Rapid Evolution in Lizards

Good find, mgirl!I bet this is what IDists will latch onto (from the NG summary you supplied):

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"All of this might be evolution," Hendry said. "The logical next step would be to confirm the genetic basis for these changes."

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They can hope it's just atavistic from an herbivorous ancestor. Maybe it's because of a gene that was just inactivated by the parent taxa, and only just reactivated on Pod Mrcaru. But, this argument will only hold up if this is found to be the case. Hendry's quote above suggests that he intends to test that right away.---Of course, I'm sure many IDists will argue that it's just a flap of muscle, not an organ. After all, it's still a far-cry from developing a new heart or eye, right?Others will ask if the Pod Mrcaru population can still interbreed with the Pod Kopiste population, in which case no new species was formed, and it therefore does not count as macroevolution.---So, technically, there's still a lot of work to do before this makes it into evolutionary biology textbooks. But that's to be expected.Again, good find!

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I'm Thylacosmilus.Darwin loves you.

This is the alternative they have proposed instead of natural selection: Obviously, it's a distinct possibility that environmental chemistry could act in a method similar to hormones, as is witnessed by cellular responses to environmental stimuli. But, in the case of these lizards, isn't Dembski (or whoever)'s epigenetics explanation just phenotypic plasticity, anyway? Isn't this still just natural selection?It wouldn't be hard at all to test this: when the genetics studies on these lizards come up, they'll find whether epigenetics or phenotypic plasticity is involved.

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I'm Thylacosmilus.Darwin loves you.

The lizards changed a lot, ICANT: they developed an entirely new biological feature that didn't exist in their ancestral population, which ID has claimed is not possible. If the genetics confirm it, it will be definitive proof of macroevolution, and ID will once again have to revise their "theory" to include yet another concept of evolutionary biology that has been proven, or, at the least, have to redefine yet another term so they don't have to change their core tenets.Read this summary, which molbiogirl provided in the OP: it's title is "Still just a lizard," and it addresses your very concern. It's pretty much written just for you.Edited by Bluejay, : Grammar

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I'm Thylacosmilus.Darwin loves you.

I doesn't have to, ICANT! It's a novel feature, an increase in information, to use one of Dembski's and Ken Ham's favorite bylines. The lizard grew a cecal valve where there wasn't one before. How is that different from evolving fins, legs, a tongue, feathers, scales, teeth, or anything else, where there wasn't one before?Admittedly, I'm jumping the gun: there is no genetic evidence yet that this is an example of "de novo" evolution. But, we'll have to wait and see. If it turns out that this is de novo, though, Dembski and Ham will need a new mantra. If it isn't, the debate continues just as before.And, the lizards are not genetically identical. The researchers did not compare the entire genome, they only compared the mitochondrial genome. By the way, a mitochondrion is an organelle inside the cell that uses a genome that is separate from the "main" genome in the nucleus of the cell. And mitochondrial genes change much slower than nuclear genes, which is why they can be used to unite an entire species under a "single" genome and exclude others. Nuclear genes, on the other hand, change quite regularly, thanks to all sorts of reshuffling and recombining mechanisms that work on them (and don't work on mitochondrial genes).

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I'm Thylacosmilus.Darwin loves you.

But, you are giving the opinion of somebody else who is not a biologist and didn't write this particular paper. I did a study for a class a few months ago on the news media's representation of biological sciences. I compared what the scientists said to what the reporters said, and, though there weren't any major (i.e. fatal) inconsistencies, there were plenty of small ones, like the use of the word "identical" where is was inappropriate.Here's what the scientists said in their research paper (PNAS vol. 105, no. 12, pages 4792-4795):

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Two mitochondrial DNA fragments (12S rDNA and 16S rDNA) were amplified by PCR by using the primer pairs...

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They identified these lizards using two fragments of mitochondrial DNA. Now, they said they extracted whole-genome DNA, but haven't yet analyzed or sequenced it--that means they probably plan to have it sequenced and analyzed sometime soon.Personal Note: I'm maybe a little too excited about this, and I'm sorry if I went at you too strong without supporting my claims better. Thanks for pushing me for it and keeping me honest.

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I'm Thylacosmilus.Darwin loves you.

Hi, Kaichos Man. You really like phenotypic plasticity, don't you?First, phenotypic plasticity is very unlikely to be able to explain why hatchlings have cecal valves, and it seems odd that two islands with very similar environments would select for two very different phenotypes.Maternal effects are most viable option here. But, the problem with that is that maternal effects cannot realistically explain the origin of the cecal valve in the first Pod Mrcaru lizard to develop one. So, you need two changes: one to explain the first cecal valve in the population, and one to explain how it was passed to the offspring.Second, you’re talking about a family of lizards: the family Lacertidae (70 species). Lumping them all as one creationist kind might explain away the cecal valve by atavism, but then you’ve got some other things to explain: like two unique reproductive/development modes (parthenogenesis and vivipary); transparent, fused eyelids (genus Ophisops); and air-pockets in the bones that allow gliding (genus Holaspis).If you feel that all of this is possible within a creationist kind, I guess I have no argument for you, except to ask you what the difference is (in terms of complexity) between air-pockets in the bones and a new muscular valve in the cecum.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.