Straying from my usual mutterings tonight. NOVA is profiling Darwin and his theory of Natural Selection tonight. Sure natural selection works at a micro-evolutionary level, but it doesn't lead to new species. The examples being given - different beak shapes for finches and tortoise shell shapes in the Galapagos - don't prove the origin of species. The program itself says that Darwin unwittingly - because they looked so different from each other - had selected something like 17 different different species of finch. Well I gotta ask isn't a finch a finch? I mean yeah we've got different beak shapes or what other physical differences you might find, but are these finches incapable of producing offpsring that can in turn reproduce? If so, are they really different "species"?
It really drives me nuts when they discuss local variation of an animal and chock up different physical appearances to a different "species". And don't even get me started about how nature "selects" blah-blah-blah. Nature selects nothing! It is dumb luck! Their current example is some dumb mouse in Death Valley and wouldn't you guess, the dark ones live on dark rocks, the light colored ones one the desert floor. Well I'm sure Audrey could figure this out and the girl has absolutely no formal education. She does have common sense though. Makes me think of something from the Bible - roughly that man as he glories in his knowledge, is lost in foolishness.
Anyway, I'll move along. Enjoy New Years Eve.
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