New evidence that natural selection is a general driving force behind the origin of species

Vanderbilt University ^ | 23 February 2006 | Staff

[darbymcgill]

So, what chemicals found in cells walls are found in space?

He may have been referring to Building Blocks of Life Found in Planet Forming Disk

[darbymcgill]

And it might indicate a bias in your crude estimates.

And if you liked those, you'll love this one... among many

However, a strength of the present study is that the taxonomic generality of our results cannot be attributed to a biased selection of study taxa because these taxa were determined by a previously published list of C&O studies (26) that were not conducted with ecological factors in mind. The data sets evaluated here thus represent a random taxonomic sample with respect to the hypothesis under testing. Assuming that these taxa are indeed representative of other animal and plant groups, our findings suggest that speciation is, in part, an inherently ecological process.

[DennisR]

“This helps fill a big gap that has existed in evolutionary studies,” says Daniel Funk,...


But I thought there was no gap anymore...that it had been filled...that it no longer existed!

[furball4paws]

I don't think so. Muey specifically mentioned bacterial cell wall components. The article linked is interesting, but none of the compounds mentioned are cell wall components.

[muawiyah]

That was one of the references I was thinking of, but it's not the main one.

Thought it was interesting how the anti-science crowd came out and dumped all over the findings.

Gad!

They're as bad as the crowd that believes solely in "evolution only on little earth" crowd when you suggest that maybe some of those chemicals self-assembled elsewhere in the universe.

Still trying to figure out how the viruses get into meteors without a Krypton event.

[donh]

Do you know what jennies and mules are? I suggest you look it up if you don't.

Yes I do know that they are cross species reproduction and I also know that the mules and jennies are sterile. They therefore have no bearing on the discussion.

Jennies are not always sterile. Which has a direct bearing on the conversation. Mules and Jennies asymmetric reproductive capacities are a living example of speciation caught in midstream. There are many others. See ring species. see Ligers.

As for the dog breeding you suggest I have heard of successes of such pairing. (With the male being the smaller dog)

Uh, huh. But not the reverse? And you don't draw the painfully obvious conclusion? I'd like to see pictures of a teacup poodle covering a great dane.

It is estimated that man was on the American contents 10,000 years (I read an article recently that upped that to 16,000 years) before the Europeans arrived with a conservative generation of 20 years that is 500 generations. That is not huge on the evolutionary time table but not insignificant. Name a significant trait that natural selection produced in humans on the North or South American Continent.

Red skin pigment. Susceptibility to smallpox and measles.