View Single Post
  #45  
Old 09-25-2007, 08:26 PM
Bill Haywood Bill Haywood is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Arkansas
Posts: 746
Default Re: Why Is Only \"Micro Evolution\" Acceptable?

[ QUOTE ]
The ONLY non-arbitrary line between micro and macro is speciation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Honest to God? That doesn't seem right to me.

Say a single species is divided by a mountain range into two groups.

A brand new mutation occurs in one, say, the sickle cell trait, which I believe is only a single change in one base pair. This gives significant resistance to malaria, and spreads quickly.

To me, that is what macro evolution is -- the evolution of novel traits, as opposed to a change in how often an allele appears in a gene pool.

The sickle cell population remains able to mate with the other one, so macro evolution has occurred, but not speciation.
Reply With Quote