Macro Evolution has been proved beyond reasonable doubt

His definition, according to his elaboration, seem to be the event of new species occuring. I could of course do it the easy way, and just show him the myriad observations of speciation through multiple methods that already exists[1][2][3][4][5][6], but my goal originally wasn't only to show him that macro evolution is possible. This is because, even though I show him these fine examples, they wont be showing to which extend macro-evolution is possible, and my goal is to show him why evolution is believed by most scientists today and why scientists usually do not make any distinction between micro and macro evolution. A thing I'll point out is, that with this definition of macro-evolution, we will sometimes get difficult scenarios where we'll have a hard time recognizing whether or not it was a micro-evolutionary event, or a macro-evolutionary event[6] and that is one of the reasons as to why scientists hardly ever make a distinction between the two. But are micro evolution and macro evolution really different? [1]. http://www.talkorigins.org... [2]. http://www.talkorigins.org... [3]. http://www.bradyns-blog.com... [4]. http://www.youtube.com... [5]. http://www.youtube.com... [6]. http://www.youtube.com... =========================================================================== I've written this piece below, for this debate, and think it would be a good place to start =========================================================================== Bridging the gap between micro and macro-evolution There is many who accepts micro-evolution, but not macro-evolution. This is not that surprising because of the abstract timeframes that many have difficult comprehension of. However, I'll try to bridge the gap that many sees between "micro" and "macro". First, we need a logical basis to stand on, and I think c0nc0rdance have given the best way to get around this. We need to see, where do we agree and where do we disagree, and I'll be listing the main points up: 1. DNA is the basis of heredity 2. DNA changes over generations 3. DNA is responsible for the differences between organisms 4. The environment acts on the frequency of the changes 5. There is no physical limit to the amount of changes that can occur in DNA If con disagrees with any of these points, I'd like to know which and why. However, if we agree with all this, this leaves us with a logical basis for evolution which only needs a lot of time so a lot of changes can happen to account for the biodiversity we see today. However, admittedly, a logical basis is not evidence that it actually happened, it just shows that it is possible, not that it actually happened. So we need to dive into the evidence to see how plausible the logical argument fits with the real world. Micro-evolutionary changes are merely the day to day change, or even the changes we can observe throughout a lifetime. Usually these terms is used by creationists who have the agenda to mislead people from accepting evolution, therefore they wont give a clearcut definition of micro-evolution, but simple seems to take everything that has been observed to be micro-evolutionary changes. However, these micro-evolutionary changes, we can measure them! These changes have according to a couple of sources been measured, and we see that the mutation rates are averaging around 150-175 per diploid genome per generation(Variating between 91-238) [1][2][3]. Another important thing we have, is both the human and chimp genome. There has been statistical analyses of different genes and gene groups in the human genome compared to the chimpanzee genome, and we have the fossil record evidence, both pointing to a split around 6(5-7)million years ago[4][5][6][7]. The importance of this is that all these statistical and fossil evidence can **** the hell off, if there is too big differences in the genome, for the time to have been able to produce these two distinct genus'. However, if all these fits together, it would be another piece of evidence, we can compile upon all the other evidences for evolution. So, on to the calculations. We know the mutation rates, as I've already listed. We also know the average generational length on chimpanzees and humans, which is around 30 and 15 respectively[8][9]. However, if we have to figure this out, we have to calculate the mutational rates per haploid per year for each of the two species, and then add them to each other, and then compare it with the time and genomic differences between them. We do that this way: Chimp 75 mutations/15 years = 5 mutations/year Humans 75 mutations/30 years= 2.5 mutations/year which gives a rough estimate of 7.5 mutational differences per year. Since there is around 40 million genomic differences[10] between the chimp and human genome, we can say 40*10^6/7.5= 5.33 million years This is however only a rough estimate with rough number and leaving out such things as selective pressures and such things as BGC conversion and a lot more. However as we can see, it correlates well with both the fossil record and the other statistical molecular analyses. Is all this coincidences? And can't micro-evolution be the mechanism which over a whole lot of time accumulates enough differences to account for what we observe today? References: [1]. http://www.genetics.org... [2]. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com... [3]. http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org... [4]. http://en.wikipedia.org... [5]. http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org... [6]. http://www.sciencemag.org... [7]. http://www.sciencemag.org... [8]. http://www.ancestry.com... [9]. http://pin.primate.wisc.edu... [10]. http://www.nature.com...