[Malk-a-mite]

Originally Posted by Mazer

Even though I don't put a lot of stock into the evolution theory I still study it to try to understand why other people believe in it.

"And now, as reported in the Tallahassee Democrat, there is direct evidence of evolution in Darwin's finches. These are the little birds to be found on the Galapagos Archipelago, on the equator in the Pacific. In the past 20 years, one species of the finch on one of the islands (Daphne) has moved in the direction of much smaller beaks. The reason is that another species invaded the island. This new species is much better at cracking and opening large seeds, and so the original group has now started to specialize on very small seeds.

What makes this latest finding very exciting is that the process whereby the finches are gaining smaller beaks - those that have smaller beaks get fed and survive and reproduce, and those with bigger beaks do not - is a classic example of the mechanism of natural selection. This is the idea first proposed by Charles Darwin in his "Origin of Species" in 1859, And what makes the finding doubly exciting is that it was these very Galapagos finches (and the mockingbirds, also to be found on the islands) that made Darwin into an evolutionist."

http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs...1/1006/OPINION