Can speciation occur rapidly?
Welcome to Creation Basics where our goal
is to make God’s creation part of your everyday
conversation, and in today’s episode we
are continuing our series and featuring number
5 of 10 instances where evolutionists have
changed position on a major concept that’s
part of the creation/evolution controversy
towards more of a creationist viewpoint.
Now please understand I am not saying they
have switched to believe in biblical creation
over an evolutionary story, I’m just highlighting
this to show you that science is revealing
creationist interpretations of facts we see
in God’s world, are better understood according
to God’s Word, because, of course, it’s
an accurate record from the one who was there.
And our question today is regarding speciation,
can it happen quickly or does it take a long time?
First off, understand what is meant by speciation,
it doesn’t refer to one kind of creature
turning into a different kind, like a lizard
like creature into a bird let’s say, it
refers to variations of the same kind that
no longer mate, like variations within fruit
flies or finches etc. and is not ‘evolution’.
Fruit flies turning into variations of fruit
flies is not evolution, it’s just a recombination
of the original genetic information from fruit
flies God created, with maybe a few mutations
or defects that might have crept in along the way.
The most straightforward modern understanding
of a species, although not the only one, is
a group of organisms which can interbreed and 
don’t naturally and freely interbreed with another.
Now, creationists have always held to the
idea of rapid speciation, the ability for
kinds of creatures to adapt to different environments
because of the variation of genes that each
kind has within it.
And this was believed long before specific
details about DNA were discovered, based on
the biblical account of the dispersion after
the Ark landed following Noah’s Flood.
I mean, if you were to explain how the limited
number of kinds that were on the Ark have
diversified into all of the various species
we see around the world today, you HAVE to
hold to the idea of rapid speciation.
By the way, biblical creationists have actually
been accused of believing in ‘hyper evolution’
by skeptics and fellow believers as well,
because they conflate the idea of speciation
meaning evolution, and maybe we’ll tackle
that topic at another time.
Creationists have understood that there must
be inbuilt mechanisms that could allow creatures
to adapt and change in response to their environment
over relatively short periods of time, and
rapid speciation, that is speciation occurring
within researchers’ own lifetime, has
recently been observed in all sorts of creatures
like finches, mosquitoes, flies, lizards,
daisies, butterflies, mice and many other creatures.
Now rapid speciation was something most evolutionists
used to mock because looking through the lens
of millions of years, they assumed it would
take vast periods of time for speciation to
occur, but now it’s been observed to happen
in some creatures in less than a year!
When you think about how much variation we
see in the hundreds of new varieties of dogs
we’ve bred within the last 200 years this
shouldn’t really come as a surprise.
Even some of these breeds are unable to interbreed
and could be considered separate species.
But, of course, evolutionists often conflate
‘speciation’ with ‘evolution’.
For example, National Geographic had an article
that said:
“Genetic studies show that dogs evolved
from wolves and remain as similar to the creatures
from which they came as humans with different
physical characteristics are to each other,
which is to say not much difference at all.”
But if today’s dogs are descended from wolves
then it just shows that wolves were likely
closer to the original dog ‘kind’ that
was on Noah’s Ark – it’s just a variety of dog.
But that doesn’t support evolution.
Dogs producing variations of dogs matches
what the Bible says that God created creatures
to reproduce according to their kinds.
Modern research is showing that speciation
can occur in a variety of different ways as well.
While scientists suspected that kinds that
were separated geographically would be more
likely to speciate, a major scientific conference
on speciation held in 1996 in California showcased
several examples of rapid sympatric speciation.
What that means is that certain populations
splitting into different species, even while
living in the same area, without being separated
is actually quite common.
So as for our question today can speciation
happen quickly?
Yes.
Evolutionists have conceded the creationist position.
Speciation can and does happen very rapidly.
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