My friend Amy pointed out this recent Washington Post story on black squirrels in the Washington, D.C., region. Apparently, all the black squirrels in this area are descended from 15 squirrels brought here in 1915. Does their proliferation prove evolutionary theory, as the article seems to indicate? Well, I can think of one reason why it wouldn't. If 15 black-haired people were introduced into a population of blondes, you'd see lots more black-haired folks decades later due to that trait's gene dominance, not necessarily because black hair looks sexier or makes you harder to see at night. I mean, I think natural selection theory makes obvious sense in some cases--people who are born impotent obviously don't pass those traits onto offspring, for instance. But I think it's a big stretch for the Washington Post reporter to link the spread of a black-hair gene among squirrels to a theory that says humans are evolved from amoeba.
Just pointing out more media bias ...
On a lighter note, my wife and I used to live in a Rockville, Md., neighborhood where about 20 percent of the squirrel population had black coats. Every spring, there were several squirrel road kills on the street in front of our place every week. Using my non-scientific-rigor observation, I noticed a larger percentage of those squirrels were of the black variety. Go figure.
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