The Finch Variation

At ISCID, Stuart Harris declared, related to the finches:

2. According to the story, when Darwin found the Galapagos finches, he finally settled on the idea that natural selection acting on mutation solves the puzzle of speciation. Finches in different areas of those islands have different beak sizes, coloration, behavior and other traits and do not interbreed. Do they have different genotypes and therefore are genetically incapable of being crossbred? Or, are they simply variations on the same genotype that have led them to be unable to mate because of acquired behaviors, eating patterns, beak shapes, and other simple variations that were selected for after they became isolated? If you extracted sperm from a small-beaked variety male on one island, and were then able to artificially inseminate a large beaked female on another island, would the incubated eggs hatch into fully fertile hybrid finches? I think so, and if true, this observation of reproductive isolation among Galapagos finches tells us nothing about the validity of Darwinism. No new genotypes are arising. The reproductive isolation of those finches provides no evidence as to how finches, eagles, or penguins arose in the first place.

So, simply observing that some groups have become “reproductively isolated”, while basing a definition of “species” on that concept, and then extrapolating that whole new genotypes arrive from it, really has no easy evidence in nature. We cannot show how one genotype can change and be modified simply by natural selection to create subsequent novel genotypes.

And at ARN we read the next comment:

Darwin saw the different species of finches as evidence for macroevolution. I wonder what he would have thought if he knew that they could interbreed?

Darwin, Ernst Mayr and the Grants et al deliberately blurred the difference between varieties and species, and with that, they are blurring also the differences between a real subspeciation versus a speculative speciation, blurring also the differences between factual microevolution versus a mythical macroevolution, blurring also the differences between the real origin of varieties from already present organisms versus an atheistic, illusory and false Darwinian origin of species.

Evolution is 'packaging' hybrids and trying to sell them as if proving a non-existent macroevolution.

In brief:

Those different finches are just varieties, not 'different species'. So, they prove NOT a mythical 'macroevolution', they prove NOT a mythical 'speciation'.

Varieties provide a YES to microevolution and a YES to subspeciation.

Do you think that by following that confusing way of thinking started by Darwin and by a neoDarwin Grant will ever be possible to practically discern the difference between varieties and species, even with the clear facts in front of every biologist of today?

"The Grants observed cases when a G. scandens father died and his sons subsequently overheard a male G. fortis singing [topic: the Galapagos' finches can interbreed producing fertile offspring]. They learned his song and ended up attracting and mating with G. fortis females." [Science 273(5281), Sep., 1996]

And the same happened with their daughters! They also learned the "new song".

So, not only the lack of fossil intermediates, but also the living facts of genetics and its sub-fields oppose any Theory of Evolution on the basis of a non-existent 'Speciation'.

Why the Grants et al still consider the Finches of the Galapagos as examples for the origin of species (as Darwin did it) and as examples of a never conclusive 'speciation'? [Even Lynn Margulis calls into question those 'inflated' evolutionist propositions] The Grants themselves reported that all of them Finches are able to interbreed producing fertile offspring. So, Finches are only examples of the origin of subspecies or of varieties within the same kind of organisms, however, varieties of Finches are not new species! Concluding with those Finches (as many other thousands of similar examples), Finches are just varieties of the same common ancestor within their group! Being all of them genetically compatible and able to produce a fertile F1!

In a desperate attempt to produce a non existent 'evidence' for a neo-Darwininan unexplained 'origin of species', evolutionists take absolutist positions and arrogant comparisons far departed from reality, investing millions of dollars trying to back-up the non existent macroevolution's 'tree of life' while at the same time the big ones in evolution have already banned Intelligent Design as an unscientific enterprise beforehand.

In the Grant's couple conference at "Focus on Origins", P. R. Grant repetitively declared: "hybridization occurs widely in birds". He was talking about how so many examples of fertile offspring exist in birds, and emphasizing the abundance of interbreeding between the different finches, and, respectively, also between the different quails within the quails. Which, at least for me, what P. Grant was 'really saying' was: "we have blatantly and deliberately confounded varieties of birds as if those were members of different species, for Darwin's sake!."

[“Among our sample more than half the crosses between species in the same genus produce fertile hybrids”]

You can see by yourself the presentation of Darwinist Peter Grant (in RealPlayer) and how he stumbles after being interrogated by Art Battson {who presented his seminar "On the Theory of Conservation" for the same program}.

Just some examples for everybody to see:

Darwin's Avian Muses Continue To Evolve
Carl Zimmer. Science 26 April 2002; 296: 633-635.
http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2002/articles_2002_Finch.html

"The two species on Daphne Major can and sometimes do interbreed, and their hybrids--far from being mulelike reproductive dead ends--are a source of fresh genetic variability."

"Interbreeding may be one of the secrets... hybrids may be an unrecognized factor..."

"...A few desperate males [cactus finches] mated with female ground finches, which then produced perfectly healthy and fertile hybrids."

"As a result, ground finch genes are flowing into the cactus finch gene pool--a process called introgression--making their beaks blunter."

"Other biologists are surprised that two distantly related species can produce healthy hybrids..."

[My personal comment: "biologists are surprised" because the misconception of those varieties as being "two distantly related species" was instilled by Charles Darwin, the father of all confusions in biology!]

"This new source of genetic diversity makes it easier for a species with donated genes to adapt to a changing environment, the Grants claim."

So, in the words of the researchers themselves:

Grant PR, Grant BR.
Genetics and the origin of bird species.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1997 Jul 22;94(15):7768-75. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/94/15/7768

"...the populations are only partly reproductively isolated, interbreeding occurs, and some of the hybrids survive to breed"

"...species hybridize, rarely, and are capable of producing fertile hybrids that backcross to the parental species"

"...interbreeding of species and the breeding of hybrids ..."

[My personal comment: Again, those are interfertile varieties, not members of different 'species', as Darwin wished us to keep thinking without end.]

[Refs: Grant, P. R. & Grant, B. R. (1992) Science 256, 193-197; Grant, P. R. & Grant, B. R. (1997) Biol. J. Linn. Soc. 60, 317-343; Grant, B. R. & Grant, P. R. (1997) in "Endless Forms: Species and Speciation", eds. Howard, D. J. & Berlocher, S. H. (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford)]

"...field observations of natural hybridization have been made on the islands of Daphne Major…”

[Grant, P. R. (1993) Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London Ser. B 340, 127-139, Grant, P. R. & Price, T. D. (1981) Am. Zool. 21, 795-811, Boag, P. T. & Grant, P. R. (1984) Biol. J. Linn. Soc. 22, 243-287]

“…and [hybrids were seen also in the island] Genovesa”

[Grant, B. R. & Grant, P. R. (1989) Evolutionary Dynamics of a Natural Population: The Large Cactus Finch of the Galápagos (Univ. Chicago Press, Chicago)].

“These show that all six species of Darwin's ground finches (genus Geospiza) hybridize (rarely) with at least one other congeneric species. In addition some intergeneric crosses are known among the tree finches and warbler finch, and breeding hybrids have been produced”

[My personal comment: Those are interfertile varieties, again and again and not members of different 'species', as Darwin wished us to keep thinking 'world without end'.]

[Grant, P. R. (1986) Ecology and Evolution of Darwin's Finches (Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, N. J.), Bowman, R. I. (1983) in Patterns of Evolution in Galápagos Organisms, eds. Bowman, R. I., Berson, M. & Leviton, A. E. (American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), San Francisco), pp. 237-537].

[My personal comment: by a beforehand banning of Intelligent Design, is the AAAS really contributing to the 'advancement of science'?]

"On Daphne Major Geospiza fortis (medium ground finch) hybridizes with G. scandens (cactus finch), another resident species, and G. fuliginosa (small ground finch), an uncommon immigrant. Contrary to expectation from the [evolutionist] reinforcement hypothesis, hybrids formed by Geospiza fortis breeding with G. scandens and G. fuliginosa are both viable and fertile to a degree similar to that of the contemporary offspring of conspecific matings; so are the first two generations of backcrosses"

"Backcrossing negates the hypothesis of speciation occurring entirely in allopatry."

"In tests of several species the discrimination was often weak, implying that song difference, by itself, would not be sufficient to prevent interbreeding."

[My personal comment: song difference, song difference, that's the same neo-Darwinian non-sense to keep the appearance of 'speciation' where only 'variation' or 'subspeciation'.]

"...interbreed... e.g., herring gull and lesser black-backed gull. A crossfostering experiment with these gulls showed that, as in Darwin's finches, misimprinted birds are capable of producing viable hybrids, i.e., once the premating isolating mechanism is broken”

[Harris, M. P. (1970) Ibis 112, 488-498; Harris, M. P., Morley, C. & Green, G. H. (1978) Bird Study 25, 161-166]

Other works by the Grant’s:

Grant PR, Grant BR, Keller LF, Markert JA, Petren K. Inbreeding and interbreeding in Darwin's finches. Evolution Int J Org Evolution. 2003 Dec;57(12):2911-6.

Markert JA, Grant PR, Grant BR, Keller LF, Coombs JL, Petren K. Neutral locus heterozygosity, inbreeding, and survival in Darwin's ground finches (Geospiza fortis and G. scandens). Heredity. 2004 Apr;92(4):306-15.

Keller LF, Grant PR, Grant BR, Petren K.
Environmental conditions affect the magnitude of inbreeding depression in survival of Darwin's finches. Evolution Int J Org Evolution. 2002 Jun;56(6):1229-39.

Soren Lovtrup in his book Darwinism: Refutation of a Myth, p. 422 wrote:

"Micromutations do occur, but the theory that these alone can account for evolutionary change is either falsified, or else it is an unfalsifiable, hence metaphysical, theory. I suppose that nobody will deny that it is a great misfortune if an entire branch of science becomes addicted to a false theory. But this is what has happened in biology: for a long time now people discuss evolutionary problems in a peculiar 'Darwinian' vocabulary... thereby believing that they contribute to the explanation of natural events."

"I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science. When this happens many people will pose the question: How did this ever happen?..."

Lovtrup's "Darwinian vocabulary" is the same as the 'careless semantics' described elsewhere by Dave Bradbury. Those misleading and confusing Darwinian blurrings of reality today extensively used by pro-darwinists in all its colors, the dominant ones believe in a "macro" common descent and in a gradual transformism, that is the myth of "macroevolution". The Darwinist's 'careless semantics' is the rhetorical tool of misinformation to cover-up for the weakness of those darwinian speculations. There is no 'speciation' (the darwinian 'origin of species') but 'subspeciation' (the 'origin of varieties').

Mendel noticed the same, as he marked, among other passages, the extremely weak definition of species and 'convenient' for Darwin:

[Darwin's words highlighted by Gregor Mendel:] "From these remarks it will be seen that I look at the term species, as one arbitrarily given for the sake of convenience to a set of individuals closely resembling each other, and that it does not essentially differ from the term variety, which is given to less distinct and more fluctuating forms. The term variety, again, in comparison with mere individual differences, is also applied arbitraily, and for mere convenience sake."

Is that true 'science' when compared with what we know now?

Mendel himself highlighted since then the other weak point for the multiple hypotheses of evolution:

[Darwin's words:] "What geological research has not revealed is the former existence of infinitely numerous gradations, as fine as existing varieties, connecting all known species. And this not having been effected by geology is the most obvious of the many objections which may be urged against my views."

Practical breeders, reasonable and expert people in interbreeding can easily refute Darwin's fakes:

"I know for a fact that no biologist can give any evidence that shows that any species has evolved from another. I know through observation that new varieties of plants can and are developed, as are new varieties of animals but this process cannot in any way be referred to as evolution. Yet clearly Darwin (was?) seemed to be confused (willingly so?) by this very simple distinction."

Darwin and his follower are deliberately "confused (willingly so?) by this very simple distinction"

In his same book 'Origin of Species', Darwin wrote:

"… when I first kept pigeons and watched the several kinds, knowing well how true they bred, I felt fully as much difficulty in believing that they could ever have descended from a common parent, as any naturalist could in coming to a similar conclusion in regard to the many species of finches, or other large groups of birds, in nature."

Charles Darwin never reported any “origin of species”, at the most he was just describing “varieties” within true kinds of organisms (are not just varieties the “inspiring muses” of Darwin? A-) the fancy pigeons (National Geographic For Nov. 2004, pages 2-4 and 17) and B-) the finches (same ref., pages 26-27 and 30 ))?.

Even when Darwin wrote "knowing well how true they bred", talking about the different varieties of pigeons, Darwin reasoned that he felt "fully as much difficulty in believing that they could ever have descended from a common parent".

So, a question to those living Darwins: How can anybody think that it is difficult to see how the true interbreeding within pigeons does not lead us as well to conclude that all of them have descended from a common parent?

Well, that was the illogical reasoning style of Charles Darwin that captivated atheists of all times, and that still is proclaimed in the mainstream peer-reviewed evolutionist journals of today, specifically in that 'convenient', stagnant and deliberate confusion of 'subspeciation' with 'speciation'.

Common ancestry within similar organisms genetically compatible is a fact. Common descent outside of genetically compatible organisms is fiction, this is the officially accepted Darwinian descent with modification by the scientific academia of today, and this is the illusory common descent for all organisms.

In his 'Origin' Charles Darwin goes on, in his Ed. 1, p. 484, and again in his Ed. 6, p. 663 here Darwin jumped without parachute and affirmed the non-supported-by-the evidence speculation that has grabbed biologists since:

"Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from some one prototype."

So, after reading Darwin himself, can you conclude that Darwinism is a scientific endeavor or rather, a philosophical 'no-God-is-allowed' belief system?

Then, in his Chapter 8, Darwin wrote, when he was talking about 'sterility':

"I doubt whether any case of a perfectly fertile hybrid animal can be considered as thoroughly well authenticated. It should, however, be borne in mind that, owing to few animals breeding freely under confinement, few experiments have been fairly tried: for instance, the canary-bird has been crossed with nine other finches, but as not one of these nine species breeds freely in confinement, we have no right to expect that the first crosses between them and the canary, or that their hybrids, should be perfectly fertile."

Darwin wrote that he doubted whether "any case of a perfectly fertile hybrid animal can be considered as thoroughly well authenticated", but willing to do it, we are able to see that there are not only hundreds or thousands of such examples available today!

Then, Darwin went to other extremely illogical argument to say that hybrid sterility between what he was considering different 'species' was similar to the sterility product of the degenerative state of an increasing consanguinity (the mating of animal brothers with their sisters and animal parents with their children) within the same groups of organisms! Read Darwin's own record:

"Again, with respect to the fertility in successive generations of the more fertile hybrid animals, I hardly know of an instance in which two families of the same hybrid have been raised at the same time from different parents, so as to avoid the ill effects of close interbreeding. On the contrary, brothers and sisters have usually been crossed in each successive generation, in opposition to the constantly repeated admonition of every breeder. And in this case, it is not at all surprising that the inherent sterility in the hybrids should have gone on increasing. If we were to act thus, and pair brothers and sisters in the case of any pure animal, which from any cause had the least tendency to sterility, the breed would assuredly be lost in a very few generations."

But that was the mind of Darwin that has received a blindly appeal.

In Charles Darwin's earlier version of his 'Origin' we read:

"Even if we put on one side the undoubted fact that some species of the same genus will not breed together, we cannot possibly admit the above rule ['sterility'], seeing that the grouse and pheasant (considered by some good ornithologists as forming two families), the bull-finch and canary-bird have bred together." [Taken from: Charles Darwin. The foundations of the Origin of Species: Two essays written in 1842 and 1844 by Charles Darwin (Francis Darwin, ed.) Cambridge, 1909. [this quote from his 1844 Essay. Ch. X. Conclusion]) ]

So, we cannot justify Darwin by being unintentional or innocent in his interchangeable use of 'varieties' and 'species' as he specifically declared that such treatment was convenient for his preconceived worldview and for his theory based on it.

In 'The Rhetoric of Charles Darwin', Dr. John Angus Campbell explores how Charles Darwin used his rhetoric skills to persuade others of the creative power of natural selection.

Watch this interesting interview now using RealPlayer:
http://webcast.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/UCSD_TV/7007TheRheChaDar.rm

So, the mishandling of 'varieties' and the selling them re-labeled as 'species' is and has been Darwin's Deception to-day as well as since Darwin's own days.

J. L. Kurt wrote:

"...ID hypotheses are already accepted in the scientific disciplines of forensics, archeology, deciphering encryption and hieroglyphics, SETI, and so on; i.e., ID is already "science". The problem for material naturalists is not ID per se, but the application of ID where material naturalists have, a priori, disallowed an ID hypothesis beforehand regardless of the observations. As such, material naturalism's a priori disallowance of ID is a philosophic position, not a scientific one. Total insistence on material naturalism alone [methodological naturalism] is more like faith based religious dogma than scientific open-mindedness."

Peter R. Grant, the deceiver who used finches to try beforehandedly to confirm Dawinism using the finches, smeared the next statement:

"...to give the experiment a good chance of working, one extra manipulation had to be made; the frequency of the extreme forms of the two species was artificially increased, by hybridization." [Grant PR. Ecological Character Displacement. 1994. Science 266:746-747.]

But, hybridization is not only "a valid manipulation", hybridization is the trademark of compatible varieties within similar groups of organisms! Here no 'new species' are emerging, no 'speciational' events, here are just varieties 'fertibly' interbreeding within themselves!

To further see the extremely absurd logic of the Grants et al, check out the entertaining to read:

The Bogus Logic of 'The Beak'
Calling into question the book:
Jonathan Weiner, The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.

There we read:

People who have served in the Armed Forces may be familiar with the expression, "If you can't dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your baloney." The Beak of the Finch uses such laughable logic, it is remarkable that anyone would believe it. The book does such a terrible job of presenting a case for evolution and history, that the only logical conclusion is that the book's true intent is to disprove it.

Or the more serious and academic style of Jonathan Wells in his:

"Inherit The Spin: Darwinists Answer “Ten Questions” with Evasions and Falsehoods":

"In fact, several species of Galápagos finches now appear to be merging through hybridization--the exact opposite of producing new species. Yet some textbooks--and a publication of the U. S. National Academy of Sciences [NAS, yes, the one once formerly directed by the 'macroevo' Bruce Alberts and manipulated by the 'macroeva' Eugenie C. Scott and her 'dungeon', the NCSE, as they manipulated as well the cords of the Smithsonian and of many other places]--make it sound as though the finch studies showed how new species can originate. Miller and Levine’s Biology: The Living Science (1998) tells [lies to the] students: “It might take only between 12 and 20 droughts to change one species of finch into another!” According to Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences (1999), the Grants’ observations showed that “if droughts occur about once every ten years on the islands, a new species of finch might arise in only about 200 years,” making the Galápagos finches “a particularly compelling example of speciation [a technical term for the 'origin' of new species].” Both the Miller-Levine textbook and the NAS booklet neglect to mention that the data actually point to oscillating selection with no net change, and [doesn't mention either] now to the merging of species through hybridization."

Concluding: Varieties misclassified as different species can interbreed producing fertile offspring, not only within finches, gulls, or cranes but within thousands of other groups of organisms.

These are inferences on variation based on Intelligent Design.

Studies on microevolution are profitable and practical.

Studies on the myth of macroevolution are blurred speculations.

The point I am making is so simple as to tell to my students, "whenever you read articles talking about a purported 'speciation', they are indeed meaning 'variation', 'subspeciation', of the origin of 'new races', of 'new breeds', but there is never any 'natural' Darwinian 'origin of species'.

'Speciational' researchers are proving nothing on 'speciation' even if their discourses on paper are deceiving. They are doing just works on 'varietal interbreeding' with a more than abundant fertility, the well known increased hybrid vigour, totally opposed to sterility...