Straydog
18th May 2010, 20:29
From “the abc news” in Norway
“Evolutionary biologists have never been properly agreed on what triggers the formation of new species.
A common explanation in the old days was that it happened gradually: Natural selection gives rise
to small changes that gradually accumulate such that new species can be identified.
Another explanation has been that species formation mostly takes place in periods when it
on major changes in the ecosystem. New niches are filled when the new species that thrive in the
changing environment.
A third explanation is that new species arise as a result of completely random events.
Now a group of British and American researchers compared these explanatory models,
and the results of the survey are published these days in the research journal Nature.
The results of the study are striking: In 78 percent of the cases it turns out that pure
coincidence is the best explanation for the formation of new species.
Such coincidences may be that a new mountain range is changing the landscape that a river
change or that a gene mutates.
The team is led by evolutionary biologist Mark Pagels University of Reading in
England and the Santa Fe Institute in the United States. (© NTB)”
Although it is not directly mentioned, I guess this opens slightly up for the theory of DNA being altered by radiation/influence from space etc . . .
“Evolutionary biologists have never been properly agreed on what triggers the formation of new species.
A common explanation in the old days was that it happened gradually: Natural selection gives rise
to small changes that gradually accumulate such that new species can be identified.
Another explanation has been that species formation mostly takes place in periods when it
on major changes in the ecosystem. New niches are filled when the new species that thrive in the
changing environment.
A third explanation is that new species arise as a result of completely random events.
Now a group of British and American researchers compared these explanatory models,
and the results of the survey are published these days in the research journal Nature.
The results of the study are striking: In 78 percent of the cases it turns out that pure
coincidence is the best explanation for the formation of new species.
Such coincidences may be that a new mountain range is changing the landscape that a river
change or that a gene mutates.
The team is led by evolutionary biologist Mark Pagels University of Reading in
England and the Santa Fe Institute in the United States. (© NTB)”
Although it is not directly mentioned, I guess this opens slightly up for the theory of DNA being altered by radiation/influence from space etc . . .