"but the variation that did occur in the 40000 years ors so since the human diaspora was fairly minor."

I'm not trying to be argumentative, really I'm not, but "fairly minor" is, from my understanding, a "fairly major" overstatement.

There has been no variation.

I can say this with a certainly borne of having been shouted down in derision by a scientist friend (prof at Notre Dame) for having made the same statement about "fairly minor" changes as manifested by what we call "races". According to him, there are NO differences in races. This assertion (no races) is further backed up by the somewhat recent spate of articles in National Geographic and USA Today and parallel stories carried on "NOVA" and covered in depth on NPR. I could probably link to the stories if backed against the wall, but, given my lazy nature, I'd rather not have to. *BG*

And, again, relative to my point - even if the races, or the dogs, or the moths represented adaptation -- it is clearly NOT the kind of adaptation necessary for evolution to occur. For one thing, again, the "adaptation" illustrated by those examples is merely a choice, forced on the species by environment, and chosen by survival, of manifestaions of genetic possibilities already possible for that species. The species, in those cases, did not develop new genetic material in order to deal with an environmental change. Only those of the species who manifested the necessary manifestations survived, and because they did, their progeny, more probable to carry the same manifestations, began to appear as the survivor -- BUT -- even so, the manifestations did not "erase" the genetic material that would cause the manifestation(s) that was(were) not necessary for survival. Each of those species is still only one generation away from manifesting the old appearance.