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Study Catches Birds Splitting Into Separate Species
webdoodle writes "A new study finds that a change in a single gene has sent two closely related bird populations on their way to becoming two distinct species. The study, published in the August issue of the American Naturalist, is one of only a few to investigate the specific genetic changes that drive two populations toward speciation."
. . . for intelligently designing these species to evolve.
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
I know Slashdot has a reputation for late articles, but this was discovered by Darwin over a hundred of years ago, it's called natural selection. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
This is so obviously a case of God himself reaching down and dividing these species, and none of this "evolution" tripe! Open your minds, Atheists, and see the truth. Do not be misled by these Satanic, Atheist scientists who would deny His hand in our creation! God not only cares about and intervenes in your personal problems (hence we pray), he also really cares about separating species of birds. He truly works in Mysterious Ways.
Great Intellect...
Keep in mind that the criteria for speciation is, itself, somewhat arbitrary and there exist few fine borders in nature for classifying things. These birds CAN produce offspring, but behaviorally, don't. This may be where some creationists get confused, thinking of dogs and cats and fish, etc in terms of some sort of central "essence" of an animal, when in reality the borders exist mostly in human minds.
This was observed with the Eastern Rosella several decades ago, when the Murrumbidgee Irrigation scheme split the population in two. There are now two distinct species, that will not mate to produce fertile and viable offspring under natural conditions.
That is almost entirely wrong. The overwhelming historical difference between different peoples is one of technology, and ensuing positive feedback effects. It took thousands of years to develop farming (for example), and once you have farming, then it is possible to develop cities, schools, and civilization. How quickly (or even if) a society develops technologies depends primarily on environmental factors, not intelligence per se. The stone age, for example, began about 2.5 million years ago and only culminated in the development of farming on around 7000BC. If the rate of technological progress on another continent was only 1% different, then they would not yet have discovered farming! That doesn't imply anything about intelligence, just that very small changes can have big effect.
It would be interesting to put the AC parent poster in the wilds with no equipment, and see how quickly he/she develops some descent farming tools (as a precursor to rediscovering the microchip ;-)
So, the difference comes down to the birds wanting to have sex with other birds with the same belly color? First parrots taught us birds can talk, and ravens taught us birds can use tools, now we find out birds can be racist! Forget the AI Singularity, birds will be the death of us all as soon as they invent their own laser weapons!
It is not speciation occurring ...YET. It is two related bird populations not seeing each other as sexual rivals, apparently because of feather colour. The article is clear. This MAY lead to speciation if other genetic changes occur in one or both bird populations.
My father happened to tell me last week that cuckoos put their eggs in the nests of birds of the same kind in which they were raised, and that their eggs have the same speckle pattern as that of the bird they take advantage off. This could mean that cuckoos will also mate with cuckoos raised from the same type of nest, or the speckle pattern would be messed up. Alternatively, the speckle pattern is entirely female determined. In case of the former, speciation is on its way.
Bert
These birds CAN produce offspring, but behaviorally, don't.
So, you're saying it's like computer geeks and supermodels?
"So if speciation has occured (according to the article) when the two populations no longer mate"
Re-read the article: it doesn't say so. It says that since those two populations no longer mate, the door is open for speciation to happen, not that it already has happened.
"does that mean if white people and black people stopped mating they would be different species?"
Change it for "they may end up eventually as different species" and you are right.
Animals have been shown in the past to be able to exhibit various adaptions (beaks, spots, hair color, eye color, etc) by turning on a particular gene in their set. What this study adds is some information on how likely the adapted animal will mate with the non-adapted form. But this isn't all that new either, some guys prefer blondes (look at its effect on Iceland). Now an animal without an eye producing an eye and not by activating existing genes would be a neat trick. Basically you would have spontaneous generaiton of complexity (complexity here being different than mere information). Information theory has no problem with adaption but it does have a problem with spontaneous generation of complexity out of a less complex system.
I hate to feed the trolls, but you're actually right on that one. If two groups of people really did stop mating outside of their groups, they would differentiate over time. However, it would take a long-long time. Certainly much longer than it took for the racial differentiation we see today, which was tens of thousands of years (and a whole lot of geographic separation) in the making. However, the modern trend of fast transportation and mingling global population means it will almost certainly not happen; we're much more likely to form a single quasi-homogeneous genepool over time.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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Why whenever we observe speciation people make such a big deal about it. We've observed speciation in plants for almost a hundred years and observed it in insects since the 1960s. Speciation in birds and mammals have also been repeatedly observed. See http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html and http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html.
At this point the evidence for speciation is so overwhelming that even many young earth creationists acknowledge that it occurs. See http://creation.com/arguments-we-think-creationists-should-not-use. At this point anyone who is who thinks that speciation doesn't occur is so colossally ignorant that discussing matters with them should probably be done only if one is amused by talking to people under mass delusions by people so estranged from reality that reality probably got a restraining order against them.
So if a gene change causes the species of bird to stop mating due to feather color, thus causing "science" to predict eventual new species, Why hasn't this "science" been extrapolated to humans? If humans with certain traits stop breeding with other humans of certain traits (by nature or design), would not science say that those humans where on course for "speciation"? Likewise, if humans with distinct traits breed together, wouldn't that be argued by "science" as a process of "de-speciation"?
Science can explain how things exist and work as we observe them. Science can explain a car, but science cannot explain why a car exists or why it came to be. Either the existence of a car was a random event in nature or was not a random event in nature, in either case for cause, the same science of a car is equally valid (assuming we have the "science" right). One could look at a car and say it was created, others may look at a car and say, hey, science can explain this, therefore it was not created (we can document snapshots of various "cars" evolving from a horse drawn carriage to the car of today as proof).
The real question is can it be proven that everything we can see, hear and feel toady came into existence and coexists together in balance via a string of completely random and unrelated natural events? Or do you "choose" to "believe" science will be able to prove this one day?
Cheers.
Why was this modded down? The poster asks some questions very valid for discussion. Science forbids we hold anything but a one-sided discussion? Do we just mod anybody down we don't agree with out of existence?
The poster makes a valid point. I'm personally annoyed by all the mouth breathers who are SO anxious to prove Intelligent Design people wrong, so much so that they don't use good science and claim ridiculous things as being evolution. I heard a discussion one day about how big corn is now compared to in the past. They said something about people meddling with corn genetics and that was somehow evolution because the corn "changed". Ugh! Bad science is WORSE than no science at all. Can we stop the madness?
If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.