Hagbard Celine
Senior Member
dmp is talking about MACRO-evolution. Micro evolution is observable in the physical world. But macro-evo is harder to prove because nobody has yet determined how life originally sprang from pure elements.Harmageddon said:Direct evidence is I'm afraid nigh impossible, but indirect evidence for the occurence of evolution is numerous, if you are willing to make the leap of faith that is.
The ciclids of the Victoria Lake are one, Darwin's finches another, thought to speciate from a single ancestor, be it ciclid or finch, without competition and plenty of available "niches" = resource that is not yet taken by anything else or if taken, by an inferiour species, in other words: free for exploitation.
Islands in general give us a very intimite view of this speciation: a single species arrives, finds no or easy competition, and over time speciates/evolves into numerous subspecies that take advantage of all the available resources. Instead of an Island full of one particular species of finch, competing for the same resource, the mechanism of selection pressured them into finding alternatives rather than compete each other to the death.