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posted by janrinok on Sunday September 11 2016, @03:25AM   Printer-friendly
from the tall-tale dept.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37311716

It is a famous, gentle giant of the African savannah, but the giraffe's genetics have just revealed that there is not one species, but four. Giraffes have previously been recognised to be a single species divided into several sub-species. But this latest study of their DNA suggests that four groups of giraffes have not cross-bred and exchanged genetic material for millions of years. This is a clear indication that they have evolved into distinct species.

The study published in the journal Current Biology has rewritten the biology of Earth's tallest mammal. The scientists say their findings could inform the conservation efforts for all four species of giraffe. [...] In the last 15 years, the population of giraffes has declined by 40% - there are now an estimated 90,000 individuals in the wild. But, as a single species, they are classified by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature as of Least Concern. Now, it is clear that each of these four newly classified species could be faring very differently.

Multi-locus Analyses Reveal Four Giraffe Species Instead of One (DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.07.036) (DX)


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday September 11 2016, @10:16AM

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Sunday September 11 2016, @10:16AM (#400250) Homepage

    Therefore god does not exist, right?

    Who are you asking? I never said that. No-one else has said that.

    It's simply that god is not required to explain the diversity of life on Earth. And if he's not required for that, and he's not required to explain pretty much everything else we've ever observed, then what's the point of assuming his existence?

    the bible starting with scientific accurate description would still not prove god

    You can't "prove" something that's outside of logic. By definition, there will always be a simpler explanation than "god."

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk
    Starting Score:    1  point
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  • (Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Monday September 12 2016, @03:15AM

    by cubancigar11 (330) on Monday September 12 2016, @03:15AM (#400487) Homepage Journal

    what's the point of assuming his existence?

    “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.”

    ― Werner Heisenberg

    God is where you hit the wall. And so far, with huge gaps of time, someone has come and found a hole in that wall and continued the search until he/she hit another wall.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @01:41AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @01:41AM (#401055)

    > No-one else has said that.
    yet [huffingtonpost.com]

    >assuming his existence
    Who is assuming his existence?
    Belief implies not knowing.

    > By definition, there will always be a simpler explanation than "god."
    Simpler explanation does not mean correct explanation.

    You cannot prove god, but not because it is outside of logic. God can be treated logically, with the result that no attribute of god is necessarily defined in its domain.
    So "you can't say anything about god", is a logically sound statement.

    God is not necessary to prove anything too, because the "everything just is like that" is an equivalent alternative. So why bother focusing on the variety of life forms? A hypothetical god outside time creates outside time. It does not create the initial conditions and then fires up the simulation and watches how it turns out. That's how people inside time work.

    So, creating X at instant T is equivalent to wanting X and having it evolved at instant T, even if through completely random, not mechanical, events.

    It is like you, drawing a function, so that it crosses x=0 at some value. You can start from (0,value) and draw it, and then see what is the math describing it. You are in no way forced to formalize the function in advance, or have any formula for that matter. Because time, in which you operate, is not bound to the x axis. So tell me again how seeing evolution in action changes anything, because I do not see it.