Let's start at the beginning? maybe?

[LuisDantas]

(...) I've been made aware of the Y chromosome being on the decline.

Apparently so. I did not know about that.

It is possible that human macro evolutionary development is still contained within that specific framework, via the many micro evolutionary adaptations we go through over larger periods of time.

Sorry, what are you talking about here? Which framework?

Instead of looking to other species for the answers, why wouldn't evolutionary advances be contained within our own type, between males and females of the same "genus species type", specifically?

I am not following here either. I just don't know what you are talking about.

If it helps any, we humans are of the Genus Homo and Species Homo Sapiens. The Species is contained inside the Genus.

I think that you are either asking, predicting or even daring about whether humans are subject to biological evolution as other species are.

The fact of the matter is that there is nothing biologically remarkable about humans. The one reason to expect your speciation to develop differently from that of other primates or lifeforms more widely is because we resist it with our behavior, particularly medicine and reproductive habits.

We do not have a "biological type" of our own. We are apes. And it is only with considerable artificial interference that we can even attempt to avoid eventually drifting into new species and, given enough time, generations and proper environment, new Genera (plural of Genus), etc.

Biological lifeforms can't very well fail to change along time and generations.

 

[Balthazzar]

Apparently so. I did not know about that.




Sorry, what are you talking about here? Which framework?




I am not following here either. I just don't know what you are talking about.

Natural life and reproduction to put it plainly, over the span of millions of years.

 

[LuisDantas]

Natural life and reproduction to put it plainly, over the span of millions of years.

What about them?

 

[Balthazzar]

What about them?

The gene pool from whence our adaptations, mutations, and evolutionary descent and advances are made...specifically genus homo Sapien Sapien, male and female natural reproduction and development. Life as we know it, on to our descent to the next chapter in human evolution as we are, continually.

 

[Pogo]

I'd like to ask you a question about species and gene pool. Could be a simplistic question, but I will ask anyway. Fish and humans - do they possess the same gene pool? Maybe I'm getting the terms mixed up, but from what I am reading, gene pool is "all of the genes in a population. Any genes that could wind up in the same individual through sexual reproduction are in the same gene pool." So would you say that fish and gorillas, let's say, are in the same "gene pool"? I'd like to see what others say also. Thank you.

OK, here is the confusion FISH. It has too many meanings. When people say we are descended from fish, what they really mean is that we are descended from an animal that lives in the water with a backbone and fins, It looks sort of like a modern fish but it's proper name is a sarcoptygerian. It is the great grandparent to all of the animals that have backbones today. some of its offspring like tuna and salmon we also call fish, but they are just as far from this ancestor as we are. Some of it's offspring like tiktallik learned to spend time on land and eventually further offspring became full time land dwellers. some of their offspring became chimps and us.
We however are not descended from modern fish but we are descended from a very ancient creature that lived in the water that had a backbone as we do and that ancestor looked enough like a tuna or what have you that in simple colloquial terms we would call it a fish.
Now to gene pool as all of the descendants of whatever level of great ancestor are related they share common genes thus we are in fact related genetically to tuna etc, distantly, but related.
Further, this idea is not really what gene pool is used for, gene pool is usually used to describe the genes of a population of simultaneously extant creatures such as humans or dogs.
The better way to look at it is that gorillas and tuna are related in that somewhere a very long time ago they have a common ancestor, but gorillas in all their internal variation and tuna in theirs are separate gene pools.

This will bring you back to species which is another messy word. The problem here is that because evolution is true, species is very nearly impossible to define as it will devolve into an argument over lumping and splitting, but that is for another day.

 

[Pogo]

I'm hoping you also will answer about gene pool, which I've asked a few posters. I read the following about gene pool from the berkeley.edu website about this:
"All of the genes in a population. Any genes that could wind up in the same individual through sexual reproduction are in the same gene pool."
Hoping to understand what you think about this.

In sexual reproduction genes get mixed from both parents so we consider the collection of all the possible genes available to this set to be a pool

 

[Pogo]

I'm assuming that the gene pool of animals that can interbreed are able to be analyzed. But is that possible with fish and its evolution throughout?

We can do genectic sequencing on existing animals and we do what is called a phylogenetic analysis on this information to tease out past connections, it is actually the same thine that is done in paternity analysis.

 

[LuisDantas]

The gene pool from whence our adaptations, mutations, and evolutionary descent and advances are made...specifically genus homo Sapien Sapien, male and female natural reproduction and development. Life as we know it, on to our descent to the next chapter in human evolution as we are, continually.

Again: what about them?

Are you asking why we can't or won't remain isolated within those boundaries?

The short answer is that it is because they are inherently unstable.

 

[Pogo]

What about them?

Google Y chromosome shrinking and you can get some intelligible information about what and why.

 

[Balthazzar]

Again: what about them?

Are you asking why we can't or won't remain isolated within those boundaries?

The short answer is that it is because they are inherently unstable.

What I've noticed is people comparing apples to spinach, and approaching evolution as if an apple is going to draw from the spinach genus pool for development. As it concerns humans, humans evolve within their own kind as humans through natural reproduction, their own gene pool. Our diversity makes this evident, as does the differences in how we've developed over many generations separately. Things like stronger immune systems, hair color, skin tone, eye color, etc. These are micro evolutionary steps. Macro evolution takes quite a lot longer, but happens through these micro changes over longer periods of time. As we adapt to environmental changes, we change if only in small ways, but if given a couple few million years, these small changes give birth to a new identity or new species type.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I'd like to ask you a question about species and gene pool. Could be a simplistic question, but I will ask anyway. Fish and humans - do they possess the same gene pool? Maybe I'm getting the terms mixed up, but from what I am reading, gene pool is "all of the genes in a population. Any genes that could wind up in the same individual through sexual reproduction are in the same gene pool." So would you say that fish and gorillas, let's say, are in the same "gene pool"? I'd like to see what others say also. Thank you.

• Gene Pool
• Gene Pool
• Gene Pool
• Gene Pool
• Gene Pool
• Gene Pool
• etc.

 

[LuisDantas]

What I've noticed is people comparing apples to spinach, and approaching evolution as if an apple is going to draw from the spinach genus pool for development. As it concerns humans, humans evolve within their own kind as humans through natural reproduction, their own gene pool. Our diversity makes this evident, as does the differences in how we've developed over many generations separately. Things like stronger immune systems, hair color, skin tone, eye color, etc. These are micro evolutionary steps. Macro evolution takes quite a lot longer, but happens through these micro changes over longer periods of time. As we adapt to environmental changes, we change if only in small ways, but if given a couple few million years, these small changes give birth to a new identity or new species type.

I just don't get the need for concepts of "micro" and "macro" evolution. It is essentially fiction.

 

[Balthazzar]

I just don't get the need for concepts of "micro" and "macro" evolution. It is essentially fiction.

Why fiction?

 

[LuisDantas]

Why fiction?

Because they are arbitrary and meaningless. They serve no clear purpose beyond the attempt to sustain the idea of distinct biological "kinds" that would not drift into others.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Why fiction?

Because enough small changes add up to become large changes overall. Many micros become macro. It only takes 1,000 micrometres to make a metre.

 

[sayak83]

I'd like to ask you a question about species and gene pool. Could be a simplistic question, but I will ask anyway. Fish and humans - do they possess the same gene pool? Maybe I'm getting the terms mixed up, but from what I am reading, gene pool is "all of the genes in a population. Any genes that could wind up in the same individual through sexual reproduction are in the same gene pool." So would you say that fish and gorillas, let's say, are in the same "gene pool"? I'd like to see what others say also. Thank you.

Only populations of organisms that can interbreed is in the same gene pool.
That said...the boundaries may be significantly porous. For example some distinct monkey species do interbreed at the boundaries of their ranges and gene flow does occur between the distinct species...though not enough to drown the genetic differences between the two species. There are theoretical derivations of the maximum mean rate of gene influx between two gene pools beyond which they have to be considered a single gene pool. I have forgotten, but can dig them up if interested.

 

[Balthazzar]

Because enough small changes add up to become large changes overall. Many micros become macro. It only takes 1,000 micrometres to make a metre.

Like the numbers between 1 and 1000 being fiction, then? Arbitrary?

 

[Balthazzar]

Because they are arbitrary and meaningless. They serve no clear purpose beyond the attempt to sustain the idea of distinct biological "kinds" that would not drift into others.

I have to disagree with the steps to greater being arbitrary and fictional.

 

[Pogo]

I just don't get the need for concepts of "micro" and "macro" evolution. It is essentially fiction.

No, it is the nature of evolution vs. the desire for humans to categorize. change in evolution is fuzzy cuz it is a little bit here and a little bit there but at some point you have crossed a non-definable line from minor to major, sort of like art and pornography.

 

[Balthazzar]

No, it is the nature of evolution vs. the desire for humans to categorize. change in evolution is fuzzy cuz it is a little bit here and a little bit there but at some point you have crossed a non-definable line from minor to major, sort of like art and pornography.

Maybe that was the point being made, the crossing being less definable than the steps taken to that undefined point of when micro turns to macro. I hadn't considered this.