Creation of new species

1. “Genetically altered mice are a powerful experimental tool, but the extent to which recent positive selection in humans acts on pathways and amino-acid residues that have been conserved across mammalian evolution is uncertain.” Evolutionary genomics: Detecting selection

2. “we show here that merely supplementing a mother’s nutritionally adequate diet with extra folic acid, vitamin B12, choline, and betaine can permanently affect the offspring’s DNA methylation at epigenetically susceptible loci.” Transposable Elements: Targets for Early Nutritional Effects on Epigenetic Gene Regulation

3. “…natural selection is an evolutionary process initiated by mutation. It does not have any creative power in contrast to the statements made by some authors.” Mutation-Driven Evolution

Positive selection (1) for nutrients (2) creates new species (3).

Genetically altered mice and experimental evidence from every other model organism shows that nutrients are naturally selected so that organisms do not starve to death. The nutrients metabolize to pheromones that control the physiology of reproduction. The creative power of nutrients is that they epigenetically effect alternative splicings, amino acid substitutions, and stochastic gene expression, which enables the creation of new species with behavior controlled by the metabolism of nutrients to species-specific pheromones. The physics, chemistry,  and the molecular mechanisms of biology that enable the creation of new species is conserved across species from microbes to man. See, for examples: Nutrient-dependent/pheromone-controlled adaptive evolution: a model

See for comparison: The Origin of Species: The Making of a Theory; The Origin of Species: The Beak of the Finch; The Origin of Species: Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree

Or watch Epigenetics in NOVA SCIENCE  for a 13-minute ridiculous representation by Neil deGrasse Tyson and Epigenetics and the influence of our genes for an 18-minute accurate representation by Courtney Griffin of RNA-directed DNA methylation and nearly everything except pheromone-controlled species diversity.

What about birds? This was a blocked attempt to inform human ethologists about the importance of cause and effect, but the post was never published to the group. The group’s moderator thinks in terms of random mutations, and doesn’t want anyone else to learn that random mutations are NOT the substrates on which natural selection acts, which is clear the links below. They establish the fact that even birds are primarily olfactory creatures. For example, Bird odour predicts reproductive success.

1. These results have broad implications for research concerning how steroids act at multiple brain loci to regulate distinct sociosexual behaviors and the associated neuroplasticity.

2. By subsequently experimentally elevating testosterone (T) in half of the males during the non-breeding season we showed that the OB [Olfactory bulb] volume was increased compared to controls.

3. Here we experimentally demonstrate opposing effects of frequency-dependent social environments on plasma hormone levels (testosterone and corticosterone) and immune function between red- and black-headed male morphs of the Gouldian finch (Erythrura gouldiae).

4. The increases in LH [luteinizing horomone] plasma concentrations are in all probability triggered by increases in GnRH secretion, and, as a consequence, it has long been assumed that the preoptic GnRH neurons represent the target where information about photoperiod and additional cues must converge to regulate reproduction.

The link from olfactory/pheromonal input to the olfactory bulb and GnRH-directed changes in LH, T, and color is clear in all vertebrates. However, science works best when alternative hypothesis can be tested. Why wasn’t any alternative hypothesis tested in birds? Why wasn’t any experimental evidence used to support or refute what should have been the null hypothesis, which initially might otherwise have suggested that  birds are primarily visual or auditory creatures. Instead, with no null hypothesis, experimental evidence, or any model whatsoever,  Feierman and others simply accepted the simple-minded theory about birds, without ever questioning any aspect of their sense of smell.

I would like to examine any experimental evidence that birds are primarily visual or auditory creatures to determine why some people were led to believe in that ridiculous theory. Clearly, science works best when alternative hypothesis can be tested. Why wasn’t any alternative hypothesis tested in birds? Ethologists simply extended the bird model to explanations of human behavior.