"Actually, the ring species you keep showing do not even prove speciation. The determinant of speciation is ability to produce viable mates. The so called 'scientists' who did these studies did not even bother to see if these salamanders and these birds could mate with each other."
"Further, the statements made as to the proof of 'speciation' are so ridiculous as to be totally laughable. The birds for example were called different species by these numbskulls because they had two yellow stripes and different songs than the ones at the start of the ring. Clearly according to the criteria of these morons of evolution, Englishmen and Chinamen are different species since they speak different languages and have different skin color." ~G3K
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Is this true? Did they conduct experiments to see if they could mate or not?
Speaking of mating, I would assume that Multiple Orgasums would be GOOD for the species as a whole, with the repro rate up there, so why do we Humans want to DEvolve, by LOWERING our offspring output?
"Actually, the ring species you keep showing do not even prove speciation. The determinant of speciation is ability to produce viable mates. The so called 'scientists' who did these studies did not even bother to see if these salamanders and these birds could mate with each other."Is this true? Did they conduct experiments to see if they could mate or not?"Further, the statements made as to the proof of 'speciation' are so ridiculous as to be totally laughable. The birds for example were called different species by these numbskulls because they had two yellow stripes and different songs than the ones at the start of the ring. Clearly according to the criteria of these morons of evolution, Englishmen and Chinamen are different species since they speak different languages and have different skin color." ~G3K
As was unfortunately all too often the case with the now departed creationist Gore3000, no, it's not true. As was usually the case with his claims (and of too many creationists in general), it is in fact roughly 180 degrees apart from the truth.
And before someone (and you know who you are) again posts the lie that Gore3000 was banned for questioning evolution, I will again point out that he was in fact banned for directly accusing Jim Robinson and his moderators of being tools of Satan. And no, I am not making this up.
As for his false accusations, let's take them one at a time:
Actually, the ring species you keep showing do not even prove speciation.
Actually, ring species do indeed demonstrate speciation, quite well:
[From: CIRCULAR OVERLAPS: RARE DEMONSTRATIONS OF SPECIATION. And note, the title means that ring species are "rare", not that demonstrations of speciation are rare...]First, the presence of a series of intermediate forms between two species shows that variation between species is qualitatively similar, though different in degree, as variation within a species (Ridley 1993). Ring species can thus provide important evidence for evolution, demonstrating that small changes can eventually accumulate into the differences between distinct species. It is primarily this basic aspect of ring species that has made them such important systems in the teaching of evolutionary principles.
Second, ring species may be used to reconstruct the history and causes of divergence during speciation (Wake 2001). If an ancestral species expands around both sides of an ecological barrier, the expanding fronts might diverge to the level of species by the time they meet on the other side of the barrier. If a ring species arose in that way, variation around the ring might represent variation in time, allowing the observation of the traits of two species as well as their common ancestor.
Third, ring species potentially show that speciation between the terminal forms can occur despite substantial gene flow around the ring. Such a demonstration would show that speciation does not require geographic isolation, something that has often been considered an essential condition for speciation (Mayr 1970). Genetic exchange between populations generally inhibits divergence, but recent theoretical and empirical studies have shown that substantial divergence can occur even with gene flow, especially when there is natural selection for local adaptation (e.g. Kondrashov et al. 1998, Dieckmann and Doebeli 1999, Danley et al. 2000, Gavrilets 2000, Smith et al. 2001). These studies suggest that there is no theoretical reason why ring species with extensive gene flow through the ring cannot exist.
The determinant of speciation is ability to produce viable mates.
Um, no, but this garbled bit of babble isn't worth correcting, other than to point out that if G3K was trying to imply that the "arm" species may not each be able to produce fertile offsping, he should note that these species were first identified in the 1930's, and still exist and are studied today. So unless these are some REALLY old songbirds, it's trivially easy to show that they've been reproducing just fine for at least 70+ years now.
The so called 'scientists' who did these studies did not even bother to see if these salamanders and these birds could mate with each other.
Sure they did. They both determined that the subgroups in intermediate positions along the "ring" interbred successfully, *and* that the two groups at the overlapping ends of the "arms" did *not* interbreed.
[From Speciation in a ring]Additionally, Irwin did an enormous amount of fieldwork, examining the natural behavior of the birds.We used song playback experiments to investigate the potential for reproductive isolation around the ring. Response by males to the playback of song is a widely used measure of whether different groups view each other as potential mates or competitors, and has been used to assign species status to several Phylloscopus taxa6. We conducted experiments in ten populations (PK, KL, PA, ML, MN and LN in the Himalayas, AA, YK, ST and AN further north) using recordings from other sites. Males responded strongly to recordings made up to 1,000±1,500 km away, but not to recordings made at further distances (Fig. 3). However, playbacks between viridanus and plumbeitarsus (shown by open circles in Fig. 3), even when separated by a relatively short distance, resulted in very little response, indicating that the two taxa do not consider each other's song to be from their species. These results suggest that divergence of song and accompanying song recognition have been important in the evolution of reproductive isolation between the terminal forms of the ring.
We used molecular markers to reconstruct the biogeographical history of the ring. We constructed a mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) gene tree for 149 individuals collected throughout the species' range, based on sequences of approximately 1,200 base pairs in the neighbourhood of the control region (Fig. 4). The gene tree shows strong geographic structure. Two major clades correspond to western and eastern individuals. We sampled intensively across about 500 km in each of the regions where the two clades meet. In central Siberia the concordance between haplotype (western or eastern clade) and song (viridanus or plumbeitarsus) was perfect (17 western birds and 35 eastern birds), providing no evidence for mitochondrial introgression between the two Siberian taxa. In the south, the region where the two mitochondrial clades meet does not correspond with a subspecies boundary, but instead occurs within the range of ludlowi (Figs 1 and 4). Songs of individuals carrying the different haplotypes are not distinguishable (for example, compare the similarity of KS and MN in Fig. 2), and playback experiments indicate that birds do not distinguish among them in this region. For example, birds at PK responded to MN song, even though the two are from different mitochondrial clades. And in the two populations where birds of both mitochondrial clades have been found to co-occur (KL, ML), individuals respond strongly to songs recorded at both PK (western haplotype) and MN (eastern haplotype) (n = 10 playback experiments).
Genetic variation in two microsatellite markers (Pocc2 and Pocc6) matches that of the mtDNA tree (Fig. 5a, b). For both microsatellites, mean length varies significantly over the range (analysis of variance (ANOVA) across localities: Pocc2, F8,181 = 4.4, P , 0.0001; Pocc6, F8,191 = 21.6, P , 0.0001). The central Siberian forms at TL and ST differ in mean allele length (a posteriori tests: Pocc2, P,0.01; Pocc6, P,0.0001).
There is also significant variation in the south between Kashmir and Nepal (comparison of KS to LN: Pocc2, P , 0.01; Pocc6, P , 0.0001) but the central population in northwest India (MN) is clearly intermediate to the Kashmir and Nepal populations, suggesting continuing gene flow in that region. There is little variation from south to north along either side of the ring.
The microsatellite data and the mtDNA tree are consistent in showing high genetic change both in the north, between the central Siberian taxa, and in the south, across the western Himalayas. Song variation, the mtDNA tree and the microsatellite data together indicate that there is current gene flow across the southern part of the range, but not the northern.
"Further, the statements made as to the proof of 'speciation' are so ridiculous as to be totally laughable.
G3K is about to reveal how little he understands about these studies:
The birds for example were called different species by these numbskulls because they had two yellow stripes and different songs than the ones at the start of the ring.
By now it should be obvious just how cartoonishly distorted G3K's version is when compared to the actual studies. Yes, the researchers observed that among other differences, the overlapped but non-interbreeding species had different numbers of wing bars. But that was hardly listed by them as a major criteria -- or any criteria at all -- for declaring them separate species.
As for the songs, what made them significant was not that they were "different", but that they were *so* different that the birds themselves did not identify the song of the other group as being a member of the same species as themselves. More intrigueingly, this despite the fact that birds from nearby groups along the middle of the ring *did* recognize nearby birds with their somewhat different songs as being members of their own species.
But finally, contrary to G3K's straw man version, what actually led the researchers to conclude that the "arms" of the ring qualified as different species was because despite the fact that they lived intermingled in the same habitat, there was *no* genetic, behavioral, or field evidence that the groups interbred *at all*.
Two different species can occasionally (although poorly) interbreed at times (as with tigers and lions), so interbreeding is not *the* determinative criteria for separate species, BUT a total lack of interbreeding between two groups *is* an ironclad demonstration that the two groups are different species.
Clearly according to the criteria of these morons of evolution, Englishmen and Chinamen are different species since they speak different languages and have different skin color.
Needless to say, that's *not* in any way an accurate summary of the research.
So in the end, between the researchers, and G3K, it becomes painfully obvious exactly who is actually "the moron".