Definitions and logic.Quote from kjkent1:
Mutation is a well-estabilished and recognized part of the evolutionary process. So is reproductive isolation.
You defined a species as separated by its inability to interbreed with its predecessor. My example fits your criteria.
You now state that mutually infertile populations is not speciation.
What I see is two populations that were once capable of interbreeding, and which had the same genetic code, which are now unable to breed with each other, and have different genetic codes.
If both of these creatures had been collected from a natural environment, a taxonomic study would have concluded that they were closely related but different species of worm.
And, you would have stated that there is no evidence that the one of the worms evolved into the other. Here, the experiment confirms the phylogenic tree between the two worms, and now you state that this is merely mutation.
All I am reading from you, is that you are conveniently renaming what has occured in the experiment as mutation, so as to avoid having to call it evolution.
So, perhaps you will now give us your precise definition of speciation, and then show how the experiment does not meet your criteria. And, perhaps you would also give us a proposed experiment that "will" meet your criteria, so that, if I run across such an experiment, I can provide it.
Species: a taxonomic group whose members can interbreed.
Speciation: the evolutionary formation of new biological species
The inability to interbreed is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition of a difference of species.
Mutation is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition of evolution.
