Speciation: Or maybe not?
| November 27, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under speciation |
At Wired Science, we are informed “Birth of New Species Witnessed by Scientists” (November 16, 2009):
On one of the Galapagos islands whose finches shaped the theories of a young Charles Darwin, biologists have witnessed that elusive moment when a single species splits in two.
In many ways, the split followed predictable patterns, requiring a hybrid newcomer who’d already taken baby steps down a new evolutionary path. But playing an unexpected part was chance, and the newcomer singing his own special song.
My best guess is that if the girls stop dropping by, he will soon be either singing a different tune or a bachelor. Note the qualifications:
The future of the species is far from certain. It’s possible that they’ll be out-competed by other finches on the island. Their initial gene pool may contain flaws that will be magnified with time. A chance disaster could wipe them out. The birds might even return to the fold of their parent species, and merge with them through interbreeding.
But whatever happens, their legacy will remain: New species can emerge very quickly — and sometimes all it takes is a song.
Hmmm. If a song is really all it takes, it probably isn’t a different species.
Siamese yowl differently from the European cat, and their behaviour is often different, but they are not a different species.
Typically, species prefer their own when they can meet n’ greet easily. Sometimes that won’t happen. Successful species are often flexible about intermediates – which likely hinders speciation.
Only a Darwinist would be this desperate to find an example of speciation.
In this news story, reporter Brandon Keim deserves considerable credit for admitting the difficulties. Maybe some fragments of the message about the problems are getting through.
32 Responses to Speciation: Or maybe not?
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Zachriel @30
Then you agree with me that the word “empiric” is improperly used by MacNeill and should not be allowed anywhere near Darwinism.
Because the examples that you provide fit better and more cleanly into an engineering decision model, they fit ID better. And we do have empiric evidence of engineering decision models.
Beak traits which returned to normal size after the drought ended, resulting in no evolution. Adaptation is a conservation capability, not a demonstrated evolutionary one.
Not at all. This is apparently the exchange to which you are referring:
A scientific model which explains something doesn’t have to directly observe it. It does have to make specific and distinguishing empirical predictions.
For instance, Einstein’s explanation of Brownian Motion depended upon the physical existence of molecules, and provided a rough estimate of their size. Brownian Motion is an empirically observable consequence of molecules, but is not a direct observation of molecules.
They are clearly “new functions have arisen from the aftermath of reproductive isolation.” That’s what you asked for. (Or do you reject Common Descent? If so, we have to start with that.)
Not correct (the resulting populations were not the same as the original populations), but irrelevant as I was referring to the historic radiation which clearly resulted in diversification.