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To: bobdsmith
re: What do you mean by on purpose? All you can do is sit and wait. You can't speed up the process.)))

There are scientists attempting this in many places. A couple of years back a scientist at the U of Chicago named Wu claimed to have created a new species of fruit fly. "Speciation Occurs!" claimed the headline. It was discussed here on FR. And, reading the headline, I believed it for a moment. Why not? The scientist in question used microsurgical techniques to try and alter the DNA enough to bring about a fly that satisfied the criteria of a unique new species.

Put aside he notion that it's really kind of "cheating" to duplicate speciation by tampering with the basic programming through a kind of "intelligent design" by lab scientists.

It turned out, there was no fly at all. There were only "expectations" of a new species. Since then, I google up Wu and fruit flies to see if his expectations have ever borne fruit. (flies). None yet.

If long centuries of breeding livestock in geographic isolation for particular types--which is about the only long-term laboratory that we can look to--can't bring about a duplication of this process, it would seem that the humble fruit fly might have provided the experience. It's been used to study genetics (in labs all over the world) for more than two centuries, and is far less complex than a bird or mammal.

That evolution provides a good working theory for categorizing and analyizing is indisputable, and that's as far as the theory goes. There are a lot of paradigms that are useful and ultimately limited. In linguistics, understanding a sentence structure does not mean that you can *generate* a sentence, but that is an arcanity that may not signify...

267 posted on 09/27/2005 5:25:38 AM PDT by Mamzelle
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To: Mamzelle
There has been speciation events of fruit flies observed in the lab. And it wasn't through "microsurgical techniques" but through a chromosomal mutation. How could any surgery effect the offspring of the altered fly? You must think that modern Biologists believe in Lamarkian evolution.

Please don't lie. Especially such a stupid lie.
270 posted on 09/27/2005 6:24:02 AM PDT by Mylo ( scientific discovery is also an occasion of worship.)
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To: Mamzelle

Where do you think the 1000 species of fruit fly on earth came from?


272 posted on 09/27/2005 7:13:51 AM PDT by bobdsmith
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To: Mamzelle
Put aside he notion that it's really kind of "cheating" to duplicate speciation by tampering with the basic programming through a kind of "intelligent design" by lab scientists.

Ah, the old creationist catch-22.

Creationist: evolution isn't a scientific theory because you can't duplicate it in a lab

Scientist: Yes I can. Here, let me show you!

Creationist. That isn't evolution, it's ID, because it didn't happen naturally.

274 posted on 09/27/2005 7:21:56 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
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