Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-32918765-20171030193812/@comment-33009418-20171105201906

Sir Lazuli wrote: High King Ithilion wrote: You're assuming that the change will be random and be good for everyone. For example, a dog that grew wing-stumps would not be fit to survive, and almost certainly wouldn't. But in other (insect) species, due to luck or more rapid adaptation, wing-stumps could grow and mutate into wings. That's on the largest end of the spectrum, though--most changes are far smaller. However, the stacking of those small changes is the true thing that leads to large-scale evolution.

Take dinosaurs. Feathers were initially a mutation in the gene, which became a form of display and heating tool. Over time, their arms became able to flap and support themselves in the air, leading to flight. As we can see, these changes are usually not so simple as "the dog grew wings". There's a lot of elements that go into this stuff, and it isn't just a "Boom. You have wings."

Ithilion, Discussions Moderator (Auta i lómë) The change is random. However it’s not good for everyone. I never said it’s a “Boom. You have wings.” That’s the problem with the theory. It needs wings to happen immediately, but they can’t.

Yes, a few thousand years is only a minor moment according to the evolutionary timescale, but if you are correct that macroevolution is just a lot of microevolution, we should see the genome of creatures like dogs gaining new information, however slowly. That’s not the case. All selective breeding has done is remove information. For now it’s made dogs express the traits we like better, but it has also made many inbred and sickly. It hasn’t added new information to the genome, so dogs aren’t progressing in a macroevolutionary way.

I didn't say that selective breeding added genes, just that genes can be added/altered over time.