the phylogeographic challenge to creationism

I don't get it. What does this show? That geographic distance accounts for speciation?

OK, I get this. But didn't you say that these different species within the genus Tamias interbreed? How then can we call them distinct species? What's the rationale?

(By the way, it was a great post. I forgot to tell you that. I'm not criticizing it, just asking ignorant questions.)So an example of a "microevolutionary process" would be geographic distance. You have a group of chipmunks and some of them wandered off and started their own group, which after awhile became a variant. Overtime it became a new species or semi-species.Now creationism says that microevolution occurs as you stipulated, but it also says it never advances any further. (Why it would not advance any further is a mystery to me. It seems to me it would almost have to).What your example shows us is that these variant races of chipmunks, or different specie, or however we wish to label them, get "maintained." They don't over time get all mixed up together again and become like they were before this separation happened, right?But I would not think that creationism would be concerned with maintenance of the status quo but with further divergence.

Well, that certainly clears things up.

Mick, do you understand this?

I don't think the creationists see the significance. I'm having a problem myself. What is the relationship between microevolutionary processes maintaining a status quo and "macroevolution"?