RE: “Don’t change… evolve” – is that so? Three misconceptions about evolution that you might have involuntarily assimilated.
Excellent post!
Are there any other misconceptions about evolution that we can discuss?
I think very traditional people (religious I guess what I mean or just ignorant) may have misunderstood the process of evolution as a process which takes place in individual, like that an animal or human would grow a new functioning body part while s/he is living and then pass it on.
This is obviously wrong because evolution is a process that happens over generations. An individual animal doesn't change from lizard to human during its lifetime. Populations evolve, individual doesn't.
What are your thoughts about the news regarding the emergence of a new finch species by hybridization?
I guess the hyprids are their own species if they don't reproduce with other populations and they differ from other finches in their behavior and looks.
One definition for species is that two animals are different species if they cannot produce fertile descendants. By that those finches from different island weren't actually different species. But that could be a bit narrow view to look at it. And there are probably almost as many definitions for species as there are scientists.
You are right in your observation, @celestal, while looking for images for this post I came across this blog:
http://youdonthavetohaveaphd.blogspot.mx/2010/03/evolutionary-trees-actually-more-like.html
That's an example of how many religious people's arguments about evolution are nothing but misunderstandings about the fundamental principles of the theory. It also puzzles me how they seem to expect to find some sort of "half-baked" organism, some intermediate form of sorts between species? I really don't know what they mean since, well... all species have ancestors and also hold the potential to diverge into different ones...
I also find the concept of species confusing and I am starting to think that the term is a lot more fluid that we initially thought...
Thanks for this thoughtful input!