Speciation: If you don't sleep together, you soon won't cheep together?

Speciation, we are told, is "notoriously hard" to observe in action - a remarkable fact, given that it is so common, according to most sources.

Sometimes, researchers are driven to rely on for very slight evidence indeed.

"The question of whether these two populations are on the road to speciation comes down to sex. When two populations stop exchanging genes—that is, stop mating with each other—then they can be considered distinct species. Uy and his team wanted to see if these flycatchers were heading in that direction."

Well, they might head in that direction, or they might head back again if a shortage of, say, lady birds in one group threatens to disrupt the mating season.

Anyway, pardon me, but isn’t "When two populations stop exchanging genes—that is, stop mating with each other—then they can be considered distinct species." like saying that a couple can be considered no longer married if they are no longer sharing a bedroom?

How do we know that won’t change? Prudent people wouldn’t consider them “no longer married” unless they moved to separate addresses and file for divorce.

Doesn’t this story really show how rare evidence of speciation is?

I mean, if scientists are relying on this kind of thing, it’s the same principle as:

In the quiet Canadian community of Wawa Waupoos, where nothing much ever happens (if you don’t count occasional drunken driving and ice fishing deaths), neighbours try to find out surreptitiously if couples still sleep in the same room. Lord knows, that’s all that those neighbourly investigators have to go on - and in the winter, it is all they have got to do as well, unless you count daytime TV.

If you follow me on Twitter, I'll let you know when I have posted a number of stories to one of my blogs, generally about 5 new ones.

Toucan's bill points to design, not random evolution?

British physicist David Tyler argues that design principles, rather than sexual selection, best explain the toucan's remarkable bill:

"The bill radiated a great deal of heat at high temperatures and when the toucan flew, indicating that, like elephants and rabbits do with their ears, the toucans flush their bills with blood to cool down. At lower temperatures, the difference between air temperature and bill temperature dropped, meaning that the toucans were restricting blood flow to their bills. Based on its size, a toucan's bill can theoretically account for anywhere from 5% to 100% of the bird's body heat loss [. . .]. When the toucan is in flight, its bill is the most efficient heat-shedder ever reported, losing four times more heat than the bird produces while at rest. That's about four times more efficient than either elephants' ears or ducks' bills."

Go here for more.

Darwinism and popular culture: The evolution of the wiener dog

A friend sent me this item on the purely random evolution of the wiener dog (dachsund):

Our findings suggest that retrogenes may play a larger role in evolution than has been previously thought, especially as a source of diversity within species," said the study's first author, Heidi G. Parker, Ph.D. of NHGRI. "We were surprised to find that just one retrogene inserted at one point during the evolution of a species could yield such a dramatic physical trait that has been conserved over time."

In the past, retrogenes have been recognized as an important source of changes that have fueled the divergence of species. However, the dog findings are the first example of a retrogene that has spurred significant and long-lasting variation within a single species.

And it just happened to be conserved, too, by survival of the fittest. Amazing.

News flash!

Toronto (July 27, 2009) North of Lake Superior, Canadian wildlife biologists are reporting a dismaying reduction in wolf packs, with a few haggard, starving survivors haunting fast food dumpsters near riverside hunting lodges, in hopes of a stale donut or two.

Highly efficient wild packs of dachshunds have been attacking established timber wolf packs and seizing their moose kills.

Geez Freeple, a Toronto University-based wildlife biologist, explained, "Evolution bred the dachshunds to have short legs and weak jaws, so they never actually get anywhere near the kill until after the wolves have brought it down and opened it up. After that, it is an easy matter for the dachsunds to drive off the wolves. They just yap incessantly. Same principle as driving guests away from the dachshund owner’s house. Of course, the wolves meekly surrender in just the same way as the house guest does and slink off.

"It continually amazes me that anyone doubts the power of unguided Darwinian evolution."

(Note: To avoid misunderstanding, this is not a serious post.

There are NO packs of wild dachshunds running loose in the boreal forests of Canada.

No Geez Freeple works at the University of Toronto.

No boreal wolf would see the dachshund as anything but about 2 kg of pleasant guts to devour, all the sweeter if it just had a meal of dog food.

And the yaps would cease pretty quickly too.



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Darwinism and popular culture: A columnist reminds me of its easy, empty phrases

In "A God who bleeds" (July 31, 2009), Jonah Goldberg notes,

Oprah promised Obama would help us "evolve to a higher plane." Deepak Chopra said Obama's presidency represented "a quantum leap in American consciousness." Last month, Newsweek editor Evan Thomas proclaimed that Obama stood "above the country, above -- above the world, he's sort of God."

Well, however you would vote, you gotta feel at least a bit sorry for a guy who was supposed to be a "quantum leap" and help us all "evolve to a higher plane." Popular Darwinism doesn't need a laugh track, that's for sure.

Note: If you follow me on Twitter, I'll let you know when I have posted a number of stories to one of my blogs, generally about 5 new ones.