"Tree" or "Web" of Life? A Tale of Red Wolf "Species"
Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2017 7:14 am
So I've been doing some digging into "dog" origins, in order to "pinpoint" what I might call a unique creation under a Progressive Creation scenario. What I'd want is obviously the "prototype" i.e., the first kind of a particular line that results in different species and sub-species, perhaps at a genus level.
Obviously, a next-to impossible task. I didn't think realistically I'd find something, but at least I might further my own knowledge on dogs, wolves and the like in such an endeavour. And we have so much variety today of dogs, that I saw it as an interesting exercise to do in and of itself.
At first, I thought I might be able to walk away declaring without any real certainty some prototypical Canis lupus species, of which "gray wolf" and "dogs" evolved and are subspecies of. Thing is Canis lupus species can also interbreed with "species" in the greater Canis genus. For example, the gray wolf and red coyote which belongs to Canis latrans. Some even say the Canis lupus and Canis latrans species should be joined into one complex.
Of the gray wolf itself, Wikipedia references that,
The question in the back of my mind, is, even if a reasonable prototype was identifiable, how would we know it was really the first of its kind? We'd need to be able to map out its genome, and the genome of other animals, in order to truly declare it to be the first special creation because there's no mix of anything else -- it's a pure blood. This just isn't possible without direct access to such.
Then it occurred to me that I'm going about it wrong, since I'm working within an evolutionary paradigm NOT the Progressive Creation paradigm I believe in where God can mix and match genomic sequences, edit and add to such, when He "codes" and forms a new special creation. This would mean, there perhaps would never be a "pure blood" found, indeed it'd be next to impossible to identify what is a special creation.
Yet, there is more to this, which also poses some significant problems for evolutionary thought. The concept of "species", while helpful to communicate about this and that particular form of life, grouping animals neatly into groups of complexes, ought to be thwart with problems if special creation is true too. While we might identify relationships via admixtures of similar kinds of life mixing, and since time only goes forward be able provide some kind of timeline according to fossils and the like -- any neat tree of life when matched to reality just shouldn't be possible.
It also dawned on me, throughout my reading, just the headache evolutionary scientists have in trying to define and map out species. And with dogs, that is within Canis, we have a lot of data to work with. So then, if it were possible for me to identify a prototypical "first kind" through an evolutionary tree of life being used as a roadmap, it turns out things are a mess and there is no agreement even as to whether different species should be grouped together, separated or what-have-you.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I was sensing the "evolutionary tree" doesn't add up to the reality of what I was seeing inside the Canis genus. The mess of "the leaves" (species and sub-species/breeds) within the Canis genus, actually reveals a different story. All the inter-breeding and shared genetics of "species" within don't really point to a tree of life at all, but rather a webbed network of life. What do I mean?
Well, rather than resembling a tree, the picture with lifeforms would appear to branch (mix) sideways, they might (mix) branch backwards, and they might undergo morphological changes in and of themselves (forward) -- however what a particular creature ends up being more of a node in a web of life. The neat and tidy and often-accepted evolutionary tree of life, as it turns out is too simple a map. And I came across an article which helped me to arrive at this conclusion. One to do with red wolves.
Scientific studies into the the genome of "red wolves" show they're actually a "grey wolf" and "coyote" hybrid. A criterion for conservation, and protecting a species in North Carolina, is that they must have their own unique genomic sequence. There's been a lot of going back and forward, millions of dollars spent, to protect what is believed to be its own "species", so the findings that red wolves are actually a hybrid throw a spanner into the cogs. Red wolves are protected from hunters, yet red coyotes not so. Many consider such to be pest, and want to hunt and eradicate them. Coyotes are actually also threatening "red wolf" populations and conservationists were trying to bring them under control through infertility methods. However, it is said that someone hunting red coyotes from a distance, such would be near indistinguishable from red wolves. So hunting coyotes would inevitably result in the red wolves being killed driving them into extinction. Conservationists therefore fought to ban hunting of coyotes in order the better manage protecting red wolf populations.
So this is all interesting in itself, at least I think so. Throughout all these "red wolf" scientific studies and events that have transpired, it's kind of shaken up evolutionary ideas and what is defined as species in the evolutionary "tree of life." Such that it just isn't a true representation of what we see, and what happens out in nature which is much more messy.
To quote from an article, What's a Species, Anyway?:
Obviously, a next-to impossible task. I didn't think realistically I'd find something, but at least I might further my own knowledge on dogs, wolves and the like in such an endeavour. And we have so much variety today of dogs, that I saw it as an interesting exercise to do in and of itself.
At first, I thought I might be able to walk away declaring without any real certainty some prototypical Canis lupus species, of which "gray wolf" and "dogs" evolved and are subspecies of. Thing is Canis lupus species can also interbreed with "species" in the greater Canis genus. For example, the gray wolf and red coyote which belongs to Canis latrans. Some even say the Canis lupus and Canis latrans species should be joined into one complex.
Of the gray wolf itself, Wikipedia references that,
- "genomic studies indicate that nearly all North American gray wolf populations possess some degree of admixture with coyotes following a geographic cline, with the lowest levels occurring in Alaska, but the highest in Ontario and Quebec as well as Atlantic Canada.
The question in the back of my mind, is, even if a reasonable prototype was identifiable, how would we know it was really the first of its kind? We'd need to be able to map out its genome, and the genome of other animals, in order to truly declare it to be the first special creation because there's no mix of anything else -- it's a pure blood. This just isn't possible without direct access to such.
Then it occurred to me that I'm going about it wrong, since I'm working within an evolutionary paradigm NOT the Progressive Creation paradigm I believe in where God can mix and match genomic sequences, edit and add to such, when He "codes" and forms a new special creation. This would mean, there perhaps would never be a "pure blood" found, indeed it'd be next to impossible to identify what is a special creation.
Yet, there is more to this, which also poses some significant problems for evolutionary thought. The concept of "species", while helpful to communicate about this and that particular form of life, grouping animals neatly into groups of complexes, ought to be thwart with problems if special creation is true too. While we might identify relationships via admixtures of similar kinds of life mixing, and since time only goes forward be able provide some kind of timeline according to fossils and the like -- any neat tree of life when matched to reality just shouldn't be possible.
It also dawned on me, throughout my reading, just the headache evolutionary scientists have in trying to define and map out species. And with dogs, that is within Canis, we have a lot of data to work with. So then, if it were possible for me to identify a prototypical "first kind" through an evolutionary tree of life being used as a roadmap, it turns out things are a mess and there is no agreement even as to whether different species should be grouped together, separated or what-have-you.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I was sensing the "evolutionary tree" doesn't add up to the reality of what I was seeing inside the Canis genus. The mess of "the leaves" (species and sub-species/breeds) within the Canis genus, actually reveals a different story. All the inter-breeding and shared genetics of "species" within don't really point to a tree of life at all, but rather a webbed network of life. What do I mean?
Well, rather than resembling a tree, the picture with lifeforms would appear to branch (mix) sideways, they might (mix) branch backwards, and they might undergo morphological changes in and of themselves (forward) -- however what a particular creature ends up being more of a node in a web of life. The neat and tidy and often-accepted evolutionary tree of life, as it turns out is too simple a map. And I came across an article which helped me to arrive at this conclusion. One to do with red wolves.
Scientific studies into the the genome of "red wolves" show they're actually a "grey wolf" and "coyote" hybrid. A criterion for conservation, and protecting a species in North Carolina, is that they must have their own unique genomic sequence. There's been a lot of going back and forward, millions of dollars spent, to protect what is believed to be its own "species", so the findings that red wolves are actually a hybrid throw a spanner into the cogs. Red wolves are protected from hunters, yet red coyotes not so. Many consider such to be pest, and want to hunt and eradicate them. Coyotes are actually also threatening "red wolf" populations and conservationists were trying to bring them under control through infertility methods. However, it is said that someone hunting red coyotes from a distance, such would be near indistinguishable from red wolves. So hunting coyotes would inevitably result in the red wolves being killed driving them into extinction. Conservationists therefore fought to ban hunting of coyotes in order the better manage protecting red wolf populations.
So this is all interesting in itself, at least I think so. Throughout all these "red wolf" scientific studies and events that have transpired, it's kind of shaken up evolutionary ideas and what is defined as species in the evolutionary "tree of life." Such that it just isn't a true representation of what we see, and what happens out in nature which is much more messy.
To quote from an article, What's a Species, Anyway?:
- To some biologists, the red wolf demonstrates how wrongheaded it is for the Fish and Wildlife Service to organize its conservation efforts around species in the first place, given how fuzzy the concept has proven. “I think it’s nonsensical for us to argue conservation-management practices on the basis of genomes that haven’t been impacted by genes from other species,” said Michael Arnold, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Georgia. “If we do that ... then there won’t be anything conserved.”
- Instead, Arnold suggested a whole new paradigm for the natural world: not a “tree of life,” with its ever-multiplying and distinct branches, but a “web of life,” with species continually diverging and recombining over time —a truer picture of what actually happens in nature. He proposed that rather than spending conservation money to preserve what we have defined as a species, the U.S. government should buy up tracts of land and let natural evolutionary processes—including hybridization—run their course.
- Scientists had hoped that DNA testing would yield clear definitions for animal species. Instead, it’s revealed just how impossible such precise determinations are. And yet few would suggest jettisoning the concept of a species altogether: It is, as E.O. Wilson wrote, too fundamental to human ideas of nature. The difference would be recognizing that a species is a human construction rather than a biological reality—a shift in perspective that would, if anything, give conservationists more flexibility to pursue their goals. “The Endangered Species Act is tied to typology, where it should be more oriented toward process,” Wayne said.
In this view, the red wolf need not be a paragon of genetic purity in order to deserve protection; it need only fill a niche in its ecosystem that no other animal does. Jenks echoed this point as well. “It should be about what an animal does in its habitat, and preserving that habitat, that ecology,” she said. (https://newrepublic.com/article/124453/ ... es-anyways)
