Same process, different scope. It's all just evolution baby!
Often micro-evolution is used because even the most fanatic biblical literalist has to acknowledge the observed fact that life changes over successive generations through time but they can call it "micro" evolution and make it mean that life can only change x amount for reasons that no one can seem to make clear.
@Pikachu that is not my understanding of the two. I understand it has micro evolution is normal evolution but within the same species whereas macro evolution is one species evolving into a different kind of species. Neither has anything to do with how many times something can evolve. Also, i was not implying anything about the Bible. Im a christian and i believe in evolution. I dont see any contradiction between the two.
Yeah insofar as the terms have any distinction, that's more or less it. And that's actually what i was referring to when i said that creationists accept that life can change x amount. Within a "kind" as they'll call it, they acknowledge that life can change but then reject without sufficient justification that more changes can accumulate until the descendant is very, very different from the ancestor.
@Pikachu "Kind" doesn't have a clear definition. Some creationists define it as species while some others define it as family. The latter definition is used to explain why Noah didn't need a breeding pair of every species.
Certainly. "Micro" evolution is observable before our very eyes. But there is also a great synthesis of data demonstrating "macro" evolution. If you're interesting in knowing of substantial evidence for macro evolution then i'd be happy to give you a couple examples.
Ok i'll give you two examples, the first using the fossil record and the second using genetics. We'll start with dinosaurs because dinosaurs are more fun lol
1) Modern birds all evolved from Dinosaurs
Birds evolved from a group of therapod dinosaurs and we can see this in the fossil record and even in some living birds. Dinosaurs were reptiles and as such had things like teeth and scales and long bony tails. All things that modern birds don't have. But then we started to find dinosaur fossils that showed what you might call an intermediate stage between the two groups. They still had teeth and long tails and claws...but they also had feathers covering their bodies and even wings. We started to realize that the anatomy we used to think was unique to birds is also shared by theropod dinosaurs. Like a semilunate carpal which allows the hand to fold against the arm, fused arm bones that mean the wrist can't rotate but it adds strength, pneumatized (hollow) bones and even the wishbone.
So an important fact to remember is that in the fossil record, dinosaurs appear before birds. Then we see dinosaurs with bird-like features, then we see animals that we have trouble distinguishing between dinosaur and bird like archaeopteryx and finally we see unequivocal birds showing up in the rock. A clear progression. Every anatomical criteria that identifies a dinosaur as a dinosaur is also shared by birds and what's more, we even see some living birds holding on to elements of their dinosaur ancestry like the Emu and ostrich who retain dinosaur claws on their wings.
Sorry, that one went a little long because i'm a dinosaur nerd. I'll make the genetics one short.
So the premise of Evolution Theory is that all organisms share ancestry. That includes humans and our closest living relations: chimpanzees. There are clues to this shares ancestry hidden in our genome that go beyond the 96% similarity of coding base pairs. To put it simply; when a virus infects an animal it might infect a reproductive cell. When it does this, it inserts its genetic code into the host's and this genetic code with the addition of viral genes is passed on to the descendants. These viral gene insertions occur at specific points along the human genome and represent acute infection events in one of our ancestors. But the cool part is that when we look at our genome and compare it to that of a Chimpanzee....we find those same viral genetics occurring in the same places along the genome where they are found in humans. For that to happen, both humans and chimps had to have shared an ancestor that was infected by a virus which inserted its genome into that specific point in our ancestor and that ERV was then passed along as humans and chimps diverged along different evolutionary paths.
there is tons of evidence to support micro evolution. I dont know any substantial evidence to support macro evolution.
That's because there is no such thing as "macro" evolution. That's a word invented by creationists to disparage evolutionary theory. Literally every advancement made in evolution is microevolution. Millions of tiny, incremental steps over thousands of years.
