Posted on 05/08/2006 1:17:07 PM PDT by mlc9852
Human interaction with animals could be causing evolution to go into reverse, says a report by the Royal Society, Britain's science academy.
A study of finches on the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific – finches are the same birds that were said to have inspired Charles Darwin's groundbreaking work on evolution - has shown that some could be losing their distinctive beaks in response to living near humans.
Finches on the islands have developed different sizes of beak - but when people live in close proximity to the birds, their beaks revert to an intermediate size, the report says.
Andrew Hendry, a professor at McGill University in Montreal who led the study, told the Independent newspaper that the evolutionary split within the species was being reversed.
(Excerpt) Read more at english.aljazeera.net ...
Finally, the correct answer ;-)
You YE-ers need to have a convention, get together, and decide what you really believe. It's difficult to have a conversation with a creationist without first going over the ground rules--speciation or not? 6000 years or 20000? Genome information addition allowed or forbidden?
The majority of YE creationists believe that speciation has occurred, so they would accept common ancestry for the finches on this island.
It is patently unscientific to say that something "devolved". It has no meaning.
"It is patently unscientific to say that something "devolved". It has no meaning."
And the finches didn't *devolve*.
Then why don't all species evolve for survival? Why are there extinctions at all? Shouldn't evolution prevent extinction?
Yet both are evidence that evolution takes place.
"Then why don't all species evolve for survival? Why are there extinctions at all? Shouldn't evolution prevent extinction?"
Because the variation that natural selection has to work on is not infinite, or even close to infinite. If the environment changes in a detrimental way, and the needed variation just doesn't exist in the population, the population will crash/go extinct.
Strangely enough, Darwin did not create finches. I know, it's hard to believe since after all, he is a God!
"he is a God!"
Not to me he isn't. Anyway, he's dead now.:)
At the same time, it seems entirely unwieldy and unreasonable to posit that ad hoc divine intervention or intelligent design is the decisive factor.
There are other possibilities but the exalted priesthood of Darwin, preaching its atheism-based faith claims ex cathedra from the public schools and court rooms of this nation, has effectively hijacked the power of the state to stifle honest inquiry and science.
Thus, the study of life on this planet remains mired in late 19th Century thinking of a mechanistic clockwork nature.
Someday biological sciences will have to honestly seek to understand the role of intelligence (especially the most neglected component: the context of the observer/interpreter) and make space for information theory in the paradigm of evolution. Great 20th Century minds, including those of Schroedinger and Shannon, have defined a path of inquiry that Darwinists refuse to walk for fear of losing their religion and the power to force it on the rest of us.
Bump
Most Dramatic Post Today Placemarker
Well, I bet they're creationist, just like you.
Why thanks. You can pretty much count on my missing any 'news' published on al Jazeera.
BWHAHAHAHA!
The New York Times loves al Jazeera!
I see you aren't very busy today. Nice cushy job you got there, Prof.
LOL!
At least I don't promote radical Islam.
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