The teaching of evolution

[Susan B. Farmer]

>Ed Pirog wrote:
>
>>         As an educator I hope you will not mind giving me just one testable
>> experiment in macro evolution to support the theory of evolution.
>
>There are many you can do. Take (IIRC) certain Sceloporus lizards, cross a
>male of one and a female of the other, and you get a THIRD species - a
>species because the hybrid is parthenogentic, and does not exchange genes
>with either of its parent lineages. Speciation, observable and replicable.
>There are also fish species which do the same thing. Cross species X and Y,
>get Z. I also seem to recall that some genera of tree ferns are believed to
>be hybrids between two other genera. Maybe someone here can give names and
>details, if needed.

To play devils advocate here, some creationists might argue that this
is not an example of macro-evolution because the resultant species
is still a lizard.  (or a fish, or a tree-fern to use your other
examples.)  It is definately an example of speciation; but not
the evolution of a new species (aka macro-evolution).  How do you
counter that argument?

Susan Farmer
sfarmer at goldsword.com