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Convergent Evolution Upends Honeyeaters' Taxonomy
grrlscientist writes in with a beautiful piece of science, beautifully explicated. The poignant bit is that the birds in question are all extinct. "Every once in awhile, I will read a scientific paper that astonishes and delights me so much that I can hardly wait to tell you all about it. Such is the situation with a newly published paper about the Hawai'ian Honeyeaters. In short, due to the remarkable power of convergent evolution, Hawai'ian Honeyeaters have thoroughly deceived taxonomists and ornithologists as to their true origin and identity for more than 200 years."
This type of non-linear genetic branching is also found in some areas of the Appalachians.
Maliki liki Maka you crazy genetic rebels!
Good for you. There is no observable difference, which is why it's not considered a difference by biologists, and only part of the "philosophy" of deniers who think that's a way to drive a wedge between theory and observed fact. The "trap" involves showing how it is logically impossible to believe in one but not the other.
As you no doubt know, that wasn't my point... as far as I know, there has not been any observed macro-evolution, thus the debate is less observation and more philosophy. And then, of course, we start arguing about what defines "micro" and "macro," what defines a "species," etc...
Of course when this doesn't happen, it's because the religious cabal rejected your "truth" for their own "religion", and not that your idea fails scientific rigor.
Actually, I might be slightly different from what you are expecting. Obviously you've guessed my position on evolution and probably on what Christianity calls 'special creation.' I actually do not object to what I believe in not being considered a scientific theory. It's not. I would argue that something, on the other hand, can be supported BY science and scientific observation and yet not be a scientific theory.
What I more object to is that 'science' has ruled out anything supernatural, and in doing so, has decided that everything can be explained without the supernatural. In other words, science has defined itself as dealing with the natural alone - ok, I can go with that so far - but has then decided that the natural alone can explain everything. Including origins, oftentimes (atheistic evolutionists appear to want to argue scientifically about the origin of matter, for example).
It must be that you are Galileo and science is the Catholic Church.
Interestingly, creationists are often compared the other way around... Science is Galileo and the Catholic Church is the Christian Church. Most people make no distinction between evangelical Christians and Catholics, simply because the claim the same title, "Christian."
Semantics aside, I simply make these two claims. Let's see if Slashdot can handle the html.
There are some other outworkings of this, IMO, which directly affect evolution - e.g., evolution is accepted as being true because scientific evidence supports it, and scientific evidence that could point to a, shall we say, "supernatural" explanation (creation) is disregarded on the premise that the theory it supports (creation) is not a scientific theory.