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Orb weaver spiders do not share common origins, contrary to assumptions

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Australian garden orb weaver/Adam.inglis84

From ScienceDaily:

For decades, the story of spider evolution went like this: As insects became more and more diverse, with some species taking to the skies, spiders evolved new hunting strategies, including the ability to weave orb-shaped webs to trap their prey.

From that single origin, the story goes, orb-weaver spiders diverged along different evolutionary paths, leading to today, where several species weave similar — though not identical — webs.

It’s a good story, but there’s just one problem — Harvard scientists now know it’s not true.
The largest-ever phylogenetic study of spiders, conducted by postdoctoral student Rosa Fernández, Gonzalo Giribet, Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, and Gustavo Hormiga, a professor at George Washington University, shows that, contrary to long-held popular opinion, the two groups of spiders that weave orb-shaped webs do not share a single origin. The study is described in a July 17 paper published in Current Biology. More.

Hey, if we had to explain the problem with current evolutionary biology in a few words, we would say “It’s a good story, but there’s just one problem — it’s not true.”
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Comments
"The technology has changed what we are able to do in terms of the questions we can ask and the questions we can answer," Giribet continued. "Even just five years ago, we were spending thousands of dollars to sequence 3,000 genes. Today, we're spending just a few hundreds of dollars to sequence millions, which is almost an entire genome.
We ain't seen nothing yet... it looks as though we're approaching a major 'i told you so' moment in science history... oh well. The party has just started... the fun part is still ahead ;-) That's why we look forward, with much anticipation, to every new serious report from researchers, which shed more light on the mind-boggling biological systems. Have a good weekend!Dionisio
July 19, 2014
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one cant easily notice that those scientists don't understand evolution ;-)Dionisio
July 19, 2014
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