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Or they really want to think that they are a new species. I mean, if I were studying it for 40 years, I'd certainly want to believe that is what it is. But that's just me.
Some do. Some don't. Some find it necessary to "hide the decline" to politically influence us rubes. They want the power their speculation brings, the nice lunches, the respect and speeches, and, of course, the grant money.
When I was younger I used to dream of ways to get rich. Joining the worldwide atheistic evolution conspiracy was not one that occurred to me. Mainly, I suppose, because none of the scientists I knew seemed particularly well-to-do or politically powerful.
They're still finches though.
That's a fair assessment. Back in the day (before the "modern" revival of creationism lead by Whitcomb and Morris in the 60s, anyway) 19th century Evangelical theologians were willing to give ground to all of it except the special creation of man, which they would not give up.
Is this the argument you would use if you saw an ape give birth to a human being, or vice versa?
But ... but it could still be argued that they are cyanobacteria!
Until that finch flew to the island it didn’t interbreed with them either. Just as red tailed deer tend not to breed with white tailed deer. Just as every animal on this planet tends not to breed even with the different subspecies in the same species. For 200 years they claimed none of them interbred, yet the DNA sequences of those finches shows they have extensive interchange of genes and are of mixed ancestory, each and every one of them. To claim that they can’t doesnt fit with the data.
You need to slow down, stop looking for "gotchas" and think this through. Species have very fuzzy boundaries, and the taxonomic term is a collection of ad hoc concepts. Trying to play one definition off against another has gotten you nowhere. Try another tack.
When they diverge far enough do be definitive--then it's easier. In general there will be a long time during the speciation process when at least partial interfertility will be possible. But in biology species determination is often difficult and sometimes controversial, regardless. That, and the species "boundary" (if there is such a thing) is not as important to a biologist as it is to a creationist. With regard to the finches, it was the variation in beaks Darwin observed which gave him the idea of evolution, not the exact determination of species.
