#48387: — 11/11  at  11:35 AM
Hmmmm. Interesting for birders, but as a general idea about
island evolutionary patterns, how is this different from the conclusions by Hampton Carson and his students about the evolutionary radiation of the Hawaiian fruit flies?

Their genetic tracing shows many instances of speciations extending back to the parent island.

True, this did not involve continents, but a 200-mile ocean barrier is pretty big for a fly.

Am I missing something?

#48396: GrrlScientist — 11/11  at  12:07 PM
this is from Rob, the co-author;

Its true, species do re-invade the geographic areas of their ancestors. However, the point with the monarchs is that they re-colonized continental areas, not other islands. The complexity of continental faunas and ecosystems is the proposed barrier to island species' successfully re-colonizing them, not the distance.

GrrlScientist

#48407: — 11/11  at  01:29 PM
Thanks, I guess I never got that out of Mayr, though I've read many of his books.

Given our sensitivity to introduciton of alien species out here in Hawaii, I guess I don't worry too much about the difficulty of species finding a home in a new environment.

Take the California tarweed. In Hawaii, it has speciated into 27 greenswords and silverswords. None of these has recolonized California, but their habitat requirements (from montane bogs to high deserts) are now so different from a tarweed's that I don't see how sympatry would raise a problem, if one managed to get back to California.

Since the colonization rate TO the islands is supposed to be something like once/250K years for plants (derived, in a probably inadequate way, from an overall colonization rate of 1/25,000 yrs, adjusted for 90% of native species being arthropods), I would expect the recolonization rate for any individual species to be really, really low.

I understand, the Hawaii-North America situation is unusual, and birds are not plants or insects, but still, I am going to have to think more about this.

I am not, in any way, questioning your friends' findings. To me, they seem completely expectable. What I'm trying to figure out is why they weren't expected.

Very interesting post. That's why I come here.

#48408: Mikko Sandt — 11/11  at  01:31 PM
Heh - have you got any Christians in your class who are afraid that you're assaulting their precious faith?

#48415: Jeremy — 11/11  at  02:43 PM
Mikko: You'd think they wouldn't be taking the class in the first place. There are college bio courses for those who need science for a gen ed requirement. I was considering taking Biology I (BIO-105) but was told that it's made up of Bio majors, so I took GREAT EXPERIMENTS IN BIOLOGY!!!!!1111eeleventeen

#48447: — 11/11  at  06:20 PM
On a different subject, why aren't liberal and pro-science blogs making a stink about yesterday's NPR report "Intelligent Design and Academic Freedom" by Barbara Bradley Hagerty? Everyone, including PZ is silent on this. Why NPR would have their religion correspondent (a fundie at that) cover a scientific issue is beyond me. I'm increasingly disgusted with NPR's coverage of science. It's worse than that of the NYT.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5007508

#48449: — 11/11  at  07:09 PM
Instapundit was persuaded by it, and he's anticreationist.

My problem was that she said Sternberg had that notorious paper peer-reviewed. I haven't had time to look, but wasn't that idea challenged? Here?

Or am I misremembering?

I suspect they had their religion correspondent cover it because it's a religious issue.

Usually Professor Myers objects that stories are balanced. He couldn't object to it on that grounds.

(But, hey, he's traveling. Maybe he didn't hear it. Can't explain the other silences. But give him a break. In sunny southern California.)

#48454: — 11/11  at  07:56 PM
Harry Eagar: I suspect they had their religion correspondent cover it because it's a religious issue.

It is ironic since ID is religion, that they would have their religion correspondent cover the issue. However, it was presented as scientists harassing other scientists who, poor things, just disagree with the prevailing paradigm in biology. As such, it was a scientific issue.

To put it in another way, if an editor who published a paper supporting astrology in an astronomy journal was ridiculed by scientists, should NPR hire an astrology correspondent to cover the "controversy"?

#48476: — 11/12  at  08:30 AM
Aris - wow that was really one sided. I can't believe they bought into Sternberg's story without doing any fact checking.

#48477: — 11/12  at  09:21 AM
Well swabs, you might be able to explain all your birds, butterflies, and silverswords away with evolution but you can't have any answers why Cro-Magnon suddenly appears on the poopdeck 150 thousand years ago swinging the sword. And that mates is the keelhaul.

#48478: Mikko Sandt — 11/12  at  09:57 AM
Off-topic: Now we have a real expert on biology and science, Pope Benedict XVI, an authority figure, speaking against evolution and atheism.

If Id-advocates really cared about the science part, why would they praise a bunch of gibberish coming out of the pope's mouth?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,175362,00.html

#48481: — 11/12  at  10:17 AM
Blackbeard ..you can't have any answers why Cro-Magnon suddenly appears on the poopdeck 150 thousand years ago

One could try to address your Cro-Magnon question directly, but what's really the point? If you don't like natural explanations then you'll always come up with one thing or another that you think science has not provide an answer for. You may be right or wrong on whether science has, as of right now, provided an explanation for any particular thing, but you'll still be unable to understand this simple truth: Not having a ready natural explanation for any phenomenon, does not mean the explanation has to be supernatural.

There are many questions that remain unanswered by science, but there isn't one single question that has ever been answered by mysticism.

#48538: — 11/13  at  10:02 AM
Aris..."There are many questions that remain unanswered by science, but there isn't one single question that has e'er been answered by mysticism."

Aye, lubber! but tis that one question that we all desire an answer to, "where did we come from?" science still has no ready answer, myths yes, and tis my guess that we will all go up in a astroid collision before science finds the real answer.

Some things can never be answered.

#48542: — 11/13  at  12:04 PM
"you can't have any answers why Cro-Magnon suddenly appears on the poopdeck "

Sure we have, but we wont bother to rise a cutlass in that direction. It's the old god of the gaps swinging aboard, and he will as always get stuck between the planks.

"Aye, lubber! but tis that one question that we all desire an answer to, "where did we come from?" science still has no ready answer, myths yes,"

If you call that an answer, take it and drop over the railing. It's but fool's gold. Why do you miss the real treasure of meaningful questions and answers? Maybe if you remove one of those eye patches you can find it.

#48545: — 11/13  at  12:46 PM
[QUOTE]Usually Professor Myers objects that stories are balanced. He couldn't object to it on that grounds. [/QUOTE]

Bollocks. They let von Sternberg say what he he claims *not* to be (creationist, etc), but they didn't investigate either the truth of that claim, or what he *does* claim to be: a 'process structuralist' (ostensibly as per Brian Goodwin) yet curiously, one who seems to have a strong 'tropism' for ID conferences and thinkers. 'Process structuralism', btw, gets my vote as the next candidate for rhetorical flimflammery, once 'intelligent design' gets too tainted and joins 'scientific creationism' in the dustbin of history. As far as I can tell (and it ain't easy) PS isn't *necessarily* ID, but it's sufficiently abstruse to provide good cover for it.

I'm guessing PZ simply hasn't checked out the story yet. He should. And the rest of us should be writing pointed letters to NPR asking why a religion correspondent , quoted as saying that she measures her work by what Jesus would think of it, is covering a story about people who claim NOT to be motivated by religion.