Somebody Lowered Their Standards
Posted May 11th, 2006 at 12:27 pm in Nature
The story of a polar bear / grizzly hybrid is all over the mainstream press today.
Officials seized the creature after noticing its white fur was scattered with brown patches and that it had the long claws and humped back of a grizzly. Now a DNA test has confirmed that it is indeed a hybrid — possibly the first documented in the wild.
“We’ve known it’s possible, but actually most of us never thought it would happen,” said Ian Stirling, a polar bear biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service in Edmonton.
From an ecological standpoint, I can see why this is surprising everybody. Neither species overlaps very much, and I would imagine both have nasty tempers in the presence of each other.
Intelligent design supporter PaV at Dembski’s blog sees this as casting doubt on the evolutionary tree:
“Does this discovery eliminate the need for a LCA [last common ancestor] for the polar and grizzly bears? I wonder how many more LCA’s can be eliminated? Is the evolutionary tree getting ’shafted’ here somehow?”
(His original post referred to LCDs (last common descendants) until someone pointed out the difference between ancestors and descendants. Ancestor/descendant, left/right, yes/no — it’s all very confusing to some ID supporters).
http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/1110
Yes Keith, words can’t quite capture the atmosphere over there. It’s a special mixture of ignorance and confidence.
They’re playing the classic game of “if you don’t know everything, you don’t know anything” with this polar bear / grizzley hybrid.
Brayton over at Dispatches has the best name for Uncommon Descent. Dembski’s Home for Wayward Sycophants.