Links: Science, UCLA
ED. COM These studies of cormorant genes certainly do indicate that flightless cormorants are descended from flying cormorants, but they have not evolved any more than people who suffer with limb loss via skeletal ciliopathies can say they have evolved. These deformities are a loss of structure and function. If these newly discovered gene variants turn out to be the reason Galapagos cormorants can’t fly, they simply confirm that flightlessness is the result of loss of function, i.e. it is degeneration, not evolution. We predict the same kind of genetic defects should be found in other flightless birds such as the NZ Kakapo (a parrot) and the Titicaca Flightless Grebe, which have similar loss of structure in their wings, muscles and bones. However, these studies do not explain the origin of large flightless birds such as penguins, ostriches, and emus, and hiding behind millions of years doesn’t help either. All studies of living and fossil penguins, ostriches and emus indicate they have never had wings and are well designed functional creatures that were never meant to fly. They use their wings for other functions, such as swimming, balance and thermoregulation. If technology does advance enough for Kruglyak to carry out his genetic engineering experiments it still will confirm degeneration of genes caused loss of flight, and will not prove any evolutionary theories. If scientists were able to make flightless cormorants fly by giving them genes deliberately taken from a flying species, they will prove that it takes intelligent understanding of genetic information as well as clever manipulation, to turn a non-flying bird into a flying bird.
Illustration: Galapagos Cormorant. Photo by Paul McFarling, Charles Darwin Foundation. Licensed under Creative Commons + CC BY-NC-SA 3.0