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Yeah, ok so I kind of figured that it was referring to the geneticist Bernard Kettlewell and not the town. Still not sure about the connection, though.
ok, so you found out about Bernard Kettlewell. What would be the link between that experiment and the Asian elephant? Hint: - these elephants are not eating lot of moths 😛 - these elephants are not trying to find "camouflage" on tree trunks What is the link between the moths (Kettlewell) and the elephants?
Adaptation. But what are they adapting too?Here's maybe another theory, IF this is verifiable and actually happening, perhaps it is because the male population is too large and this is nature's (God's) way of thinning the herd.
Alright, both Ski and Phid are close enough to the explanation.The study was made on Asian elephants in China: the tusk-free gene is increasing because of poachers targeting the elephants with tusks. Because tuskless male elephants survive and can reproduce (at the same rate as before) but as there are less male elephants with tusks therefore the percentage of the tusk-free gene pool becomes more important than normal.The link with Kettlewell's moths is that they both were used to illustrate Darwin's theory of natural selection. However both studies are criticised by some.Asian elephants studyStudy criticism
Hmmm….that sounds pretty much like what I said in Reply #4, doesn't it?I read the article you linked to (the story was published in 2005, I see). I don't quite understand this part:
However, Zhang's assertion about the tusklessness gene among the Asian elephants due to poaching remains in doubt among some international academicians."This is, of course, a possibility, but till now there is no clear genetic proof that it can occur," said Vivek Menon, executive director of the Wildlife Trust of India, a non-profit conservation organization that fights to prevent the destruction of India's wildlife.
Is the issue whether or not there exists a "tusklessness gene"? It seems like simple quantitative data would indicate whether tuskless elephant numbers are increasing relative to the number or elephants with tusks.
The gene, which exists in Asian elephants at a normal ratio of 2 to 5 per cent, has increased to 5 per cent to 10 per cent in China among males of the species, according to Zhang's research.
Over what period of time?
"It is not the result of natural evolution. Rather, it is a reluctant choice made in the face of a gun."
This is not biology, it's pure, unproven speculation. If anything, I'd lean more towards this IS evolution/natural selection, and possibly moving into the direction of extinction.Why is this not happening to African elephants who suffer far more poaching than Asian elephants? That's a question these researchers should be looking in to.
The moths did, so why not elephants? It's actually the speed of evolution/natural selection that makes me very skeptical of the whole theory. A species can go from endangered to abundant (or vice versa) in 2 or 3 decades. Deer, wolves, and many fish can exhibit changes in population in just one year...with or without man's help or harm.
Population growth/decline is one thing, and genetic evolution is quite another. I do not know the correct time span, but I imagine it would take thousands of years for even a minor genetic change to be implemented. We are talking about a genetic change the occurs due to environmental factors rather than a mere increase or decrease in births or deaths. When I was visiting the Galapagos Islands years ago, I recall reading that a certain type of cormorant made it there, and due to the lack of predators it eventually lost its ability to fly. Today, they are known as flightless cormorants. It's understandable that these animals would have lost wing muscles over time, and over generations perhaps lost the features needed to bring about flight. This is the kind of genetic evolution that takes place in nature, but I would question whether it would ever occur within a few generations. For elephant genes to cause elephants to stop producing tusks because of poachers would, I surmise, be an even more gradual process because the elephants would have to be able to "sense" there are poachers out there who want to kill them precisely for their tusks. I'm not even sure if this could happen barring some pseudo-scientific explanation.
In both case, moths and elephants, it is not about evolution but more about natural selection.The genes didn't evolve but a change in the environment allowed an increase of a specific gene already present but originally in a very small proportion.When you consider a whole specie, some individual may carry a different gene (tuskless one in this case). Normally that tuskfree gene is a disadvantage for reproduction and therefore it doesn't spread much and if the environment doesn't change, it even should slowly disappear.But if the environment is changing (i.e. poaching), the targeted elephants are those carrying tusks. The number of these elephants is decreasing, allowing the tuskless males a better chance for mating and to transmit their tuskless gene; hence the increase in the percentage of that tuskless gene pool. The speed for that change should depend on the number of male capacity to reproduce, the number of individuals (the smaller the group, the faster the spread); so few decades or less, seem to be enough for that increase (both for moths and elephants) even if it still remains marginal in proportion.No evolution here but a different environment therefore natural selection.
A similar decline in elephants with tusks has been seen in Uganda, which experienced heavy poaching in the 1970s and 1980s, the report says.
(from the second source ABC Science)My update in italicized characters
Yeah, but evolutionists use Darwinian evolution (natural selection) as proof of evolution. I think it kind of disproves that everything happened over the course of millions of years when some major biological changes have been observed to occur in a just a few generations.*Also, population variations could be caused by genetic changes due to availability of food supply or predation. Fish under stress will produce less eggs for example.As for these elephants, this is a strong case for intelligent design. It's funny because many evolutionary biologists would say nature or the environment decided these things. I'd like to see these same biologists state their case on how something inanimate can actually make decisions like that.*I am not a young earther.
