AevnsGrandpa:
In this most basic sence you can not prove evolution as you can not do it in experimentation or observe it in nature right now.
I look forward to you reply!
Jeff
Actually it’s already been done. Normally I just supply the link but there’s something here that I need to show so that folks see exactly how the creaking creationist cacophonists operate.
Here’s the announcement of macro evolution in the lab:
News & Events - 21 June 2006
The Surprising Origins of Butterfly Species
Experts have long admired it as one of the planet’s most beautiful creatures … now it seems that the enchanting Heliconius heurippa butterfly also has a colourful past. A new paper in Nature journal shows that the exquisitely-marked South American species is the product of an evolutionary process which many scientists did not consider possible. The research has been carried out by scientists at the University of Edinburgh, Universidad de los Andes in Colombia and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.
Heliconius heurippa butterfly.
Photographs taken by Juan Gillermo Monta és and production by Mauricio Linares.
The study shows that unlike most species, which are formed by gradually diverging from one another over successive generations, these distinctive red and yellow butterflies have been produced out of ‘second hand parts’ from two existing species. The paper shows that the H. heurippa is a product of a process called hybrid speciation, which sees the genes of existing species combine to produce a new species – rather like a new bike being built from second hand ones. The study is significant because it suggests that hybrid speciation – although known in plants – may be more important to the animal world than was previously thought.
It is commonly thought that evolution occurs when new and favourable genetic variants appear in a population. As two populations evolve apart in this way, a new species eventually develops. Hybrid speciation is thought to be rare, or even unknown, in animals because hybrids are generally less ‘fit’ (able to thrive) than their parents. Much as the different parts of two bikes often don’t work well together, genes from different species are similarly incompatible. The best known example is the mule – a sterile hybrid between the donkey and the horse, which is useful for carrying heavy loads but a reproductive dead-end.
What is striking about the Edinburgh study is that researchers have managed to recreate the H. heurippa hybrid in the laboratory by crossing two other species of butterfly. It might sound a bit Frankenstein-esque, but these hybrids are, in fact, found in the wild, in Venezuela and Colombia – which demonstrates that hybrid speciation is the most likely route by which H. heurippa itself arose. Unlike the mule, H. heurippa is an animal hybrid that has brought together a new combination of genes that are fit enough to result in a new species.
Scientists say H. heurippa’s evolutionary success can be attributed to its rapidly evolving wing patterns, which warn potential predators that this particular species is bad to eat. If an individual butterfly has the same wing pattern as every other butterfly in the population, then local predators only have to learn to avoid one pattern, making it easier for the new hybrid pattern to get established.
But Chris Jiggins, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Biological Sciences, says there is another key reason it has succeeded in becoming a distinct species: "Butterflies tend to choose partners that look like themselves, as they are attracted to others with wing patterns similar to their own. So, once the new pattern was established, these individuals have tended to mate with one another and shunned their parental species.
"In experiments with coloured models, we have demonstrated that both the red and yellow elements found in the H. heurippa pattern are necessary for the males to start courtship. The study shows that all the hybrid elements of the pattern are necessary for mating, and hence play a role in keeping H. heurippa as a species distinct from its parents."
The UK component of the research was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council with support from The Royal Society.
Now here's the creationist response:
Butterfly Evolution?
Jul 18, 2006
Frank Sherwin
The media has been increasingly alive with stories touted as proof for Darwinian evolution. Much has recently been written regarding the discovery of new animal and plant species and secular scientists' unearthing of missing links from the fossil record.
Recently, evolutionists have claimed a South American species of butterfly,
Heliconius heurippa, was "created." But this new species hardly refutes divine creation.
What researchers have created is a hybrid butterfly whose genes and color are blends of two other Heliconius species, but the new butterfly is still a butterfly. This hybridization is clearly not macroevolution; it is subspeciation or variation within the butterfly kind. Producing a butterfly from two non-butterflies would prove macroevolution. Those skeptical of neo-Darwinian claims are still waiting for such major changes.
Hybridization (mating between divergent populations) has never been contrary to the creation model; it is common in plants, can be done in the lab or wild, and has nothing to do with real evolution (also known as macroevolution).
Was this an example of "evolution in action"? Of course not. Some of the best and brightest entomologists, with time and funding, were engaged in a direct attempt to produce a lab hybrid. No one should be surprised when they were successful. They produced a butterfly of the genus
Heliconius from two butterflies, both belonging to the genus
Heliconius.
What about the origin of the Lepidoptera (moths & butterflies)? A recent book on insect evolution,
Evolution of the Insects, states on page 556 that Lepidoptera wings and scales have been found in Early Jurassic rock, perhaps 200 million years ago according to evolutionary thinking. So, the first time we find fossilized evidence of Lepidoptera, the fossil is 100% Lepidoptera, as the creation model states.
Man cannot create anything. That ability lies with only God, the Creator. Man can make something from existing materials, like a new butterfly subspecies
Please note the bold text above which I new repeat:
What researchers have created is a hybrid butterfly whose genes and color are blends of two other Heliconius species, but the new butterfly is still a butterfly. This hybridization is clearly not macroevolution; it is subspeciation or variation within the butterfly kind.
Here’s the science part: In experiments with coloured models, we have demonstrated that both the red and yellow elements found in the H. heurippa pattern are necessary for the males to start courtship. The study shows that all the hybrid elements of the pattern are necessary for mating, and hence play a role in keeping H. heurippa as a species distinct from its parents.
So what was done in the lab was to reproduce a speciation event that had occurred in the wild. Laboratory proof, experimental proof of macroevolution through hybridization. Sure, they’re all butterflies, but they are reproductively isolated as a result of their DNA, thus a new species using any definition of species that one might want.
GAME - SET - MATCH
