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I think the fundamental problem is that "species" is a way for human to divide up organisms, rather than a fundamental function of biology or evolution. Every o

I think the fundamental problem is that "species" is a way for human to divide up organisms, rather than a fundamental function of biology or evolution. Every organism has its own DNA but "species" is a way of trying to group those into patterns that make sense to humans. That is, it's easy enough to demonstrate that evolution drives changes in DNA. That's objective. Whether or not you call it a species change is subjective.

nyrulez 12y ago
Let me phrase the question a different way - since species seems to be overloaded. What stable state of organism led to the evolution of Giraffe ? Lets call that organism X. (I actually don't know what X is, is it a horse or a zebra or a donkey?) Is there a simulation that would demonstrate X evolving to a Giraffe or test it ? Or put another way, if we were to take some snapshots at times where we could consider the organism to be different enough according to the modern "species" classification say A -> B -> C -> D -> E, is there a way to test D -> E or B-> C using the stated principles/theory ?
- splawn 12y ago
  There is no such thing as a "stable state of organism" in this context. Remove all your goalposts because they are confusing you. Evolution is a continuum.
  - nyrulez 12y ago
    Then what is evolution trying to explain ? I thought it was explaining how primates evolved to humans, not just micro evolution at the DNA level ? For all practical purposes these are considered stable states in that they are different enough (visually, internally, intellectually) so as not to be considered continuous i.e. just differing by some epsilon. Are you saying evolution does not claim to answer this and this is a question not worth asking? I have a feeling the gist of what I am asking is clear enough but we are getting lost in words. I just asked for a link on Amazon that talks about testing/simulating/demonstrating evolution for snapshots enough far apart in time where we would say yes these organisms are pretty different, something like the snapshots demonstrated here: http://www.bot1320.nicerweb.com/Locked/media/ch11/taxonomy.html http://www.bot1320.nicerweb.com/Locked/media/ch11/taxonomy.h...
    - simplexion 12y ago
      Are you just asking about macroevolution? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroevolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroevolution
    - splawn 12y ago
      "micro evolution" You are being confused by terms that were invented by a group of people (Discovery Institute) that deny evolution because of their religion not because of lack of evidence. The snapshot evidence you need is found in the genome (genomes that developed over billions of years of "micro evolution") of every organism on the planet not just primates. You can't just ignore that and ask why we can't observe lizards turning into birds overnight. Edit: I wasn't aware of this until now. We actually have observed one species ("species" being defined as scott_s mentioned up-thread) evolve into another. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/2011/12/18/evolution-watching-speciation-occur-observations/ http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/2011/12/18...
    - Fomite 12y ago
      One of several problems is that for many of the organisms with a short enough generation time to run an experiment like this (see Lenski's experiments with E. coli: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_exp... ) the notion of a "steady state species" in terms of your thinking (Baboon vs. Human vs. Gorilla) is entirely false.
scott_s 12y ago
Not entirely. We can define species as groups of organisms that can't reproduce with each other. (For species that have sexual reproduction, of course.) See: http://bioteaching.com/modes-of-speciation/ http://bioteaching.com/modes-of-speciation/

nyrulez 12y ago

Let me phrase the question a different way - since species seems to be overloaded. What stable state of organism led to the evolution of Giraffe ? Lets call that organism X. (I actually don't know what X is, is it a horse or a zebra or a donkey?) Is there a simulation that would demonstrate X evolving to a Giraffe or test it ? Or put another way, if we were to take some snapshots at times where we could consider the organism to be different enough according to the modern "species" classification say A -> B -> C -> D -> E, is there a way to test D -> E or B-> C using the stated principles/theory ?

splawn 12y ago
There is no such thing as a "stable state of organism" in this context. Remove all your goalposts because they are confusing you. Evolution is a continuum.
- nyrulez 12y ago
  Then what is evolution trying to explain ? I thought it was explaining how primates evolved to humans, not just micro evolution at the DNA level ? For all practical purposes these are considered stable states in that they are different enough (visually, internally, intellectually) so as not to be considered continuous i.e. just differing by some epsilon. Are you saying evolution does not claim to answer this and this is a question not worth asking? I have a feeling the gist of what I am asking is clear enough but we are getting lost in words. I just asked for a link on Amazon that talks about testing/simulating/demonstrating evolution for snapshots enough far apart in time where we would say yes these organisms are pretty different, something like the snapshots demonstrated here: http://www.bot1320.nicerweb.com/Locked/media/ch11/taxonomy.html http://www.bot1320.nicerweb.com/Locked/media/ch11/taxonomy.h...
  - simplexion 12y ago
    Are you just asking about macroevolution? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroevolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroevolution
  - splawn 12y ago
    "micro evolution" You are being confused by terms that were invented by a group of people (Discovery Institute) that deny evolution because of their religion not because of lack of evidence. The snapshot evidence you need is found in the genome (genomes that developed over billions of years of "micro evolution") of every organism on the planet not just primates. You can't just ignore that and ask why we can't observe lizards turning into birds overnight. Edit: I wasn't aware of this until now. We actually have observed one species ("species" being defined as scott_s mentioned up-thread) evolve into another. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/2011/12/18/evolution-watching-speciation-occur-observations/ http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/2011/12/18...
  - Fomite 12y ago
    One of several problems is that for many of the organisms with a short enough generation time to run an experiment like this (see Lenski's experiments with E. coli: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_exp... ) the notion of a "steady state species" in terms of your thinking (Baboon vs. Human vs. Gorilla) is entirely false.

scott_s 12y ago

Not entirely. We can define species as groups of organisms that can't reproduce with each other. (For species that have sexual reproduction, of course.) See: http://bioteaching.com/modes-of-speciation/ http://bioteaching.com/modes-of-speciation/