Darwins Finches (1 Viewer)

[tecoyah]

I fully realize those who deny evolution will debunk this with some level of Faithful misrepresentation.....but I still find it fascinating. Very rarely we actually get to see evolution at work in larger animals (vs. microorganisms), but when we do its very cool:

"Finches Named For Darwin Are Evolving

(AP) WASHINGTON Finches on the Galapagos Islands that inspired Charles Darwin to develop the concept of evolution are now helping confirm it — by evolving.

A medium sized species of Darwin's finch has evolved a smaller beak to take advantage of different seeds just two decades after the arrival of a larger rival for its original food source.

The altered beak size shows that species competing for food can undergo evolutionary change, said Peter Grant of Princeton University, lead author of the report appearing in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

Grant has been studying Darwin's finches for decades and previously recorded changes responding to a drought that altered what foods were available.

It's rare for scientists to be able to document changes in the appearance of an animal in response to competition. More often it is seen when something moves into a new habitat or the climate changes and it has to find new food or resources, explained Robert C. Fleischer, a geneticist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and National Zoo.

This was certainly a documented case of microevolution, added Fleischer, who was not part of Grant's research."

http://wcbstv.com/watercooler/watercooler_story_194152357.html

"Captured Dolphin May Have 'Remains' Of Legs

(AP) TOKYO Japanese researchers said Sunday that a bottlenose dolphin captured last month has an extra set of fins that could be the remains of back legs, a discovery that may provide further evidence that ocean-dwelling mammals once lived on land.

Fishermen captured the four-finned dolphin off the coast of Wakayama prefecture (state) in western Japan on Oct. 28, and alerted the nearby Taiji Whaling Museum, according to museum director Katsuki Hayashi.

Fossil remains show dolphins and whales were four-footed land animals about 50 million years ago and share the same common ancestor as hippos and deer. Scientists believe they later transitioned to an aquatic lifestyle and their hind limbs disappeared."

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/topstories_story_308223640.html

 

[bandaidwoman]

Here is another example of evolution in action:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-09/uoc--coh092206.php

The research team, led by Marlene Zuk, a professor of biology, found that greater than 90 percent of male field crickets (Teleogryllus oceanicus) on Kauai shifted in less than 20 generations from having normal wings to mutated "flat wings" that inhibit the crickets from calling. Like all mutations, the wing alteration arose spontaneously, but it likely spread, the researchers conclude, because it offered protection from a deadly parasitic fly (Ormia ochracea), which uses the cricket's song to locate crickets as hosts.

I have a feeling Creationists will dismiss this with the usual adage " crickets didn't turn into zebras, so it's not evolution.". In other words, if it isn't one species turning into some radically different species overnight, then it's not "real" evolution. The fact that no real scientists define evolution this way doesn't matter!

 

[bandaidwoman]

More evolution in action

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=000469CF-EC10-1ECB-8E1C809EC588EF21

had forced the prairie deer mouse from its once dominant position. The researchers thus refocused their study on the white-footed mouse. They analyzed mitochondrial DNA from 56 museum specimens dating back as far as 1855 and compared it to samples from 52 live animals captured in local parks and reserves. When the scientists divided the specimens into 50-year intervals and compared the sequences, they discovered dramatic genetic changes.




Only one mouse caught between 1999 and 2000 had the DNA sequence that was most common among the animals collected prior to 1950, according to the report. In addition, today's predominant sequence only first appeared in 1906. The changes coincide with increased human activity in the area, which the authors propose may have spurred evolutionary change. "We think it's likely that the new gene sequence was either unconditionally advantageous or that it was advantageous relative to environmental changes caused by humans," Pergams comments. Regardless of the cause, he says that the findings suggest "that the 'molecular clock' may sometimes, and sporadically, tick blindingly fast." --Sarah Graham

 

[teacher]

I fully realize those who deny evolution will debunk this with some level of Faithful misrepresentation.....but I still find it fascinating.

We've known this since...Darwin. how about sumpin new?

God is not a stupid entity. He's gonna make things make sence.

Though I still say when we peek behind the curtain of gravity we'll find God winking.

Try again.


Show me the missing link.

Eh?

 

[Moot]

Here is another amazing speedy evolution in a large mammal.....

EVOLUTION is helping the elephant fight back against poachers.

More male elephants are now being born without tusks because hunting of the animals for their ivory is reducing the gene pool.

The tusk-free gene, which is found in 2 to 5 per cent of male Asian elephants, has increased to between 5 and 10 per cent in elephants in China, according to a study by Zhang Li, an associate professor of zoology at Beijing Normal University.

"This decrease in the number of elephants born with tusks shows the poaching pressure for ivory on the animal," said Mr Zhang, who has been conducting research since 1999 at a nature reserve in the lush southwestern Xishuangbanna region, where two-thirds of China's Asian elephants live....read

http://www.animalactivism.org/resources/online/story.php?pr=171

 

[tecoyah]

We've known this since...Darwin. how about sumpin new?

God is not a stupid entity. He's gonna make things make sence.

Though I still say when we peek behind the curtain of gravity we'll find God winking.

Try again.


Show me the missing link.

Eh?

....profound as always dear teacher.......thanx for the...input

by the way...I decided to keep the tail

 

[Moot]

Show me the missing link.

Teacher, some researchers theorize the dolphin may be the missing link.

From OP...

"Captured Dolphin May Have 'Remains' Of Legs

(AP) TOKYO Japanese researchers said Sunday that a bottlenose dolphin captured last month has an extra set of fins that could be the remains of back legs, a discovery that may provide further evidence that ocean-dwelling mammals once lived on land.....

Fossil remains show dolphins and whales were four-footed land animals about 50 million years ago and share the same common ancestor as hippos and deer. Scientists believe they later transitioned to an aquatic lifestyle and their hind limbs disappeared."

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/topstor...308223640.html

This could be more evidence to help prove the "Aquatic Ape Theory".

"Mounting evidence suggests that human's are more closely related to dolphins, far more than they are related to apes. Some of you may be laughing and scoffing right now. However, if you've studied the latest scientific research, you would be impressed." .....
http://paulapeterson.com/dolphin_human_connection.html

What do dolphins and humans have in common that humans and apes do not?

1. The skeletal structure of dolphins (Cetaceans) have vestiges of toes and fingers that evolved into flippers.

2. Humans have silky smooth sensitive skin covered in fine short hairs all over their bodies while apes are covered in fur. Dolphins have silky smooth sensitive skin with fine hairs around their snouts. The longer an animal remains in the water...the more complete the hair loss. Apes are covered in fur.

3. The most frequent position during copulating for humans is face to face. The only position of copulation for dolphins is face to face. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think Hippos and deer copulate face to face.

4. Like humans, dolphins have sex even when they are not in heat which is unusual in the animal kingdom. I don't think Hippos or deer have sex when they are not in heat. But I am pretty sure that monkeys and apes do have sex for pleasure. In fact, there is one group of Chimpanzes, the Bonobos that seem to have taken the pleasure of sex a bit too far. LOL.

5. Humans have a fatty layer beneath the skin while all other apes do not have such a fatty layer. Human infants extra fatty tissue givies them a natural buoyancy and they can often times swim before they learn to walk. Dolphins and all ocean dwelling mammels also have a fatty layer.

6. Humans are naturally attracted to water and swim for pleasure. Most apes (not all) have a fear of water. Humans also have a diving reflex which is not found in apes at all. When a human dips his face into the water, the heart rate immediately slows down. This same reflex is found in dolphins and all mammels that dive.

7. Humans perspire as a response to heat. Apes do not. Humans shed tears. Apes do not. Tear glands are commonly found among sea mammals as an adaptation to the marine environment. It is still disputable in the scientific community as to whether other mammals can shed tears either through emotion or pain. So far, aside from humans only elephants have been observed to shed tears through emotion or when wounded.

8. Human births are difficult and painful because the infants head is larger than than the mothers birth canal making it neccessary for the infant to use a spiral motion in order to come out. Dolphin infants also spriral out through the birth canal. Apes have no pelvic activity during birth and the infants head is smaller than mother's pelvic skeleton making birth easy. Apes eat the placenta after giving birth whereas humans (except in rare obscure cultures) and dolphins never eat the placenta.

9. In humans, the spine is aligned over the hips. In an upright or horizontal position, the spine of sea mammals is aligned over the hind limbs. Adaptation to water requires that the spine be very flexible, as it is in both dolphins and humans. This is not so with apes.

10. "Dolphins and humans both have huge cerebral (neocortical) development, which is apparently on the same scale. On the other hand, the brain of the ape is very small, with very little neocortex development."

11. "Special kinds of lipids, known as the essential fatty acids, are the building blocks for brain tissue. These acids – the omega-6 fatty acids from leafy green and seed-bearing plants and the omega-3 fatty acids from marine phyto-plankton and algae – are used in the human brain in a balance of 1:1 and is shared only with the dolphins which have the same ratio. Biochemicaly, dolphins are still land mammals living in a marine environment. "

12. Dolphins hold many of the same chromosomes as humans.
http://newsarchives.tamu.edu/stories/98/080698-2.html


I thought there was something fishy about humans. LOL.

 

[teacher]

by the way...I decided to keep the tail

Well you should, looks good on you, what with the azzless chaps and all...

at least that's what TOT tells me.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaa

 

[Rhapsody1447]

But why have we not seen one new species of finches created since The Origin of Species was published? All we have seen is slight adaptations of an already complete species.

 

[MrFungus420]

6. Humans are naturally attracted to water and swim for pleasure. Most apes (not all) have a fear of water. Humans also have a diving reflex which is not found in apes at all. When a human dips his face into the water, the heart rate immediately slows down. This same reflex is found in dolphins and all mammels that dive.

Sorry, but you are a little off on this one.

What you are refering to is the mammalian dive reflex. It is found in all mammals, including apes. It is just far more pronounced in diving mammals.

 

[MrFungus420]

But why have we not seen one new species of finches created since The Origin of Species was published? All we have seen is slight adaptations of an already complete species.

Time frame.

Speciation usually requires thousands of generations.

However, under stressful environmental conditions, speciation can occur quicker than that.

We have seen speciation. Culex molestus has speciated from C. pipiens in the London Underground. So that has occured within the last 150 years or so.

 

[bub]

Hey this topic is incredible! Some of you still refuse to believe in Darwin??? Why?

(and when you cut off your leg, you go to the church or to the hospital?)

 

[tecoyah]

But why have we not seen one new species of finches created since The Origin of Species was published? All we have seen is slight adaptations of an already complete species.

Because God is Lazy?

Please tell me you are kidding here....what exactly do you think happens to somthing that incorporates multiple "slight adaptations" over a long period of time?

Tell you what, ask me that again in say....500 yrs.

 

[ngdawg]

But why have we not seen one new species of finches created since The Origin of Species was published? All we have seen is slight adaptations of an already complete species.

There have been discoveries of various species in the last 300 years, but nothing that could be definitively classified as new, truly. They are only 'new' to us, as scientists delve deeper into formerly unfamiliar areas, including the oceans. It's only by actually watching and recording the changes take place that the resulting data could then state whether a discovery is new or evolved.
To say that 'we have not seen one new species' does not mean they don't exist, whatever the classification.
New Primates Discovered
Oddball Rodent Found
Those slight adpatations? They're called 'evolution', by the way....

 

[americanwoman]

Thanks Moot for that interesting article on humans and dolphins. I have read lots of material about dolphins and their human-like behavior. What is interesting also about dolphins is their human like anger that is fascinating. I have read how they are likely to form gangs, then beat and intimidate other smaller dolphins. Or even how bottle-nosed dolphins have been know to rape and murder other dolphins.

 

[Columbusite]

How about an informal rule where only those who are evolutionary biologists can criticize evolution? There. Debate over.

 

[Moot]

Sorry, but you are a little off on this one.

What you are refering to is the mammalian dive reflex. It is found in all mammals, including apes. It is just far more pronounced in diving mammals.

I wondered about this one too. What exactly is the "mammalian dive relfex" anyway?

I was trying to think of other land mammals that dive head first into water but I could think of any. I'm not saying they don't exist, but I just couldn't think of any. Which started me thinking about the human nose and why the nose holes are facing down as compared to for example a dog or even an ape. It does seem that having the nose holes facing down helps in diving head first into the water.

 

[MrFungus420]

I wondered about this one too. What exactly is the "mammalian dive relfex" anyway?

I was trying to think of other land mammals that dive head first into water but I could think of any. I'm not saying they don't exist, but I just couldn't think of any. Which started me thinking about the human nose and why the nose holes are facing down as compared to for example a dog or even an ape. It does seem that having the nose holes facing down helps in diving head first into the water.

The mammalian dive reflex slows down the metabolism when cool or cold water hits the face. Under about 70 degrees, if I remember correctly