One point is super confusing in this article, and also gives massive fodder to critics of evolution:

"We tend not to argue about what defines a species anymore, because that doesn't get you anywhere," said Prof Butlin. What he says is more interesting is understanding the role that hybridisation can have in the process of creating new species, which is why this observation of Galapagos finches is so important.

If you can't define what a species is, how can you talk about the process of creating new ones?

It seems they should be talking about the rate of gene flow between groups. "Genetically distinct" means very little because phenotypes can vary widely and still interbreed. Look at dogs, for example.

I would like to see more examples of allopatric speciation or other speciation. What they have here so far is reduced gene flow to a group of finches. Proving that none of them CAN interbreed with females is not so easy, as anecdotal evidence of females not recognizing songs of males doesn't cut it.

It's a bit like proving that an animal species has truly homosexual individuals. None of them do (except possibly for domesticated sheep) -- in fact the theory of evolution would predict that homosexuality would greatly reduce fitness, but there COULD be some members that are lifelong homosexuals, same as beta wolves etc. However to PROVE that an organism is exclusively homosexual they would need to carefuly watch it and all its pairings, however brief, its whole life.

Now, with species, you have to watch EVERY male with EVERY female around it, and vice versa. That is a huge undertaking and I doubt they did it here.

All they observed is phenotypical differences. And they haven't really explained how this is different from eg dogs, except to say that the females THEY SAW did not prefer the males' songs. Certainly this shows reduced gene flow due to preferences but not that they aren't interfertile. This is much different than a cat and a dog for example.

What I am ultimately trying to say is, I am quite skeptical that we have discovered ALL the means by which speciation occurs.

You can be a creationist or whatever else you'd like to be at this point. We barely understand how speciation really takes place, in the end we still only have theories.

I have read Lee Spetner's book "Not by Chance" which goes into the mathematics of speciation occurring exclusively by random mutation and natural selection. And it is astronomically improbable on its own terms.

This there HAVE to be forcing processes from the outside which we don't know about yet. We only guess into what they could be.

And on a related note, using evolution to explain behaviors and traits is like a religion, full of "just so" stories, in fields such as evolutionary psychology but also to explain pretty much ANY trait in a genetic fitness framework.

These "just so" stories are so pervasive yet smack of a notoriously unscientific practice and framework. All one has to do is concoct a possible way by which a trait (proto-wings, homosexuality, men becoming sleepy after an orgasm -- anything really) might confer some advantage. And the other way, such "just so" stories are used to "explain" the presence of certain traits as "the evolution of those traits" via totally untestable stories about the past.