[CS] Recommended: "Darwin was right - again"

[edj03 at hampshire.edu]

edj03 at hampshire.edu recommends this article from The Christian Science Monitor

"There is no 'evolution versus creationist' scientific controversy. It's a political and philosophical controversy. Yet evolutionary biology has plenty of genuine scientific controversy."
GREAT POINT.  Let's teach the controversy.  Let's teach the ongoing scientific controversy of how evolution works.  Whether or not evolution is a reality is a case that is closed.

======================= ADVERTISEMENT ==============================

Sign up for the Monitor Treeless Edition!
http://www.csmonitortreeless.com?dmc=E35W191

==================================================================== 

Click here to read this story online:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0209/p17s01-stss.html

Headline:  Darwin was right - again
Byline:  Robert C. Cowen 
Date: 02/09/2006

Critics of evolution cite scientific debates to undercut Darwin's 
credibility. That strategy fails when research clears up some of the 
issues. Results from two separate research projects announced this week 
make that point.

They deal with Darwin's controversial suggestion that new species can 
arise within an ancestral population even when there is no way to 
separate the diverging groups geographically.

There's plenty of evidence that new species arise when segments of a 
single population become geographically separated, as Darwin also 
theorized. His other suggestion has lacked such evidence. It has 
remained what Axel Meyer and his colleagues at the University of 
Konstanz in Germany call "one of the most controversial concepts in 
evolutionary biology."

They present in the journal Nature what they consider "a convincing 
case" that Darwin was right.

They found their proof in Nicaragua's isolated volcanic crater Lake 
Apoyo. There, two species of cichlid fish - Midas cichlid and Arrow 
cichlid - live together. Detailed genetic, morphological, and 
ecological study confirms their relationship as separate species that 
evolved from a common ancestor. They live separate lives in the same 
geographical space. Misas feeds along the bottom. Arrow exploits the 
open water. The two do not interbreed.

The researchers explain why they are convinced that the two species did 
not evolve elsewhere and then invade the lake after it formed about 
23,000 years ago. Once the ancestral population was established, 
however, evolution progressed rapidly.

The team estimates that the new species appeared in less than 10,000 
years - a blink of the eye in geological time.

Vincent Stavolainen at Britain's Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew and nine 
fellow scientists find what they call "clear support" for Darwin's idea 
in palm trees on Lord Howe Island 600 miles east of Australia.

Two species of the trees live side by side. The scientists find it 
"highly unlikely" that they evolved while geographically separated. 
There is strong reason to conclude that they evolved from a common 
ancestor without geographical separation.

The two species appear to have gone separate ways because they flower 
at different times. This may originally have been due to differences in 
local soil conditions. In their report on Nature's online publication 
site, the researchers say the flowering times of the two species 
correlate with their soil preferences.

In the case of Lake Apoyo, the differences in the feeding habits of the 
fish may have provided the opportunity for those two species to diverge.

There's a larger lesson in this scientific nitty-gritty. It's taken 
more than a century and a half to resolve what, for scientists, was an 
important controversy. Patient research finally paid off.

Proponents of creationism theories plead that high school science 
classes should "teach the controversy." They have a point, although it 
is not the point they think they are making. There is no "evolution 
versus creationist" scientific controversy. It's a political and 
philosophical controversy. Yet evolutionary biology has plenty of 
genuine scientific controversy.

If schools taught that kind of controversy and how patient research can 
eventually resolve it, classroom science would be enriched.





(c) Copyright 2006 The Christian Science Monitor.  All rights reserved. 

Click here to email this story to a friend: 
http://www.csmonitor.com/cgi-bin/send-story?2006/0209/p17s01-stss.txt

The Christian Science Monitor-- an independent daily newspaper providing context and clarity on national and international news, peoples and cultures, and social trends.  Online at http://www.csmonitor.com

Click here to order a free sample copy of the print edition of the Monitor: 
http://www.csmonitor.com/aboutus/sample_issue.html


======================= ADVERTISEMENT ==============================

Sign up to have the Monitor's headlines sent directly to your inbox.
http://www.csmonitor.com/email

====================================================================