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Author Topic:   Finches named for Darwin are evolving
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 46 of 48 (508138)
05-10-2009 9:08 PM


Those Finches
Another reply to the post on finches made in the "Transitional Species" thread.
Darwin collected what he regarded as 9 finch species during his voyage on Beagle 1831-1836). These finches were classified as sparate species based on their beak shape, size, colour, feeding etc. darwin's argument sounded so good, no-one bothered to test it by seeing if they were really separate and could not interbreed and produce fertile offspring. Now it has been discovered that Darwins finches can interbreed and produce fertile offspring if given the opportunity, so they are really one species, and provide no evidence for the evolution of new species, and never have. This historic first and foundational evidence for Darwin's theory turns out to be false.
You seem strangely confused about what Darwin claimed about the Galapagos finches.
(1) Darwin did not claim that they were reproductively isolated, or that they weren't: so this is not something that he could conceivably have been wrong about.
(2) Darwin barely mentions the Galapagos finches in the Origin of Species. Here is the complete text of the Origin of Species. If you will search through it, you will find three uses of the word "finch", none of them references to the Galapagos finches. And yet you claim that they were the "foundational evidence" for his theory!
(3) Darwin does however make a passing reference to the "birds of the Galapagos", not mentioning finches or giving any details, in the section of chapter II entitled "DOUBTFUL SPECIES":
The forms which possess in some considerable degree the character of species, but which are so closely similar to other forms, or are so closely linked to them by intermediate gradations, that naturalists do not like to rank them as distinct species, are in several respects the most important for us [...] Many years ago, when comparing, and seeing others compare, the birds from the closely neighbouring islands of the Galapagos Archipelago, one with another, and with those from the American mainland, I was much struck how entirely vague and arbitrary is the distinction between species and varieties.
The fact that these finches, which were classed as separate species by creationist zoologists, can in fact interbreed, therefore proves his point.
---
In addition, there is one error in your post that you could have figured out for yourself, despite your ignorance of Darwin. You claim that "no-one bothered" to check that they were interfertile. Then how do you suppose you know that they are?
All creatures adapt but they don't evolve into another creature. Adaption is the built in ability of living creatures to cope with changes in their environment. The same goes for humans, the different skin colours were all in-built so that the sons of Noah and their generations adapted to the various climates as they spread across the globe.
You don't know much about biology, do you?
Incidently Darwin was still a creationist when he came off the Beagle, but later was influenced by the infamous X-club of humanists.
The X Club was founded in 1864. Darwin published the Origin of Species in 1859.

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 47 of 48 (508151)
05-10-2009 11:27 PM


Interbreeding?
Incidentally, can anyone find any reference to Darwin's finches interbreeding outside the genus Geospiza?

Replies to this message:
 Message 48 by InGodITrust, posted 08-24-2009 2:29 AM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
InGodITrust
Member (Idle past 1669 days)
Posts: 53
From: Reno, Nevada, USA
Joined: 05-02-2009


Message 48 of 48 (520792)
08-24-2009 2:29 AM
Reply to: Message 47 by Dr Adequate
05-10-2009 11:27 PM


How Much Did Beaks Shrink?
How dramatically did the beaks shrink in this 2003 episode?
I found one article that gave the results of the Grants' measurements from earlier episodes, but not the 2003 drought.
IIRC the 1970's drought resulted in a 4% increase in beak size (with no competion from the large ground finch). And in the 1980's the beaks size dropped something like 2.5%. Was the 2003 change within that range, or more dramatic?
Thanks---IGIT

This message is a reply to:
 Message 47 by Dr Adequate, posted 05-10-2009 11:27 PM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
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