Sabertooth, you're saying that because the worms weren't taken to a beach in Massachusetts, but instead did their speciation in a vat, this invalidates the experiment??? Listen to yourself!This is a false dilemma. The point is the circumstance of the worms' living conditions did not change randomly and spontaneously. I don't need a scientist's finger.
Every speciation could well include a changed environment for the isolated population. That's where the natural selection comes in. The vat is a different environment than Long Beach. If the worms had instead migrated up to Oregon & speciated there, that would be a different environment too. Surely you're not really trying to lawyer that one away?
Oh, wait a second, I re-read your statement. You think the experiment is invalid because the scientists intervened, period! The scientists moved a sub-population of worms to another place, instead of the tide. Now I understand. OK. You're just playing devil's advocate, aren't you?
Your question, "how else would they have?" is my point... in the absence of knowing the mechanism for speciation, Evolutionists fall back too quickly on the explanation of "randomness."
To say that "random did it" because we can't think of a better explanation is no more compelling that to say "God did it."
And now you seem to be saying that it's not really random unless - what? - unless we see the mutation occur in the DNA itself??? The proper assumption is goddidit unless we see it happening on a DNA level! But of course, even if we did see the chromosome mis-copy itself before our very eyes under a microscope, you could come back & say we don't know why it mis-copied. The cause of the miscopy is simply unknown to us. (Hey, maybe it's the microscope. Yeah, that's it. The scientists interfered when they put the worm on the slide!)
Can't you see how unreasonable this line of reasoning is? Trust me: It's random. As obviously random as the fact that OJ killed Nicole.
BUT THEY ARE STILL WORMS!
That some animals cannot mate with others is not proof that new characteristics have arisen, only that something is different. We are all different from each other, and if we breed separately from other human beings the characteristics of the small group will change over those of the other group. We see this in the breeding of plants and animals, different characteristics become more pronounced. However, in almost all cases, this results in a decrease in the viability of the individuals, not in an increase in their viability.