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speciation

Dog breeds and speciation: Some interesting information

Mainly about the history of intelligent design of dogs, for better or worse. Fascinating stuff about the turnspit dog. Also. here: In order to understand how a breed can go extinct, first we need to get into what a breed is. And in order to get into that, we need to get into what a dog is. According to the fossil record, the canine was first domesticated between 11,000 and 32,000 years ago. One theory is that ancient humans trapped the pups of ancient wolves, raised them as pets, and used them to hunt. This theory is known as the “hunter hypothesis.” Another popular theory is known as the “scavenger hypothesis.” From an expert opinion in National Geographic: Most likely, Read More ›

No reptiles any more?

Dunno. Local grass snakes keep insisting that reptiles exist—as long as they can get below the frost line over winter, through cavities in the Shield. Read More ›

Seems not even Darwin’s finches are sacred

As David Tyler writes over at Access Research Network: Introgressive hybridization and the Galapagos finches A branching pattern of variation was central to Darwin’s concept of speciation. As one population of organisms follows one trajectory, another population may spin off in a different direction. When they are sufficiently far apart, they are considered to be separate species. The Galapagos finches have been regarded as exemplars of Darwinian transformation, even leading to the claim that one newly developed population is “behaving as a separate species”. However, the most recent study, from one of the smaller islands (Floreana), concludes that the most likely cause of the disappearance of one of these species is hybridization. “The authors suggest that hybridization may have been Read More ›

Science news release admits evidence for speciation “implicit in Charles Darwin’s work” is scarce

In short, it is unclear, even in this fairly straightforward case, that Darwinian speciation has actually occurred. Circumstances have been spotted under which it might be occurring. Of course, some perturbation in the landscape might blow it all away. Read More ›