Peter & Rosemary Grant, Darwin's Finches and Evolution

Thanks for posting this story RAZD.I have been reading about the Grants for many years and really admire their work.Their work will stand as a shining example for future generations of field biologists.Observing evolution, generation after generation, two lives truly well lived.

So, you are saying that all the biologists in the world, who are studying living organisms and writing about their observations, have never noticed your genetic cost to evolution, but you have?Not one of the people actually studying evolution, in the last 150 years, not one of the people studying genetics, or population dynamics, or any of the specialties involved, has noticed what you discovered all by yourself, without ever studying a single population of a single species ever in your whole life?Can you point to a single species where change is not happening? As far as I know the only species which have stopped changing are extinct. I have not seen any studies of endangered species, that are approaching extinction or ones that have already gone extinct where the cause was shown to be the genetic cost of evolution.
.Populations go extinct from many causes that reduce the number of breeding pairs, but I have never seen a study that concludes that "they just naturally ran out of genetic diversity and ran into the 'end of evolution', just like that genius Faith said they would."
. After all "Faith's Rule" clearly states that "it is absolutely inevitable that phenotypic change is accompanied genetic reduction and variation can never be replaced or increased."
. I am completely overwhelmed and in awe of your brilliance and insight. There must be hoards of potential grad students clambering to study under you. Scientific journals around the world must be showering you with requests to publish the results of you ground-breaking research. You must be swamped with invitations to speak at universities and conferences. Everyone knows how honest you are.I am sure that Peter and Rosemary Grant are already grateful for your insightful discoveries about "the TRUE evolution, what REALLY happens in evolution, which ought to be recognizable with a little work."

The title says it all.This topic that started with a story about the Grants and their remarkable work studying the evolution of finches on the Galapagos has ended up being a platform for Faith to spout her bizarre hallucinations again.She swears that her completely erroneous fantasies about how life happens all over this planet are clearly there for everyone to see, but when anyone looks at what actually happens with real, live organisms, none of her dreams turn out to be true. Not one.Meanwhile the Grants are showing the whole world how science and field studies are properly done.True evolution (as Faith calls it) is exactly what the Grants are observing and reporting.All evolution is microevolution that goes on and on as long as there are descendant populations. When a species splits, the descendant populations just carry right on accumulating mutations and the surviving members of the populations are selected to have more or less offspring, by the environment.We humans look at this and label the split as speciation or macroevolution, but those are just labels. Evolution, the changes in a population from generation to generation and natural selection continue on without signposts or labels.I am pleased that there are dedicated scientists like the Grants who are fascinated enough to do these studies of REALITY and tell us about them.