So which is happening at a faster rate, if either? 1. The rate at which new species are evoloving into other ones. 2. The rate at which species become extinct.
number 2 obviously for more complex species ....smaller organisms can evolve quicker but if when they go extinct is also difficult to determine...
After thirty years of runaway slash-and-burn exploitation of our natural resources by people who are deluded, either by Dominionist superstition or anarchocapitalist hubris to think that we shall suffer no discernable harm by cutting the last truffula tree, the second is probably the case, but, at the same time, pathenogens are evolving at an astounding rate in order to get around our over-use of antibiotics and to take advantage of the filth that we allow to enter our water supply.
Smaller generally means breed quicker. Since evolution is defined as genetic change within a gene pool over generations, less time between generations by definition means quicker evolution.
or just take four colors and tell me if it is easier to make orange, than a landscape which will evolve quicker?
Back to the OP. When there is a fairly stable habitat, it has usually fully occupied, so the opportunity for new species is low. There is the opportunity for stronger species to edge out weaker ones, reducing the number of species. Add in mans ability to destroy habitat, and transport (accidently or on purpose) invasive species, I suspect we are losing species faster than they are being created. Evolution really takes off after major dies offs, which we haven'thad in quite a while.
Species are usually extinct in big extinction events and new species are evolving to fill the gap . Although a species to be out-competed into extinction is a possibility i don't know of any such case and i am talking about competition that does not include humans cause humans use of technology is improving at a pace nature is unable to follow .
pacific islands have a number of native species that were destroyed by introduced species, rats, rabbits, pigs, goats etc...
This is human intervention too , there is no way domesticated animals and rats would have reached Indian ocean islands driving Dodo into extinction on their own .
This is a perfectly useful working definition that most biologists are happy to agree with. But the problem is that it's far too easy to observe (it happens all the time, actually) and so creationists don't like it (because they don't believe in speciation) and want the bar raised impossibly high. Luckily they're not scientists so they don't get to define the terms.
I read some of the Creationist nonscense - amazing what hoops some people will have an omnipotent God jump through, in the name of faith.
It's a serious field. it wouldn't be much a scientific theory if you could describe it in completely in a few sentences. And it's brief compared to mathematics.
Of course it is a serious field. But, unlike quantum physics, that is doing a reasonable job predicting subatomic particles, predicting the path of evolution it is almost impossible. The level of complexity is orders of magnitude higher in biology.
I don't see the two (path of evolution vs predicting particles) as being analogous but I'm not going to argue it. Biology, chemistry, geography....it's all really just physics, isn't it?
well that's wrong as well it only requires time those islands were populated with original species before humans arrived, humans only sped up the introduction process...S America was populated by monkeys from Africa a distance of 2,500 km away 39 million years before homo sapiens walked the earth...with time and luck life has colonized every corner of the globe without mans help, and late arriving species can and do eliminate previous species ...ice age animals with climate change crowed each other out competing for the same declining food supply, some survived some didn't...marsupials were replaced all over the globe except for a few species and in isolated regions by placental mammals millions and millions of years before man's arrival...
