Evolution Article

[imported_elp6n]

<span style="color: #FFFFFF">This article outlines the kind of evolution that I believe truly exists. But despite the scientific evidence there are a fair share of folks that are still disbelievers. (I figured this was the most appropriate spot for posting this.)</span>

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - More than a hundred species of tiny land-breeding frogs in the Caribbean evolved from a single South American species that probably hitched a ride on a raft of vegetation and washed up on an island beach, according to scientists who spent decades collecting tissues from the colorful hoppers.

After years of field research in dense rain forests and remote caves to catalog and collect specimens of different frogs, recent advances in genetic technology enabled researchers to compare their DNA. What they found suggests a sea voyage by an egg-laying South American frog some 30 to 50 million years ago probably led to most of the Caribbean's terrestrial frogs.

"Nothing in the anatomy of these animals told any expert who has studied them over the last century that they were actually close relatives," biologist Blair Hedges, who directed the genetic research, said Saturday from his office at Pennsylvania State University.

By lining up the genetic codes of each species of the genus Eleutherodactylus side-by-side, Hedges said he found something he'd never suspected - the genes of almost all the 160 Caribbean frogs matched, and could be traced through thousands of generations to a single common ancestor.

Hedges and his research team sequenced and compared the DNA of roughly 300 species of frogs collected from South American, Central American and Caribbean forests to support their theory.

A previous theory proposed that frogs traveled across land bridges that linked the major Caribbean islands of Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico to South America until 70 million to 80 million years ago. Scientists also believed eastern and western Caribbean frogs had different ancestors.

But an analysis of the "molecular clock" in their genetic codes shows that both eastern and western Caribbean frogs diverged from a common ancestor more recently, said Hedges. A summary of his findings were published online this week in advance of Tuesday's print edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Richard Thomas, an amphibian expert from the University of Puerto Rico who was not involved in Hedges' research, described the study as "significant" and said the claim of a common ancestor for Caribbean frogs seemed "highly plausible" considering the number of genetic codes sequenced.

Understanding the frogs' ancestry and tracing their evolutionary history should help the conservation biologists who are charting their declines due to climate change, pollution and habitat destruction, Hedges said.

With some 90 percent of the Caribbean's original rain forests destroyed, biologists are racing to catalog what remains.

"Species we don't even know about are almost certainly fading away" in the Caribbean, where amphibians face rapidly diminishing habitats on some of the world's most isolated land masses, Thomas said.

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On the Net:

Proceedings of the National Academies of Science http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0611051104v1

[neutral88]

Please let Beenie Weenie in here to read this!!! [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif[/img]

[imported_elp6n]

He's not.. dagnabbit

[img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif[/img]

[Gotch]

I don't see how the findings outlined in the article support any sort of evolution? They were frogs, they migrated as frogs, they mutated and remained frogs, they are still frogs.

[imported_elp6n]

Mutation of one frog species over 50 million years into 160 different species is evolution.

Perhaps where our differences of opinion lie is in the basic definition of evolution. Mutation of the sustained variety is evolution. Evolution isn't this grand explosion of one species into another (such as fish into bird or other crazy things).
It's a very slow transitional change.
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Evolution: change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift. </div></div>

As for the other (probably most) popular argument:
Do I myself think we are direct descendents of apes? No. (There's no proof yet)
But I do believe the genus homo has experienced evolution over millions of years.

For those interested, the National Geographic has an interesting article on bats this month. It discusses the evolution of bats that created the fruit eaters, nectar eaters, bug eaters, meat & blood eaters.

[Gotch]

I don't agree that is evolution. In fact it is a word play by evolutionists to call mutation (which is proven and in evidence) evolution, because actual evolution (which is necessary for the evolutionary theory to be true) is not proven nor in evidence.

That is an example of mutation which for sake of argument can be called micro-evolution, but that is not a scientific term. Technically it is mutation. Mutation does not equal evolution.

[imported_elp6n]

And my opinion is that sustained mutation is evolution
Matter of differing opinions here. I'm making my statement, you're making yours, neither of us will change sides. [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif[/img]

[imported_Counts]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Mutation does not equal evolution. </div></div>

Mutation in itself is not evolution BUT you have to have mutation in order to have evolution along with enviromental factors that favor a mutation over the same crecher without that mutation

[imported_elp6n]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Counts</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> <div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Mutation does not equal evolution. </div></div>

Mutation in itself is not evolution BUT you have to have mutation in order to have evolution along with enviromental factors that favor a mutation over the same crecher without that mutation

</div></div>
Exactly! That why I refer to sustained mutation.
A single mutated tadpole isn't evolution - it could be a screw up to die off and have no benefit to the species. But a single mutated tadpole whose mutation poses benefits, and creates more tadpoles of that kind because it survives better - that's the beginning of evolution.

[Gotch]

No.....in the end you have to have that species to species leap for the evolutionary theory to be correct. The only means by which evolution can explain the variety of species is untold numbers of species to species leaps. We have no real evidence of that ever happening. In fact the evidence suggests otherwise.

A species can mutate till the cows come home but until the cows turn into something other than cows you still have nothing but inter-species mutation, which does not explain the variety of species and which is not evolution.