Predicting the Formation of New Species

This could be a way to model speciation, but I see it's long-term applications being limited to freshwater, lake-dwelling fish. Parts of it could probably be extrapolated, though.

According to the study, diversification is more likely to occur in deep lakes and in areas with relatively high solar radiation. By contrast, lake size has practically no influence on the likelihood of speciation -- which is surprising, as speciation in terrestrial species is known to depend in part on the available habitat area. Among the species-specific traits, the intensity of sexual selection (mate choice) was shown to be a key factor, as indicated by the association between sexual dichromatism (distinctive coloration of males and females) and diversification.

www.sciencedaily.com...

Reproductive attributes are the initial focal point of divergence between populations, which makes sense for obvious reasons.

Speciation is of minor importance IMO. No human will be alive long enough for it to even be a scientific endeavor to observe in most vertebrates unless a study spanning thousands of generations is entertained. We will, of course, all be dead by then.

Funny, it doesn't seem like any of the creationists and science denialists want any part of this thread.

Probably because Answers in Genesis hasn't developed a "refutation" yet.