Sunflower Power -- another example of evolution

Here is an image of some sunflowers:For an explanation see: Biogeography: The Geographic Distribution Of Species. In the end it comes down to this: new island, sunflower seeds are seeds are among the seed that make to the island, and sunflowers take the niche of trees which are not present at the island.Can you say "evolution"? Creationists will probably dismiss it as "microevolution" saying that "it is still a sunflower".

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

From trueorigin (bold added by me) : By an astonishing coincidence most of the truorigin text I quoted (which is reproduced from Apologetics Press) is virtually identical to the link you provided.

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Confused ? You will be...

Well it seems to me that the similarites between humans and chimps are much greater than the similarites between sunflowers and those trees. Can we take it from the trueorigin response to the sunflowers that humans are "still just apes"? In fact why not take it a step further and say that the sunflowers and the trees are "still multicellular organisms", so theres no change there at all!

From Biogeography: An Ecological and Evolutionary Approach by C. Barry Cox and Peter D. Moore, Third Edition, 1980, New York: Halstead Press, pp. 130-131:

quote:

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One of the opportunities that may exist on an island often results from absence of one of the normal elements of a mainland flora--the tree. The seeds of trees are usually much larger and heavier than those of other plants and are therefore not readily transpored long distances. As a result, other plants many develop to fill this vacant niche.18 The modifications needed to produce a tree from a shrub which already possesses strong, woody stems are comparatively slight--merely a change from the many-stemmed, branching habit to concentration on a large, taller trunk. For example, though most members of the Rubiaceae are shrubs, this family has produced on Samoa the 8 m tall tree Sarcopygme, which has a terminal palm-like crown of large leaves. Though more comprehensive changes are needed to produce a tree from a herb, many islands show examples of this phenomenon. In many cases, the plants involved are members of the Compositae, perhaps because they have unusually great powers of seed dispersal, are hardy and often already have partly woody stems. To this family belong both the lettuces, which have evolved into shrubs on many islands, and the sunflowers. On the isolated island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic can be found five different trees, 4-6 m high, which have evolved in the island from four different types of immigrant sunflower (Fig. 5.8). Two of these (Psiadia and Senecio) are endemic species of more widely distributed genera, while the other three (Commidendron, Melonodendron and Petrobium) are recognized as completely new genra. These latter genera are therefore both endemic--that is, known only in St. Helena--and also autochthonous--that is, they actually evolved in the area concerned.

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The image in the first post of this thread appears on page 131 though with a different caption: "Figure 5.8. The varied trees which have evolved from immigrant sunflowers on St. Helena Island."

Inso far as I AM a creationist, I would not say that!Increasingly I am UNDERSTANDING, but short of accesory experimental equipment, I can not say I SENSE what I am about to say as say I tcould sense that bird is not herp if fish are not reptiles but more like amphibians (and this newer below I am also slowing appling to animals but this is more difficult), these "trees" ( I used to observe decidious trees as ovals and evergreesn as rounds (just look out the window of a moving car etc) as MOVING to the SAME PHOTONS (not the same niche) as the prior island nonsunflower trees"". This is adaptive as to a split heat source in life both chemical and solar but the sunflowers are able to FALL to this sun location faster than other seeds and thus individually outplace any other seeds falling in the same orbit. Trajectories are not orbits.so NO I can not say "evolution" as it is taught at Cornell today! woodyness was overvalued and Newton's first law undervalued in the book.Oh, and at the same time, the trajectory moves differentially across the diverse heat sinks that also include EARTH.This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 02-02-2005 17:20 AMThis message has been edited by Brad McFall, 02-02-2005 17:22 AM

That's great ! We are actually researching ecological aspects of wild and cultivated sunflowers in our program, and I had no idea this type of adaptive radiation had occurred on an island somewhere.I also like the summary on that page :"In short, species are mutable. And, they are not designed according to any master plan...A good designer would have re-used his best designs, but instead we find nature has made do with whatever was at hand."PS: where did you get the graphic of the plants ?This message has been edited by EZscience, 05-09-2005 02:32 PM