Speciation: Is It Observable?

From the Mailbag:

I’ve been reading your posts on evolution.  How do you respond when people tell you that there is no observable evidence that species can be created by evolution?

This claim is put forward in various forms by the likes of Answers in Genesis and Ben Stein.

But it’s patently false, and anybody who tries it on should simply be called a liar or ignorant.

Speciation has been observed many, many times. 

Check out this rather impressive case: ten lizards introduced into an island habitat developed several new traits, including changes to the gut and jaw and larger heads.  They also developed cecal valves that slow down the passage of food to facilitate necessary vegetarianism.

Then too, fruit fly populations differentiate so rapidly that within less than 50 generations, separated colonies cannot interbreed. 

Recently a new species of sparrow has evolved and been genetically verified.

“Ah,” say my baraminologist friends.  “Small changes.  We can account for that.  God created types, like birds and cats, and they have varied since then.”

Welllll….. we can get into that if you like.

My favorite response is that of scientist Phil Senter, who showed that you can use baraminologists’ techniques to show that the morphology across species is pretty constant.  In other words, their types, or baramins, don’t represent discrete units of creation, as they pretend: but if they do, they actually present us with yet stronger evidence that evolution is true.  You should read about it here: Senter deserves some sort of award for doing this with a straight face.

There are two kinds of believers in God: those who allow their beliefs to change to better correspond to facts, and those who twist facts to support their beliefs.   The second kind can count on their children losing either their faith or their intellectual honesty fairly rapidly when they get off to college.