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To: betty boop
As for species descending from other species: Darwin, I'm told, drew many of his insights from selective breeding experiments. But none of these have ever shown descent of one species from another. I think when he got to Galapagos, and saw the concentrated, rich riot of birds and reptiles of so many different species running around this isolated piece of geography, he drew the perhaps unwarranted conclusion that they must all be related somehow by line of descent. (That's a speculation on my part.) But what "looks plausible" ain't the same thing as establishing a fact.

The talk.origins website has a list of instances of observed biological speciation, in the sense of development of non-interfertility as a result of muatation followed by natural selection. Most of these instances are pretty limited - involving polyploidy, or mutation in a couple of genes, as one would expect when we've had a small number of generations to observe divergence. Nonetheless, they are speciation, according to the standard definition.

There are much more impressive instances of speciation on a near-historical timescale. The most impressive are the development of flightlessness in bird species over a time scale of a few thousand years. Birds that belong to usually sedentary species, such as rails, that arrive on new islands (produced usually by volcanism; it's straightforward to date recently formed volcanic islands), tend to become flightless on a time scale of a few thousand years. The 'just-so' story that explains this is that flight requires a lot of energy, and is needed primarily to escape predators. If there are no predators, birds tend to become flightless very quickly. New Zealand, which had no predatory land mammals at all, was full of flightless birds before the gentle, nature-attuned Maoris arrived and slaughtered most of 'em; so were the Hawaiian Islands. So, if you want macroevolution, we have strong circumstantial evidence bird wings have become vestigial appendages in a couple of thousand generations.

346 posted on 12/22/2004 4:34:11 PM PST by Right Wing Professor
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To: Right Wing Professor
Nonetheless, they are speciation, according to the standard definition.

RE: this "standard definition": Are we talking about a moving goal post here? I mean, when did this definition get to be standardized? Just wondering.... Info please!!!

365 posted on 12/22/2004 6:50:47 PM PST by betty boop
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To: Right Wing Professor

Digressing a bit here, Prof.Re your comment about Trojans.

Nebraska Corn Huskers, before that Nebraska Bug Eaters.

Trojans= USC.

Took me all night to find that out. Had to ask a jock friend.

You are a naughty boy. ;D


371 posted on 12/22/2004 7:10:45 PM PST by ItCanHappenToYou (ItCanHappenToYou)
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