Slashdot Mirror
Evolution Can Occur Much Faster Than Previously Thought (ox.ac.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: An Oxford study on chickens discovered that evolution can make significant changes to a genome in as little as 15 years. "For a long time scientists have believed that the rate of change in the mitochondrial genome was never faster than about 2% per million years. The identification of these mutations shows that the rate of evolution in this pedigree is in fact 15 times faster." Professor Greger Larson, senior author on the study, said, "Our observations reveal that evolution is always moving quickly but we tend not to see it because we typically measure it over longer time periods."
See the Earth is only 4,000yrs old :)
God knows.
Leave the Flying Spaghetti Monster out of this, lest ye be smote by his noodly appendage.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The chickens with mutations were kept for further study and their genes live on.
The other chickens are thrown away.
There appears to be a survival advantage.
"it's not random and undirected, a requirement for evolution."
Counterpoint, by J. B. S. Haldane:
"Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist: he cannot live without her but he's unwilling to be seen with her in public."
According to something I read on Slashdot, since then we've all become cows. Which would now that I think about it be pretty compelling evidence of rapid evolution.
Also, moo.
"Oh, goodness. Look at my wrist, I have to go." "But what about your clothes?" "I don't love these."
OK, Jane has evidence for the absence of a certain class of gorilla (highly visible gorillas.) She has placed constraints on the properties of any gorillas in the town (that they not be highly visible.) She can't say anything useful about presence or absence of ninja gorillas.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
She can't say anything useful about presence or absence of ninja gorillas.
Great, now I won't be able to sleep for a week.