Evolution - Helpful Theory, or Distracting Absurdity?

[Playaa]

According to that link only in the "last few decades" has "species" been considered to be a "reproductive community" (which says that those two sets of fruit flies are indeed a different species). This debate is much older than a few decades though so it seems strange to me to inject a new meaning of an important word into an old debate.

 

 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hang on. Reading through your link I just came across the example of fruit flies. Here is the (tiny) snippet.

Dobzhansky and Pavlovsky (1971) reported a speciation event that occurred in a laboratory culture of Drosophila paulistorum sometime between 1958 and 1963. The culture was descended from a single inseminated female that was captured in the Llanos of Colombia. In 1958 this strain produced fertile hybrids when crossed with conspecifics of different strains from Orinocan. From 1963 onward crosses with Orinocan strains produced only sterile males. Initially no assortative mating or behavioral isolation was seen between the Llanos strain and the Orinocan strains. Later on Dobzhansky produced assortative mating.

 

I looked up "assortative mating" and here is the definition:

Assortative mating (also called assortative pairing) takes place when sexually reproducing organisms tend to mate with individuals that are like themselves in some respect (positive assortative mating) or dissimilar (negative assortative mating).

 

Basically "assortitive mating" = mating with something close but not exactly like you. What has been said repeatedly in this topic is that the flies became a different species which is wrong even according to the current definition of "species". These fruit flies initially did not mate but they LATER DID. Which means some scientists bred two strains of fruit flies, they initially didn't like each other at the clubs, but later changed their minds and got it on.

No new species here kids.

 

Every other example I read on that page dealt with positive assortative mating (meaning the two different groups were mating with each other).

 

Above all that, I still hang onto my original point. You can't tell me that two sets of fruit flies who physically cannot mate, are really a different animal altogether. Sure, technically speaking (and going by the current definition of the word) they would be a different species, but that's still not really an example of macro-evolution.

Edited March 17, 2008 by Playaa/Pselus

[Unclean]

Basically "assortitive mating" = mating with something close but not exactly like you. What has been said repeatedly in this topic is that the flies became a different species which is wrong even according to the current definition of "species". These fruit flies initially did not mate but they LATER DID. Which means some scientists bred two strains of fruit flies, they initially didn't like each other at the clubs, but later changed their minds and got it on.

No new species here kids.

You forgot the rest of the story. Those fruit flies produced sterile offspring. A horse and a donkey can get it on and produce kids, but the kicker is they have to be a *breeding* population. The offspring of those fruitflies and horses/donkeys are sterile, so no more getting it on past that generation.

 

Above all that, I still hang onto my original point. You can't tell me that two sets of fruit flies who physically cannot mate, are really a different animal altogether. Sure, technically speaking (and going by the current definition of the word) they would be a different species, but that's still not really an example of macro-evolution.

I've been going off Dark's definition of "macro-evolution" (one species turning into another). That's been shown in the fruit fly example above.

 

I want to make sure we're on the same page, so please patronize me and define "species" and "macro-evolution".

 

Thanks!

[dragonfly]

Thanks for the info unclean!

Which means some scientists bred two strains of fruit flies, they initially didn't like each other at the clubs, but later changed their minds and got it on.

You just made my day.

[Unclean]

np Mr Archon.

 

And yeah, I lolled at the clubbin' fruit flies too. I bet they all have spiky hair and silver sunglasses.