National Geographic Ignores The Flaws in Darwin's Theory

In the November 2004 issue of National Geographic, David Quammen answers this question with a resounding "NO. The evidence for Evolution is overwhelming."

In Quammen's view, most people who reject Darwin's theory of evolution do so out of ignorance, so he proceeds to lay out some of the evidence for it. But the evidence he lays out is exaggerated, and the problems with it are ignored.

Quammen explains that Darwin's theory has two aspects: the "historical phenomenon" that all species of living things are descended from common ancestors, and "the main mechanism causing that phenomenon," which is natural selection. The evidence presented by Darwin, he continues, "mostly fell within four categories: biogeography, paleontology, embryology, and morphology."

The first category includes evidence from similar species in neighboring habitats, such as finches on the Galápagos Islands; the second includes evidence from the fossil record, such as extinct horse-like animals that preceded modern horses; and the third includes evidence from similarities in early embryos that supposedly point to their common ancestry.

All three categories are rife with problems that Quammen overlooks. For example, the Galápagos finch story is complicated by the fact that many of what were originally thought to be thirteen species are now interbreeding with each other -- even though Darwinian theory regards inability to interbreed as the distinguishing feature of separate species.

The fossil record of horses is also much more complicated than Quammen makes it out to be; actually, it looks like a tangled bush with separate branches rather than a straight line of ancestors and descendants. Even worse, Quammen ignores the Cambrian explosion, in which many of the major groups ("phyla") of animals appeared in a geologically short time with no fossil evidence of common ancestry -- a fact that Darwin himself considered a "serious" problem that "may be truly urged as a valid argument against" his theory.

Finally, embryos fail to show what Darwin thought they showed. According to Quammen, the evidence for evolution includes "revealing stages of development (echoing earlier stages of evolutionary history) that embryos pass through before birth or hatching." Darwin (as quoted by Quammen) thought "the embryo is the animal in its less modified state," a state that "reveals the structure of its progenitor." This idea -- that embryos pass through earlier stages of their evolutionary history and thereby show us their ancestors -- is a restatement of German Darwinist Ernst Haeckel's notorious "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny," a false doctrine that knowledgeable experts discarded over a century ago.

It is actually Quammen's fourth category, morphology (i.e., anatomical shape), which Darwin himself (as quoted by Quammen) called the 'very soul' of natural history, that provides the basis for the other three. In each category, similarity in morphology ("homology") is interpreted as evidence for evolutionary relatedness. According to Darwin, features in different organisms are homologous because they were inherited from a common ancestor through a process he called "descent with modification."

The biologists who described homology a decade before Darwin, however, attributed it to construction or creation on a common archetype or design. How can one determine whether homology in living things comes from common ancestry or common design? Simply pointing to the similarities themselves won't do, as biologist Tim Berra inadvertently showed when he used different models of Corvette automobiles to illustrate descent with modification in his 1990 book, Evolution and the Myth of Creationism. Although Berra wrote that "descent with modification is overwhelmingly obvious" in Corvettes, we all know that automobile similarities are due to common design rather than common ancestry. Only by demonstrating that a Corvette can morph into another model by natural processes could someone rule out the need for a designer. Similarly, the only scientific way to demonstrate that similarities in living things are due to common ancestry would be to identify the natural mechanism that produced them. According to Darwin's theory, that mechanism is natural selection.

So the four categories of evidence on which Darwin relied to support his theory of the historical phenomenon of evolution rely, in turn, on his theory about the mechanism of evolution. But what is the evidence for Darwin's mechanism?

The principal evidence Quammen cites is antibiotic resistance. "There's no better or more immediate evidence supporting the Darwinian theory," Quammen writes, "than this process of forced transformation among our inimical germs." Perhaps so; but then Darwin's theory is in serious trouble. Antibiotic resistance involves only minor changes within existing species. In plants and animals, such changes had been known for centuries before Darwin. Nobody doubts that they can occur, or that they can be produced by selection. But Darwin claimed much more, namely, that the process of selection could produce new species -- indeed, all species after the first. That's why Darwin titled his magnum opus The Origin of Species, not How Existing Species Change Over Time.

Yet no one has ever observed the origin of a new species by selection, natural or otherwise. Bacteria should be the easiest organisms in which to observe this, because bacteria can produce thousands of generations in a matter of months, and they can be subjected to powerful mutation-causing agents and intense selection. Nevertheless, in over a century of research no new species of bacteria have emerged. Quammen cites Darwinian biologists who claim to have produced "incipient species," but this merely refers to different strains of the same species that the researchers believe -- on theoretical grounds -- might eventually become new species. When the truth of the theory itself is at stake, such a theoretical extrapolation hardly constitutes "overwhelming evidence" for it.

So the evidence Quammen presents for Darwin's theory falls far short of confirming it. Biogeography, paleontology, embryology and morphology all rely on homologies, and the only way to determine whether homologies are due to common descent rather than common design is to provide a natural mechanism. Yet Darwin's mechanism, natural selection, has never been observed to produce a single new species. Scientific theories (Quammen acknowledges) should not be accepted as a matter of faith, but only on the basis of evidence. And given the evidence, any rational person is justified in doubting the truth of Darwin's theory.

As Quammen points out at the beginning of his article, public opinion polls conducted over the past twenty years have consistently shown that only about 12% of Americans accept Darwin's theory that "humans evolved from other life-forms without any involvement of a god." The reference to "god" is significant, because it shows that science is not the only thing at stake here: Darwinism also makes religious and philosophical claims. Most importantly, Darwinism is committed to naturalism, the philosophy that nature is all that exists and God is imaginary -- or at least unnecessary. It is not surprising, then, that many people reject Darwinism on religious grounds. Nevertheless, Quammen maintains, most Americans are antievolutionists only because of "confusion and ignorance," because "they have never taken a biology course that deals with evolution nor read a book in which the theory was lucidly described."

As someone with a Berkeley Ph.D. in biology, I dispute Quammen's characterization of Darwin's doubters as confused and ignorant. On the contrary, Quammen's article makes it abundantly clear why it is quite reasonable to doubt Darwinism: The evidence for it is "underwhelming," at best.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires every state to formulate standards for science education. As a guide to interpreting the law, Congress also passed a Conference Report recognizing "that a quality science education should prepare students to distinguish the data and testable theories of science from religious or philosophical claims that are made in the name of science. Where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist, why such topics may generate controversy, and how scientific discoveries can profoundly affect society.''

In other words, students should be encouraged to distinguish the actual evidence for Darwin's theory from the naturalistic philosophy that accompanies it. Furthermore, students should be taught not only the evidence for the theory, but also why much of that evidence is controversial. Congress recommends this; the American people overwhelmingly support it; and good science demands it.

Quammen claims that evolution is "more crucial nowadays to human welfare, to medical science, and to our understanding of the world, than ever before." Yet no country in history has made more contributions to human welfare and medical science than America. Is it just a coincidence that the vast majority of citizens in the most scientifically successful nation on Earth are skeptical of Darwin's theory? I think not. As a scientist myself, it seems to me that a healthy skepticism is essential to good science. This caveat applies to all theories, including Darwin's.

If Quammen's article had accurately presented not only the evidence for Darwin's theory, but also the problems with that evidence, it might have made a valuable contribution to scientific literacy in America. As it stands, however, the article is nothing more than a beautifully illustrated propaganda piece. The readers of National Geographic deserve better.

Jonathan Wells, Ph.D. Senior Fellow, Center for Science and Culture Discovery Institute

I was going through some of your exchanges with Gore3000 and came across this (regarding ring species):
"Actually, the ring species you keep showing do not even prove speciation. The determinant of speciation is ability to produce viable mates. The so called 'scientists' who did these studies did not even bother to see if these salamanders and these birds could mate with each other."
"Further, the statements made as to the proof of 'speciation' are so ridiculous as to be totally laughable. The birds for example were called different species by these numbskulls because they had two yellow stripes and different songs than the ones at the start of the ring. Clearly according to the criteria of these morons of evolution, Englishmen and Chinamen are different species since they speak different languages and have different skin color." ~G3K
Is this true? Did they conduct experiments to see if they could mate or not?

As was unfortunately all too often the case with the now departed creationist Gore3000, no, it's not true. As was usually the case with his claims (and of too many creationists in general), it is in fact roughly 180 degrees apart from the truth.

And before someone (and you know who you are) again posts the lie that Gore3000 was banned for questioning evolution, I will again point out that he was in fact banned for directly accusing Jim Robinson and his moderators of being tools of Satan. And no, I am not making this up.

As for his false accusations, let's take them one at a time:

Actually, the ring species you keep showing do not even prove speciation.

Actually, ring species do indeed demonstrate speciation, quite well:

[From: CIRCULAR OVERLAPS: RARE DEMONSTRATIONS OF SPECIATION. And note, the title means that ring species are "rare", not that demonstrations of speciation are rare...]
First, the presence of a series of intermediate forms between two species shows that variation between species is qualitatively similar, though different in degree, as variation within a species (Ridley 1993). Ring species can thus provide important evidence for evolution, demonstrating that small changes can eventually accumulate into the differences between distinct species. It is primarily this basic aspect of ring species that has made them such important systems in the teaching of evolutionary principles.
Second, ring species may be used to reconstruct the history and causes of divergence during speciation (Wake 2001). If an ancestral species expands around both sides of an ecological barrier, the expanding fronts might diverge to the level of species by the time they meet on the other side of the barrier. If a ring species arose in that way, variation around the ring might represent variation in time, allowing the observation of the traits of two species as well as their common ancestor.
Third, ring species potentially show that speciation between the terminal forms can occur despite substantial gene flow around the ring. Such a demonstration would show that speciation does not require geographic isolation, something that has often been considered an essential condition for speciation (Mayr 1970). Genetic exchange between populations generally inhibits divergence, but recent theoretical and empirical studies have shown that substantial divergence can occur even with gene flow, especially when there is natural selection for local adaptation (e.g. Kondrashov et al. 1998, Dieckmann and Doebeli 1999, Danley et al. 2000, Gavrilets 2000, Smith et al. 2001). These studies suggest that there is no theoretical reason why ring species with extensive gene flow through the ring cannot exist.

The determinant of speciation is ability to produce viable mates.

Um, no, but this garbled bit of babble isn't worth correcting, other than to point out that if G3K was trying to imply that the "arm" species may not each be able to produce fertile offsping, he should note that these species were first identified in the 1930's, and still exist and are studied today. So unless these are some REALLY old songbirds, it's trivially easy to show that they've been reproducing just fine for at least 70+ years now.

The so called 'scientists' who did these studies did not even bother to see if these salamanders and these birds could mate with each other.

Sure they did. They both determined that the subgroups in intermediate positions along the "ring" interbred successfully, *and* that the two groups at the overlapping ends of the "arms" did *not* interbreed.

[From Speciation in a ring]
We used song playback experiments to investigate the potential for reproductive isolation around the ring. Response by males to the playback of song is a widely used measure of whether different groups view each other as potential mates or competitors, and has been used to assign species status to several Phylloscopus taxa6. We conducted experiments in ten populations (PK, KL, PA, ML, MN and LN in the Himalayas, AA, YK, ST and AN further north) using recordings from other sites. Males responded strongly to recordings made up to 1,000±1,500 km away, but not to recordings made at further distances (Fig. 3). However, playbacks between viridanus and plumbeitarsus (shown by open circles in Fig. 3), even when separated by a relatively short distance, resulted in very little response, indicating that the two taxa do not consider each other's song to be from their species. These results suggest that divergence of song and accompanying song recognition have been important in the evolution of reproductive isolation between the terminal forms of the ring.
We used molecular markers to reconstruct the biogeographical history of the ring. We constructed a mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) gene tree for 149 individuals collected throughout the species' range, based on sequences of approximately 1,200 base pairs in the neighbourhood of the control region (Fig. 4). The gene tree shows strong geographic structure. Two major clades correspond to western and eastern individuals. We sampled intensively across about 500 km in each of the regions where the two clades meet. In central Siberia the concordance between haplotype (western or eastern clade) and song (viridanus or plumbeitarsus) was perfect (17 western birds and 35 eastern birds), providing no evidence for mitochondrial introgression between the two Siberian taxa. In the south, the region where the two mitochondrial clades meet does not correspond with a subspecies boundary, but instead occurs within the range of ludlowi (Figs 1 and 4). Songs of individuals carrying the different haplotypes are not distinguishable (for example, compare the similarity of KS and MN in Fig. 2), and playback experiments indicate that birds do not distinguish among them in this region. For example, birds at PK responded to MN song, even though the two are from different mitochondrial clades. And in the two populations where birds of both mitochondrial clades have been found to co-occur (KL, ML), individuals respond strongly to songs recorded at both PK (western haplotype) and MN (eastern haplotype) (n = 10 playback experiments).
Genetic variation in two microsatellite markers (Pocc2 and Pocc6) matches that of the mtDNA tree (Fig. 5a, b). For both microsatellites, mean length varies significantly over the range (analysis of variance (ANOVA) across localities: Pocc2, F8,181 = 4.4, P , 0.0001; Pocc6, F8,191 = 21.6, P , 0.0001). The central Siberian forms at TL and ST differ in mean allele length (a posteriori tests: Pocc2, P,0.01; Pocc6, P,0.0001).
There is also significant variation in the south between Kashmir and Nepal (comparison of KS to LN: Pocc2, P , 0.01; Pocc6, P , 0.0001) but the central population in northwest India (MN) is clearly intermediate to the Kashmir and Nepal populations, suggesting continuing gene flow in that region. There is little variation from south to north along either side of the ring.
The microsatellite data and the mtDNA tree are consistent in showing high genetic change both in the north, between the central Siberian taxa, and in the south, across the western Himalayas. Song variation, the mtDNA tree and the microsatellite data together indicate that there is current gene flow across the southern part of the range, but not the northern.

Additionally, Irwin did an enormous amount of fieldwork, examining the natural behavior of the birds.

"Further, the statements made as to the proof of 'speciation' are so ridiculous as to be totally laughable.

G3K is about to reveal how little he understands about these studies:

The birds for example were called different species by these numbskulls because they had two yellow stripes and different songs than the ones at the start of the ring.

By now it should be obvious just how cartoonishly distorted G3K's version is when compared to the actual studies. Yes, the researchers observed that among other differences, the overlapped but non-interbreeding species had different numbers of wing bars. But that was hardly listed by them as a major criteria -- or any criteria at all -- for declaring them separate species.

As for the songs, what made them significant was not that they were "different", but that they were *so* different that the birds themselves did not identify the song of the other group as being a member of the same species as themselves. More intrigueingly, this despite the fact that birds from nearby groups along the middle of the ring *did* recognize nearby birds with their somewhat different songs as being members of their own species.

But finally, contrary to G3K's straw man version, what actually led the researchers to conclude that the "arms" of the ring qualified as different species was because despite the fact that they lived intermingled in the same habitat, there was *no* genetic, behavioral, or field evidence that the groups interbred *at all*.

Two different species can occasionally (although poorly) interbreed at times (as with tigers and lions), so interbreeding is not *the* determinative criteria for separate species, BUT a total lack of interbreeding between two groups *is* an ironclad demonstration that the two groups are different species.

Clearly according to the criteria of these morons of evolution, Englishmen and Chinamen are different species since they speak different languages and have different skin color.

Needless to say, that's *not* in any way an accurate summary of the research.

So in the end, between the researchers, and G3K, it becomes painfully obvious exactly who is actually "the moron".

Speaking of mating, I would assume that Multiple Orgasums

Is that "orgasms" or "organisms"? Or maybe "opossums"? In any case, I fail to see what it has to do with your following question:

would be GOOD for the species as a whole, with the repro rate up there, so why do we Humans want to DEvolve, by LOWERING our offspring output?

Um, what? What do multiple orgasms have to do with reproductive rate? Insects don't have them, but they out-reproduce us by factors of hundreds or thousands.

And humans *do* have multiple orgasms (if they're lucky), so what's this about us allegedly "devolving" (again, no such thing) by not having them?

Before you ask a question, please make sure it's a coherent one.

But if you're trying to ask why humans have a low birth rate compared to some other kinds of animals (but not apes, they have a birthrate similar to ours), the reason is that there are many different types of successful reproductive strategies.

One is to crank out offspring as rapidly and as numerously as possible. This is what most insects do, and obviously it works well for them (I'm *still* trying to rid my house of fruit flies after several months... The damned things keep springing back after I think I've eliminated most of them.)

Another is to have only a few offspring, so that you can devote much time and effort into ensuring that they survive.

Insects may reproduce fast and often, but they have a HUGE mortality rate among their offspring. By just dumping them and leaving them, they leave most to die due to predators, weather, etc. Humans only have a few offspring, but we continuously guard and nurture and train them, so that each one has a good chance of surviving to adulthood and carrying on our lineage.

Due to our niche in th world, our reproductive method works well for us, and the insects' method works well for them in *their* niche -- and neither would work well for the other. Insects are poorly equipped (brainwise, among other reasons) to nurture their offspring, and humans are poorly equipped to deal with giving birth to 100+ offspring per year.

And that's what evolutionary fitness is all about -- each species doing well and what "fits" in its *own* situation (environmental or otherwise). It's not about reaching some sort of absolute "best" biological solution in a one-size-fits-all way.

[The common ancestor for monkeys and apes far predates the common ancestor of apes and humans.]
Show me the transitional fossils and the proof for this statement. I'll be waiting, and I want tangible, factual evidence.

Okay, here you go...

Transitional fossils:

Basal catarrhine primate Aegyptopithecus, 32MYA:
Victoriapithecus, 15MYA, soon after the OW-Monkey/ape split (ape side):
Basal ape/human primate Sahelanthropus tchadensis (" Toumai"), 6-7MYA:

Those are just some highlights, there are countless more laying out the branching phylogeny of primate evolution.

Evidence (science does not deal in "proof"):

Fossil evidence
DNA evidence:

1: J Mol Evol. 1984;20(1):2-15. Related Articles,

The phylogeny of the hominoid primates, as indicated by DNA-DNA hybridization.

Sibley CG, Ahlquist JE.

The living hominoid primates are Man, the chimpanzees, the Gorilla, the Orangutan, and the gibbons. The cercopithecoids (Old World monkeys) are the sister group of the hominoids. The composition of the Hominoidea is not in dispute, but a consensus has not yet been reached concerning the phylogenetic branching pattern and the dating of divergence nodes. We have compared the single-copy nuclear DNA sequences of the hominoid genera using DNA-DNA hybridization to produce a complete matrix of delta T50H values. The data show that the branching sequence of the lineages, from oldest to most recent, was: Old World monkeys, gibbons, Orangutan, Gorilla, chimpanzees, and Man. The calibration of the delta T50H scale in absolute time needs further refinement, but the ranges of our estimates of the datings of the divergence nodes are: Cercopithecoidea, 27-33 million years ago (MYA); gibbons, 18-22 MYA; Orangutan, 13-16 MYA; Gorilla, 8-10 MYA; and chimpanzees-Man, 6.3-7.7 MYA.

Publication Types:

Review

PMID: 6429338 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

1: Mol Biol Evol. 1988 Nov;5(6):626-44. Related Articles,

Molecular phylogeny and evolution of primate mitochondrial DNA.

Hayasaka K, Gojobori T, Horai S.

Laboratory of Human Genetics, National Institute of Genetics, Shizuoka, Japan.

We determined nucleotide sequences of homologous 0.9-kb fragments of mitochondrial DNAs (mtDNAs) derived from four species of old-world monkeys, one species of new-world monkeys, and two species of prosimians. With these nucleotide sequences and homologous sequences for five species of hominoids, we constructed a phylogenetic tree for the four groups of primates. The phylogeny obtained is generally consistent with evolutionary trees constructed in previous studies. Our results also suggest that the rate of nucleotide substitution for mtDNAs in hominines (human, chimpanzee, and gorilla) may have slowed down compared with that for old-world monkeys. This evolutionary feature of mitochondrial genes is similar to one found in nuclear genes.

PMID: 3146681 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

1: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1999 Aug 31;96(18):10254-60. Related Articles,

onstructing primate phylogenies from ancient retrovirus sequences.

Johnson WE, Coffin JM.

Department of Molecular Microbiology, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA 02111, USA.

The genomes of modern humans are riddled with thousands of endogenous retroviruses (HERVs), the proviral remnants of ancient viral infections of the primate lineage. Most HERVs are nonfunctional, selectively neutral loci. This fact, coupled with their sheer abundance in primate genomes, makes HERVs ideal for exploitation as phylogenetic markers. Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) provide phylogenetic information in two ways: (i) by comparison of integration site polymorphism and (ii) by orthologous comparison of evolving, proviral, nucleotide sequence. In this study, trees are constructed with the noncoding long terminal repeats (LTRs) of several ERV loci. Because the two LTRs of an ERV are identical at the time of integration but evolve independently, each ERV locus can provide two estimates of species phylogeny based on molecular evolution of the same ancestral sequence. Moreover, tree topology is highly sensitive to conversion events, allowing for easy detection of sequences involved in recombination as well as correction for such events. Although other animal species are rich in ERV sequences, the specific use of HERVs in this study allows comparison of trees to a well established phylogenetic standard, that of the Old World primates. HERVs, and by extension the ERVs of other species, constitute a unique and plentiful resource for studying the evolutionary history of the Retroviridae and their animal hosts.

PMID: 10468595 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

...and thousands more...

It takes faith to get into your car and go from point A to point B..

No, it takes inductive reasoning.

and there is absolutely NO evidence one species evolved from another, NONE..

Uh huh... See my previous post, and this list of evidence and then get back to us. Also feel free to explain what you apparently think is wrong with the clear evidence of common descent provided by ERVs. We'll wait.

evidence to the contrary exists though.

Ooh, this should be interesting. What is it?

O.K. evolution is a pseudoscience.. A science of explaining variations of unprovable stuff.. by hokum and pokum.. basically a scam to support godless figments of academic and Utopian dreams.. much loved by left wing ideologies.. and used as a base to support leftist political clap trap. Also, used to justify entire wings of theoretical study in acedemic institutions for the study of questionable events and science fiction like scenarios..

Now that your rant has run down.. I asked you for *specific* reasons you felt that evolution is "not science". I'm afraid that simply making general slurs like you do above does not qualify. Try again. Give examples. If you're not familiar with how to construct an actual argument, ask someone for assistance.

Cannot disprove evolution though. You cannot disprove something that did not happen..

Not very clear on these concepts, are you? Of course you can, by deriving predictions from the "something" which can be tested to see if they're true or not.

Example: Something that "did not happen" is that my house was not struck by an asteroid the size of Rhode Island today. If it had been, my house (and much of the state in which it resides) would have been vaporized, and a huge crater left in its place. Examining the area, I determine that my house is still standing, and there is no huge crater to be found. Therefore I have proved that my house was not struck by an enormous asteroid. I have "disproven something that did not happen". QED.

Are you really this unable to think things through?

Similarly, there are many ways that evolutionary theory could be disproved, if it were not in fact true. Dozens of lines of investigation by which evolution could potentially be disproved can be found here, for example.

So would you care to retract your BS assertion, or would you rather stick by it and continue to appear foolish and uninformed?

Creationism is also a theory..

Then please state it. Warning: A statement has to meet a number of specific criteria before it can actually be considered a theory, in the scientific sense. Good luck -- if you can actually state the "theory of creationism", you'll be the first.

Whole colleges are devoted that too.. Humans are not really very smart..

You said it, I didn't.

[And yet again, I must ask -- if the case against evolution is so good, why do you usually have to look to lawyers and journalists and such for "support", instead of peer-reviewed works by scientists working within their fields?]
Howdy. Why would I need "support?"

You tell me, you're the one attempting to support your assertions and position by posting this stuff.

The evidence 'is what it is.'

Yes it is, so why don't you post some, instead of spin and sophistry and fallacies and false claims by creationists?

I see purposeful Design; you do not.

I see that the evidence strongly supports my view, and very weakly, if at all, supports yours.

There are a bunch of peer-reviewed papers out there that support ID.

Feel free to cite them, so that we can determine their quality.

I'm just here presenting information to those who are interested.

My point is that you should present reliable, correct information, not the kind of stuff that needs large amounts of correction.

If you aren't interested in Camp's rebuttal, that's fine. There are new people here that have no idea who he is.

And that's exactly why it's important to show them exactly who he is -- a polemicist who does not actually understand what he's attempting to critique, and grossly misrepresents much of it.

By the way, the last time I checked, there's nothing that has come out of TO that's peer-reviewed.

Surely you could not have missed the lists of citations to peer-reviewed papers and primary sources at the bottom of almost every TalkOrigins.Org page? They don't just make up the stuff on their pages, they're reporting and summarizing the peer-reviewed literature on the topic, and providing citations by which readers can look deeper into it themselves. Duh.

Isn't that where you get a majority of *your* information?

No, it most certainly isn't. Might I ask you to read more carefully next time?

I'm no expert (this will become obvious momentarily) so I've always been puzzled about one thing. At a certain point a mother gives birth to a child with a different genetic code, right? Fine, but let's say the child is a female. My question is; where does the male come from with the same genetic code to propagate this new species? Or is it a horse + donkey = mule type of thing where the species are similar enough to carry on. My ignorance on this is great so I would appreciate any answers you could provide?

You're asking the wrong person, allow me...

The answer is that it's not a matter of having "same" or "different" genetic code. Every human being has a different, unique genetic code (that's why DNA matching works in criminal cases). But obviously we can still interbreed.

No "exact match" of DNA is required to interbreed, just "close enough".

And the short answer to your question (there are all sorts of fascinating complicating details) is that when a population (usually, an isolated *subpopulation*) of species X is evolving towards becoming species Y, the amount of genetic change per generation is small enough that each member of the population can continue to interbreed with the rest of the population, even if it has a mutation that hasn't yet spread to the rest of the population.

Over several generations its novel mutation does spread through the population and becomes ubiquitous in the population, and thus when the next novel mutation pops up in the population, everyone's already on the same "page" with respect to the last one, and the new mutation is no more hindrance to interbreeding than the last one originally was.

} Rinse, repeat, etc.

Eventually number of novel mutations in the population becomes so large that even though the population itself can still interbreed (because they all "evolved together" into species Y through genetic exchange), the population is "enough different" DNA-wise that it will no longer be able to interbreed with members of the *original* population of species X it split off from (which itself may be relatively unchanged, or evolved off in a different direction itself).

This is how one species splits into two (or more), each "daughter" species unable to mate with its "sister" species, yet always able to breed with itself at every stage along the way.

Look back a few posts for a discussion of "ring species", whereby each subgroup along a "ring" around a mountain or whatever is still able to interbreed with its "neighbor" subgroups on the ring, but when the far "arms" of the ring meet each arm has changed enough genetically that they are unable to mate at the point where they "meet up" on the other side of the geographic obstacle. This works in a way similar to my description above -- each subgroup is "not too different" from its neighbors to interbreed, but over the whole extent of the line/ring, the far "ends" have diverged enough from each other to be unable to mate. Same thing, basically.

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