Humans Helping Birds Evolve?

A major problem found in proponents of atoms-to-ornithologist evolution is that they are uncertain of their own belief system, seeing small variations in living things as examples of "evolution". While many make honest mistakes, there are blackguards who equivocate on evolution to convince people that Darwin was right, and there is no Creator. To further complicate matters, the definition of species is disputed, and although evolution is supposed to be a slow process, quick, observable variation flusters evolutionists, such as with the rapid gecko changes.

Credit: Pixabay / Sara Price

Parus major (also known as the great tit) is a relative of the chickadee, tufted titmouse, and a few cute little chirpers. They're mainly found in the Northern Hemisphere, and are very popular in Britain. People over there are very fond of feeding birds (my wife and I do some ourselves here in New York), and some changes in beak size have been noticed. Some folks have called this slight change "evolution", and even attribute it to human influence: bird feeders. Longer beaks reach the goodies better, so natural selection kicks in. Of course, not all bird feeders are the same, so this doesn't look all that scientific to me. And it's definitely not Darwinian evolution. What really happened is that the Master Engineer designed critters so they could adapt to varying conditions, but not to change into something else.

Each year thousands of people fill bird feeders with seeds, corn, and nuts to encourage feathery friends to make a stop in their backyard. Bird feeding is especially popular in the United Kingdom where Britons spend nearly double that of other Europeans on bird feeders and birdseed, and half of homes with a backyard boast bird feeders. According to researchers, this seedy proffering is driving the rapid evolution of bird species.
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Researchers looked at genetic variations in more than 3,000 individual birds from these populations. What they found was a genetic divergence between the groups that was linked to beak shape. Comparisons of populations revealed that British great tits now sport longer beaks than their Dutch relatives.

To read the rest, perch here: "Don’t Feed the Birds or They’ll Evolve". Also recommended, "Rapid Finch Speciation Counters Evolution".