Why do so many people think evolution is nonsense?

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Reproductive Isolation is a complex concept.

In addition to post-zygotic isolation, in fact, the distinction between many "species" is just pre-zygotic isolation.
A considerable part of it is nothing more than habitat isolation. This is especially true for higher plants.
This means that as long as the environment changes or human intervention makes them approach, they can hybridize normally.

A lovely example. Savannah cat. The parents come from different genera.

I think it's nonsense because society is evolving backwards. Evolution is about the fittest species thriving & the duds drying off but instead of that happening the stupidest people are breeding like rabbits while the smarter people are choosing to use birth-control & not have kids or only have a couple. If Darwin would come back from the dead, I wonder what he would think about today's society compared to his. I bet he'd revise his theory.

Intelligent design is so 20th century, everyone knows evolution didn't happen because the Holy Josh used intelligent genetic engineering to fake evolution as another test, same reason he hid all the so-called dinosaur bones.

All the evidence doubters use against my faith is actually my Savior creatively and preemptively tricking them so they end up being tortured for eternity. Sure, he could leave consistent, positive evidence for his existence instead of things that people interpret as evidence of other things, but he's so great and merciful he needs to trick everyone like that.

I don't know if a change of one chromosome would make the transitional form incompatible with the other horses but let's say it's not. The mutant's change of one chromosome would be lost due to just being diluted in the gene pool. This new mutation would have to go through a bottleneck ie the mutant and his mate would have to go off together....and isolate themselves which a horse would have no reason to do. Or this one change would have to confer a massive reproductive advantage on the mutant. Considering we are going from horse to zebra it wouldn't have any huge advantage. Unless it was bestowed with stripes immediately and lived close to go lions...but then the other 31 chromosomes would have to disappear , which there is no evolutionary pressure to make happen .

As for savannah cats they are bred by humans. Otherwise they would be lost in the general cat population or just die out.
They have fertility problems too, which shows any alteration of chromosomes makes the animals highly unlikely to reproduce in high numbers in the wild.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species
Distance will reduce the frequency of gene exchange between the two sides, making the difference caused by mutation between different groups larger and larger. This is how species divide.

Last edited by SkinnedWolf on 11 Jun 2022, 2:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

'Many examples have been documented in nature. Debate exists concerning much of the research, with some authors citing evidence against their existence entirely'

So it's not definite.

Even if this were true any mutations would be lost, as the gene pool is even highter than one population...its several populations living in several different habitats. One new mutation would get totally lost in that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clymene_dolphin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliconius_heurippa

x Cystocarpium roskamianum:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/ferns-get-it-on-after-60-million-years-apart/

Last edited by SkinnedWolf on 11 Jun 2022, 2:40 am, edited 2 times in total.

The fern is infertile and only reproduces asexually. The butterfly is contested.

The dolphin seems to be the only uncontested example. This is two species coming together to make a new one. I'll have to have a further look what is going on ie number of chromosomes etc.

The controversy over Heliconius heurippa is whether it can be counted as a new species. Not whether it exists or survives.

What I was talking about originally is mutation, the creation of new traits. If two dolphin species come together to make a new one you're just going to get variations on dolphins forever. With slightly different fins.

What evolution has to prove is new creature types being able to be created.Mutations are going to be lost unless there is huge selection pressure bottlenecks etc.

https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/news/why-we-work-wild-equids-what-special-about-przewalskis-horse

https://www.scielo.br/j/babt/a/x9qGjmk9jYHHnDzbpg7fxzg/?lang=en
Hybridization between wild boars with 36 chromosomes and pigs with 38 chromosomes.
2n=36/37/38.


Mutations are not lost. If it is harmful, it tends to be eliminated. Otherwise it just exists.
This is like the growing differences between dialect continuum, so that eventually the users of two dialects can not understand each other at all.

You're seeming to make the assumption that a beneficial mutation would immediately lead to a split when instead full splits occur due to isolation or due to specific types of mutations that break compatibility. If a population covers different biomes populations that occupy different niches would be likely to end up behaviourally isolated, even if they're largely genetically compatible. Even if they're still genetically compatible they'd be unlikely to reproduce with each other simply due to no longer being likely to interact. Transitional forms might be difficult to distinguish as overlap between phenotypes might exist for significant period.

For example, coyotes and several wolf populations are generally considered to be different species, and yet at the same time some of those populations have substantial admixture from one or the other. This hybridization isn't necessarily driving evolution, instead it's evidence that even splitting into different species doesn't prevent hybridization from occurring between those populations. Behaviour differences keep them largely separated, but clearly not entirely. Limited contact does not prevent two populations from retaining distinct traits.

Even our own species has genetic evidence of hybridization events, including with lineages with which it is believed we no longer have compatibility with. Being genetically incompatible isn't required for lineages to be so behaviourally different they cease to have contact. Once a population is mostly isolated from another traits can emerge and become dominant without being introduced into other populations, most examples don't exist as ring species. Ring species are just an interesting phenomenon that can occur when a group has limited but ongoing contact between populations. The founding populations likely would have had full compatibility, it's just over time the little changes build up until reduced compatibility between parts of the ring start to appear.

This, an example would be that wrist tendon mutation some people have.

Why do so many people think creation is nonsense?

Either way it takes faith to believe in whatever one believes as none of us were there to see it.

It would become diluted, but ...that population of equines would become isolated from the other population, and isolated in an environment that would favor the gene- because the gene would become more common in the smaller population. So gradually over time the new gene would gain greater frequency in the breakaway population, and the new trait would become the norm in that population after a thousand generation.

In response to the OP, some people take a translation based on a misunderstanding of a passage at the beginning of the Bible way too literally.