I find it odd how people jump to conclusions about the theory of evolution.

@newjaninev2 maybe do so reading. Very different

@Axeroberts [quote]Very different[/quote]

Seconds
Minutes
Hours
Days

It's all just time

...or do you feel that a second is somehow [i]qualitatively[/i] different to an hour?

@newjaninev2 dictionary time

@Axeroberts ????

@Axeroberts ????????

@newjaninev2 [quote]What is the difference between microevolution and macroevolution? Microevolution refers to small changes over short periods of time within a population. Macroevolution refers to larger changes over a much longer time scale. [/quote]

@newjaninev2 [quote]What is the difference of macroevolution and microevolution?
Microevolution happens on a small scale (within a single population), while macroevolution happens on a scale that transcends the boundaries of a single species.[/quote]

@Axeroberts So 'microevolution' is when there are changes in the frequency and distribution of specific alleles, and 'macroevolution' is when there are changes in the frequency and distribution of specific alleles?

Sounds like the same thing to me... a distinction without a difference.

I don't know what you mean by 'boundaries of a single species', and perhaps we should address now.

Let’s begin with species, and once we’re clear about what we mean by that word, we can better discuss what evolution is, and how it works.

When talking about the concept of species, the first problem that seems to pop up is Essentialism. This is a hangover from Plato, who thought that every triangle (for example) was but an imperfect shadow of some essential triangle that existed in some or other conceptual space.
Ernst Mayr has pointed out that this same thinking seems to appear when people think about species… as if there’s some quintessential rabbit, against which it can be assessed whether or not any given organism is, or is not, a rabbit.

A species should never be seen as representing some gigantic and sudden leap from something to something else. [b][i]There is no magical point in time where biological differences allow separate species classifications.[/i][/b] If you don’t understand this, then you’ll be be unable to understand evolution.

The closest we can come to the quintessential rabbit would be a specimen that sits in the centre of a vast number of bell-shaped distributions… a vast number because those distributions can address so many features (number of paws, size of paws, number of ears, size of ears, ability to leap, mechanics of leaping, tendency to leap, ability to digest grass, presence of whiskers, number of whiskers, nature of whiskers, muscular control of whiskers, etc… and hundreds of thousands of such distributions would only be scratching the surface)

These distributions shift with time. Over a large number of generations the distribution of ear lengths may (will) change, with ear lengths gradually becoming longer and longer (as an example… they may well move in the other direction). Eventually, the new distribution may not in any way overlap with the previous distribution… the longest ear length of the previous distribution will still be shorter than the shortest ear length of the current distribution.

[i]Here’s the question:[/i] How many distributions need to change, and to what degree, before the cloud of distributions we thought of as a ‘quintessential’ rabbit now forms a different ‘quintessential’ something else?

@newjaninev2 for someone who doesn't know about micro and macro evolution it seems strange that you ask a question no one can answer

@Axeroberts The 'micro and macro evolution' that, as I have shown you, is a distinction without a difference.

There's just evolution.

You're quite right that nobody can say how many distributions have to change, because it's completely indeterminate. Species are neither fixed nor immutable.
There's no 'magic moment' when a species diverges. The divergence may become evident only across tens of thousands or even millions of years.
Everything is fluid, driven in large part by a constantly-changing environment, so genes, in turn, are in constant flux.
"endless forms most beautiful"

@newjaninev2 you are wrong. look at the definitions and what they mean. micro is a specie adapting. macro is changing to another specie which i personally do not believe

@Axeroberts So your happy with seconds and minutes, but you don't accept hours, because apparently they're something 'different'?

Perhaps you need to understand evolution, and perhaps this will help... [i]evolution is change in the frequency and distribution of alleles[/i]

That's it.
That's evolution.

If you want to deny that evolution happens everywhere every second of the day with all living organisms, you'll need to show that the frequency and distribution of alleles [i]never[/i] change.

Which would mean that every single living thing on the planet would be totally identical to every other living thing on the planet.