[Agent Steel]

The evolution of one species into another has been observed. One example is the finches that Darwin observed on the Galapagos Islands, which when observed many years later, evolved (or split) into a new species.

As I understand it different species are separated by the fact that they cannot breed with each other. Well if that's true, common sense should tells us that speciation is impossible. If one species can never interbreed with another, and if one species only ever produces the same, then how do new species come into existence?

I'm assuming that it would require a lot of mutation. But still, I can't figure out or understand the full demonstration of how it actually happens. Can someone draw me an elaborate picture or point me to a resource that will show me how it works?

[Ter]

Let me try.
To settle the thoughts, consider a population of birds isolated on an island, like the Darwin finches. When they got to the island, they were identical to the species on the mainland.
As the conditions on the island were different and became more different over time, genes that code for example for a longer beak increase their frequency in the population and will reach 100 percent after some time because the longer beaks allow for more efficient feeding. The gene for shorter beak will reduce its frequency to zero because the bearer of that gene will not reproduce.
I used the example of the beak to keep it simple.
Similarly, a number of genes will arise through mutations or genetic variability and their frequency in the population will gradually become 100 percent if they are beneficial to the bearers. This gradually changes the species of birds on the island and after a long time the population is considered a new species, not being able to reproduce with its original population on the mainland. They will look different, have a different behaviour, and so on.

[Pants-of-dog]

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

[Decky]

What the hell has happened to you Albert?

1 In the beginning God created heaven and earth.

2 Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep, with a divine wind sweeping over the waters.

3 God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light.

4 God saw that light was good, and God divided light from darkness.

5 God called light 'day', and darkness he called 'night'. Evening came and morning came: the first day.

6 God said, 'Let there be a vault through the middle of the waters to divide the waters in two.' And so it was.

7 God made the vault, and it divided the waters under the vault from the waters above the vault.

8 God called the vault 'heaven'. Evening came and morning came: the second day.

9 God said, 'Let the waters under heaven come together into a single mass, and let dry land appear.' And so it was.

10 God called the dry land 'earth' and the mass of waters 'seas', and God saw that it was good.

11 God said, 'Let the earth produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants, and fruit trees on earth, bearing fruit with their seed inside, each corresponding to its own species.' And so it was.

12 The earth produced vegetation: the various kinds of seed-bearing plants and the fruit trees with seed inside, each corresponding to its own species. God saw that it was good.

13 Evening came and morning came: the third day.

14 God said, 'Let there be lights in the vault of heaven to divide day from night, and let them indicate festivals, days and years.

15 Let them be lights in the vault of heaven to shine on the earth.' And so it was.

16 God made the two great lights: the greater light to govern the day, the smaller light to govern the night, and the stars.

17 God set them in the vault of heaven to shine on the earth,

18 to govern the day and the night and to divide light from darkness. God saw that it was good.

19 Evening came and morning came: the fourth day.

20 God said, 'Let the waters be alive with a swarm of living creatures, and let birds wing their way above the earth across the vault of heaven.' And so it was.

21 God created great sea-monsters and all the creatures that glide and teem in the waters in their own species, and winged birds in their own species. God saw that it was good.

22 God blessed them, saying, 'Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the waters of the seas; and let the birds multiply on land.'

23 Evening came and morning came: the fifth day.

24 God said, 'Let the earth produce every kind of living creature in its own species: cattle, creeping things and wild animals of all kinds.' And so it was.

25 God made wild animals in their own species, and cattle in theirs, and every creature that crawls along the earth in its own species. God saw that it was good.

26 God said, 'Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves, and let them be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all the wild animals and all the creatures that creep along the ground.'

27 God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them, saying to them, 'Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all the living creatures that move on earth.'

29 God also said, 'Look, to you I give all the seed-bearing plants everywhere on the surface of the earth, and all the trees with seed-bearing fruit; this will be your food.

30 And to all the wild animals, all the birds of heaven and all the living creatures that creep along the ground, I give all the foliage of the plants as their food.' And so it was.

31 God saw all he had made, and indeed it was very good. Evening came and morning came: the sixth day.

It is all very simple. The birds are adapted to where they are because that is where god put them. What the hell is the eastern church doing these days? No wonder god turned his back on everyone east of Poland.

[AFAIK]

What's it called when 2 different species can successfully mate with one another?
What's it called when 2 different species can mate with one another but the offspring is infertile?

[Igor Antunov]