Would you provide a source for your Warbler theory?

It was originally presented to me in a freshman-level anthropology class, as a simple example of subspecies. It’s hardly “my theory” that the Audubon and Myrtle are differing subspecies of the Yellow-rumped warbler, any more than the existence of subspecies.

The Cornell page you list comes right out and says Along this narrow zone, intergrades between the two forms occur, which isn’t hard to interpret.

Apparently it is, since both you and a commenter on Ted Heistman’s page made the same fallacious conclusion. Some degree of intergrade is generally unavoidable if they live in close contact with one another, but because it is a small and stable area, it prevents any significant gene flow between the two populations. An Audubon and a Myrtle, selected from non-frontier areas, will breed true, even with one another. If you compare this situation to the “Subspecies” article on Wikipedia, this is precisely what is meant by:

This is not an arbitrary condition. A gradual change, called a cline, is clear evidence of substantial gene flow between two populations. A sharp boundary between black and white, or a relatively small and stable hybrid zone, on the other hand, shows that the two populations do not interbreed to any great extent and are indeed separate species. Their classification as separate species or as subspecies, however, depends on why they do not interbreed.

Emphasis mine, indicating the situation with the yellow-rumped warbler’s “narrow zone.” This is slightly more elaboration than the freshman-level explanation offered above, but only slightly, and it should not take more than a few moments’ consideration to see that the more significant point still stands.

And stop saying G-d, what are you, a yid?

A yid? Me? No. But I married a “yid.” I live in a “yid” neighborhood. And I have far more respect for your average “yid” than I’ll ever have for a disgusting, idiotic racist like you.

Though, I think you’re a little too harsh here. Have you ever tried to put together a solid survey? It’s pretty hard to put together a question that isn’t leading somehow. And every human being responds to such leading by saying what the asker wants to hear; that’s just basic, universal human psychology. Now, that’s what academic rigor is all about, and figuring out how to make a question non-leading is why they get the big bucks, but falling short of that doesn’t require any kind of underhanded motives. It’s a failure, but it happens.

On Mead, Freeman’s critique of Coming of Age in The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth is even more questionable than Mead’s own work. While most anthropologists have consigned the question to a state we’ll likely never know, Mead is generally taken as more reliable than her critics. So, to call her a “miscreant” and claim her findings have been totally refuted is, at best, an overstatement.

Regarding the Dogon, I found these:

Astrophysicist Carl Sagan posited that “a far more credible [explanation] than an ancient extra-terrestrial educational foray among the Dogon might be a comparatively recent contact with scientifically literate Europeans.”

This is borne out by something else I found (or refound; this was the original site I referred to, with my additions of emphasis) at the BBC, a pretty reliable source (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2754524):

The strongest challenge to that study did not come until 1991, when Walter Van Beek led a team of anthropologists to Mali7. He declared that, in the decade he spent with the Dogon, he found no trace of detailed knowledge about Sirius. Griaule claimed that 15% of the tribe possessed such knowledge. Van Beek was fortunate enough to speak to some of the same Dogon as Griaule, but he reports:

If this is true, the mystery of the Dogon link with Sirius does stem from contact with aliens, not the amphibious Nommo but the very terrestrial French anthropologists who sought to study them.

Most likely, the story is one of many examples of over-enthusiastic Westerners misinterpreting other cultures & asking too many leading questions. Margaret Mead was an even more famous “miscreant” in this regard with her study of teh sexual mores in Polynesia; she claimed they has a sexually open society but that later proved to be completely erroneous.

Foreign cultures have enough to fascinate us without our putting strange views into their words.

I’d be interested in seeing your evidence on the Dogon when you find it. I’ll stop using that example if it bears out. But I think the overall point that there are other ways of knowing than just scientific reductionism still stands.

Your example of the birds is interesting… shows that DNA isn’t necessarily the defining factor. If the offspring are consistently the same “species” as the mother, that would strongly imply that something in the mother defines the genes that get turned on, rather than the offsprings gene’s themselves. Is that true?

Regarding the Dogon story, however, I believe that’s untrue, but I can’t remember where I read that. There’s evidence to indicate that they picked it up from a European explorer/anthropologist who was a little less than ethical. If I can find it again, I’ll post it.