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Evolution by natural selection


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So they're identifying genetic differences in the make-up of the adapting group following analysis of the blood samples. Are these gene sequences at all present in the parent group?

To be a different species, a bird would have to be incapable of producing viable offspring when mated with the other group?

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Hoolaman I think you are correct. I just pointed at my cat, and he offered no proof of a similar process of evolution. In fact he did not say anything, but just blinked at me and walked away.

A cat will never give the game away.

Dogs (ie. canis familiaris) may have different traits between breeds, but they are still the same species.

These birdies will be for millenia to come as well. With all respect to SO for posting an interesting article, man's domestication and selective breeding of animals (even if they are still technically wild) is not really news. This process seems no different to penning in some wild cows and shooting the ones that don't like it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

FWIW the evolution objectors who know anything will protest that they do not dispute that sufficient variation and selection can lead to animals that can no longer interbreed (microevolution).

What they deny is that this process could have led to the extraordinary range of creature types that are found in the world given the time and starting materials.

Perfectly rational non-religious types of my acquaintance find this hard to swallow.

Sadly, examples of currently speciating populations are not going to convince most sceptics that the process is sufficiently powerful to explain all of nature. I think rightly so.

The evidence for macro-evolution does not come from looking at mating patterns in birds. These days the best evidence is from the DNA, which knocks you over the head to hammer in the point that everything is related by descent (of course Darwin had evidence too, though perhaps less unequivocal).

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"Like, derrr....everything is inter-related because it was all created by God!"

Another popular attitude, but the data does not just suggest things are related like Ferarris are related, it suggests they are related by descent.

Of course some will hold the slightly more sophisticated attitude that God arranged the geological strata and apparent lineages of animals to test our faith in his word, but this leaves them in the uncomfortable position of trusting in a deliberate and wholesale deceiver (for whom the bible has another name!)

"macro evolution of sea gulls... "

Regrettably, ring species like gulls do not show macroevolution - they are another example of incipient speciation that many creationists would not dispute. Yes you can see animals that have trouble breeding together, but, they say, show me a gull turning into a lizard.

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