Ants more closely related to most bees than to most wasps?

_{Denyse O'Leary

October 10, 2013

Intelligent Design, News, speciation}

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“Despite great interest in the ecology and behavior of these insects, their evolutionary relationships have never been fully clarified. In particular, it has been uncertain how ants—the world’s most successful social insects—are related to bees and wasps,” Ward said. “We were able to resolve this question by employing next-generation sequencing technology and advances in bioinformatics. This phylogeny, or evolutionary tree, provides a new framework for understanding the evolution of nesting, feeding and social behavior in Hymenoptera.”

That suggest that “most” classifications are a mess. But why?

Comments

"No doubt it is possible, as Mr. G.H. Lewes has urged, that at the first commencement of life many different forms were evolved; but if so, we may conclude that only a very few have left modified descendants." - Charles DarwinMung_{October 13, 2013
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Charles Darwin:
Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants are descended from some one prototype. But analogy may be a deceitful guide. Nevertheless all living things have much in common, in their chemical composition, their cellular structure, their laws of growth, and their liability to injurious influences. We see this even in so trifling a fact as that the same poison often similarly affects plants and animals; or that the poison secreted by the gall-fly produces monstrous growths on the wild rose or oak-tree. With all organic beings, excepting perhaps some of the very lowest, sexual reproduction seems to be essentially similar. With all, as far as is at present known, the germinal vesicle is the same; so that all organisms start from a common origin. If we look even to the two main divisions—namely, to the animal and vegetable kingdoms—certain low forms are so far intermediate in character that naturalists have disputed to which kingdom they should be referred. As Professor Asa Gray has remarked, "the spores and other reproductive bodies of many of the lower algae may claim to have first a characteristically animal, and then an unequivocally vegetable existence." Therefore, on the principle of natural selection with divergence of character, it does not seem incredible that, from some such low and intermediate form, both animals and plants may have been developed; and, if we admit this, we must likewise admit that all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth may be descended from some one primordial form. But this inference is chiefly grounded on analogy, and it is immaterial whether or not it be accepted. No doubt it is possible, as Mr. G.H. Lewes has urged, that at the first commencement of life many different forms were evolved; but if so, we may conclude that only a very few have left modified descendants. For, as I have recently remarked in regard to the members of each great kingdom, such as the Vertebrata, Articulata, etc., we have distinct evidence in their embryological, homologous, and rudimentary structures, that within each kingdom all the members are descended from a single progenitor.
Mung_{October 12, 2013
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lifespy:
Or are you asking where life came from originally? The Theory of Separate Ancestry does not concern itself with the origin of life.
LOL! Nicely done. I'll have to remember that one.Phinehas_{October 12, 2013
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Mung #48 Unfortunately, epigenetics is not a mechanism.
True. S.L.Talbott describing an aspect of the package which is called ‘epigenetics’:
The first thing to realize is that chromosomes do not consist of DNA only. Their actual substance, an intricately woven structure of DNA, RNA, and protein, is referred to as "chromatin" . Histone proteins, several of which can bind together in the form of an extremely complex “spool”, are the single most prominent constituent of this chromatin. Every cell contains numerous such spools — there are some 30 million in a typical human cell — and the DNA double helix , after wrapping a couple of times around one of them, typically extends for a short stretch and then wraps around another one. The spool with its DNA is referred to as a "nucleosome" , and between 75 and 90 percent of our DNA is wrapped up in nucleosomes. But that’s just the first level of packing (…) The supercoiling has another direct, more localized role in gene expression . Think again of twisting a rope: depending on the direction of your twist, the two strands of the helix will either become more tightly wound around each other or will be loosened and unwound. (This is independent of the supercoiling, which occurs in either case.) And if, taking a double-stranded rope in hand, you insert a pencil between the strands and force it in one direction along the rope, you will find the strands winding ever more tightly ahead of the pencil’s motion and unwinding behind. Recall, then, that the enzyme responsible for transcribing DNA into RNA (the enzyme is RNA polymerase ) must separate the two strands as it moves along a gene sequence . This is much easier if the supercoiling of the chromatin has already loosened the strands — and harder if the strands are tightened. So in this way the variations in supercoiling along the length of a chromosome either encourage or discourage the transcription of particular genes. Moreover, by virtue of its own activity in moving along the DNA and separating the two strands, RNA polymerase (like the pencil) tends to unwind the strands in the chromosomal region behind it, rendering that region, too, more susceptible to gene expression. There are proteins that detect such changes in torsion propagating along chromatin , and they read the changes as “suggestions” about helping to activate nearby genes.
Box_{October 12, 2013
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Jerry
It might be possible that epigenetics caused sudden transitions in morphology in the fossil record. In other words the same genome is now morphologically different very suddenly because of environmental reasons causing different gene expression. That might appear quite suddenly especially in a fossil record of millions of years.
I would agree with this. There are probably many of the same fossilized species being classified as different ones because of varied morphology, though their morphological differences could simply be the result of epigenetic responses to extremely varied environments, and not driven by genetic changes. You certainly wouldn't need millions of years, either.lifepsy_{October 12, 2013
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Separate Ancestry theisticEvolutionist:
And what was the scientific mechanism for this?
Common descent with modification from separate original gene pools. Or are you asking where life came from originally? The Theory of Separate Ancestry does not concern itself with the origin of life.lifepsy_{October 12, 2013
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Unfortunately, epigenetics is not a mechanism.Mung_{October 12, 2013
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Let me provide something which I have no idea of its truth but is in the comments from Jerry Coyne's website. I assume these are not ID people but they could be.
for sure and this was my point, that evolution is mostly epigenetic, and that should perhaps explain the punctuated equilibrum stated by Gould
It might be possible that epigenetics caused sudden transitions in morphology in the fossil record. In other words the same genome is now morphologically different very suddenly because of environmental reasons causing different gene expression. That might appear quite suddenly especially in a fossil record of millions of years. Before anyone goes off and says this is what I believe. It is not and is just another example of speculation by someone. Does it have any truth? I have no idea and it certainly can not explain the arrival of complex novelties and the genomes of species are wildly different from others in the same phylum/class/order/family. But it should be investigated.jerry_{October 12, 2013
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It makes predictions!
Yes it does. But in case after case many of the predictions it makes are false. It is often common for some construct to make predictions that are verified but that does not make it true unless it is robust in its predictions. One place where it fails time and time again is in the fossil record. There doesn't seem to be any coherent mechanism that could explain the fossil record. Nor is there any coherent mechanism that explains modern life. If there were a mechanism for producing new life forms, it seems to be absent in our current life forms. At least science has not yet identified it. People point to Darwinian processes but the only thing we can see that doing is getting us all the way to a new color for fur or something equivalent of that complexity. So, citing predictions is a non-starter for UCD.jerry_{October 12, 2013
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What is your scientific replacement for common descent
Common descent is an observed process. I am in the midst of a genealogy study with my cousins to find relatives and tie down our ancestors. Universal common descent is a hypothetical construct that has never been verified by any scientific process. In fact the best science says that it could not have happened. That is, it is probably impossible based on what we know today. Also, historical evidence says that it did not happen. This does not preclude that in the future, something may be discovered that would lend credence to it. But as of now it is pure speculation.jerry_{October 12, 2013
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TheisticEvolutionist you hold that common ancestry is 'scientific' because:
It makes predictions!
Well, being able to make successful predictions is certainly an important part of a rigorous scientific theory, but I think you are a deeply misguided if you think 'common ancestry' has made only successful predictions and is not fraught with falsifying unsuccessful predictions. For instance at the very first step, there is no evidence of gradual transition. The protein machinery that replicates DNA is found to be vastly different in even the most ancient of different single celled organisms:
Did DNA replication evolve twice independently? - Koonin Excerpt: However, several core components of the bacterial (DNA) replication machinery are unrelated or only distantly related to the functionally equivalent components of the archaeal/eukaryotic (DNA) replication apparatus. http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/27/17/3389 Problems of the RNA World - Did DNA Evolve Twice? - Dr. Fazale Rana - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4564682
There simply is no smooth 'gradual transition' to be found between these most ancient of life forms as this following articles clearly point out:
Oops, Evolution Forgot About the Eukaryotes - February 14, 2013 Excerpt: How about this 1998 paper in which the evolutionists admit that “One of the most important omissions in recent evolutionary theory concerns how eukaryotes could emerge and evolve.” Evolution omitted how eukaryotes could emerge and evolve? That would be like physics omitting gravity, politics omitting elections or baseball omitting homeruns. Yet this paper came more than a century after evolutionists began insisting that it is beyond all reasonable doubt that the species, and that would be all the species, arose spontaneously. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2013/02/oops-evolution-forgot-about-eukaryotes.html Was our oldest ancestor a proton-powered rock? Excerpt: In particular, the detailed mechanics of DNA replication would have been quite different. It looks as if DNA replication evolved independently in bacteria and archaea,... Even more baffling, says Martin, neither the cell membranes nor the cell walls have any details in common (between the bacteria and the archaea). http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427306.200-was-our-oldest-ancestor-a-protonpowered-rock.html?page=1
The next step, for 'common ancestry', also provides no evidence for a smooth gradual transition that would be expected if the thesis of common ancestry were true. There simply isn't any evidence in the fossil record indicating that single cells ever formed anything other than 'simple aggregates':
"We go from single cell protozoa. which would be ameoba and things like that. Then you get into some that are a little bit bigger, still single cell, and then you get aggregates, they're still individual cells that aggregate together. They don't seem to have much in the way of cooperation,,, but when you really talk about a functioning organism, that has more than just one type of cell, you are talking about a sponge and you can have hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of cells. So we don't really have organisms that function with say two different types of cells, but there is only five total. We don't have anything like that." - Dr. Raymond G. Bohlin - quote taken from 31:00 minute mark of this following video Natural Limits to Biological Change 2/2 - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo3OKSGeFRQ Challenging Fossil of a Little Fish Excerpt: “I think this is a major mystery in paleontology,” said Chen. “Before the Cambrian, we should see a number of steps: differentiation of cells, differentiation of tissue, of dorsal and ventral, right and left. But we don’t have strong evidence for any of these.” Taiwanese biologist Li was also direct: “No evolution theory can explain these kinds of phenomena.” http://www.fredheeren.com/boston.htm
In fact the pattern that is found in the Cambrian explosion, of disparity preceding diversity, is the exact opposite pattern to what the thesis of common ancestry would predict:
In Explaining the Cambrian Explosion, Has the TalkOrigins Archive Resolved Darwin's Dilemma? - JonathanM - May 2012 Excerpt: it is the pattern of morphological disparity preceding diversity that is fundamentally at odds with the neo-Darwinian scenario of gradualism. All of the major differences (i.e. the higher taxonomic categories such as phyla) appear first in the fossil record and then the lesser taxonomic categories such as classes, orders, families, genera and species appear later. On the Darwinian view, one would expect to see all of the major differences in body plan appear only after numerous small-scale speciation events. But this is not what we observe. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/05/has_the_talk-or059171.html Challenging Fossil of a Little Fish "In Chen’s view, his evidence supports a history of life that runs opposite to the standard evolutionary tree diagrams, a progression he calls top-down evolution." Jun-Yuan Chen is professor at the Nanjing Institute of Paleontology and Geology http://www.fredheeren.com/boston.htm
Moreover this pattern of disparity preceding diversity is not limited to only the Cambrian explosion but is also found following the Cambrian explosion:
Scientific study turns understanding about evolution on its head - July 30, 2013 Excerpt: evolutionary biologists,,, looked at nearly one hundred fossil groups to test the notion that it takes groups of animals many millions of years to reach their maximum diversity of form.,,, ,,,Dr Matthew Wills said: "This pattern, known as 'early high disparity', turns the traditional V-shaped cone model of evolution on its head. What is equally surprising in our findings is that groups of animals are likely to show early-high disparity regardless of when they originated over the last half a billion years. This isn't a phenomenon particularly associated with the first radiation of animals (in the Cambrian Explosion), or periods in the immediate wake of mass extinctions.",,, Author Martin Hughes, continued: "Our work implies that there must be constraints on the range of forms within animal groups, and that these limits are often hit relatively early on. Co-author Dr Sylvain Gerber, added: "A key question now is what prevents groups from generating fundamentally new forms later on in their evolution.,,, http://phys.org/news/2013-07-scientific-evolution.html
supplemental notes of falsified predictions from the genetic evidence:
You Won’t Believe This New Epicycle: Both Congruence & Incongruence are Powerful Phylogenetic Signals - October - 7, 2013 Excerpt: Similar evolution trees are derived from completely different genes. Such congruence of independent data was predicted by evolution and evolutionists have consistently proclaimed it as a powerful confirmation of the fact of evolution. It is, as evolutionists like to say, a powerful phylogenetic signal. There’s only one problem: all of this is false. It is yet another example of evolution’s theory-laden science where the findings are dictated not by the data but by the doctrine. There is no powerful phylogenetic signal. That is a myth. For when evolutionists construct their phylogenies, they first filter out the anatomical comparisons that don’t cooperate. But that is not enough so after their first try they filter some more. As one evolutionist admitted, “We are trying to figure out the phylogenetic relationships of 1.8 million species and can’t even sort out 20 [types of] yeast.” And so it is good to see a new paper that admits that data are routinely filtered in order to satisfy stringent criteria so as to eliminate the possibility of incongruence. And what is the solution to this dilemma? As usual, a theoretical failure is converted into a success by adding yet more epicycles. Or as Lakatos might have put it, the core idea is protected by the addition of yet more auxiliary hypotheses. In this case, the incredible emerging view is that incongruence is now to be interpreted as a powerful phylogenetic signal that is desirable, as it often illuminates previously poorly understood evolutionary phenomena. Once again a prediction that was hailed as a powerful proof of evolution turns out to be false, and the story is simply flipped on its head, thus preserving the success of the theory. Where congruence was once claimed as a powerful phylogenetic signal, now incongruence takes its place as the powerful phylogenetic signal. You cannot make this stuff up. per Dr. Hunter's blog Nature Article Finds MicroRNAs are "Tearing Apart Traditional Ideas about the Animal Family Tree" Casey Luskin June 29, 2012 Excerpt: When Peterson started his work on the placental [mammal] phylogeny, he had originally intended to validate the traditional mammal tree, not chop it down. As he was experimenting with his growing microRNA library, he applied it to mammals because their tree was so well established that they seemed an ideal test. Alas, the data didn't cooperate. If the traditional tree was correct, then an unprecedented number of microRNA genes would have to have been lost, and Peterson considers that highly unlikely. "The microRNAs are totally unambiguous," he says, "but they give a totally different tree from what everyone else wants.",,, Maybe the reason that different genes yield different evolutionary trees is because there isn't a single unified tree of life to be found. In other words, perhaps universal common ancestry is simply wrong. per Evolution News and Views
Thus TheisticEvolutionist, if making predictions is your main benchmark as to judging whether a theory is scientific or not, you should seriously consider the serious failings in predictive power that the thesis of common ancestry has generated for science and modify your beliefs accordingly!bornagain77_{October 12, 2013
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And what was the scientific mechanism for this?
Intelligent Design: Examples, Gottlieb Daimler and the automobile and the Wright Brothers and the airplane. The best answer for life and all its changes since the first cell is that most of it is a mystery. Anything else is at best wishful thinking or speculation. Certainly modern science hasn't a clue.jerry_{October 12, 2013
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And what was the scientific mechanism for this?
Life was seeded on earth.Chesterton_{October 12, 2013
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TheisticEvolutionist #29: What is your scientific replacement for common descent?

Livespy #37: Separate ancestry.

TheisticEvolutionist #40: And what was the scientific mechanism for this?
In principle the same scientific mechanism which is responsible for the production of these sentences.Box_{October 12, 2013
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Please do tell, what makes common descent ‘scientific’? This ought to be interesting!
It makes predictions!
He’s a theistic evolutionist, just like you. Unless you’re a theistic evolutionist in name only.
He's not a theistic evolutionist, he rejects common descent.
Separate ancestry.
And what was the scientific mechanism for this?TheisticEvolutionist_{October 12, 2013
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Where it becomes a problem is with those populations that have been traditionally thought to be separate [races] such as [blacks] and [whites] but can inner breed.Mung_{October 11, 2013
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From Wikipedia:
In biology, a species (plural: species) is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, the difficulty of defining species is known as the species problem.

The species problem is a mixture of difficult, related questions that often come up when biologists define the word "species". Definitions are usually based on how individual organisms reproduce, but biological reality means that a definition that works well for some organisms (e.g., birds) will be useless for others (e.g., bacteria). One common, but sometimes difficult, question is how best to decide which species an organism belongs to, because reproductively isolated groups may not be readily recognizable;
From Biology-online
An individual belonging to a group of organisms (or the entire group itself) having common characteristics and (usually) are capable of mating with one another to produce fertile offspring.
In the Stanford presentation, Peter Grant makes an attempt to define the term "species." He seems to lean toward the ability to inner breed producing viable fertile offspring. It seems to solve a lot of problems because it becomes much easier to identify a species. Where is becomes a problem is with those populations that have been traditionally thought to be separate species such as lions and tigers but can inner breed. So lions and tigers are not different species but we all since childhood have been led to believe they are very different so must be different species. This example was used here because it assumes that we do not know that they can inner breed and also because we assume they are separate species. Someone else used this as a last resort to try and trick a commenter a few weeks ago. So when someone uses this example, it is an attempt to change the subject when the argument is not going well for them. If we use the definition that the Grants prefer and most common definition of the term species, there is only one species of finches on the Galapagos. The group known as Darwin's finches are all one species and remain so after arriving on the islands 3 million years ago. There never was a change of goal posts. This is the definition I have been using all along and which the Grants use. But this is all a side show because no one in the evolution debate cares if the finches are separate species or not. The main issue is on the journey of a single cell to man progression and how all the complex novelties have arisen over time. If one cannot show that a simple divergence of species based on inability to breed ever happened it is for sure no one is able to explain how these other complexities arose. As Will Provine said, belief in Darwinian evolution is all based on faith. However, the ID people use science to back their beliefs. Amazing but true.jerry_{October 11, 2013
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TheisticEvolutionist
What is your scientific replacement for common descent?
Separate ancestry.lifepsy_{October 11, 2013
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TheisticEvolutionist:
What is your scientific replacement for common descent bornagain77?
Godditit. He's a theistic evolutionist, just like you. Unless you're a theistic evolutionist in name only.Mung_{October 11, 2013
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wd400
The traits are heritable
I didn't say they weren't heritable. They can be trans-generational epigenetic effects.
Different species share the same habitat, so again, it’s not simpy plasticity.
Some may share the same habitat but have become specialized to different lifestyles/diets within that habitat. If these choices become restricted then you will see a plastic response to one type of morphological expression.
The changes in gene expression that make different beaks are almost certainly the result of mutations
The rapid change in beak morphology is almost certainly *not* the result of the selection of mutations. What's your evidence that it is? Rapid changes in morphological expression have been documented as plastic responses to changes in environment(terrain, diet) in other species, unrelated to mutations.
[even if] they are satbly inherited epigenetic modifications, that absolutely have been fixed by selection. The force of which has been measured in the wild.
Selection may be culling those slowest to adopt necessary expression levels, (perhaps fence-sitting individuals slowest to transition to singular diet types) but if the expression itself is driven by plasticity, (or directly induced by exposure to the environment) then it is a misrepresentation to claim the traits are "fixed by selection"
Unless you want to engage with what we actually know about these finches, I really don’t know why I’d waste my time on your assertions.
Oh you mean like "it's evolution! evolution dunnit! sounds like evolution!" Likewise, why am I wasting my time?lifepsy_{October 11, 2013
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wd400, you claim:
The changes in gene expression that make different beaks are almost certainly the result of mutations
and you are almost certainly dead wrong! Revisiting the Central Dogma in the 21st Century - James A. Shapiro - 2009 Excerpt (Page 12): Underlying the central dogma and conventional views of genome evolution was the idea that the genome is a stable structure that changes rarely and accidentally by chemical fluctuations (106) or replication errors. This view has had to change with the realization that maintenance of genome stability is an active cellular function and the discovery of numerous dedicated biochemical systems for restructuring DNA molecules.(107–110) Genetic change is almost always the result of cellular action on the genome. These natural processes are analogous to human genetic engineering,,, (Page 14) Genome change arises as a consequence of natural genetic engineering, not from accidents. Replication errors and DNA damage are subject to cell surveillance and correction. When DNA damage correction does produce novel genetic structures, natural genetic engineering functions, such as mutator polymerases and nonhomologous end-joining complexes, are involved. Realizing that DNA change is a biochemical process means that it is subject to regulation like other cellular activities. Thus, we expect to see genome change occurring in response to different stimuli (Table 1) and operating nonrandomly throughout the genome, guided by various types of intermolecular contacts (Table 1 of Ref. 112). http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/Shapiro2009.AnnNYAcadSciMS.RevisitingCentral%20Dogma.pdf Also of interest from the preceding paper, on page 22, is a simplified list of the ‘epigentic’ information flow in the cell that directly contradicts what was expected from the central dogma (Genetic Reductionism/modern synthesis model) of neo-Darwinism. James Shapiro on “dangerous oversimplifications” about the cell - August 6, 2013 Excerpt: "Depending upon the energy source and other circumstances, these indescribably complex entities can reproduce themselves with great reliability at times as short as 10-20 minutes. Each reproductive cell cycle involves literally hundreds of millions of biochemical and biomechanical events. We must recognize that cells possess a cybernetic capacity beyond our ability to imitate. Therefore, it should not surprise us when we discover extremely dense and interconnected control architectures at all levels. Simplifying assumptions about cell informatics can be more misleading than helpful in understanding the basic principles of biological function. Two dangerous oversimplifications have been (i) to consider the genome as a mere physical carrier of hypothetical units called “genes” that determine particular cell or organismal traits, and (ii) to think of the genome as a digitally encoded Read-Only Turing tape that feeds instructions to the rest of the cell about individual characters [4]." https://uncommondescent.com/news/james-shapiro-on-dangerous-oversimplifications-about-the-cell/ How life changes itself: The Read–Write (RW) genome - James A. Shapiro - 2013 Excerpt: Research dating back to the 1930s has shown that genetic change is the result of cell-mediated processes, not simply accidents or damage to the DNA. This cell-active view of genome change applies to all scales of DNA sequence variation, from point mutations to large-scale genome rearrangements and whole genome duplications (WGDs). http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1571064513000869 New Research Elucidates Directed Mutation Mechanisms - Cornelius Hunter - January 7, 2013 Excerpt: mutations don’t occur randomly in the genome, but rather in the genes where they can help to address the challenge. But there is more. The gene’s single stranded DNA has certain coils and loops which expose only some of the gene’s nucleotides to mutation. So not only are certain genes targeted for mutation, but certain nucleotides within those genes are targeted in what is referred to as directed mutations.,,, These findings contradict evolution’s prediction that mutations are random with respect to need and sometimes just happen to occur in the right place at the right time.,,, http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2013/01/news-research-elucidates-directed.htmlbornagain77_{October 11, 2013
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Lifespy, Almost everything you've said here is dead wrong. The traits are heritable, not simply environmentally induced. Different species share the same habitat, so again, it's not simpy plasticity. The changes in gene expression that make different beaks are almost certainly the result of mutations, and wether they are or (and again it's almost impossibly to imagine this is the case) they are satbly inherited epigenetic modifications, that absolutely have been fixed by selection. The force of which has been measured in the wild. Unless you want to engage with what we actually know about these finches, I really don't know why I'd waste my time on your assertions.wd400_{October 11, 2013
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Ha! That’s the best goalpost-shifting I’ve ever seen. “It’s not speciation! Ok, so it’s speciation, but it’s not macroevolution!”
There is no need for a goalpost. You're not even on the field. You don't have a non-arbitrary definition for "speciation". You don't even know what it is. "Oh they look different, which may or may not be due to genetic change, and they don't interbreed, except when they do."lifepsy_{October 11, 2013
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as to: What is your scientific replacement for common descent bornagain77? Please do tell, what makes common descent 'scientific'? This ought to be interesting!bornagain77_{October 11, 2013
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wd400,
The different species of Darwin’s finches can interbreed. But they are distinct species. Just like lions and tigers.
All that shows is how arbitrary the definition of species is.
But when we look around the world we see populations in every stage of the process form initial divergence (be it spatial or ecological) to the selection agaisnt hybrids and establishment of complete isolation.
Nothing is "diverging" in any mystical neo-darwinian sense of the word, and they are only "isolated" in distinct levels of genetic expression epigenetically induced by different environmental pressures. There are no variants to select against because the whole population is affected in each given environment. (e.g. if a population finds themselves with primarily a seed diet, they will epigenetically begin to express bigger crushing beaks)
The fact Darwin’s finches occasionally interbred doesn’t mean they aren’t species.
And the fact that the finches occupy different environments and varying levels of phenotypic plasticity does not mean they are different species. Your definition is completely arbitrary. What is your criteria? That you just feel like calling them different species?
When you estimate a tree for these species you find two things (1) they are big genetic gaps between species (2) individuals of one species are more closeley related to each other than to other species. That wouldn’t happen if the finches were acting like one big population.
All this means is that the same species can exist in segregated populations for extended periods of time without "speciating" or any kind of expected evolutionary divergence event. And where's your data on these "big" genetic gaps between finch populations?
The fact the species maintain their distinctiveness in spite of the potential for gene flow to homegenise them tells us they represent distinct lineages.
Their distinctiveness is directly induced by distinct environments. If they were homogenized then they wouldn't be living in different environments, so your statement is tautological.
The interesting question then is what prevents them folding back in
Different environments. Take all the distinct finch populations and restrict them to the same environment and they will all look the same within several generations. That's how phenotypic plasticity works. It is well documented in other species.
Even if it was a trans-generational epigenetic modification, the Grant’s showed the traits are heritable. Hertiable variation is subject to selection so, whether you like it not, changes in beak morhphology have a hertiable basis, are stably inherited and have been shown to be subject to selection. Sounds like evolution to me.
1)The morphology is not dictated by mutations, but expression of genetic function that was already present in the genome. 2)Fixation of morphological traits was not facilitated by natural selection, (i.e. selected by culling individuals without fitness advantage) Instead, traits are induced in entire populations exposed to the same environment pressure over time. So, No. It has nothing to do with neo-Darwinian processes, or Evolution at all. If anything it just shows us how completely wrong that neo-Darwinists have been every time they bullhorn some example of observed "rapid evolution" of species introduced to new environments. (But maybe you're one of the "evolution is change over time" people, in which case everything becomes evidence for evolution as a sort of religious experience.)lifepsy_{October 11, 2013
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What is your scientific replacement for common descent bornagain77?TheisticEvolutionist_{October 11, 2013
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wd400:
The different species of Darwin’s finches can interbreed. But they are distinct species.
And therefore, distinct phyla.Mung_{October 11, 2013
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The different species of Darwin’s finches can interbreed. But they are distinct species. Just like lions and tigers.
Just like blacks and whites.Mung_{October 11, 2013
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So, wd400, in your mind (excuse me) in your BRAIN you don't actually have to prove Darwinian processes can create anything? All you have to do is prove that Darwinian processes can produce genetic isolation by destroying the original variability that was inherent in the parent kind? And you consider yourself to be rigorously honest in all this how? I don't care how genetic variability can be lost (as is evident in reproductive isolation), I want to know where the extremely sophisticated functional information came from in the first place!
A. L. Hughes’s New Non-Darwinian Mechanism of Adaption Was Discovered and Published in Detail by an ID Geneticist 25 Years Ago – Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig – December 2011 Excerpt: The original species had a greater genetic potential to adapt to all possible environments. In the course of time this broad capacity for adaptation has been steadily reduced in the respective habitats by the accumulation of slightly deleterious alleles (as well as total losses of genetic functions redundant for a habitat), with the exception, of course, of that part which was necessary for coping with a species’ particular environment….By mutative reduction of the genetic potential, modifications became “heritable”. — As strange as it may at first sound, however, this has nothing to do with the inheritance of acquired characteristics. For the characteristics were not acquired evolutionarily, but existed from the very beginning due to the greater adaptability. In many species only the genetic functions necessary for coping with the corresponding environment have been preserved from this adaptability potential. The “remainder” has been lost by mutations (accumulation of slightly disadvantageous alleles) — in the formation of secondary species. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/12/a_l_hughess_new053881.html
bornagain77_{October 11, 2013
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If it is used then it should be brought out that genetically they are all the same just as there are various groups of dogs, cats, humans etc. Ha! That's the best goalpost-shifting I've ever seen. "It's not speciation! Ok, so it's speciation, but it's not macroevolution!"wd400_{October 11, 2013
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