8 Responses to “Does Pervasive Sympatry Strengthen the FLE Hypothesis?”

1. Krauze Says:
   March 10th, 2006 at 10:07 am

   Hi Bipod,

   You know, when I first read the title, I thought you asked if pervasive sympathy strengthened FLE.

   Misreadings aside, I doubt that these studies change much with regards to FLE. Consider the first example mentioned by the Science article:

   It's not often that one witnesses speciation in action, but some birdwatchers in Africa may be having that privilege. Michael Sorenson, an evolutionary ecologist at Boston University, and Robert Payne of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, have monitored African indigobirds at a field site in Cameroon for the past decade. The opportunistic birds lay their eggs in the nests of different species of finches. The newborn indigobirds then look and act as if they belong there, and as adults, incorporate the twills and whistles of their foster parents into their own mating calls.

   Recently, the researchers observed one species, called the blue indigobird, lay eggs in the nests of both the African firefinch and the Black-bellied firefinch. The resulting indigobirds learned the songs of their respective finches and now seem to have developed into two "races." Although all the blue indigobirds can still mate with one another–which means the races are not yet distinct species–females prefer suitors who know the same finch song they do. And they pass their preferences on: Female indigobirds that grow up in an African firefinch nest, for example, tend to lay eggs in the same kind of nest rather than in one belonging to a Black-bellied firefinch. "We have a nice example of early stages of speciation in this group," concludes Sorenson.

   In other words, indigobirds lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, where the indigochicks learn the calls of their foster parents. One species of indigobird is parasitizing two species, causing the indigochicks to learn different calls. And since indigobirds prefer mates whose mating call sound like their own, there's a possibility that the mating barrier will lead to speciation.

   These are standard studies on the ecological aspects of speciation, like the ones the neo-Darwinian synthesis was built on in the 30s. Apart from the mating barrier being cultural instead of genetic, the scenario is analogous to Richard Dawkins' hypothetical scenario about widow birds choosing mates based on tail length in The Blind Watchmaker from 1986.

Comment by Krauze — March 10, 2006 @ 10:07 am

2. bipod Says:
   March 10th, 2006 at 10:21 am

   Krauze,
   You are right.

   So let me move into the world of abstraction for a second. Do you think that FLE would predict higher rates of sympatric evolution than neo-darwinian theories or not necessarily?

Comment by bipod — March 10, 2006 @ 10:21 am

3. Krauze Says:
   March 10th, 2006 at 10:59 am

   Hi Bipod,

   On the topic of perverse sympathy:

   "Do you think that FLE would predict higher rates of sympatric evolution than neo-darwinian theories or not necessarily?"

   I don't think that FLE has anything to say about the rates of sympatric speciation.

   To see this, we'll need to go over some history first. When the neo-Darwinian synthesis was being constructed as a scientific research program in the 1930s, it was heavily informed by ecological studies, such as those done by the young Ernst Mayr, as well as on the mathematics of population genetics developed by Fisher, Haldane, and Wright. This made sense at the time, but as adherents of evo-devo would point out a couple of generations later, the modern synthesis was focused on shifting allele frequencies and changing colors of plumage, which was insufficient to explain the origin of form - why do flies have six legs and a hard exoskeleton, while dogs have four legs and an inner skeleton?

   The discussion over sympatric versus allopatric speciation is an echo of the controversies fought by the founders of the synthesis (Mayr, in particular, took a hard stand against sympatric speciation, hence the newsworthiness of these studies), but when it comes to the questions that FLE tries to answer, the outcome doesn't matter all that much.

Comment by Krauze — March 10, 2006 @ 10:59 am

4. bipod Says:
   March 10th, 2006 at 2:38 pm

   Krauze,
   Consider FLE and neo-darwinian theory as models that explain evolutionary history. Do you agree with any of these statements:

   1. Throughout evolutionary history, certain events (very small and very large) have triggered evolutionary change.

   2. That under FLE, the space of potential triggers for evolutionary change is larger than the space under neo-darwinian theory (in other words, FLE incorporates neo-darwinian mechanisms, but adds some "unfolding" mechanisms as well)

   3. That the triggers for evolutionary change under FLE aren't necessarily as tightly bound to spatial location (an unfolding program, presumably, could have the capacity to be bound to arbitrary variables).

   The thought behind this post has been that FLE allows for (doesn't necessarily call for) a larger set of variables onto which evolutionary change might be bound.

Comment by bipod — March 10, 2006 @ 2:38 pm

5. johnnyb Says:
   March 10th, 2006 at 2:54 pm

   FYI -

   Kurt Wise has suggested the same thing in a YEC perspective:

   http://www.bryancore.org/bsg/o...

   See pages 7-11.

   Jon

Comment by johnnyb — March 10, 2006 @ 2:54 pm

6. Krauze Says:
   March 10th, 2006 at 7:10 pm

   Hi Bipod,

   "That the triggers for evolutionary change under FLE aren't necessarily as tightly bound to spatial location (an unfolding program, presumably, could have the capacity to be bound to arbitrary variables)."

   Sure, but whereas allopatric speciation is about adapting to a different spatial location*, sympatric speciation involves adaptation to something equally fickle, namely the characteristics of the population itself (mating calls, foraging habbits, etc.). If you don't think it's possible to predict what locations will exist billions of years after the design event, what makes you think you can predict the habbits of the evolved organisms?

   *) Stephen Jay Gould would say that speciation is a random event which has nothing to do with adaptation, but let's not make this discussion harder to follow than it already is.

   "The thought behind this post has been that FLE allows for (doesn't necessarily call for) a larger set of variables onto which evolutionary change might be bound."

   I agree with this, but sympatric speciations don't involve any concept not already known. No new tools have been added to the toolbox of evolution; the only thing we discovered was that one of the tools was used more frequently than we thought.

Comment by Krauze — March 10, 2006 @ 7:10 pm

7. Guts Says:
   March 10th, 2006 at 10:51 pm

   One thing I know with 100% certainty about FLE and Darwinian evolution is that the "alliance may so happy prove to turn [the] household rancor into pure love." —Act II, Scene V, William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. So to speak…

Comment by Guts — March 10, 2006 @ 10:51 pm

8. Rock Says:
   March 11th, 2006 at 4:14 pm

   "It's not often that one witnesses speciation in action… [and] Recently, the researchers observed one species"¦" and that is understood as indicating "pervasive sympatry"?! And sympatric speciation has something to do with the "FLE hypothesis," which has been noised about as much the minutes of the last meeting of the Illuminati.
   I don't think that anyone knows how "pervasive" sympatry is, although it is observed. And I'm sure I don't know what it has to do with the FLE hypothesis, because I don't know what that is!

   Development is "front-loaded" and a "teleological" process, and the relation of development to evolution has always intrigued evolutionary theorists (except the Neo-Darwinists, who rejected the relation, not "neglected" as revisionist historians have it).

   The mathematical theorists of Neo-Darwinism have written virtually nothing about the relation between development and evolution"”even as developmental and molecular biologists have become increasingly insistent that development is critical to an understanding evolution.
   How about a developmental (FLE-teleological) theory of speciation?

   There's been some interesting ground-work laid in the context of traditional theory by Truee & Haag, Hansen & Houle, Johson & Porter.

   These authors highlight some of the problems with tradition, such as it is.

   Is it about time for something new? Will the IDers or FLEers provide it? Contribute to it? Do anything?! Other than observe how they are "mislabeled"

Comment by Rock — March 11, 2006 @ 4:14 pm

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