Evolution is not a theory; Natural Selection is a theory to explain evolution.

[LOki]

I keep reading about "microevolution" and "macroevolution", who came up with those ideas?

Misuse

The term 'microevolution' has recently become popular among the anti-evolution movement, and in particular among young Earth creationists. The claim that microevolution is qualitatively different from macroevolution is fallacious as the main difference between the two processes is that one occurs within a few generations, whilst the other is seen to occur over thousands of years (ie. a quantitative difference).[1] Essentially they describe the same process.
The attempt to differentiate between microevolution and macroevolution is considered to have no scientific basis by any mainstream scientific organization, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

from wikipedia.

• Macroevolution, far from being "an entirely different story" from microevolution, is actually the same story, just on a larger scale. Creationists have not come up with a reasonable explanation why evolution should stop at the boundary of a species, rather than include the process that changes one species to another over time. Fact is, there is no such reason. No hard and fast distinction can be drawn between "micro" and "macro" evolution. It's all one process.
  
• The common creationist argument citing the difference between microevolution and macroevolution holds that, although microevolution is clearly observable, macroevolution is not observable, and therefore requires a leap of faith. Virtually all scientists, however, agree on the existence of macroevolutionary processes — although they might argue about the actual processes themselves — and most would say that the distinction between microevolution and macroevolution is a fabricated one. In the most common theories of evolution, macroevolution is simply a large collection of microevolutionary changes that accumulate over time to the point at which they cause speciation.
  
• Within the Modern Synthesis school of thought, macroevolution is thought of as the compounded effects of microevolution. Thus, the distinction between micro- and macroevolution is not a fundamental one - the only difference between them is of time and scale. However, it should be noted that time is not a necessary distinguishing factor - macroevolution can happen without gradual compounding of small changes; whole-genome duplication can result in macroevolution occuring over a single generation. One of the most significant applications of this is found in the evolution of the vertebrates, which was mediated by duplications of the hox gene complex.
  
• The terms macroevolution and microevolution were first coined in 1927 by the Russian entomologist Iurii Filipchenko (or Philipchenko, depending on the transliteration), in his German-language work Variabilität und Variation, which was the first attempt to reconcile Mendelian genetics and evolution. Filipchenko was an evolutionist, but as he wrote during the period when Mendelism seemed to have made Darwinism redundant, the so-called "eclipse of Darwinism" (Bowler 1983), he was not a Darwinian, but an orthogeneticist. Moreover Russian biologists of the period had a history of rejecting Darwin's Malthusian mechanism of evolution by competition.
  
  In Theodosius Dobzhansky's Genetics and the Origin of Species, he began by saying that "we are compelled at the present level of knowledge reluctantly to put a sign of equality between the mechanisms of macro- and microevolution" (1937, page 12), thereby introducing the terms into the English-speaking biological community (Alexandrov 1994). Dobzhansky had been Filipchenko's student and regarded him as his mentor. In science, it is difficult to deny a major tenet of one's teachers due to filial loyalty, and Dobzhansky, who effectively started the modern Darwinian synthesis with this book, found it disagreeable to have to deny his teacher's views (Burian 1994).
  
• An ongoing debate in evolution is whether there is a distinction between macroevolution and microevolution, and if so, how to define that difference. Since the advent of molecular biology, with its insight into the molecular details of mutation, there has been a surge of thought that there is no fundamental distinction: evolution is evolution.

 

[editec]

Evolution is not a theory; Natural Selection is a theory to explain evolution.

That is so well put that it really requires no other comment.

 

[Cecilie1200]

No there isn't. Those are pretty much the same thing.

There's very little difference between small, incremental changes, over generations, within a species' population, resulting in an entirely different and separate species than it's ancestral forebears, and a portion of that population splitting off where that daughter population experiences changes within it's population, such that the daughter population is differentiated enough to establish speciation from the original population.

There's also very little difference between small, incremental changes, over generations, within a species' population, resulting in an entirely different and separate species than it's ancestral forebears, and a large significant change, where that particular change allows significantly greater survival and reproductive success, engenders a distinct difference in the population where within a few generations the old feature is no longer present (replaced by the new more successful feature) in the population, and that the cumulative effect of such significant changes results in entirely different and separate species than it's ancestral forebears.

Whether speciation occurs serially or in parallel, in fine gradations or great leaps, it happens by the same fundamental mechanics of gentic drift, genetic mutation, and natural selection. Laboratory experimentation supports this, field observations support this, the fossil record supports this, the genetic record supports this, the molecular biology supports this.

There is, however, a big difference between small, incremental changes, over generations, within a species' population, resulting in an entirely different and separate species than it's ancestral forebears, and a species' entire population magically "poofing" into another species. Creationsists (consistent with their magical theory of speciation) made up this magical evolutionary phenominon, and often call it "macroevolution" to obsfucate the validity of the evolutionary theory.

Some other opponents to evolution accept the small, incremental changes, over generations, within a species' population, and call that microevolution. They then cite that along the continuum if time, none of these small incremental changes, from one genration to the next, within the species' population results in speciation--but they do this by ignoring the differnces between the ends of the spectrum, and demand that since no speciation occurred from one generation to the next, no speciation can be asserted when the populations are separated by thousands of generations--this second term being what they refer to as "macroevolution." It's Fallacy Of The Beard; it's Loki's Wager.

Coloradomtnman is right, Sparky. "Macroevolution and microevolution are words for fictitious ideas developed by those who oppose evolution . . ." It's irrelevent to me whether those opponents are superstitious, or retards, or superstitious retards.

You do however make a good point later, regarding precision and how it's a little redundant to assert that human beings were descended from primates, considering how human beings are primates. I'm sure, however, that Coloradomtnman meant to specify "simpler" or "more primitive" primates, or maybe just "differnent" primates.

Sorry, but this entire long rant is just dead wrong.

Demonstrate the entire thing is wrong--each and every bit in it's entirety.

Demonstrate the premise is wrong.

Demonstrate the premise is false.

They aren't the same thing, . .

Demonstrate they are not the same thing.

. . . and they don't prove each other, no matter how many paragraphs you take to tell me that you think they are and they do.

Demonstrate that I said they prove each other.

Been there, did that in the post you allegedly responded to by simply reasserting your false premise as true, and then rambling on interminably as though it was simply accepted as the truth without ever proving that it was.

I don't repeat myself. We're done here until you can give me more than, "No, you're wrong, what I said was correct, and since it's correct, this is also correct."

 

[Ravi]

Loki slays another idiot.

 

[LOki]

Been there, did that in the post you allegedly responded to by simply reasserting your false premise as true, and then rambling on interminably as though it was simply accepted as the truth without ever proving that it was.

No. Simply saying the premise I presented is false, is not demonstrasting the premise is false.

Saying that I said something is not demonstratiing I said something.

Thanks however, for fully quoting my post in your response so we are all clear that you are delusional.