Observational Evidence of Evolution on the Genus and Family Scale?

[swivel]

PJ, do you have an alternative theory that we should consider?

 

[NDS]

Everything about evolutionary theory relies on time, and time will be it's downfall.

LOL, really? I would have argued the exact opposite.

John, 500 years ago you would have been valiently arguing that the earth is flat, or that the earth is at the center of the universe.

With time and increase in technology, those absurd theist theories were disproven, the Church accepted the facts of life, adapted them to the Bible, and moved on. The Catholic Church condemned and banished Galileo for disproving the Geocentric theory. Later, they admitted they were wrong.

As time goes on, technology will improve, and evolution will no longer be a theory. With the invention of the telescope and satellites with cameras, along with the introduction to Laws of Motion from Newton, the Geocentric and Flat-Earth Theories were disproven beyond doubt.

Again, given the amount of time needed to develop the required technology, macroevolution will become something as observable as the roundness or "not center-of-the-universeness" of the earth.

So John, I would suggest accepting the facts of reality in terms of science instead of making up your own.

 

[river-wind]

Science does not work through reason.

It doesn't? SWEET! No need for more schooling, I'll just call myself the Queen of England, and claim that I have a PHD. Give me money to study the fossils in South America for the rest of my life!

 

[spidergoat]

Spidergoat:

The differences are legion between observing fossils and observing a simple reaction of baking soda and vinegar.

For one: Baking soda and vinegar reactions are repeatable. Fossils are the remains of creatures that lived millions of years ago and obviously cannot be created again, nor used for anything but inferrence to modern day specimens which may be related to them.

Actually, the phenomenon is repeatable in this sense: we can observe multiple fossils from multiple new genus that never occurred before in the record. So, there is no reliance on one particular fossil.

Secondly: There are no controversies in the process which governs baking soda and vinegar reactions. On the other hand, evolution has been admitted to not be able to demonstrate its claims of genus-cation yet.

There is no controversy in the field of science about the fact of evolution. The artificial controversy is mostly created by creationists, and there might be some disagreement over details. Evolutionary biology will never be able to demonstrate first hand the creation of a new genus in real time, since it takes many lifetimes, and it is inseparable from the ecosystem itself. Furthermore, your objection is trivial. Extremely strong correlations exist between observed evidence and the theory.

Thirdly: We do have instruments that can detect with remarkable accuracy the fundamental principles of what is going on in the process. But as noted, we have not been able to do the same for evolution.

We have actually. The fundamental principles can be observed on small scales, and just like chemical reactions, the principles can be applied to our understanding of the macro scale. If you would apply your criteria for certianty to chemistry, you would believe lab reactions when you saw them, but wouldn't apply the same principles to geology, astrophysics, or any other large scale chemical process.

On each and every level, then, evolution does not reach the same certainty.

You misunderstand science. It works on probabilities and likelihoods, not certainties. Even things you would assume are certain are not certain, only probable. Once something can be considered very, very probable, it is considered a fact. However, if new evidence introduces some doubt, any assumption can be reconsidered.

Even if it is obviously a very powerful system with loads of contingent evidence, this major failure of observation is not something which can be dismissed as irrelevant. Evolution does suffer from a lack of experimental proof and as proven time and time and time again, we -cannot- judge scientific conclusions without rigorous proofs. We risk our Evolutionary Newtonism turning into Evolutionary Relativism if we do not confirm things, as best as possible, through observation or experiment.

Genus, as has already been pointed out, is an artificial category created by scientists. Once a species diverges, it's smooth sailing all the way to the phylum level. It's just a matter of degree.

Also, we have seen atoms:

http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/vintage/vintage_4506VV1003.html

Those aren't atoms you are looking at, but a computer generated image formed from the input of a device that theoretically touches the atoms. I suggest it is the same kind of indirect evidence that supports evolution.

 

[iceaura]

Science cannot work upon analytical premises as you suggest. Rather, it must be supported -purely- by empirical foundations. Saying the degree of change in a genus is possible through specification must be demonstrated in the laboratory or through observation, again, lest we make a metaphysical proposition that is a misapplication of such.

I haven't really noticed scientists having a whole lot of trouble using analysis and reason in their work. I don't think they are going to listen to you telling them they can't do that. You are going to have a very hard time doing geology and astronomy in your lab.

“ We have made those observations, the kind that revealed problems with Newton. It was not laboratory experiment that showed the problems with Newton, but checking Newtonian predictions against observations of the effects of large distances and long times. ”

Which was direct observation, not indirect inferrence.

How was it any more direct, in the Newtionian investigations? We do not live millions of years or travel interstellar distances when we are investigating gravity on those scales, we observe the effects on what has.

To repeat: we have made direct observation of the effects of Darwinian evolution on genetics, etc, over long times and large distances. Those effects are present, in the lab and in the field, in the genomes among other places. This is exactly the same, analytically, as observing the effects of gravity at large distances and long times - and such observations affect our theories of gravity. They caused the dismissal of Newtonian gravity. So far Darwinian evolution has panned out nicely.