Claim CB910.1:
Fruit flies have been mutated and bred in laboratories for generations,
but they are still fruit flies.
Source:
Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1985. Life--How Did It Get Here?
Brooklyn, NY, 104.
Response:
- Biological classification is hierarchical; when a new species evolves,
it branches at the very lowermost level, and it remains part of all
groups it is already in. Anything that evolves from a fruit fly, no
matter how much it diverges, would still be classified as a fruit fly,
a dipteran, an insect, an arthropod, an animal, and so forth.
- There are about 3,000 described species of fruit flies (family
Drosophilidae; Wheeler 1987). "Still fruit flies" covers a wide
range.
- Fruit flies do not remain the same species of fruit flies. Drosophila
melanogaster populations evolved reproductive isolation as a result of
contrasting microenvironments within a canyon (Korol et al. 2000).
We would not expect to see much greater divergence in historical
times.
References:
- Korol, A. et al., 2000. Nonrandom mating in Drosophila melanogaster
laboratory populations derived from closely adjacent ecologically
contrasting slopes at "Evolution Canyon." Proceedings of the National
Academy of Science USA 97: 12637-12642. See
also Schneider, C. J., 2000. Natural selection and
speciation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 97:
12398-12399.
- Wheeler, M. R., 1987. Drosophilidae. In: Agriculture Canada, Manual
of Nearctic Diptera, vol. 2, Hull, Quebec: Canadian Government
Publishing Centre. pg. 1011.
created 2003-8-20
