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Author Topic:   Evolution Requires Reduction in Genetic Diversity
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 76 of 1034 (691837)
02-25-2013 3:30 PM
Reply to: Message 72 by Faith
02-25-2013 3:15 PM


High altitude adaptations
It's the idea that [mutations] ever do anything beneficial that's at issue.
In a previous post I presented you with an example of a mutation that is beneficial, which you have ignored.
In the example I posted, three different groups around the world each adapted to high altitudes through a mutation, but each employed a different mutation.
There is no question that these mutations are beneficial to the groups involved.
Care to address this?

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(3)
Message 77 of 1034 (691838)
02-25-2013 3:31 PM
Reply to: Message 71 by Faith
02-25-2013 3:11 PM


Re: The effect of the flood bottleneck
Wow, you guys object to the idea that God created anything but you seem to think a mutation occurred precisely for the purpose of protecting a mouse from a recent lava flow?
No, of course not.
Aren't mutations supposed to be RANDOM?
Yes, of course.
But you think this one just handily showed up when needed?
No, of course not.
---
This is like trying to explain the concept of addition to someone trying to criticize the theory of gravity.
11,656 posts on this forum, and you haven't even got this far?
Start again. Start a thread entitled: "I'm Sorry, I Still Don't Know What The Theory Of Evolution Is, So Will Someone Please Explain It To Me?"

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9972
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.5


(1)
Message 78 of 1034 (691840)
02-25-2013 3:36 PM
Reply to: Message 71 by Faith
02-25-2013 3:11 PM


Re: The effect of the flood bottleneck
What IS the evidence for that? I cant read the whole article right now but skimmed the first part and don't see how it's so certain that a mutation was involved.
1. Selection pressure. They surveyed many regions across the desert spanning Arizona and New Mexico. This survey included two black lava fields (one in Arizona and one in New Mexico) separated by 750 km, the areas immediatly around each lava field, and the desert between the two lava fields. What they found is that in between the lava fields there were no black mice. Even more, there were no alleles associated with dark fur even though light fur is the recessive allele (it only takes one dark allele to have dark fur). On the lava fields, the vast majority of mice had dark fur, and the dark allele was very, very common. In the areas directly around the dark lava fields there was a mixture of the two phenotypes. Right away, one thing is very appararent. There is extremely strong negative selection against the dark allele in the light colored desert that separates the two lava fields. If the dark allele had emerged in the light colored desert it would have disappeared in just a few generations. The only way that the allele could survive is if the mice carrying the mutation moved into the black lava fields.
2. Variation of the alleles. From the paper, "Finally, the pattern of nucleotide variation observed among Mc1r alleles from the Pinacate site suggests the recent action of positive selection. Thirteen polymorphic sites are variable among the light haplotypes, whereas only one site is variable among the dark haplotypes (Table 1). " This means that the dark allele had gone through a much more recent selection event than the light allele. Therefore, the dark allele emerged after the light allele.
3. Age of the lava fields. As was demonstrated above, you need black lava fields in order to have the dark allele. So how old are the lava fields? Very recent, geologically speaking. They are around 1 million years old, much younger than the desert landscape that the ancestral populations adapted to. As shown by both the nucleotide variation and selection pressures, the recent appearance of the lava fields is just one more piece of evidence showing that the dark allele arose through recent mutations in a population that did not have dark fur.
Again this sounds awfully teleological.
That is what the thread on antibiotic resistance is all about. I would love to see your participation in that thread:
EvC Forum: Application of the Scientific Method: Antibiotic Resistance
which would also be the case if the dark allele were a regularly occurring but recessive variation.
It is dominant, and it is immediately selected out of populations that live on the original, light colored desert that existed for eons before the black lava fields appeared.
You know this absolutely for sure?
As sure as anything can be.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 79 of 1034 (691841)
02-25-2013 3:37 PM
Reply to: Message 60 by Taq
02-25-2013 2:31 PM


Re: Ring Species -- Greenish Warbler -- and Genetic Diversity
Once it appears, the genetic diversity has increased, has it not?
Yes but you keep trying to make this equal to the effect of the reduction through the selection and isolation processes and I don't think it is by a long shot.
If you had a bottleneck of three or four individuals that included the most recent mutations you'd have drastically reduced genetic diversity after just a few generations of inbreeding, with homozygosity made up of those mutant alleles.
You think at that point you're going to get further beneficial mutations that just increase the diversity again but as a matter of fact it hasn't happened with the cheetah, and what they worry about is that they're only going to get deleterious mutations anyway.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 80 of 1034 (691842)
02-25-2013 3:38 PM
Reply to: Message 77 by Dr Adequate
02-25-2013 3:31 PM


Re: The effect of the flood bottleneck
"I'm Sorry, I Still Don't Know What The Theory Of Evolution Is, So Will Someone Please Explain It To Me?"
Isn't that the title of this thread? It's certainly what the title says to me.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. William Lloyd Garrison.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

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Tempe 12ft Chicken
Member (Idle past 335 days)
Posts: 438
From: Tempe, Az.
Joined: 10-25-2012


(1)
Message 81 of 1034 (691843)
02-25-2013 3:41 PM
Reply to: Message 71 by Faith
02-25-2013 3:11 PM


Re: The effect of the flood bottleneck
Faith writes:
Aren't mutations supposed to be RANDOM? But you think this one just handily showed up when needed?
Yes, mutations are random. Discovering this mutation from, I believe it said 1 million years ago, tells us nothing about the multitude of other mutations that would have happened, but that were deleterious and caused the mouse that got said mutation to fail to procreate. This is how it works, it is not a single mutation that arrived just when it was needed.
Rather, it was a bunch of different mutations, one of which (Dark fur) happened to be advantageous in the enviroment that the animal lived in. This allowed the mouse with the dark fur mutation to propagate and this mutation begins to move toward fixation.

The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity. - Richard Dawkins
Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. - Issac Asimov
If you removed all the arteries, veins, & capillaries from a person’s body, and tied them end-to-endthe person will die. - Neil Degrasse Tyson
What would Buddha do? Nothing! What does the Buddhist terrorist do? Goes into the middle of the street, takes the gas, *pfft*, Self-Barbecue. The Christian and the Muslim on either side are yelling, "What the Fuck are you doing?" The Buddhist says, "Making you deal with your shit. - Robin Williams

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9972
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.5


(1)
Message 82 of 1034 (691844)
02-25-2013 3:41 PM
Reply to: Message 79 by Faith
02-25-2013 3:37 PM


Re: Ring Species -- Greenish Warbler -- and Genetic Diversity
Yes but you keep trying to make this equal to the effect of the reduction through the selection and isolation processes and I don't think it is by a long shot.
Why don't you think it is equal?
Isn't rain equal to the rate at which water flows down a river? Can I claim that all rivers should dry up in a single year because rain doesn't exist? Afterall, once rain lands it flows downhill too so you can't get an increase in river water. They should all dry up.
You think at that point you're going to get further beneficial mutations that just increase the diversity again but as a matter of fact it hasn't happened with the cheetah, and what they worry about is that they're only going to get deleterious mutations anyway.
It hasn't? And you know this how? Have you been sequencing the genomes of every cheetah born and testing those observed mutations for beneficial effects?

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(2)
Message 83 of 1034 (691847)
02-25-2013 4:06 PM
Reply to: Message 79 by Faith
02-25-2013 3:37 PM


Re: Ring Species -- Greenish Warbler -- and Genetic Diversity
I don't think it is ...
Do you have supporting evidence for that opinion?
Otherwise, I'll listen to geneticists who think that it is. Especially as you wrote:
I do not claim to be a geneticist or even to have more than the most rudimentary understanding of genetics.
So your mere opinion, based on nothing, doesn't carry all that much weight.
If you had a bottleneck of three or four individuals that included the most recent mutations you'd have drastically reduced genetic diversity after just a few generations of inbreeding, with homozygosity made up of those mutant alleles.
And when you're standing on your right foot and moving your left foot forward, your right foot is staying still!

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 84 of 1034 (691852)
02-25-2013 5:44 PM


Mutations Don't Add Anything That Could Rescue the ToE
It is hard to figure out how to get this said, but perhaps I'll eventually have a better way. I keep trying to show that whenever you have the creation of a new phenotype or breed you have the opposite of what evolution would need in order to be true, you have a situation with a built in ultimate ending point.
I barely get that fully laid out, certainly don't get it fully understood judging by the bizarre straw man arguments I've been hearing back, but then I'm barraged with all these objections about mutations as well:
You all keep answering: But no, there is also increase in genetic diversity through mutation, as if that is going to prevent this inexorable trend to to the ending point brought about by the selection processes.
Now I KNOW it can't prevent it, I know this is all just a theoretical article of faith that has no real teeth, but I don't know how to say it as sharply as it needs to be said.
I've said that mutation only makes changes in the allele and that's part of it, since you'll never get beyond the boundary of the Kind or "baramin," beyond microevolution, with mere alleles for existing traits within the species that is evolving. All you'll get is variations on the traits that are built into the genome for that species. That is never going to lead to macro-evolution.
And I've also said that mutation is only a source of alleles and it doesn't matter what the source is because once the selecting and isolating processes get to work on them to bring out a new phenotype you get the reduction in genetic diversity that always occurs in the formation of new phenotypes, and at the extreme there is no further evolution that is possible. Same as it does in breeding. Works the same in the wild. At the extreme you aren't going to get any mutations that could possibly save the day but you'll all claim you can and do. Sigh. It's all theoretical smoke and mirrors but you all seem content with that.
Now I do think just these two observations are sufficient to show that mutation's additional genetic diversity isn't going to accomplish a thing for the ToE, and you are still going to end up with the reduced genetic diversity in the end that spells FINIS to the ToE. Perhaps I'll yet find a better way to say it, but it seems to me this really ought to be enough.
Just wanted to get that stated in a more formal sort of way. So carry on with your smoke and mirrors and your swashbuckling ridicule.

He who surrenders the first page of his Bible surrenders all. --John William Burgon, Inspiration and Interpretation, Sermon II.

Replies to this message:
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Taq
Member
Posts: 9972
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.5


(1)
Message 85 of 1034 (691853)
02-25-2013 5:55 PM
Reply to: Message 84 by Faith
02-25-2013 5:44 PM


Re: Mutations Don't Add Anything That Could Rescue the ToE
It is hard to figure out how to get this said, but perhaps I'll eventually have a better way. I keep trying to show that whenever you have the creation of a new phenotype or breed you have the opposite of what evolution would need in order to be true, you have a situation with a built in ultimate ending point.
How so?
I've said that mutation only makes changes in the allele and that's part of it, since you'll never get beyond the boundary of the Kind or "baramin," beyond microevolution, with mere alleles for existing traits within the species that is evolving. All you'll get is variations on the traits that are built into the genome for that species. That is never going to lead to macro-evolution.
You have said that, but you have never brought forth evidence to back that claim. Now would be the time for that evidence.
And I've also said that mutation is only a source of alleles and it doesn't matter what the source is because once the selecting and isolating processes get to work on them to bring out a new phenotype you get the reduction in genetic diversity that always occurs in the formation of new phenotypes, and at the extreme there is no further evolution that is possible.
Why can't you have additional mutations after a selection process that keeps evolution moving? Why can't you have thousands of alleles all being selected for in parallel within a population while also having mutation continually producing more alleles that are passed through selection?
What is stopping the continual accumulation of mutations leading to a continual change in morphology and physiology?
Now I do think just these two observations . . .
They weren't observations. They were empty assertions backed by zero evidence.
and you are still going to end up with the reduced genetic diversity in the end that spells FINIS to the ToE.
Until the next generation is born with mutations that increase genetic diversity.

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9972
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.5


(1)
Message 86 of 1034 (691854)
02-25-2013 6:15 PM


Humans and Chimps
To get this into the real world, perhaps you can give us some criteria to use when looking at real life genetic data.
I think we both agree that humans are different from chimps because the DNA sequence of our genomes is different. You would also contend that humans and chimps are in different baramins. I think you would also contend that the genetic variation between genomes of different chimps is within a baramin.
So I would like to know why the genetic differences between humans and chimps could not be produced by mutations, but the genetic differences between chimps could be produced by mutations. Can you explain why the process of mutation can do one, but not the other?
Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 87 of 1034 (691855)
02-25-2013 6:21 PM
Reply to: Message 85 by Taq
02-25-2013 5:55 PM


Re: Mutations Don't Add Anything That Could Rescue the ToE
How so?
Faith has a very specific idea of speciation. It's relatively easy to represent numerically:
Let's say we have Species X. Let the number range 1...10 represent Species X.
As Faith understands it, a new daughter species can arise, let's call it Species Y, as a subset of Species X, and it can be represented as the range 3...6.
If Species Y further subdivides, we can have Species Z that can be represented as the integer 5.
At this point, according to Faith's understanding of genetic diversity, no further evolution can occur - there are no more integers, there is no more "space" for additional variety to arise. This is what she calls her "built in ultimate ending point."
As she understands it, there is a finite amount of variation that can ever happen, and every time a new variant evolves, the total remaining variety that can still arise from extant species is decreased.
Her mistake is that genetic diversity is not like a numerical range of integers. While each subclade carries the inherited traits of its parent clade and all ancestor clades, diversity is unbound. She would be closer if she compared diversification to taking a subset but allowing decimals as well as simply integers (because at least that way you can simulate the infinite amount of variations between any two numbers), but even that's not entirely accurate. Daughter clades can diversify in ways that are wildly different from a sufficiently distant ancestor clade. Entirely novel features can evolve over sufficient generations, and existing features can atrophy, becoming vestigial and even disappearing entirely.
Speciation does not translate to taking a slice of the parent's DNA to comprise the daughter species, repeating until there's no DNA left...but that's how Faith understands it.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995.

This message is a reply to:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 88 of 1034 (691858)
02-25-2013 7:20 PM
Reply to: Message 84 by Faith
02-25-2013 5:44 PM


Re: Mutations Don't Add Anything That Could Rescue the ToE
And I've also said that mutation is only a source of alleles and it doesn't matter what the source is because once the selecting and isolating processes get to work on them to bring out a new phenotype you get the reduction in genetic diversity that always occurs in the formation of new phenotypes ...
And once moving your left foot, your right foot is staying still. And once water is running down to the sea in rivers, the same water isn't evaporating from the sea to form rainclouds.
Never mind genetics, you're ignoring things about time and number that you should have learned in kindergarten.
Bob has three apples. I give him an orange. I take away an apple. Would he have more or fewer pieces of fruit, or the same? If you said "the same", do you see how this is possible even though I took a piece of fruit away from him?
What if I repeated this process two more times? What would Bob have? Would he have more or fewer pieces of fruit, or the same? If you said "the same", can you see how this is possible even though I've taken away all his apples?

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(3)
Message 89 of 1034 (691863)
02-25-2013 8:45 PM
Reply to: Message 71 by Faith
02-25-2013 3:11 PM


Re: The effect of the flood bottleneck
Faith writes:
Wow, you guys object to the idea that God created anything but you seem to think a mutation occurred precisely for the purpose of protecting a mouse from a recent lava flow? Aren't mutations supposed to be RANDOM? But you think this one just handily showed up when needed?
Interesting strategy - when successfully rebutted say something else incredibly wrong-headed to distract attention.
Of course mutations are random with respect to fitness. You've been told this many times, and Taq didn't say anything that even remotely implied anything else.
A successful mutation isn't like a lottery where you're permitted to purchase only one ticket. It's like a lottery where you're permitted to purchase millions of lottery tickets because each generation receives millions of mutations.
With the mice, each individual in the population has dozens of unique mutations that it received at conception, and in a population of millions of mice that's tens or even hundreds of millions of mutations per generation. Mice in the wild probably live 2 to 3 years on average, so many generations can occur in a short period of time.
It isn't that the necessary mutation arises just when needed. It's that with millions and millions of mutations per generation, the odds that one is going to be advantageous to changed circumstances such as darker rocks is far from being minute.
--Percy

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(1)
Message 90 of 1034 (691866)
02-25-2013 9:16 PM
Reply to: Message 84 by Faith
02-25-2013 5:44 PM


Re: Mutations Don't Add Anything That Could Rescue the ToE
Faith writes:
I've said that mutation only makes changes in the allele and that's part of it, since you'll never get beyond the boundary of the Kind or "baramin," beyond microevolution, with mere alleles for existing traits within the species that is evolving. All you'll get is variations on the traits that are built into the genome for that species. That is never going to lead to macro-evolution.
This is the clearest statement you've made so far of how little sense your position makes.
You're arguing that new species are created by a reduction in genetic diversity that uses only a subset of the alleles of the original population, and you're also arguing that adding new alleles to the existing alleles doesn't contribute to speciation at all. You're also arguing that a subset of existing alleles can create new phenotypes, but new alleles cannot. Think about this, Faith. You're in effect arguing that you can get more variation from just bricks then you can from bricks and wood and concrete.
And then when people explain the nonsense back to you, instead of saying, "Oh, your'e right," and rethinking things, you instead claim everyone is building strawmen and misunderstanding your arguments and then go on to repeat the same nonsense.
--Percy

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