Q. Hasn't Speciation been observed experimentally? The
evolution FAQ in talk.origins lists a dozen or more examples of
speciation. How can you dismiss such evidence?
A. Before commenting on cases of speciation (one species turning into another
species) it is first essential to define what constitutes a species. In
biology there is a strong definition and a weak definition.
The strong definition (proposed by Dobzhansky) is, "That stage of
evolutionary progress at which the once actually or potentially
interbreeding array of forms becomes segregated into two or more arrays which
are physiologically incapable of interbreeding."
The weak definition (proposed by Ernst Mayr) is, "Groups of actually or
potentially interbreeding natural populations which are reproductively
isolated from other such groups."
Notice that the strong definition
is strong because it makes it unambiguously clear that one species cannot
breed with another.
The weak definition is weak because it does not spell out
the meaning of "reproductively isolated". Does it mean "the
two groups might mate if they had the chance but unfortunately are on opposites
sides of the lake without a rowing boat"?
Darwinists protest that
applying the strong definition, showing by lab experiment that reproduction is
physiologically or genetically impossible -- in for example fruit fly breeding
experiments -- is too difficult or time consuming to be practical. These
objections are bogus since it is a relatively straightforward procedure to
artificially inseminate females with sperm from a male of the claimed 'new
species' and see what happens.
Virtually all the
so-called examples of speciation (one species turning into another species)
offered by Darwinists are in reality examples of them exploiting the ambiguity
of the weak definition of species to suggest that what are no more than
subspecific varieties are actually different species.
For example, an old
favourite that Darwinists often try to slip in by the back door is the idea that
all the different breeds of dog are different species, when in fact all breeds
of dog, from the tiny Chihuahua to the Great Dane, are all members of a single
species, Canis familiaris, and are capable of interbreeding.
The
remaining examples of "speciation" offered by Darwinists are cases in
the plant world where the number of chromosomes in a seedling spontaneously
doubles (called polyploidy). This often produces a plant which looks
different from its parents and is incapable of breeding with its parent
stock. It was this process that botanist Hugo de Vries observed in the
evening primrose and that he dubbed "mutation".
This process passes
the strict test of "speciation" because the parent and offspring are
physiologically incapable of interbreeding. But even the most enthusiastic
Darwinist would not try to suggest that the process of polyploidy can be cited
as the engine of evolution and would acknowledge that it is incapable of producing anything other than the
odd freak.
"Speciation" in the Darwinian sense of one species
gradually changing by selection into another has not been observed and no
examples are known.
Q. What about the phenomenon of growing
resistance to antibiotics by disease microorganisms? Isn't that
speciation?
A. The appearance of disease-resistant strains in
microorganisms is exactly the same phenomenon as 'industrial melanism' in moths.
The
strain that flourishes and eventually becomes the dominant strain is that 'best
fitted' to survive in its environment as Darwin predicted. But that strain
already exists from the outset, and is nothing more than a subspecific variety
of the species in question.
Nothing new is coming into being: what is
happening is that the varieties less well adapted are dying off.
There is no
objection to Darwinists calling this process 'natural selection' or 'survival of
the fittest' if they wish to do so. But there is no way that this process
can be pressed into service as the mechanism of evolution.
