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Scruffy little weed shows Darwin was right as evolution moves on
Times Online | 2003-02-20 | Anthony Browne, Environment Editor

Posted on 02/20/2003 2:30:45 PM PST by 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.


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: crevo; crevolist
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To: general_re
You have an interesting notion of where the burden of proof should rest in the first place.

No, I'm afraid you do. Abbot claims he has found a new species. It is his obligation to proove that it really is new, and he must do that by providing some evidence as to why the more conventional, and reasonable explanations--dormant seed, uncatalogued existing plants, bird crap from france, etc.--are not likely in this case. If you look out the window and you see a baseball flying through the air and you claim it is a flying saucer, you might at least explain why you don't think it was Johnny next door throwing it over the fence.

"No," you say, "we've just heard why it's reasonable for it to be a flying saucer. If you think it's as silly as someone throwing a baseball, you go and prove it!"

Perhaps that's why scientists are not taken as seriously as they might be: conventional explanations have to be proven but pet theories protected.

Perhaps I could write the first paragraph for Abbot: "My colleagues of the last century would have been happy to have found a species to which they could attach their name in the field books. I now blush to say that not only have I discovered a new species, I have discovered an instance of plant evolution. This is not just an overlooked plant. This is not just new to us. It is new to the world--a new species, and example of Darwin at work. How can I say that? How can I know that it was never there before? Well, because British botany had discovered all British plants by 1993. All of us experts agreed that this was the final volume, no more. That's when we concluded there were no new plants missing from the field books. Every plant since then would have to be new. And look here, it's genetically related to another plant, so it must be evolution. Thank you, thank you."
501 posted on 02/24/2003 11:06:38 PM PST by farmer18th
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To: Virginia-American
Carefully re-read the post. My reference to the 1980s was a question, not a statement. The residual damage of Piltdown, however, did run far longer than its presence in the textbooks.
502 posted on 02/24/2003 11:22:58 PM PST by farmer18th
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To: farmer18th
Abbot claims he has found a new species. It is his obligation to proove that it really is new, and he must do that by providing some evidence as to why the more conventional, and reasonable explanations--dormant seed, uncatalogued existing plants, bird crap from france, etc.--are not likely in this case.

You really are hung up on this "proof" thing. There is no such thing in science, but feel free to continue asking as many times as you like - perhaps I'll eventually come up with the particular combination of words that will serve to finally convince you of that.

To briefly recap the case Abbott makes, the claim is that it is a new variety of plant. The evidence for same is that A) nobody has observed this plant before, and; B) the plant is very closely related to two known types of plant, one native to the UK, and one known to have been introduced to the UK 300 years ago. However, this plant is incapable of interbreeding with those two other species, so it fits the definition of a separate species. Mash the word "new" together with "species" and you get "new species". Really, all this is in the article, but here it is again, lest we lose sight of it.

Now, you want Abbott to go beyond that and disprove any and all alternate theories about the origins of the plant. Well, that's not exactly true - you just want him to address what you assert are "conventional" and "reasonable" alternate explanations. But those aren't his explanations - they're yours. He's got his evidence for his theory, so he's met the burden of supporting it. If you have some "conventional" and "reasonable" alternate explanation, it should be easy enough for you to support it.

"No," you say, "we've just heard why it's reasonable for it to be a flying saucer. If you think it's as silly as someone throwing a baseball, you go and prove it!"

At this point, I thought briefly about simply calling this whole set of requirements you lay out silly, and being done with it all. But upon a moment's reflection, it's not quite so silly - let's look at what you are doing. You want to push Abbott into the position of essentially proving a negative thesis, before his explanation is accepted as valid. But since we can't conclusively disprove any of those contentions, you create a standard for Abbott to meet that canot possibly be met, and thereby create a system whereby Abbott's conclusion can never be accepted as correct. Rather convenient, I can't help but note.

Yes, if someone claims that thing that flew past your window is a flying saucer, and presents some sort of evidence to support it, then the requirement for him has been met - perhaps well, perhaps poorly. You may be convinced, or remain unconvinced due to insufficiency of the evidence or non-cogency of the argument, but you don't get to make the poor fellow disprove whatever your pet theory happens to be, along with everyone else's pet theory that it was a bat or an angel or a flaming pumpkin. If you think it was a baseball, open the door, get outside, and see for yourself if it was a baseball - your theory, your burden, your proof. Period.

Well, because British botany had discovered all British plants by 1993. All of us experts agreed that this was the final volume, no more. That's when we concluded there were no new plants missing from the field books. Every plant since then would have to be new. And look here, it's genetically related to another plant, so it must be evolution. Thank you, thank you."

Very nice. How sad that you leave out one of the key pieces of evidence - that one of the plants it is related to is known to have been introduced to Britain a mere 300 years ago. Therefore, whatever happened to it happened since then Whether it was 220 years ago, or yesterday is irrelevant - it can only have happened in the last 300 years. which makes it a bit more that just previously unknown - it's new.

Oh, and the final volume on British plants was just published recently, not 1993. The "New Atlas of the British and Irish Flora" has descriptions of every single species of flowering plant and fern in the UK. All of them. Which should make it rather harder for the next chap to try to hide behind putative ignorance and claim that there's no way to know if it's really new or has just been hiding.

503 posted on 02/25/2003 12:32:03 AM PST by general_re (Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.)
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To: Con X-Poser
Your claiming Darwin to be a racist and thus discounting anything he may have said is the same as my pointing out that modern Protestantism was founded by a rabid anti-Semite. They both have the same relevance.
504 posted on 02/25/2003 2:34:16 AM PST by Junior (I want my, I want my, I want my chimpanzees)
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To: All
EVOLUTION IS UN-AMERICAN
487 posted on 02/24/2003 10:37 PM EST by Con X-Poser
505 posted on 02/25/2003 2:49:25 AM PST by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas)
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To: Doctor Stochastic
Please post where Darwin advocated the destruction of 'lesser humans'.

Amazing how evolutionists do not bother to read their hero:

"I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world."
Darwin to Graham, July 3, 1881.

" Man scans with scrupulous care the character and pedigree of his horses, cattle, and dogs before he matches them; but when he comes to his own marriage he rarely, or never, takes any such care. He is impelled by nearly the same motives as the lower animals, when they are left to their own free choice, though he is in so far superior to them that he highly values mental charms and virtues. On the other hand he is strongly attracted by mere wealth or rank. Yet he might by selection do something not only for the bodily constitution and frame of his offspring, but for their intellectual and moral qualities. Both sexes ought to refrain from marriage if they are in any marked degree inferior in body or mind; but such hopes are Utopian and will never be even partially realised until the laws of inheritance are thoroughly known. Everyone does good service, who aids towards this end."
Darwin, Descent of Man, Chapter 21.

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
Darwin, "The Descent of Man", Chapter V.

506 posted on 02/25/2003 4:52:40 AM PST by gore3000 (Evolution is whatever lie you want it to be.)
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To: gore3000
Nowhere in you posts is Darwin advocating destruction of 'lesser humans' (your term, not Darwins.) He merely points out that the Caucasians beat the Turks in warfare and that "civilized men" (his term) do not kill off the weak.

Amazing how Creationists do not read their posts.
507 posted on 02/25/2003 6:27:13 AM PST by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch is der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: general_re
You want to push Abbott into the position of essentially proving a negative thesis, before his explanation is accepted as valid. But since we can't conclusively disprove any of those contentions, you create a standard for Abbott to meet that canot possibly be met,

Not I, but the rules of logic created that standard. Evolution insists on new species, but you can't prove new species because proving something is new requires you to prove that it never existed before. The best thing that Abbot could do, though this still wouldn't meet the logical test, is to debunk the most conventional explanations. That's what a reasonable person would require, and what I've been asking for.

The "New Atlas of the British and Irish Flora" has descriptions of every single species of flowering plant and fern in the UK. All of them.

That really tickles me. You sound like a postulate holding up a relic and shouting "believe!" You don't think it's a tad arrogant to conclude that everything has been included in that book? Your colleagues in the 19th century, I wager, would not have been nearly so trusting of the academy.
508 posted on 02/25/2003 7:12:25 AM PST by farmer18th
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To: Doctor Stochastic
Stochastic: Nowhere in you posts is Darwin advocating destruction of 'lesser humans'
Darwin: Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races


In Darwin's context of Turks and Caucasions, it's pretty clear what he seems to be talking about.

Good thing you aren't looking to him for moral philosophy, heah?
509 posted on 02/25/2003 7:18:48 AM PST by farmer18th
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To: Con X-Poser
Also, you got your skewed information about Ruckman from one of his enemies. He did not get any divorce - his wives sought the divorce in both cases. Thus he could not have become divorced "to" marry anybody else.

We're really talking about three divorces: Ruckman and wife 1, wife 2 and her previous husband (a student of Ruckman's), and wife 2 and Ruckman. Using nothing but Con X-Poser logic, I will now irrefutably prove my point.

1) It is inconvenient to me to believe that Ruckman is blameless in all this, therefore he is at fault. (Argument from personal incredulity.)

2) Anything anyone has ever written or done--or an alleged follower of said person has ever written or done--which might offend is proof that everything said person has ever said or thought in his life is false. (Argumentum ad hominem, extended version with guilt by association.)

3) Therefore, either your anti-Darwin arguments are irrelevant to the history of life on Earth or the Bible is not, as Ruckman claims, the inerrant word of God.

510 posted on 02/25/2003 7:23:44 AM PST by VadeRetro
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To: VadeRetro
... the Bible is not, as Ruckman claims, the inerrant word of God.

Of course, this would be the 1611 King James Version, not any of those other versions, all of which Ruckman condemns. Why God waited over 1500 years after the first coming to make His word once-and-for-all inerrant is of course a matter to which only He (and probably Ruckman) know the answer.

511 posted on 02/25/2003 7:27:57 AM PST by VadeRetro
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To: Junior
<< Your claiming Darwin to be a racist and thus discounting anything he may have said is the same as my pointing out that modern Protestantism was founded by a rabid anti-Semite. >>

I don't discount everything he said. In fact, he is the one who showed that insects can survive floods on floating vegetation mats, which squares quite well with the creation/flood model.

He also noticed that beaks of bird adapt to their environment, but they always remained birds (and the beaks adapt in reverse, as necessary, which is verboten in the classic evolutionary theory).

Of course Darwin's education was in theology, not science, so I'm sure evolutionists will discount anything he proposes as religious nonsense.
512 posted on 02/25/2003 7:36:45 AM PST by Con X-Poser
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To: Condorman
<< Post 463. At your leisure, of course... >>

I offered you the opportunity to get the information you requested directly from Dr. Mastropaulo himself, face-to-face. What more can I offer you than the man himself?

Are you really interested in getting the information, are you really interested in getting the truth?
513 posted on 02/25/2003 7:42:39 AM PST by Con X-Poser
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To: Con X-Poser
(and the beaks adapt in reverse, as necessary, which is verboten in the classic evolutionary theory)

Simple nonsense, and more proof that any quoting of Darwin's texts that you do is not based upon any reading for comprehension but is simple, mindless parroting of some earlier creationist quote-mining.

514 posted on 02/25/2003 7:45:57 AM PST by VadeRetro
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To: Virginia-American
<< I was in high school in the '60's and Piltdown was never mentioned - just the Leakeys' discoveries, Neanderthal/Cro Magnon, et al >>

"et al", of course, includes Haeckel's forgeries, the peppered moth fraud, brontosaurus, and other of the items previously mentioned.

Did they tell you in the 1960's that Neandertal and Cro-Magnon had brain capacities equal to or greater than ours? Maybe we are devolving.
515 posted on 02/25/2003 7:46:57 AM PST by Con X-Poser
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To: farmer18th
Darwin has commented on what happened. In no way is this an advocacy of such events. Creationists need to learn the difference between reporting and advocacy.
516 posted on 02/25/2003 7:53:49 AM PST by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch is der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: Con X-Poser
"et al", of course, includes Haeckel's forgeries, the peppered moth fraud, brontosaurus, and other of the items previously mentioned.

Creationist spin 101: change the subject (again).

517 posted on 02/25/2003 8:05:11 AM PST by balrog666 (When in doubt, tell the truth. - Mark Twain)
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To: farmer18th
Evolution insists on new species, but you can't prove new species because proving something is new requires you to prove that it never existed before. The best thing that Abbot could do, though this still wouldn't meet the logical test, is to debunk the most conventional explanations. That's what a reasonable person would require, and what I've been asking for.

Which is exactly why proof is absolutely, 100% the wrong standard to apply here. I don't quite know how many ways I can keep saying this, but in insisting on logical proof, you are insisting that Abbott meet a standard that is plainly impossible to meet, to perform a task that is plainly impossible to perform.

But we're apparently feeling generous here - in order to persuade you, you'll allow that Abbott doesn't have to prove the single negative thesis you lay out for him above. Oh, no - all he has to do to persuade you is prove a whole host of negative theses that you have arbitrarily designated as "conventional". Well, that is mighty generous - you'll let him off the hook for failing to perform the impossible task of conclusively proving that the species is new, but only so long as he succeeds in the half-dozen new impossible tasks you lay out for him by proving a whole other set of negatives. An eminently reasonable standard, no doubt - asking for the impossible is practically the hallmark of reasonable men...

You don't think it's a tad arrogant to conclude that everything has been included in that book?

I read of their methodology, and it is remarkably thorough. The British Isles are not infinite in size, nor are there an infinite number of plants therein - fewer than 2,500 species, as a matter of fact, which is a quite manageable number, even for mere mortals such as we.

Your colleagues in the 19th century, I wager, would not have been nearly so trusting of the academy.

Tell me about it. And I don't fly neither - it's just arrogant, thinking that man should be flitting about among the birds.

Fortunately for everyone, occasionally among us comes someone who lacks the humility that you recommend, and undertakes the difficult or the seemingly impossible. Upon their backs is progress made. If the notion that someone, or several someones, or thousands of someones, might be actually able to catalogue every single species of flowering plant in Britain bothers you, you can always ignore it and dismiss it on the grounds of hubris. Those of us who like to live on the edge, on the other hand, will approach it with an open mind, examining it to see if it is what it claims to be, rather than potentially dismissing out-of-hand some piece of reality because it happens to make a poor fit with our views of how the world should be.

But perhaps there's a method behind the madness of subjecting evidence in favor of evolution to impossible standards of proof after all...

518 posted on 02/25/2003 8:25:14 AM PST by general_re (Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.)
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To: Junior
“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.

I didn't see where the article mentioned what the other two were? More plants I assume.

519 posted on 02/25/2003 8:34:15 AM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: Con X-Poser
Are you really interested in getting the information, are you really interested in getting the truth?

I'm really interested in observing you demonstrate support for the statement "Humans are not primates."

Especially since the references you originally provided all led to a paper that the author himself has retracted. You bear the burden in this case; you can do your own leg work. You are so adamant about the point, surely you must have some support for it.

Produce the paper originally cited, produce another piece of evidence supporting your claim, or withdraw the claim.

Everything else is smoke and mirrors.

520 posted on 02/25/2003 3:35:22 PM PST by Condorman (Spock: "Shields are failing!" Kirk: "Give 'em more homework!")
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