Posted on 07/13/2006 1:21:13 PM PDT by presidio9
Finches on the Galapagos Islands that inspired Charles Darwin to develop the concept of evolution are now helping confirm it — by evolving.
A medium sized species of Darwin's finch has evolved a smaller beak to take advantage of different seeds just two decades after the arrival of a larger rival for its original food source.
The altered beak size shows that species competing for food can undergo evolutionary change, said Peter Grant of Princeton University, lead author of the report appearing in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
Grant has been studying Darwin's finches for decades and previously recorded changes responding to a drought that altered what foods were available.
It's rare for scientists to be able to document changes in the appearance of an animal in response to competition. More often it is seen when something moves into a new habitat or the climate changes and it has to find new food or resources, explained Robert C. Fleischer, a geneticist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and National Zoo.
This was certainly a documented case of microevolution, added Fleischer, who was not part of Grant's research.
Grant studied the finches on the Galapagos island Daphne, where the medium ground finch, Geospiza fortis, faced no competition for food, eating both small and large seeds.
In 1982 a breeding population of large ground finches, Geospiza magnirostris, arrived on the island and began competing for the large seeds of the Tribulus plants. G. magnirostris was able to break open and eat these seeds three times faster than G. fortis, depleting the supply of these seeds.
In 2003 and 2004 little rain fell, further reducing the food supply. The result was high mortality among G. fortis with larger beaks, leaving a breeding population of small-beaked G. fortis that could eat the seeds from smaller plants and didn't have to compete with the larger G. magnirostris for large seeds.
That's a form of evolution known as character displacement, where natural selection produces an evolutionary change in the next generation, Grant explained in a recorded statement made available by Science.
Yeah, prime.
What a load of unadulterated crap.
We know that ANY observational data about islands are suspect for two reasons:
Biologists don't spend the time...they don't have the money to.
Biologists make assertions that don't follow mechanisms.
Remember you have more than half a dozen definitions of species to use at your convenience.
Your Hawaiian examples are fun but the language betrays you. It's a young island set...there are NO native species. If biologists make distinction on species found there, it's a bias.
What your post said was interesting, but only at the thought experiment level. Technologists are talking about using nanotubes to splice strands of DNA into particular places. We are at the post Darwin level of biology. It really isn't that useful on the cutting edge.
DK
Really?
Yea I guess you are right. All those finches people claim to see on the Galapogas, well they could be seagulls, or perhaps eagles or some kind of small mammal. It's an easy mistake to make on an island where observations become suspect.
Your Hawaiian examples are fun but the language betrays you. It's a young island set...there are NO native species.
Species are native unless they have been introduced recently.
Technologists are talking about using nanotubes to splice strands of DNA into particular places. We are at the post Darwin level of biology. It really isn't that useful on the cutting edge.
You miss the point of the theory. It is an explaination for the diversity of life on Earth throughout history. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I have a Theory.
I am not sure what to call it.
It won't be called "Something came from Nothingism" though.
How about, " Looking-at-stuff-and-then-knowing-everythingism?"
That might do!
LOL. You take yourself way too seriously.
You miss the point of the theory. It is an explaination for the diversity of life on Earth throughout history. Nothing more. Nothing less.<<
You must have missed something here. It is the most significant theory in all biology. All doctors must be trained and believe in it. You can't have a scientific mind if you don't believe in it. We cannot teach its problems in the schools (by law?)...
It a super hyped political theory with limited usefulness. Biology is moving on without it as a requirement. The paradigm shift is happening.
I did like the idea that Hawaii can have native species that came from the mainland long enough ago. That was a hoot.
Because of the problems with definitions, mechanisms and proofs, Darwin's Theory of diversity is as useful as saying "Over time, things change into other things."
Biology has moved on.
DK
I'm sure your "humor" kills 'em in church.
Squishy definitions, like SPECIES. Crappy logic like evolution is both a theory and a fact. Just those two set the scientific method to the dark ages...if she weighs the same as a duck she's a witch comes to mind.
Do I like biology? Sure. I'm excited as heck that someone figured out how to send a single strand of DNA through a microchannel and sequence the DNA, and the cost to sequence my personal DNA may drop to $1000.
I'm excited as heck that someone may be able insert DNA into a correct place using carbon nanotubes. This is a possible method of curing hundreds of genetically related diseases.
I'm excited as heck someone found a compound the body does not reject and appears to be able to build prothetics that can interface with the host.
I'm excited as heck that someone figured out how to use stem cells to coax damaged spinal cords to grow into functional stuff (rats only now).
Darwinism is relatively quaint in comparison to each one of my examples, none of which require a single thought about the origin of the species.
ToEs are no longer that important to biology.
It's so twentieth century.
LOL
DK
The diversity of life on Earth has to be explained. The question cannot be pushed under the carpet or ignored. The fossil record, biogeography, genetic similarities between species, all need an explaination. The theory of evolution happens to be the best explaination.
Biology is the study of life, not the study of medicine. If you are going to learn about life a pretty important part of that is how it's history is explained. The theory doesn't have to have any application. No more than knowing how stars evolve has to have any application. Or heck knowing that the Earth orbits the Sun rather than vice versa has any real application. It's knowledge.
Actually, the difficulty in designating species is a problem for creationism, not evolution. Evolution predicts that there will be ring species and some blurring at the edges. Creationism predicts that there will be clear separations between them. Ooops, doesn't work that way. Evolution 1, creationism 0.<<
What nonsense. Ring species are a hedge. Species interbreeding require more observation not less and biologists have never spent the time nor money to do massive research into interbreeding. They guessed.
But in case you didn't know this, and I've said many times, not a creationist sorry.
LOL
So new we have successfully interbreeding species, predicted by ToE, different definitions of species if they are bones vs. live. Tortured definitions of species for microbes.
It's not time to trade up, it's time to move on.
DK
Biology is the study of life, not the study of medicine. If you are going to learn about life a pretty important part of that is how it's history is explained. The theory doesn't have to have any application. No more than knowing how stars evolve has to have any application. Or heck knowing that the Earth orbits the Sun rather than vice versa has any real application. It's knowledge.<<
I am in total disagreement with you. How stars evolve has implications and applications we are using currently. Fusion ring a bell?
Knowing the Earth orbits the sun and not vice versa? That's not knowledge, it's convention because the math is easier for some cases. Doesn't work for the Einsteinian universe.
But you really have to ask some serious questions about a theory that is touted to be the underpining of all biology if the applications are weak and fringy.
Hey, I am looking forward to genome comparisons and the time we will just put a sequence into a computer and it will tell us the function or maybe we input a function or structure and it will spit out a sequence.
I desparately hope Microsoft won't make the program. Just tried to use the fax program...yuck.
It's not a very useful theory as many here have demonstrated time and again. And I am not talking about IDers either.
Any of the technological applications I mentioned in biology are more important than the ToE is. That should be a pretty big clue that something is going on that is not science.
All the best!
DK
I loved your last post.
It has all the intellectual power of a grade school tirade.
>>Because evolution is messy and doesn't produce the clean divisions expected by creationism.<<
You finally admit what I've been saying all along. Evolution is messy.
But of course when you finally admit that evolution is messy you go and spoil your own revelation.
ID is even less useful than ToEs.
The only creationism I espouse is the stuff going on in the labs right now.
But of course my intitial comment still stands. Your post is nonsense, silly and full of errors in thought, facts, and rigor.
But I bet you play mean guitar!
DK
Messy Placemarker
Must of hit a nerve. Can't discuss the value of ToEs without creationism coming in. That sounds like a bankrupt argument.
But at least he's a musician. He could have been someone that likes to hang around musicians...a drummer.
LOL
DK
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