Microevolution vs Macroevolution
Evolution is a natural process that takes place on its own over a long period of time and the world is divided into evolutionists and creationists who have differing views over how different species of creatures (and trees) came into existence. While, evolutionists are those who believe in the survival of the fittest and the Darwinian theory of selection and rejection, creationists are people who reject this theory though accepting with changes in certain species of animals that take place in a lifetime. Creationists describe these changes as microevolution whereas conveniently disagree with macroevolution, which is what is propounded by the theory of evolution. Let use take a closer look.
Microevolution is a process of a series of changes in a single species of living things that are observable within a lifetime. You can se how selective breeding by humans of dogs leads into series of changes that are induced in the resulting breed of dogs. Macroevolution is the process that takes place over several thousands of years and describes how humans have evolved from primates and how reptiles turned into birds. Microevolution leads to small changes in the same species whereas macroevolution leads to the creation of a new species from parent species. The changes in finches separated from other finches, observed by Darwin in the famous Galapagos Islands are correctly described as microevolution by Darwin. He said that the birds had evolved in a particular, narrow sense of the term.
Creationists is what creationists take recourse to when they have to, explain the changes observed in human beings spread in different parts of the world. This is how they explain how all human races descended from Noah’s family. But they cannot accept the fact (in fact it is unpalatable to them) that humans have descended from lower primates (which is what evolution is all about).
Macroevolution is changes that are gross, so much so that the new species that evolves over the course of time cannot mate with members of the ancestor species (which is of course imaginary). Macroevolution is out rightly rejected by creationists as they say that dogs can become smaller or bigger or can have new features but they can never become a new species.
Because of the negative connotations of microevolution and macroevolution by creationists, biologists and scientists rarely make use of these terms, and even when they do, they treat them as similar. Scientists do not find any difference between microevolution and macroevolution (only that microevolution is a type of selective evolution induced by nature or human beings in a short time period). In fact, scientists tend to avoid these terms mostly because they are used by creationists to prove that they accept with one way of evolution while conveniently choosing to reject the more important evolutionary process.
Difference between Microevolution and Macroevolution
• Micro evolution refers to visible changes in a population of the same species over a period of time
• Macroevolution is what evolution is as described by the theory of evolution by Darwin
• Macro evolution describes how reptiles turned into birds and lower primates into higher and then finally human beings
• The terms are rarely used by scientists because of the bad name created by their use by creationists who conveniently agree with microevolution while disagreeing with macroevolution.
• Scientists see no real difference between microevolution and macroevolution and consider micro evolution as a particular type of evolution.