More evidence that Darwin's theory of natural selection as the origin of new species is wrong
From Jane Harris-Zsovan's recent story at Design of Life blog:
Darwin's theory of natural selection requires offspring to diverge from a common ancestor to create new species. It requires genetic differences to increase as descendants adapt to their environmental niches.
It is this 'natural selection' and 'adaptation' that creates species. And, as the newly created species continue to adapt, they should become more different over time. Following this line of thought, hybrids should be less viable than their parents.
Not only is there evidence that natural selection oscillates over time, but some hybrids, in both plant and animal kingdoms, are better suited to their environments than their parents.
In the case of the Darwin's finches, even the 'purebred' finch populations show little tendency to sustain changes in size or shape of their beaks over the long term. This scenario is exactly what Darwinian theory doesn't predict.
For more go here.
Oleary, I think you are wrong on this...
Denyse, this article seems like a muddle to me: Both ID proponents and Evolutionists accept the notion that regardless of whether a speciation event occurs two mutually isolated descendant populations will undergo genetic drift. Given sufficient time they will genetically drift apart. That is not controversial.
Also the concept of Hybrid Vigor (Hetrosis) has been well understood by geneticists for a long time. Your description is not strictly true as they hybrid offspring of two different parents are not always stronger - they are sometimes substantially weaker (less well adapted for the environment), and occasionally infertile.
You will find that ID proponents and Evolutionists offer exactly the same explanation for this phenomena:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_vigor
I'd advise my fellow ID proponents to dis-regard the claims in this article. Denyse, I'd advise you to spend more time familiarizing yourself with basic genetics - this kind of article can only harm the reputation of ID.
Respectfully,
Bob