My friend Scott has challenged my knowledge of evolution, and I completely agree that I cannot know everything about it. Despite extensive reading, no one including both myself and Scott can be totally informed of all possible findings or even all possible hypotheses concerning this subject. The literature is vast and the new findings are daily.
So I am asking all readers to present here any definitive, conclusive empirical findings that show actual speciation outside the existing genome of a species. Hopefully this would include the mechanism that caused the speciation. Or if somewhere evolution is defined without the use of "speciation", present that too, please.
If you know of a certified, replicated, empirical experiment that produces (or at least is said to "confirm") speciation (or the more ambiguous "evolution"), please! put it here in the comments.
Thanks in advance for your trouble.
4 comments:
Stan: I appreciate being described as a 'friend'.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'existing genome of the species'. That's not a definition of speciation that I recognize. The most commonly-employed criteria is the reproductive species concept (Mayr), which you can read about here
You should be aware that the reproductive species concept doesn't work for asexually-reproducing species, and that other species concepts have been proposed. Interestingly enough, there is probably no greater living authority on species concepts than John Wilkins, who (like PZ) is a SciBlogger. Wilkins blogs at "Evolving Thoughts" and sponsors the
His article on 'Species' can be found here:
http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/2007/01/species.php
BTW, Wilkins's place is rather belief-friendly compared to the scorched earth of Pharyngula. He and PZ often good-naturedly tweak each other over points of contention, such as the nature of belief. Wilkins lays out his views in typically urbane fashion here.
In other words, I heartily commend Wilkins and his blog to you as good primary sources for these sort of issues. He's not only supremely knowledgeable on these topics, he's pretty fair-minded. He also has some articles on Talk Origins, but they are undergoing server problems right now so I can't provide specifics. More later...SH
Scott,
Thanks for the references, I'll check them out. I am an irregular reader of Massimo Pigliucci whose logic and worldview are firmly based in Philosophical Materialism.
I should have written "existing genome distribution" for clarity: ie, gene pool. I have never liked Mayr's definition: to mooshy, no mechanism, too vague. But I will persist through the material, thanks.
Scott, I do appreciate your measured, kind approach. Thanks. Many evolution apologists are downright hostile to any intellectual challenges.
And, yes, I consider you a friend.
Hi Stan,
I'm a friend of spanish scientist and biologist Maximo Sandin. He's developing a scientific alternative to neo-darwinism (not based on ID, but on neo-Lamarckism).
Actually, Sandin isn't "creating" a new model, but summarizing and articuling the scientific evidence against neo-darwinism, and the scientific alternatives to it.
You can read both of his english-translated scientific papers here:
http://www.uam.es/personal_pdi/ciencias/msandin/biology.html
http://www.uam.es/personal_pdi/ciencias/msandin/synthetic_theory.html
ZC,
Interesting; I'll check those out.
Thanks for the links,
Stan
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