So what did the giraffe evolve from? When a species is so complex - just as Darwin acknowledged, a species cannot evolve. Man's DNA says it cannot evolve! It only produces people. The giraffe is so complex it could not be evolved into its present form or into something else. That is SCIENCE! Good day!

Here's some new info on that subject, even addressing johnson1010's "short necker."

A new study of fossil cervical vertebrae reveals the evolution likely occurred in several stages as one of the animal's neck vertebrae stretched first toward the head and then toward the tail a few million years later. The study's authors say the research shows, for the first time, the specifics of the evolutionary transformation in extinct species within the giraffe family.

...As the modern day giraffe's neck was getting longer, the neck of another member of the giraffe family was shortening. The okapi, found in central Africa, is the only other living member of the giraffe family. Yet, rather than evolving a long neck, Danowitz said this species is one of four with a "secondarily shortened neck," placing it on a different evolutionary pathway.

The researchers next study area is the evolution of the giraffe's long leg bones.

10/7/15
New York Institute of Technology
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 033229.htm

I forgot, how many of these "evolutions" has man observed. Oh yah, ZERO! Never, nada once. So come on, you are working off of conjecture and hypothesis - not science.

Brother Bob:

So come on, you are working off of conjecture and hypothesis - not science.

The giraffe is so complex it could not be evolved into its present form or into something else. That is SCIENCE!

Here's a few observed speciation events I found in like 5 seconds of looking.
Give it a whirl, Brother bob! The world is out there for you to find if you try to look!

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/sci ... ervations/

http://www.wired.com/2009/11/speciation-in-action/

http://iai.asm.org/content/73/12/8353.short

http://www.pnas.org/content/91/10/4599.short

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... onvenience.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrar ... speciation




So many speciation events, we had to categorize the different kinds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation

I am about talking with people. Not getting 6 references. This is not a job application. It is a discussion site. Give me the nuts and bolts. I have studied it out and complex items just don't change so easily. They break instead. Just like Darwin said "if bodies or animals are so complex to reproduce his theories were false." Kind of case closed.

"if bodies or animals are so complex to reproduce his theories were false."
-Darwin

Citation needed.

So would proof of the quote dissuade you from evolution? Likely not! Just a lame statement. come on man!

johnson1010 wrote:Evolution is about gradual changes over time through many generations.

If a giraffe lineage were to evolve into something with shorter necks, which certainly could happen, it would be accompanied by a reduction in the blood pressure to the head... just as the lengthening of the neck was accompanied by an increase in blood pressure to the head.

LanDroid wrote:Here's some new info on that subject, even addressing johnson1010's "short necker."


Quote:
A new study of fossil cervical vertebrae reveals the evolution likely occurred in several stages as one of the animal's neck vertebrae stretched first toward the head and then toward the tail a few million years later. The study's authors say the research shows, for the first time, the specifics of the evolutionary transformation in extinct species within the giraffe family.

...As the modern day giraffe's neck was getting longer, the neck of another member of the giraffe family was shortening. The okapi, found in central Africa, is the only other living member of the giraffe family. Yet, rather than evolving a long neck, Danowitz said this species is one of four with a "secondarily shortened neck," placing it on a different evolutionary pathway.

The researchers next study area is the evolution of the giraffe's long leg bones.

You make it sound very simple Johnson but as Loennig shows we are taking about coordinated changes in the long necked Giraffe. I think you underestimate the complexity and coordination needed. Macro-mutations are usually disastrous so how do you get this package of changes gradually?

Landroid's linked article is certainly interesting on the cervical vertebra.I imagine Loennig who has written a book on the giraffe will have some interesting response in due course.
I'm jut an amateur here but it seemed to me that the choices of fossils and determining which actually are in the lineages proceeded on some assumptions.
As Loennig says and experts agree the ancestry of the giraffe is obscure. In the article they say possibly such an animal was the ancestor.
There are problems here. For example it's recognized that "many species and genera of Giraffidae lived contemporaneously with their supposed ancestors and often lived for millions of years with their 'more evolved' descendants"

There are differences in classifications among various experts on what fits with what family and when they date them from,e.g early middle or late Miocene or other eras.

So it's not at all clear to me that they are actually correct in their choices on these fossils but I'll wait and see what Loennig makes of this in due course.

Underestimating complexity is often at the heart of the issue. It's commonly solved by R.D. and others by postulating gradualism thereby climbing mount improbable. As science learns more of the layers of complexity involved in animals and biology this becomes increasingly hard to swallow,to me at least and to others.

http://www.uncommondescent.com/intellig ... ogramming/

This article discusses what looks an engaging book on the subject of animal instincts and meta programming. It's from an I.D. source so some will baulk at that but it's an interesting subject.

Try this article for starters - http://humansarefree.com/2013/12/9-scie ... ry-of.html

Brother Bob:
So would proof of the quote dissuade you from evolution? Likely not! Just a lame statement. come on man!

No single quote will change my mind as if by a wave of a magical wand. What I require is convincing evidence.
And that's what I was asking for when you tried to pass this off as a quote from Darwin.

"if bodies or animals are so complex to reproduce his theories were false."
-Darwin

Because it is obviously your own thought passed off illegitimately as though it came from Darwin.
That's called lying, Bob.

At the very least you've mangled the quote beyond all recognition or even comprehensible sentence structure.

Brother bob:
I am about talking with people. Not getting 6 references. ...

I have studied it out and complex items just don't change so easily.

So you are looking for some kind of folksy, fire-side hearsay about speciation? As opposed to actual experiments or reports on experiments? Because it seems like after this:

Brother Bob:
I forgot, how many of these "evolutions" has man observed. Oh yah, ZERO! Never, nada once. So come on, you are working off of conjecture and hypothesis - not science.

I gave you exactly what you requested 6 times over. And you'll notice several of those are indeed scientific papers published in peer review, which means they are actively studying it out properly, with observation of the actual world and producing it for everyone to see. What they are doing, why they did it, how it worked, and what it means. Because that, unlike your vague notions of what you would rather was true, Bob:

"That is SCIENCE!"

Only in this case it actually is...

Flann:

You make it sound very simple Johnson but as Loennig shows we are taking about coordinated changes in the long necked Giraffe. I think you underestimate the complexity and coordination needed. Macro-mutations are usually disastrous so how do you get this package of changes gradually?

Lets nail down some terminology, Flann. Micro and Macro evolution are two scales of the same phenomena. The difference between them is kinda like the difference between the numbers 1 thousand and 1 million. They are not qualitatively different, they are quantitatively different.

Micro evolution according to the scientists who invented these words describe differences in breeds of animals while macro evolution describe the differences between species. Both come from exactly the same source. descent with modification, acted on by natural selection.

When you say it's hard to make the jump to a macro evolutionary change you are ignoring all the micro changes that lead there.

Getting from New York to Los Angeles is easy. There's a nice road that connects them one to the other even over vast distance and pretty steep elevation changes. The road accomplishes this by never taking too drastic of a turn, or too drastic of an elevation change.

When you erase all the land between New York and LA and leave behind a chasm, the way between them looks impossible. You need to remember the road.