc into little tiny smurf-sized critters. That would have helped with keeping the food needs and waste issues managable, too.

This is fun.

 

[jasonpatterson]

Ooo...
Or maybe an angel dropped off a raygun at the entrance that miniturized all the lions, tigers, bears etc into little tiny smurf-sized critters. That would have helped with keeping the food needs and waste issues managable, too.

This is fun.

The really sad part is that what you have proposed is a more sensible argument than what creationists actually believe.

 

[AvalonXQ]

What prevents these variations from progressing beyond a "kind"?

The limits of variation within an animal's genome.
It's within the range of genetic diversity for my kid to be a bit smarter than I am, a bit taller, better musculature, or a deeper shade of brown.
It's not within the range of genetic diversity for my kid to have gills, wings, and chloroplasts in his skin cells. And as long as you're dealing with the expression of existing genes, none of my descendants will ever have those things.
The limits to evolution are built into the idea that descendants will stay almost entirely within the set expressions of the ancestor's original genome. Mechanisms that move the animal outside of that set are what the Creationists don't accept: such as the idea that mutation can be viable mechanism for the emergence of wholly new animal features.

What is a "kind" anyway?

All of those animals which descend from an independently-created population belong to one "kind".

 

[paximperium]

The limits of variation within an animal's genome.
It's within the range of genetic diversity for my kid to be a bit smarter than I am, a bit taller, better musculature, or a deeper shade of brown.
It's not within the range of genetic diversity for my kid to have gills, wings, and chloroplasts in his skin cells. And as long as you're dealing with the expression of existing genes, none of my descendants will ever have those things.

Why?

The limits to evolution are built into the idea that descendants will stay almost entirely within the set expressions of the ancestor's original genome.

I didn't ask for an description. I asked what is preventing this.

Mechanisms that move the animal outside of that set are what the Creationists don't accept: such as the idea that mutation can be viable mechanism for the emergence of wholly new animal features.

What is the criteria for "wholly new animal features"?

All of those animals which descend from an independently-created population belong to one "kind".

What is an "independently-created population"?

 

[Lucian]

Ooo...
Or maybe an angel dropped off a raygun at the entrance that miniturized all the lions, tigers, bears etc into little tiny smurf-sized critters. That would have helped with keeping the food needs and waste issues managable, too.

This is fun.

Answers in Genesis Films presents Honey, I Shrunk the Animals. Coming to a theater near you.

 

[Complexity]

All of those animals which descend from an independently-created population belong to one "kind".

I just love tech talk.