July 17, 2006

• Oh, the clever, Geospiza fortis! His little beak today is at its shortest. The Western budgie may not budge an inch; Not so this canny, still-evolving finch! "It happened very fast," says Peter Grant, "So he can eat the seeds that big birds can't." The weather changed in the Galapagos, Favoring offspring with a smaller nose. I wish I could so quickly cure my ills, And find myself with much, much smaller bills!
• Well it's been a while since I read it but The Beak of the Finch made a pretty good case for evolution.
• Cheeky little beaky. A new niche plus isolation is a step toward evolution. Darwin rocks.
• Still evolving? Why would anyone think evolution would ever stop?
• Because that's what the BIBLE says, you sin-humping piece of athiest scum.
• some suspect geospiza fortis, with its tiny wee proboscis, is failing in its speciation resulting in mere deviation.
• Evolving or just re-arranging the finch is an adaptive changling. Who knows what size they might have chose if elephants could pick their nose.
• Speciation is a false dichotomy created to let people grapple with diversity, if you never drew boundaries you'ld never be able to communicate. But you'll never see it, its a false goal; you'll just see more and more differences accumulating. One of those differences will be the inability to interbreed (often times a signal that we should consider populations speciated). And we've seen that. So what more do you want? Selective pressure causes heritable changes in morphology. You'ld be a fool to deny it. And thats evolution.
• Evolution plus fruition trump religious superstition.
• Who knows what size they might have chose if elephants could pick their nose. I JUST got that. *smacks noggin*
• take it to the next thread, TUM.
• This thread rocks!
• hee hee, Youzez poets!
• Still evolving? Why would anyone think evolution would ever stop? Duh! If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, IT DOES NOT MAKE A SOUND. Humanity is the definition of all things.
• So size is important and the birds with small beaks are at an advantage when it comes to getting dates with chicks? Whoda thunk it!
• What a coincidence, so are we! High five, finches! (What do you mean you don't have hands? Evolve some!)
• Here's a nice little piece which mentions the finches, and other examples of unspeciation events.
• when there's pressure to adapt you adapt or you get zapped look at it any way you will man and finches pay the bill
• The complete works of Darwin online, "the largest collection of Darwin's writings ever assembled", from Cambridge University.
• Excellent find, Abiezer _Coppe - )))!!!
• It was linked on the BBC bees, so I claim no credit :)
• Finding an answer to Darwin's Dilemma
• Finch filchers caught entering US from Canada.
• Does evolution select for faster evolvers?
• Humanity is the definition of all things. So succinctly, wryly true. Drop your Linneans and start your grinneans.
• You realise I was wearing my Sarcasmo shirt that day, right?
• Galapagos Islands 'facing crisis'
• You realise I was wearing my Sarcasmo shirt that day, right? Sarcasmo or Sarcastro?
• You realise I was wearing my Sarcasmo shirt that day, right? Yeah, I did nunia, but it is true, not that it makes a difference to anything that isn't human.
• An Evolutionary Explanation for Altruism A Brief History of the Superorganism Part Two
• The altrusim thingy makes perfect sense, especially in primates who singly, tended be be good snacks for the tootheir-clawier beasts.
• Scientists say they have seen one of the fastest evolutionary changes ever observed in a species of butterfly.
• In Games, an Insight Into the Rules of Evolution
• Goodbye Selfish-Gene: A New Upheaval in the Science of Human Behavior
• Humans are pack animals. We live and die in herds. The group provides the individual with the means of physical and psychological survival. We need the group as much as the group needs us. It's a fair trade that's been evolving for millions of years. I had no idea that this was ever in question.
• The complete article is here (scroll down past the Salon piece).
• Humans Evolving More Rapidly Than Ever, Say Scientists
• New Evolution Findings About Humanity, not Races
• Is Homosexuality an Evolutionary Step Towards the Superorganism?
• Stop following me!
• Evolution as Biological Thermodynamics
• Superorganism as Window Into Complexity and Evolution
• Evolution Gets a Boost: No Cost for Complexity
• The Complexity of Evolution
• Lizards Rapidly Evolve After Introduction to Island
• The Future of Man--How Will Evolution Change Humans?