Those who argue that evolution can’t be real because it’s not happening in our lifetime may possibly be enlightened or at least intrigued by this article from Smithsonian.
Assortative mating may be a mechanism for speciation. But, personally, I would not call it evidence of speciation. Otherwise men who like fat girls have to be considered a different species then men who like skinny girls.
Fat and skinny are ramifications of diet and exercise habits (or forced conditions). Your example is a poor excuse for an analogy.
Redheads and blondes.
Black skinned, white skinned.
People have preferences.
I read the article quickly. But I did not see that reproduction was impossible between these supposed species that were distinguished by assortative mating? Did I miss that? If so, then … sure, they are different species. But if not, then I’ll retain my opinion.
First let me point out that I am not an opponent of evolution although I am fully aware of the debate that has transpired throughout the decades. What opponents of evolution would say is that all this article does is show us more examples of “micro-evolution”, not “macro-evolution”. The essence of the debate pertains to whether or not mutations can produce significant beneficial morphological changes to skeletal structure, organs, musculature, etc., and that this mutant then is able to isolate itself from its current species and find a mate preferable with the same beneficial mutation. Even if that highly improbable scenario were to occur there are still many more obstacles would make survival of its progeny highly unlikely.
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I cannot answer your question.
It is possible for two different species to mate and produce hybrid offspring that differs from both parents…(i.e. a third party)
Lions and tigers can reproduce (I believe its offspring is called a Liger) but I don’t believe that its offspring can reproduce. But even there creationists who oppose naturalistic evolution would just look at that as micro-evolution.
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I believe in evolution and creation. The position that all was created in six days is not founded upon logic. It is allegorical.
To me, creation is an ongoing process and includes slow, methodical evolution.
The same applies to most mules.
I personally abandoned the Young Earth Creationist view many years ago, by and large I am agnostic on this issue as I recognize the scientific impossibility of proving or falsifying events that occured long ago and were not observed by any scientists.
How would you explain the presence of mutually dependent animals and plants?
Which came first…the flower whose nectar can only be accessed by a bird with a particularly shaped beak or the bird that has the properly shaped beak?
A creationist would likely say they were both blinked into existence by the creator. An evolutionist might say that they both developed over millions of years.
OK. Well I’ll just wait until someone does research to determine what evidence of speciation there is besides assortative mating. The slightly different appearances could simply turn out to be co-dominant traits of the same species.
I have no ax to grind against evolution theories and did acknowledge that assortative mating could indeed be one mechanism that leads to new and separate species. My only beef is with the use of assortative mating as evidence of speciation as opposed to being a candidate for a speciation mechanism.
On a side note…cichlids are really bright and alluring fish. And maybe they are ripe for evolution studies. But if I did evolution research, I would be studying the heck out of gouramis… fresh water fish that have been observed walking from puddle to puddle and having a lung-like organ.
That too is interesting. However, it does not imply that any study of any species, though it may last through several generations of dedicated scientists, will identify verifiable evolutionary changes in the species studied.
Until they can show one kind of creature becoming a different kind of creature all they’ve demonstrated is speciation within a given kind, what some call micro-evolution.
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“Naturalistic” is really the issue.
This is because in a very real sense naturalism and Naturialusm have kind of parted ways.
Let me explain: you may be familiar with criticism of Intelligent Design as not being scientific … and actually that’s correct.
Intelligent Design is a philosophical proposition: it is either the belief or the acquiescence to the possibility that a creator may be responsible for all that we see. Also, intelligent design accepts the theory of evolution and the long view of pre-history as valid.
But if intelligent design accepts evolution then why is there such a fuss about it?
It is because intelligent design is not the foil of evolution but, rather, the foil of Naturalism.
Philosophical Naturalism is the belief that everything in the universe exist, and would have existed, either apart from any supernatural cause or without the continued intervention of any supernatural cause. It is the philosophical construct that, at least before the rise of Intellegent Design, related applied science to athiesm or diesm respectively (which are forms of and approaches to “theological” truth). The first principals of Naturalism are not scientifically testable because they relate to a belief about God as a nonentity or as an uninvolved observer.
You may note that early Naturalism would have implicitly included the ideas like Intelligent Design. It was only later as the influence of Diesm waned and Athiesm waxed that it came to exclude the concept.
Naturalism having come to serve a particular viewpoint, like Intelligent Design, is not scientific. This is where I’ve come to loggerheads with folks in the past … having come across those who will actually go so far as to suggest that atheism (and only atheism) is scientific.
But, and here’s the rub, Naturalists have based their hopes on the science proving their world view correct. They cannot allow evolution to be neutral to their cause and accepting even the possibility of Intelligent Design accomplishes just that.
Intelligent Design would have been a nothing burger had naturalism not been co-opted to serve a function besides simply observing nature.
Evolution of a species does not imply the termination of one species and the creation of a new species. It manifests itself in the changing of a species.
One change discovered by archeologists is the average height of humans.
Of course… just like watching for new hominoids coming out of Appalachia 
I was thinking more of genetic analyses. Maybe it has already been done. Walking and breathing fish just seem begging for study.
But Evolution, in order to fulfill the role that Naturalism now demands of it, must in fact be a genuine departure to become something new. New information that isn’t mere variation or accumulated lethal / garbage DNA must come into being through mutation.
After all, it’s an observable fact that a man is not a simple microbe and there are very real and very improbable (they had to evolve in one step to not be a detriment to survival) adaptations which have irreducible complexity.
You may note that at some point the anecdotal stories (first used by Darwin) to describe what evolution had to accomplish (said stories glossing over the improbabilities) should give way to descriptions of how those actually happened … but THAT hasn’t occurred,
Don’t confuse micro-evolution with the sense of evolution that Naturalist need to have blindly accepted as a fact because the science now serves the philosophy rather than coexisting with it.
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Again… not an evolution skeptic …but I do love the application of science to increase our knowledge and understanding.
Anyone know where I can find the computer based simulation that provides evidence on the FEASIBILITY OF THE TIMETABLE to obtain the current diversity and complexity of species? Or put another way… based on the rules that are believed to govern speciation, and given some starting point in the past, what can one expect in 100 million years, 200, 300, 400, 500 million years or more. Does the computer results match the observed artifacts?
Very interested in this.