It'd be nice to have a benchmark to act as a control. What we need is an actual "emergence" to document. Something that does not involve looking backwards and then reasoning forwards. (Not the hope or expectation or wish or even fossil indications). That's asking a lot, I know. But that immediately poses a question--why is it asking so much?
I don't recall seeing you do any work.
But--" Does it, or does it not mean the genetic separation of two populations so that their attempts at cross-breeding show little or no success?" is at least a start. Two species can be ID'd geneticially,
What "ID'd genetically" mean? Does it mean that you concede that species are related to each other along a timeline that can be measured by their mutational distances?
and mules are not a lifestyle success story.
Jennies, however are.
But your definition lacks a good way to pinpoint "distinct."
That's because "distinct" speciation doesn't have a "pinpoint" speciation is a gradual event, distinct species names are fairly arbitrary human boundaries that do not correspond to some natural barrier.
It'd be nice to have a benchmark to act as a control. What we need is an actual "emergence" to document.
Speciation is caught in still-frame all the time, despite the best efforts of creation scientists to emulate the 3-monkeys approach to science. Think you can mate a miniature chihuahua with a great dane? And we claim they're of the same species. We claim the following are of different species, but they can mate with varied degrees of success: horses, mules, and zebras; lions, tigers, and cheetahs; camels and llamas. There is no instant in time when speciation occurs, yet it still, quite obviously, occurs. There are many classic insect and plant experiments we, as a species, have performed, or observed, that has causes two isolated populations to speciate completely. The classic case is the UofChicago experiment where they put mealy bugs in sealed environments and watched them diverge within a matter of decades, and these experiments and field observations have been piling up steadily since then. If you had the will to look at the posts Ich or PH periodically offer up on this subject, you'd know about these things. But, then, that might put a dent in the confident rhythm of your rhetoric, I suppose.
Something that does not involve looking backwards and then reasoning forwards. (Not the hope or expectation or wish or even fossil indications). That's asking a lot, I know. But that immediately poses a question--why is it asking so much?
There is nothing inherently unscientific about looking at historical data. "Looking backwards and reasoning forwards" has another name: it is called "induction", and it is the basis of nearly all scientific reasoning toward theories about the behavior of the natural world. Do you intend to paint astronomy and geology with this brush? How much of a luddite are you willing to be?