Scruffy little weed shows Darwin was right as evolution moves on

Times Online | 2003-02-20 | Anthony Browne, Environment Editor

[Junior]

IT STARTED with a biologist sitting on a grassy river bank in York, eating a sandwich. It ended in the discovery of a “scruffy little weed with no distinguishing features” that is the first new species to have been naturally created in Britain for more than 50 years.

The discovery of the York groundsel shows that species are created as well as made extinct, and that Charles Darwin was right and the Creationists are wrong. But the fragile existence of the species could soon be ended by the weedkillers of York City Council’s gardeners.

Richard Abbott, a plant evolutionary biologist from St Andrews University, has discovered “evolution in action” after noticing the lone, strange-looking and uncatalogued plant in wasteland next to the York railway station car park in 1979. He did not realise its significance and paid little attention. But in 1991 he returned to York, ate his sandwich and noticed that the plant had spread.

Yesterday, Dr Abbott published extensive research proving with DNA analysis that it is the first new species to have evolved naturally in Britain in the past 50 years.

“I’ve been a plant evolutionary biologist all my life, but you don’t think you’ll come across the origin of a new species in your lifetime. We’ve caught the species as it has originated — it is very satisfying,” he told the Times. “At a time in Earth’s history when animal and plant species are becoming extinct at an alarming rate, the discovery of the origin of a new plant species in Britain calls for a celebration.”

The creation of new species can takes thousands of years, making it too slow for science to detect. But the York groundsel is a natural hybrid between the common groundsel and the Oxford ragwort, which was introduced to Britain from Sicily 300 years ago. Hybrids are normally sterile, and cannot breed and die out.

But Dr Abbott’s research, published in the journal of the Botanical Society of the British Isles, shows that the York Groundsel is a genetic mutant that can breed, but not with any other species, including its parent species. It thus fits the scientific definition of a separate species.

“It is a very rare event — it is only known to have happened five times in the last hundred years” Dr Abbott said. It has happened twice before in the UK — the Spartina anglica was discovered in Southampton 100 years ago, and the Welsh groundsel, discovered in 1948.

The weed sets seed three months after germinating and has little yellow flowers. The species, which came into existance about 30 years ago, has been called Senecio eboracensis, after Eboracum, the Roman name for York. According to the research, it has now spread to spread to several sites around York, but only ever as a weed on disturbed ground.

However, more than 90 per cent of species that have lived subsequently become extinct, and its future is by no means certain.

“It is important for it to build up its numbers rapidly, or it could get rubbed out — which would be sad. The biggest threat to the new species is the weedkillers from the council,” Dr Abbott said.

However, he does not plan to start a planting programme to ensure his discovery lives on. “The next few years will be critical as to whether it becomes an established part of the British flora or a temporary curiosity. But we will let nature take its course,” he said.

[balrog666]

Is there an echo in here?

"Morton's Demon"

[farmer18th]

It was determined to be a fake around 1916...

...but not finally debunked until 1953 and still present in high school science books as late as, what, the 1980s? That's a very telling testimony of how doggedly the "scientific" community holds on to its relics--even if they are fakes. The argument here, isn't that genuine scientists don't eventually discover their mistakes--it's that the dogma of Evolution keeps them covered long enough to keep true research sidetracked.

Consider, moreover, the article here under discussion. A small weedy shred of evidence is seen as lending some credence on Darwin's theory. It is immediately transformed into the sweeping pronouncement--"Darwin was right."

[Republic of Texas]

Exactly, maybe they are both right. I think God could manage that little feat.

[VadeRetro]

[Piltdown Man] ... still present in high school science books as late as, what, the 1980s?

What, indeed! What are you smoking, farmer? What high school textbook ever--much less "still"--presented Piltdown Man as a real fossil of a real specimen?

[BMCDA]

An "If man evolved from apes, how did a woman originate?" Placemarker

[BMCDA]

Is there an echo in here?

"Morton's Demon"

Yepp, there most certainly is ;)

[537 Votes]

But Dr Abbott’s research, published in the journal of the Botanical Society of the British Isles, shows that the York Groundsel is a genetic mutant that can breed, but not with any other species, including its parent species. It thus fits the scientific definition of a separate species.

And is the York Groundsel evolutionarily superior to other plants? Nope. It's just that it can't breed with them. If anything, restricted fertility is a sign of devolution.

You know, whenever I see an article posted on how evolution is now proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, I find upon closer examination that the evolutionists are arguing that a defect is a sign of improvement. These people must be related to the computer programmers who tell users, "That's not a bug -- that's a feature!" I don't buy products from programmers like that, and I don't buy evolution.

[VOA]

But Dr Abbott’s research, published in
the journal of the Botanical Society of the British Isles,
shows that the York Groundsel is a genetic mutant that can breed, but not with any
other species, including its parent species. It thus fits the scientific definition
of a separate species.

I'm only a plant natural products biochemist (but two relatives are plant
geneticists)...and am a little suprised that such a discovery didn't end up in
journals like Nature or Science.

The Journal of the Botanical Society of the British Isles might be an respected, venerable
publication...
but my skeptical feeling is that this sort of discovery should have been published
in something AT LEAST as "big-time" as "Heredity".

Something like this appearing in a lesser-publicized journal makes me wonder if this
academic was just trying to avoid hard-core peer review that most folks get
when submitting articles to places like Nature or Science.

[Junior]

And is the York Groundsel evolutionarily superior to other plants? Nope. It's just that it can't breed with them. If anything, restricted fertility is a sign of devolution.

Aaargh! Evolution is not about superior or inferior. That is a creationist strawman. Evolution is about the fitness of an organism in its ecological niche.

[PatrickHenry]

Why are there still jellyfish? Placemarker.

[Ichneumon]

Yes. It's like one of the evo's favorite examples...the evolution of the horse. Ancient fossils of proto-horse are a tiny, cat-like animal.

More doglike, but ok.

Later fossils are of bigger animals. This, then proves evolution. Not really. It is like saying that a clydesdale evolved from a shetland pnoy, just because one is larger than the other.

Oh, puh-LEAZE...

You've been reading too many creationist sources too, haven't you? It's practically an epidemic.

Just once, I'd love to be pleasantly surprised by an anti-evolutionist who actually went and READ SOME PRIMARY SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE, *then* came back with criticisms or questions. But no, they all show no sign of having just read 9 parts creationist misrepresentations and 1 part popularized newspaper accounts of scientific studies (and we all know how accurate the media is, don't we?), then think they've seen the best that science can do.

Sigh.

No, Plusone, the horse lineage is *not* simply based on "oh look, it's bigger therefore it must have evolved from a smaller one". If that straw-man, ridiculously simplistic misrepresentation were all that scientists did, then yeah, you'd have good cause to scorn them.

But it's not what they do, that's only what *creationists* falsely claim that they do.

First, you're giving the misleading impression that horse evolution is only traceable through size variations. This is quite simply untrue. And you also try to have it both ways, by first mentioning that the proto-horse was "catlike", then immediately talking only about mere size differences among modern horses (clydesdale and shetland pony).

The modern horse is traceable back to a the earliest mammals (and back beyond that to reptiles, then amphibians, then fish, etc.)

And the "proto horse" is so different from a modern horse of *any* size that it's not simply a matter of size variation within "horselike" animals. Here's a full body reconstruction from the skeleton of an early horse ancestor:

Not very horselike at all, is it?

Going back further, the horse lineage includes early insectivorous mammals like:

The evolution of the horse is verifiable through *far* better evidence than your simplistic "it came later and it's bigger" straw man (and in fact, evolution hardly expects animals to necessarily grow in size -- certain branches of the horse family *shrunk* in size over time)

The evolution of the horse is traceable by the timewise rise of a series of new species, each of which existed nowhere prior in the fossil record, differing from species which came immediately before them in small, stepwise ways while retaining dozens of characteristic features that plainly mark them as being otherwise very closely related, within the same geographical area as their predecessors. That's a hell of a lot more foolproof than your description of "it's later, it's bigger, good enough".

It produces a branching tree that looks like this:

And that's not even mentioning the mountains of DNA evidence which clearly links the diverse living members of the horse family (horses, zebras, asses) to each other, and the other ungulates, from original common ancestors.

[Ichneumon]

It seems to me that evolutionists should at least own up to the insecurity, or at least the humility, that should attend an attempt to explain events which can't be witnessed.

I'm sorry, you seem to have evolutionists, who study things that can actually be studied and researched, with the creationists, who are the masters of "attempting to explain events which can't be witnessed" (i.e. alleged miracles), yet who have absolutely no humility about it at all.

To characterize an objection to the mathematically absurd and deterministically impossible sequence of events that would have to occur in an evolutionary sequence

I'm sorry, you have failed to provide supporting evidence for your mathematical estimation. Do try again.

as a desire to remain insecure is more than just childish. It's depraved...

Seems like it might have a grain or two of truth, though, from what I've seen of their behavior.

[balrog666]

Why are there still jellyfish? Placemarker.

Why are there still monkeys?-placemarker!

[Ichneumon]

[It was determined to be a fake around 1916...]

...but not finally debunked until 1953

Not conclusively debunked until then, sure, but that's because that's when dating technologies had finally progressed to the point that the ages of the skulls and jaws could be accurately determined directly.

But there was widespread question about its authenticity before then, and most books and papers on hominid evolution from the 30's onward pretty much ignored Piltdown as being an unexplained anomoly at best, and at worst an error of field work. Fraud wasn't credibly suspected because fraud is so rare in paleontology, and the folks who "discovered" Piltdown were respectable, trustworthy practitioners with good credentials.

Nonetheless, even upon its discovery the Piltdown fossil was greeted with widespread skepticism and considered an accidental joining of bones from two different animals -- *until* a second specimen was found a couple of years later which seemed to confirm the first. This persuaded some, but not all of the skeptics, because again intentional fraud just seemed so damned unlikely. Even today, the motivations for the fraud are a big mystery -- none of the proposed motives entirely make sense, especially given the personalities and careers of the possible perpetrator(s).

Furthermore, the hoax was done quite skillfully. The hoaxer(s) took great trouble to stain the specimens appropriately, to file down the teeth in a manner consistent with hominid eating patterns, and to break off the portion of the jaw which would have been the biggest clue that something was bogus.

Given all that, and the primitive nature of procedures and testing methods back then, I think it's hardly fair to paint the gap until a conclusive exposure of the fraudulent nature of the Piltdown fossils as some sort of institutional blindness, bias, or incompetence among paleontology in general.

and still present in high school science books as late as, what, the 1980s?

I'd be very surprised if that were the case. And if it is the case for an isolated textbook somewhere, it should be pointed out that textbooks are notorious for being inaccurate or out of date -- it's not like they're written by the "scientific community" at all, much less proofread by same. Scientists in general are appalled at the state of high school textbooks.

That's a very telling testimony of how doggedly the "scientific" community holds on to its relics--even if they are fakes. The argument here, isn't that genuine scientists don't eventually discover their mistakes--it's that the dogma of Evolution keeps them covered long enough to keep true research sidetracked.

This is an incredible reach on your part, and an unsupportable slur.

Not only did the scientific community not "hold on to its relics" in the case of Piltdown, it had pretty much consigned it to the "what the hell?" bin by the 1930's. The American Museum of Natural History, for example, classified it (correctly, as was later proven) as a mixture of ape and man fossils.

Furthermore, you're not only dead wrong when you say that Piltdown (allegedly) continued to be generally accepted until 1953 (it wasn't) because of the "dogma of Evolution", you actually have it exacty *backwards*.

One of the primary reasons that Piltdown had receded into "huh?" status long before it was possible to prove it a fake by chemical dating was because IT DIDN'T FIT EVOLUTION. In the book, "Bones of Contention", Sherwood Washburn is quoted as saying, "I remember writing a paper on human evolution in 1944, and I simply left Piltdown out. You could make sense of human evolution if you didn't try to put Piltdown into it."

Read that again until it sinks in. The hominid and ape fossils found in 1944 all made sense from an evolutionary standpoint *EXCEPT* for the fake (Piltdown), which stood out like a sore thumb for *not* being consistent with evolution. Real fossils fit the predictions of evolution. A fake fossil didn't. This is an excellent demonstration of how real fossil discoveries do indeed fall into place as one would expect via evolution -- but that a fraudulent fossil didn't fit precisely because it *wasn't* truly the result of an evolutionary process.

Consider, moreover, the article here under discussion. A small weedy shred of evidence is seen as lending some credence on Darwin's theory. It is immediately transformed into the sweeping pronouncement--"Darwin was right."

I agree that the article overstates the case, but given all the "we've proven Darwin wrong" premature pronouncements from creationists over the years, I can hardly fault a scientist enjoying the opportunity to stick a thumb in the eye of the creationists in return. And it is true that this case demonstrates that the "no new species" creationists (and there are a lot who hold that position) *are* wrong, and that Darwin *was* right in his prediction that new, reproductively isolated species would be able to arise.

It's not final proof of everything he said, of course, but it is another small piece of confirming evidence to add to te enormous pile which has been accumulated in the past 150 years.

[Con X-Poser]

<< I'm sure he's quite qualified in his own limited field, but when it comes to allegedly overturning a very accepted bit of scientific knowledge, I'd much prefer someone who wasn't working way outside his own field. >>

Before I waste any more time with you, please list your credentials and qualifications pertaining to evolution.

[VadeRetro]

I'd be very surprised if that [Piltdown Man having been used in a high school textbook] were the case.

This pamphlet claptrap has been popping up from time to time on FR crevo threads over the last several months at least. Sooner or later, to try to backfill a truthful justification, someone will drag out some book published in 1915 and swear that some class somewhere in the US or the world was "still using" that book in 1987. (At which point I will ask, "How did they use it and how do you know?")

But you have it. Piltdown Man was the sole chunk of evidence for the "Out of England" theory of human origins. It was thus the (very) odd piece out for decades before it's final radiological debunking. Something was wrong about it for anyone using evolutionary logic.

That's something the creationists gloss over. Evolution tells you that some things might well turn up but other things definitely should not. It provides a useful framework for understanding the world. Creationism, by contrast, contains no information at all about what you should expect to find and what you should not.

[balrog666]

Before I waste any more time with you, please list your credentials and qualifications pertaining to evolution.

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA! List your own! BWAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHA!

[farmer18th]

Reading the history of Piltdown's debunking is a bit like hearing Germans distancing themselves from Nazism after the fact. The fact is the scientific community didn't do very much to popularize their discovery of the truth, because it didn't like revealing how easily it had been hoodwinked, and perhaps wanted to be hoodwinked. As recently as the 1990s, a Los Angeles lawyer and talk show host, passionately arguing against creationism in public schools kept shouting over the radio, "how can you deny Lucy and the Piltdown man!" (The word didnt' get to him until 30 minutes into the show; by that time, the Piltdown man had been mentioned reverentially a half dozen times.)

And it is true that this case demonstrates that the "no new species" creationists (and there are a lot who hold that position) *are* wrong, and that Darwin *was* right in his prediction that new, reproductively isolated species would be able to arise.

Listen to you. By the admission of others in this discussion, no other laboratory has confirmed the DNA relationship. No proof has been offered as to the introduction of the parent species 300 years ago. And no one has articulated why this is a new species as opposed to one that has not yet been catalogued. Yet, here you are, ready to claim it as incontrovertable evidence of new species. Evolution does inspire a faithful following, I own, but I thought the sacraments of your trade involved logic and verification.

[farmer18th]

I'm sorry, you seem to have evolutionists, who study things that can actually be studied and researched

Unless you know of a research institution around during what you would call the pre-Cambrian period, this claim is a bit of a stretch, don't you think?

[AndrewC]

You missed his point.

No, I went after his justification which is false.

Yet, look how many of the clergy live opulent lives -- far beyond the hopes of practicing scientists. Somehow, this never discredits the creationist cause.

He is the one making the error. He has not complained about my data. He can't. He has either lied or has nothing to back up his assertion. Take your pick. This is not a mere spelling error.