Scientists Witness Evolution in Action

[JohnFKennedy]

Scientists at the University of Arizona may have witnessed the birth of a new species for the first time.
Biologists Laura Reed and Prof Therese Markow made the discovery by observing breeding patterns of fruit flies that live on rotting cacti in deserts.

The work could help scientists identify the genetic changes that lead one species to evolve into two species.

The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

One becomes two

Whether the two closely related fruit fly populations the scientists studied - Drosophila mojavensis and Drosophila arizonae - represent one species or two is still debated by biologists.

However, the University of Arizona researchers believe the insects are in the early stages of diverging into separate species.

The emergence of a new species - speciation - occurs when distinct populations of a species stop reproducing with one another.

 
Graduate student Laura Reed
When the two groups can no longer interbreed they cease exchanging genes and eventually go their own evolutionary ways becoming separate species.

Though speciation is a crucial element of understanding how evolution works, biologists have not been able to discover the factors that initiate the process.

In fruit flies there are several examples of mutant genes that prevent different species from breeding but scientists do not know if they are the cause or just a consequence of speciation.

Sterile males

In the wild, Drosophila mojavensis and Drosophila arizonae rarely, if ever, interbreed - even though their geographical ranges overlap.

In the lab, researchers can coax successful breeding but there are complications.

Drosophila mojavensis mothers typically produce healthy offspring after mating with Drosophila arizonae males, but when Drosophila arizonae females mate with Drosphila mojavensis males, the resulting males are sterile.

Laura Reed maintains that such limited capacity for interbreeding indicates that the two groups are on the verge of becoming completely separate species.

Another finding that adds support to that idea is that in a strain of Drosophila mojavensis from southern California's Catalina Island, mothers always produce sterile males when mated with Drosophila arizonae males.

Because the hybrid male's sterility depends on the mother's genes the researchers say the genetic change must be recent.

Reed has also discovered that only about half the females in the Catalina Island population had the gene (or genes) that confer sterility in the hybrid male offspring.

However, when she looked at the Drosophila mojavensis females from other geographic regions, she found that a small fraction of those populations also exhibited the hybrid male sterility.

The newly begun Drosophila mojavensis genome sequencing project, which will provide a complete roadmap of every gene in the species, will help scientists pin down which genes are involved in speciation.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3790531.stm

[Josh/Devilman88]

Just to say, I did not come from Monkeys

[ilikeverin]

me neither.  actually, no ones ancestors were monkeys.  They were pre-monkeys!

[Josh/Devilman88]

me neither.  actually, no ones ancestors were monkeys.  They were pre-monkeys!

No God made me!

[elcorazon]

me neither.  actually, no ones ancestors were monkeys.  They were pre-monkeys!

No God made me!

ugh

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

So, scientists witness a fruitfly evolving into......a fruitfly.  

Did I miss something in the article?

[Josh/Devilman88]

So, scientists witness a fruitfly evolving into......a fruitfly.  

Did I miss something in the article?

No Scientists are stupid. They think that we came from monkeys.  That is like saying a rat came from a fish...

[Michael Z]

So, scientists witness a fruitfly evolving into......a fruitfly.  

Did I miss something in the article?

No Scientists are stupid. They think that we came from monkeys.  That is like saying a rat came from a fish...

That's a flawed comparison. There are no physiological similarities whatsover between rat and fish. There are, however, some similarities between humans and several different species of monkeys.

[Storebought]

I hope you all are as skeptical about this research as I am. If you are, that means your are thinking like a scientist.

Just because one generation produces one trait, while the subsequent generation produces some exaggeration thereof, does not mean that two different species exist, let alone one species evolved to the next.

Consider: If you are 6'3", and your father only 5'11", you and your father are not different species.

Similarly, cabbage, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, and kale are all the same vegetable. Merely one feature--stems, roots, flowers--of the cabbage is grossly exaggerated.

Contrariwise, just because two species superficially "look the same" doesn't mean that those two species are somehow related. All attempts to domesticate zebras have failed because zebras get sick and die living in a stable, quite unlike their superficial cousins the horse.

I dont' know if horses and zebras have been mated, but I am certain that their offspring are inviable, considering the disparate physiology of the two animals.

This skepticism, combined with the shoddiness and dishonesty of modern graduate-level research (I will post an article about it in this thread), makes this dubious research that much more difficult to accept.

[Josh/Devilman88]

I don't like like a monkey. You might, but i don't.

[Michael Z]

I don't like like a monkey. You might, but i don't.

You have a head, you have feet, you have arms, your lungs are positioned below your ribcage, with your heart slightly to the left and your brain positioned within your cranium. Therefore you possess physiological similarities to monkeys, as do I, as does pretty much everyone. Therefore a link can be suggested.

Perhaps you should look in the mirror before resolving to petty insults because I dared to point out the irrationality of your views.

[Josh/Devilman88]

I don't like like a monkey. You might, but i don't.

You have a head, you have feet, you have arms, your lungs are positioned below your ribcage, with your heart slightly to the left and your brain positioned within your cranium. Therefore you possess physiological similarities to monkeys, as do I, as does pretty much everyone. Therefore a link can be suggested.

Perhaps you should look in the mirror before resolving to petty insults because I dared to point out the irrationality of your views.

Well If you want to believe you came from a monkey go right ahead. BUT I know that GOD made Me, and the Human Race.

[© tweed]

Well If you want to believe you came from a monkey go right ahead. BUT I know that GOD made Me, and the Human Race.

And you call yourself a 'future president' and a 'centrist'?

[Storebought]

Richard Feynman's 1974 address to Caltech grads:

Cargo-Cult Science

"Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can--if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.

"In summary, the idea is to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgement in one particular direction or another"

Absolutely, Dr Feynman.

[Josh/Devilman88]

Well If you want to believe you came from a monkey go right ahead. BUT I know that GOD made Me, and the Human Race.

And you call yourself a 'future president' and a 'centrist'?

Oh so now to become a President you have to believe that humans came from  Monkeys?? I don't think, Bush, Reagan, Kerry, Edwards, Clinton believed you came from monkeys.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Setting aside the absolute thrill of seeing a fruitfly turn into a fruitfly, there are a couple of things I don't grasp:

The article seems to suggest that the scientists have selected two known species of fruitfly. And the scientists conclude that one has become two species simply because of their refusal to mate - or in the case when they do mate they produce sterile offspring.

Could it be that Drosophila mojavensis and Drosophila arizonae were always two seperate species?  What evidence is prompting these scientists to conclude that were once one?

[Storebought]

Setting aside the absolute thrill of seeing a fruitfly turn into a fruitfly, there are a couple of things I don't grasp:

The article seems to suggest that the scientists have selected two known species of fruitfly. And the scientists conclude that one has become two species simply because of their refusal to mate - or in the case when they do mate they produce sterile offspring.

Could it be that Drosophila mojavensis and Drosophila arizonae were always two seperate species?  What evidence is prompting these scientists to conclude that were once one?

Those scientists are using the esteemed "They look the same to me" argument, always a winner when describing fruit flies or the Chinese.

[ilikeverin]

I don't like like a monkey. You might, but i don't.

You have a head, you have feet, you have arms, your lungs are positioned below your ribcage, with your heart slightly to the left and your brain positioned within your cranium. Therefore you possess physiological similarities to monkeys, as do I, as does pretty much everyone. Therefore a link can be suggested.

Perhaps you should look in the mirror before resolving to petty insults because I dared to point out the irrationality of your views.

Well If you want to believe you came from a monkey go right ahead. BUT I know that GOD made Me, and the Human Race.

I'd avoid capitalising the 'M' in me, or else you're claiming you're a divine being, on par with God

[Peter]

I've got evolution occuring in the bottom of my fridge .....

[12th Doctor]

This study is not conclusive.  I believe in evelution, but this doesn't prove anything.

[The Duke]

First, it seems that a group of scientists have managed to produce a pre-determined outcome by cross breeding fruit flies.  This is not good science, because the scientists did not observe and collect data, that sought out a specific outcome and got it.

There are thousands of breeds of dogs, mostly as a result of this very kind of technique.  There are thousands of breeds of cats as a result of this technique.  There are thousands of breeds of plants thanks to horticulturists using this technique.  Frankly, I am yet to be impressed.

We have seen a fruit fly breed into another fruit fly.  Call me when they get an oak tree to breed into a dolphin.  This is why I don't believe in evolution (nor do I accept Christian views on the origin of species).  It seems like every study done by evolutionists is an attempt to prove evolution rather than test it, to ease their lack of confidence in what they must know is an imperfect doctrine.

[Platypus]

there is proof of evolutin in galaagos sparrows, iirc

[JohnFKennedy]

there is proof of evolutin in galaagos sparrows, iirc

^^ Had to study that recently.

[JohnFKennedy]

I don't like like a monkey. You might, but i don't.

You have a head, you have feet, you have arms, your lungs are positioned below your ribcage, with your heart slightly to the left and your brain positioned within your cranium. Therefore you possess physiological similarities to monkeys, as do I, as does pretty much everyone. Therefore a link can be suggested.

Perhaps you should look in the mirror before resolving to petty insults because I dared to point out the irrationality of your views.

Don't forget the tailbone.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

there is proof of evolutin in galaagos sparrows, iirc

How so?