Examples of Sudden Speciation! (Plants too!)

Rational means the product of thought, not the ability to think. The process of evolution demonstrates that it is rationally structured, as opposed to random, which indicates that it is the product of thought.

Computers and other machines are rationally structured, even though they are not conscious and cannot think.

Humans are rational in that they use their minds to think constructively, which generally means to follow the laws of the universe which are moral as well as physical. It is their thoughts that make them rational, not their actions.

We cannot really separate ourselves into physical and rational or mental beings. The physical and the rational are complementary, not in isolation or opposition.

@Relates, very nice. It doesn’t really address the question… but it sounds nice.

You write:

So… here you are jumping around again. Using that definition, Evolution-without-God, is obviously not the product of thought… and so Evolution-without-God would not be rational.

@T_aquaticus, do you remember why we are even disputing this?

Are there natural processes you consider to be non-random but not the product of thought? As mentioned earlier, rivers move in non-random directions in that they always go downhill. Does this mean they are the product of thought?

So evolution has thoughts?

What I initially disputed was the idea that evolution is directed in some detectable way. @Relates seemed to indicate that beneficial mutations were created in response to specific environmental cues as in the case of E. coli in Lesnki’s experiment.

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Natural laws like gravity are the product of thought. Gravity along with other rational things produces rivers. Therefore rivers are the result or product of thought.

Evolution is a rational process designed by a rational Creator to produce rationally designed creatures to live in a rationally designed universe.

Processes do not have thoughts to be rationally designed. Again having thoughts does not make one rational, but only makes rationality possible. Not all humans who can think rationally, do think rationally.

If I am understanding you correctly, the process of evolution is no different than any other natural process when it comes to being rational, correct?

I would certainly like to see your reasoning behind this conclusion, but that will probably take us even further off topic, so I will leave it there.

@Relates

The question put to you was: by what means do you explain Godless-Evolution as a rational process. @T_aquaticus gave you a perfect avenue of explanation: because it follows natural law, it can be explained - - and so it is rational.

Did you ever say, yes, that’s how you see it too?

With all your linguistic wiggling and weaving, it is very difficult to get a clear image of what exactly you are thinking. It really isn’t that complex a question.

You hypothetically called Evolution-without-God a rational process. There’s really only one way to do that, and that’s the way @T_aquaticus has proposed.

Thank you @gbrooks9 for citing a paper I co-authored on Mimulus peregrinus.

See also Tragopogon miscellus and T. mirus for speciation within the last century:

Marion Ownbey. “Natural hybridization and amphiploidy in the genus Tragopogon.” American Journal of Botany (1950): 487-499.

Richard J. A. Buggs, Linjing Zhang, Nicholas Miles, Lu Gao, Wei Wu, Patrick S. Schnable, W. Brad Barbazuk, Pamela S. Soltis and Douglas E. Soltis (2011) Transcriptomic shock generates evolutionary novelty in a newly formed, natural allopolyploid plant Current Biology 21:551-556

Richard J. A. Buggs, Natalie M. Elliott, Linjing Zhang, Jin Koh, Lyderson F. Viccini, Douglas E. Soltis and Pamela S. Soltis (2010) Tissue-specific silencing of homoeologs in natural populations of the recent allopolyploid Tragopogon mirus New Phytologist 186: 175-183

All very nice examples of speciation.

You’re welcome. :sunglasses::hibiscus:

Thanks to you both!

@RichardBuggs:

Well, I sure didn’t see that coming! Level with your audience here … Can you tell us that you don’t get any wild complaints from Creationists when you publish an article that specifically discusses Evolution and the formation of species?

The fact these are plant species might soften the blow … but I’m sure you can imagine the volume of visits BioLogos gets from people who simply state, without any hesitation:

1) there’s no such thing as Evolution…
2) Speciation is logically impossible.

What do you tell a Creationist who says things like that?

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I thought I would pull what I thought were noteworthy sections from your article on “Speciation by genome Duplication” !!! - - published in the Evolution journal!

Evolution. 2015 Jun; 69(6): 1487–1500.
Published online 2015 May 27. doi: 10.1111/evo.12678
PMCID: PMC5033005

Speciation by genome duplication: Repeated origins and genomic composition of the recently formed allopolyploid species Mimulus peregrinus

Mario Vallejo‐Marín, Richard J. A. Buggs, Arielle M. Cooley, et al.

This article has been corrected. See Evolution. 2016 March; 70(3): 740.
This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.

Abstract
Whole genome duplication (polyploidization) is a mechanism of “instantaneous” species formation that has played a major role in the evolutionary history of plants. Much of what we know about the early evolution of polyploids is based upon studies of a handful of recently formed species. A new polyploid hybrid (allopolyploid) species Mimulus peregrinus, formed within the last 140 years, was recently discovered on the Scottish mainland and corroborated by chromosome counts.

Here, using targeted, high‐depth sequencing of 1200 genic regions, we confirm the parental origins of this new species from M. x robertsii, a sterile triploid hybrid between the two introduced species M. guttatus and M. luteus that are naturalized and widespread in the United Kingdom.

We also report a new population of M. peregrinus on the Orkney Islands and demonstrate that populations on the Scottish mainland and Orkney Islands arose independently via genome duplication from local populations of M. x robertsii…

From your concluding page!

It is therefore hard to predict the long‐term evolutionary trajectory of M. peregrinus.

On the one hand, each population currently has limited genetic diversity, which as with all neoallopolyploids may represent a serious challenge to the ability of these taxa to respond to changing environments (Levin 2002). On the other hand, its multiple origins and apparent rapid genome evolution could provide the variation that it needs to become a successful species (Modliszewski and Willis 2012; Soltis et al. 2014).

Whether it will remain a short‐lived scientific curiosity like the allotetraploid Senecio eboracensis (Lowe and Abbott 2004), which is now extinct in the wild,

or spread well beyond its place of origin like allopolyploid S. anglica (Ainouche et al. 2009) remains to be seen.

@RichardBuggs,

Thank you for your papers which are very interesting, and your participation in the discussion.

I hope that you will respond to a question that this your paper brings up. What is the basic trigger for evolution, genetic change or ecological change?

If I understand you paper correctly you found that species of plants were able to “migrate” to different, but similar environments where they adapted and became a new species. The change in environment caused the changes that led to the new species.

Am I correct? Is evolution by ecology the basic pattern of evolution?

@gbrooks9

Evolution is evolution. There is no evolution without God, because God exists and God created and implements evolution through nature. Now admittedly there many people, who are dualists, apparently like yourself who think that there are 2 realms, the physical and the metaphysical, and they are completely separate.

That is false. We don’t live in two worlds. We live in one world that includes the physical, the rational, and the spiritual.

Jacques Monod, a Nobel prizing winning biologist, wrote the book, Chance and Necessity, which claims that Nature cannot think, which is true. Therefore Nature is not rational and has no purpose and meaning, which is false.

I am taking an opposing view. Evolution and nature are demonstrably rational and have purpose and meaning. The only Source of this rationality must be the Creator of the universe, Who was assumed not to exist by Monod, an atheist. Monod accepted the fact that humans provide meaning and purpose to their creations.

The question is: Is the evolution/nature just subjectively rational or both subjectively and objectively rational? If God does not exist, then a rational objective Nature does not exist.

@T_aquaticus asked, “the process of evolution is no different than any other natural process when it comes to being rational, correct?”

Yes.

@Relates

Roger, have you had your coffee yet? The question that @T_aquaticus and I have been asking you is a hypothetical one regarding categorizing the rational vs. the non-rational.

We did not ask you if there is a God. We asked you how you would characterize Evolution if there was no God. Surely this was obvious.

If your next post says something like, “I can’t answer the question because I can’t imagine the Universe’s nature without God’s presence…” (or something like this), then discussion of this point would appear to be over…

At the very least, the conversation is done in terms of my participation.

Good luck, @T_aquaticus !

Cool! Thanks for the clarification!

Hi George, I tell them that they are mistaken.

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That sounds pretty quotable, @RichardBuggs!!! Thank you !

Hi Roger, we could have a very long conversation about this. I would have to ask you a few questions to fully understand what you are asking, and then I think we would be discussing some pretty big issues that do not have simple answers. Some of these are touched on in detail in the context of polyploidy in this paper that I co-authored:

Douglas E. Soltis, Richard J. A. Buggs, Jeff J. Doyle and Pamela S. Soltis (2010) What we still don’t know about polyploidy Taxon 59: 1387-1403

I am afraid that I am putting a lot of time into one of the other discussions on this forum at the moment, so won’t have time to engage at length on this issue.

best wishes
Richard

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