Reticulate Evolution

The Grants began studying the finch population of the Galapagos Islands in 1973. They monitored breeding, feeding and physical data in the birds. The finches' beak shape and size are the main characteristics that are used in classifying them. Even this is difficult with the variability seen in the beaks. One of the biggest problems for the finch studies is the extensive hybridization that occurs between the alleged species. The fact that these hybrids also reproduced should suggest that the three interbreeding species are actually one species. This conclusion was set aside to suggest that hybridization is essential for and accelerates the rate of evolutionary change. The standard species concept was rejected to promote evolution. The hybridization demonstrates the common gene pool that these finches all share and the high degree of variability that was present in the first birds on the islands. The branches and stems in the finch tree of life seem to be more like a thicket with interconnecting lines (termed reticulate evolution). The range of explanations for the process of evolution-it is a "fact" that it has occurred-now includes rapid or gradual, directed or undirected, tree or thicket. The creationist model can still be said to accommodate the data in a much more complex way. Variation within the created kind is confirmed in Darwin's finches.

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