http://evolutiondiary.com/2008/06/27/new-bird-family-tree-reveals-some-odd-ducks/ Darwinian Evolution News, Videos and Articles for Everyone Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:35:50 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://evolutiondiary.com/2008/06/27/new-bird-family-tree-reveals-some-odd-ducks/comment-page-1/#comment-3542 John Umana Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:39:42 +0000 http://evolutiondiary.com/2008/06/27/new-bird-family-tree-reveals-some-odd-ducks/#comment-3542 The June 2008 bird genetics study of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History (the Early Bird Assembling the Tree-of-Life Research Project) completely re-writes the avian evolutionary tree, and is stunning in its impact. The genetics study shows that, though they look alike, for example, falcons are not closely related to hawks or eagles. Several birds that look very different, including woodpeckers, hawks, owls and hornbills, are all closely related to perching birds. Flamingos, tropicbirds and grebes, all of which are closely related, did not evolve from water birds. Contrary to conventional wisdom, daytime hummingbirds evolved from drab nocturnal nightjars. Tropicbirds (white, swift-flying ocean birds) are not closely related to pelicans or other waterbirds. But perching birds, on the one hand, and parrots and falcons on the other, which do not look all that much alike, in fact descend from a recent common ancestor. Shorebirds are not a basal evolutionary group, which refutes the established view that all modern birds evolved from shorebirds. It is an understatement that appearances are deceiving. Birds that look or act similar are not necessarily related. Modern birds evolved relatively rapidly within a few million years during an explosive radiation, sometime between 65 million and 100 million years ago. The same is true of flower evolution. One day there are no flowers in the fossil record, and the next ‘day’ there are flowers, as Charles Darwin observed. Likewise, flowers that look alike are frequently not closely related. So how does this genome-scale phylogenetic evidence on avian evolution possibly jive with Darwinian gradualism, incremental changes over millions of years? It does not and cannot. Something else is going on to explain this planet’s remarkable biodiversity. The best hope to answer these questions is more and better science, not reliance on rote 19th century conjecture. Whatever the causative mechanism for bird or other biological evolution, what we’re finding is not ‘natural selection’ at work here. The June 2008 bird genetics study of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History (the Early Bird Assembling the Tree-of-Life Research Project) completely re-writes the avian evolutionary tree, and is stunning in its impact. The genetics study shows that, though they look alike, for example, falcons are not closely related to hawks or eagles. Several birds that look very different, including woodpeckers, hawks, owls and hornbills, are all closely related to perching birds. Flamingos, tropicbirds and grebes, all of which are closely related, did not evolve from water birds. Contrary to conventional wisdom, daytime hummingbirds evolved from drab nocturnal nightjars. Tropicbirds (white, swift-flying ocean birds) are not closely related to pelicans or other waterbirds. But perching birds, on the one hand, and parrots and falcons on the other, which do not look all that much alike, in fact descend from a recent common ancestor. Shorebirds are not a basal evolutionary group, which refutes the established view that all modern birds evolved from shorebirds. It is an understatement that appearances are deceiving. Birds that look or act similar are not necessarily related. Modern birds evolved relatively rapidly within a few million years during an explosive radiation, sometime between 65 million and 100 million years ago. The same is true of flower evolution. One day there are no flowers in the fossil record, and the next ‘day’ there are flowers, as Charles Darwin observed. Likewise, flowers that look alike are frequently not closely related. So how does this genome-scale phylogenetic evidence on avian evolution possibly jive with Darwinian gradualism, incremental changes over millions of years? It does not and cannot. Something else is going on to explain this planet’s remarkable biodiversity. The best hope to answer these questions is more and better science, not reliance on rote 19th century conjecture. Whatever the causative mechanism for bird or other biological evolution, what we’re finding is not ‘natural selection’ at work here.

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