Well folks, I must now throw out my faith and become an atheist: Scruffy Little Weed Shows Darwin Was Right As Evolution Moves On. I quote: "The discovery of the York groundsel shows that species are created as well as made extinct, and that Charles Darwin was right and the Creationists are wrong."

Granted, it is perhaps a wee bit unlogical to construct a sweeping destruction of an entire system of thought with the discovery of one plant, but let's not let that constrain us...

Actually, such a discovery comes as no surprise to me- holding to a relatively young earth (as per the clearest interpretation of Scripture) I have always (that is, since I began thinking of such things of course) held to the idea the species should be able to arise quite rapidly. I would imagine that large climatic changes would accelerate species development at a rate we do not see to-day. The ecological maelstrums caused by such changes would provide ample breeding grounds: highly isolated ecosystems (such as the cedar glades of Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky), widespread disturbance, etc. I am willing to postulate that a speciation time of fifty years is not so rare as we may think- especially considering the great mass of species, only recently discovered, that exist in tropical regions.

So, in my opinion, this discovery proves Darwin correct only in a way that has been observed before, and is rarely contested- that speciation is a very real and common thing in our world. In fact, it rather lends credit to my own, fairly rabidly conservative Scriptural view that speciation can be a very rapid thing. Whether a sequoia can become a primula is still very much a question to be debated, and this discovery, nice as it is, can not be used to lend credit to such great leaps. But saying something of that sort is simply not as catchy as, "The discovery of the York groundsel shows that species are created as well as made extinct, and that Charles Darwin was right and the Creationists are wrong."