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Author Topic:   A New Run at the End of Evolution by Genetic Processes Argument
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


(1)
Message 136 of 259 (771006)
10-16-2015 8:45 PM
Reply to: Message 122 by Faith
10-16-2015 2:06 PM


Misconceptions on evolution
For the sake of discussion I sometimes accept that mutations can add alleles although I don't really believe it amounts to anything worth mentioning. The point is that even if they do add alleles, even if in fact they ARE the source of all the alleles in all species, it doesn't make a difference to the argument I'm making about evolution bringing about reduced genetic diversity.
Curiously, I don't think you have thought this through. Part of your thesis is that after a population split some previously rare alleles will rise to dominate the phenome of the Secondary Population ... and the rarest of rare alleles would be the new mutation alleles.
Tell me Faith, how would selection tell the difference between a newly mutated allele and an old rarely expressed allele?
It isn't a matter of which "dominates" as you put it. Bloat your species with mutation-caused alleles, all that will do is give you a large scattering of different phenotypes within your population, right? ...
Wrong, what you would get (what we observe actually occurring) is that new mutated alleles displace some older alleles that are not as good at providing for the continued survival and breeding success of those phenotype traits.
... That may be a healthy state for the population but it's not evolution as I'm trying to talk about it.
If it is healthy for the population, then it is by definition beneficial to the species and will help the species (as a whole entity) to survive and reproduce in comparison to other species. That is another aspect of evolution, having to do with the viability of the species rather than the viability of the individuals, whether it is what you want to discuss or not.
You need some kind of selection from among those phenotypes to get evolution, don't you? Or do you disagree with that?
Selection would be what keeps new mutations from "bloating" the population. Selection reduces the effects of less successful alleles and promotes the effects of more successful alleles, whether they are old or new.
I focus on the random type selection of population splits, but it could be natural selection or domestic selection, the genetic situation will be the same, that is, the increasing presence in the population of the selected phenotype or phenotypes and the decreasing presence of the unselected ones. ...
Whether those expressed genetic alleles are new or mutated old ones or just old ones. The selection is for improved survival and reproduction withing the constraints of the ecology -- the ecology defines whether traits are beneficial, neutral or deleterious.
Whenever you focus on one particular aspect you ignore other aspects where your arguments are contradicted.
... If there is a population split and physical reproductive isolation then the new gene frequencies in the new population will bring out more phenotypes of the high frequency alleles, ...
Whether those phenotypes involve the expressed genetic alleles of new or mutated old ones or just old ones. The selection is still for improved survival and reproduction withing the constraints of the ecology -- the ecology still defines whether traits are beneficial, neutral or deleterious, and the selection process determines which traits are passed with higher frequencies or lower frequencies to the next generation.
... which may or may not be the same as those in the original population but most likely not, ...
Because selection pressures will be different, which selects traits based on their fitness for improved survival and reproduction in the ecology the population inhabits. The ecology, and hence the selection, will necessarily be different for the Secondary Population, because it won't be the same as it was for the Primary Population.
... and fewer from the low frequency alleles, and this may be a motley collection for a while too, until after many generations of isolation the new population recombines the whole array of genotypes ...
Curiously this is not really how population genetics works at all. What you see are beneficial traits, whether high or low frequency in any population, being selected based on their relative success at survival and reproduction within their habitat\ecology\environment\niche: those that are more successful relative to the others in the breeding population increase in frequency while those that are less successful relative to the others in the breeding population decrease in frequency. This change in frequencies has very little to do with the initial frequencies and virtually everything to do with fitness to the habitat\ecology\environment\niche. If you can't eat the food available, no matter how high your allele frequency, you will not succeed in surviving to reproduce.
... until a recognizable new collective phenome, if that's the right word, emerges. Or do you disagree with this as a portrait of evolution?
New collective phenomes arise due to different alleles that succeed in surviving and reproducing, whether those selected expressed genetic alleles come from new or mutated old ones or just old ones within the population.
I can't think of any other way you would get a recognizable new species / subspecies myself. ...
Mutations.
The advantages of considering mutations as a prime cause of new species are (a) they have actually been observed to cause new beneficial traits that adapt species to their habitat\ecology\environment\niche, (b) mutations would necessarily differ between Primary Populations and Secondary Populations (no gene flow, no sharing), thus causing differences between the populations, and (c) having different alleles from the original inherited ones in each population is the only known way to drive genetic incompatibility.
... If you add alleles you get new phenotypes but scattered within the population, not characteristic of the population as a species or subspecies unto itself, which won't happen until selection and isolation happen. ...
Selection occurs in every generation, Faith, not once in a while. Whatever mix there is in a population defines the characteristics of that population at that time (which is why it is always evolving).
... Then when you have this selected and isolated population which is forming into a new species, it must also at the same time be losing a whole bunch of those other phenotypes mutation also brought in. ...
And again, what is selected depends on the relative success at survival and reproduction, whether those traits are new, mutated old or remaining old traits. What you lose are the traits least able to provide for success in survival and reproduction, whether those traits are new, mutated old or remaining old traits.
... If it doesn't then you don't have selection and if you don't have selection then you don't have evolution. Or do you disagree?
Disagree: you have evolution whether new alleles are selected or old alleles are selected, because the selection is for success in survival and reproduction, not for change for change sake.
And you have evolution when the frequency of alleles change, whether that is by selection processes or mutations adding new alleles or variations on alleles.
Popular presentations of the ToE picture going from identifiable species to identifiable species so instead of a population of motley different phenotypes selection makes a new population out of those that are selected and eventually eliminates the others. ...
What is observed is that identifiable species have new mutations that result in new alleles and that these new alleles undergo selection with the old alleles based on their ability to provide for success at survival and reproduction. Over time this selection plus genetic drift result in new phenotypes arising.
We compare those observed changes with the difference seen between different fossil species and see that they are similar in magnitude.
What we observe is that the introduction of successful new alleles into a population usually results in the displacement of less successful old alleles, resulting in anagenesis -- population change over generations.
... By losing the others genetic diversity is being reduced. ...
Wrong. The diversity is modified by new traits displacing old ones. Sometimes there is reduction, sometimes there is addition, and they can vary generation by generation.
... If you don't have selection you don't have evolution, ...
If you don't have mutation and selection you don't have evolution.
... you have a species with high genetic diversity and a lot of phenotypic variation ...
Which can improve species fitness relative to other species to succeed at survival and reproduction as a species.
... That may be a pretty common situation and a healthy situation for the species, but again I'm trying to talk about what happens when evolution is actively happening when some individuals are selected over the rest of the population either because of their greater fittedness, or just randomly as some part of a population moves away from the main population or in some other random way gets reproductively isolated from it.
Evolution is "actively happening" in every generation of every species -- each generation has new mutations and each generation undergoes selection to determine who succeeded at survival and reproduction and thus which traits are passed on to the next generation.
All these different forms of selection produce a new population with new gene frequencies which when recombined for enough generations bring about a new breed or race or variety or species/ subspecies. Do you disagree that selection is required for this to happen? Do you disagree that selection produces a population with reduced genetic diversity?
Throw in mutations and new alleles arising from expression of the mutations into the mix, consider them the same way you consider rare old alleles, and you have a much clearer description of evolution producing new species.
Throw in the fact that to get genetic incompatibility you must have different mutations in isolated population that are not compatible, that all shared alleles no matter their relative frequencies, are de facto compatible as they were compatible in the Primary Population.
So you have your new subspecies or variety and now you want to add new mutations, new alleles and go back to the state of a motley collection of different phenotypes that isn't evolving? ...
No Faith, new mutations, new alleles are an on-going process, just as selection of phenotype traits for fitness for survival and reproduction is an on-going process, and they both occur in every generation of every living species. Like breathing; one breath in and one breath out ... followed by ... one breath in and ... one breath out.
... I thought evolution was supposed to proceed from species to species as if there was nothing to stop the formation of new varieties. ...
Which it does, as can be observed. Once you raise your eyes out of the microevolutionary changes that occur within each generation, within a breeding population, you see that these changes add up to gradual changes in the breeding population phenome over time -- just as you posit for your isolated populations, generalized to all populations ... but with mutations added to the mix. As noted this is anagenesis, and it is one facet of macroevolution as defined in science.
... Nothing in any popular presentation of the ToE ever supposes the need to add genetic fuel to keep it going.
Then you are not getting the right information for your "popular presentation" ... see
Mechanisms of microevolution - Understanding Evolution
quote:
Mechanisms of microevolution
There are a few basic ways in which microevolutionary change happens. Mutation, migration, genetic drift, and natural selection are all processes that can directly affect gene frequencies in a population.
What is macroevolution? - Understanding Evolution
quote:
What is macroevolution?
Macroevolution generally refers to evolution above the species level. So instead of focusing on an individual beetle species, a macroevolutionary lens might require that we zoom out on the tree of life, to assess the diversity of the entire beetle clade and its position on the tree.
Once we've figured out what evolutionary events have taken place, we try to figure out how they happened. Just as in microevolution, basic evolutionary mechanisms like mutation, migration, genetic drift, and natural selection are at work and can help explain many large-scale patterns in the history of life.
In other words the microevolutionary processes cause macroevolution to occur over a span of generations.
Enjoy
Edited by RAZD, : .

we are limited in our ability to understand
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This message is a reply to:
 Message 122 by Faith, posted 10-16-2015 2:06 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


(1)
Message 137 of 259 (771007)
10-16-2015 9:00 PM
Reply to: Message 127 by Faith
10-16-2015 5:16 PM


Re: Adding alleles prevents evolution from occurring
Yes, but it won't have been evolving ...
Wrong.
I'm arguing that evolution requires selection ...
To enhance the frequencies of traits that are more beneficial and downplay the frequencies of traits that are less beneficial.
If you keep adding alleles it simply isn't evolving. ...
Wrong. Adding alleles changes the frequencies of the alleles, which is a major part of evolution, by definition.
Adding alleles means there is more variety available for selection to operate on, and thus improved ability in enhancing the frequencies of traits that are more beneficial and downplay the frequencies of traits that are less beneficial, because there is a larger pool to select from.
Enjoy
Edited by RAZD, : cleaned up

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAmerican☆Zen☯Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 127 by Faith, posted 10-16-2015 5:16 PM Faith has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 138 by Coyote, posted 10-16-2015 9:33 PM RAZD has replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(3)
Message 138 of 259 (771011)
10-16-2015 9:33 PM
Reply to: Message 137 by RAZD
10-16-2015 9:00 PM


Re: Adding alleles prevents evolution from occurring
There is no telling what changes in the environment, or other factors, a population will experience through time. Stuff happens, and always has...
A population with a greater diversity has an advantage--there is a greater chance that some members of that population will be adequately-adapted to the new conditions.
The narrower the range of diversity, the more chance that environmental or other changes can cause an extinction due to the population's poor adaptation to the new conditions.
That is what can "prevent evolution from occurring." Narrow range of diversity and rapidly changing environmental/other conditions more likely leads to extinction than evolution.
A wide diversity of alleles/traits means those same rapidly changing environmental/other conditions more likely allow one end or the other of the bell curve to survive and reproduce, rather than causing extinction of the whole population.
And if only one end of the bell curve is able to survive and reproduce, there is significant change from the original parent population.
Hey, sounds like evolution to me!

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
If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle
If a religion's teachings are true, then it should have nothing to fear from science...--dwise1
"Multiculturalism" demands that the US be tolerant of everything except its own past, culture, traditions, and identity.

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


(1)
Message 139 of 259 (771012)
10-16-2015 9:47 PM
Reply to: Message 127 by Faith
10-16-2015 5:16 PM


Re: Adding alleles prevents evolution from occurring
I'm arguing that evolution requires selection (of some sort, random or otherwise) ...
You are not the first person to think of this. There was this chap called Darwin, maybe you've heard of him.
But you are the first person to draw silly conclusions from this premise, and maybe this fact should give you pause.

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 Message 127 by Faith, posted 10-16-2015 5:16 PM Faith has not replied

  
herebedragons
Member (Idle past 857 days)
Posts: 1517
From: Michigan
Joined: 11-22-2009


(1)
Message 140 of 259 (771013)
10-16-2015 10:26 PM
Reply to: Message 123 by Faith
10-16-2015 2:48 PM


Re: Some "intelligent" questions
Nitpick: It's not a "premise," it's the conclusion.
No, it's not really a conclusion. You have made some observations and are trying to explain those observations. Maybe you have presented an hypothesis, but hypotheses are "If..., then..." statements, so what you have presented is not an hypothesis. So, its a premise; it is your starting position which you assume to be true.
I'm talking about observable recognizable changes in the phenotypic presentation of a species, so if it doesn't affect those changes then no it doesn't count.
So then to be clear, we are not talking about genetic diversity, but phenotypic diversity... perhaps allelic diversity; but not genetic diversity.
In the species/family as a whole sounds like high diversity. But I'm not interested in what happens to the species/family as a whole.
When animals came off the ark, they would have been the start of a new family of animals (let's assume that family is roughly equivalent to "kind"). So, what happens to the family as a whole IS important to your argument. A family of organisms is made up of individual species and if the individual species are genetically depleted, the whole family is genetically depleted.
This is just another example of not wanting to deal with ALL the evidence.
Plants may be genetically different enough from the animals I have in mind to need a different explanation, I don't know, but if animals haven't run out of genetic diversity after beaucoup population splits into beaucoup new subspecies, it's because they started out with tons of heterozygous genes and no junk DNA.
This is assuming the conclusion and is why your whole point is a premise rather than an hypothesis. You have no evidence that the original population started out with "tons of heterozygous genes and no junk DNA," you assume it is true because you assume your initial premise is true.
You know plant genetics and I don't and fruit flies too I guess. Sounds like they have lots more genetic possibilities than animals.
Flies are animals. But either way, you keep wanting to avoid discussing anything that contradicts your premise.
Lots of stuff like polyploidy or that sort of thing?
Polyploidy would be mutation, no?
Unless the principles involved are entirely different, however, I would assume that plants too would eventually run out of genetic diversity.
You would assume... but do they? Is there evidence that plants are running out of diversity?
Again you are asking questions that I don't think can be answered
Cannot be answered by your premise, which is precisely my point.
I really have no idea what the problem is. Just as a general statement, if one model is true and another false you'd be better off with the true one even if you've adapted to the false one, right?
Yes, of course we would be better off with the "true" model. The problem is, how do we know what the "true" model is? We test it. We use it to make predictions. We use it to solve problems and answer questions about the world. We really have no way to know for certain that any model is the "true" model, but we can determine the BEST model considering the information we currently have.
My questions were to assess how well your model could work to answer questions scientists ask.
But all I'm interested in is what a sequence of new subspecies that require reduced genetic diversity does to the ToE.
That's the whole problem, Faith, you are not looking for the best model to explain the evidence you are simply looking to discredit the ToE.
HBD

Whoever calls me ignorant shares my own opinion. Sorrowfully and tacitly I recognize my ignorance, when I consider how much I lack of what my mind in its craving for knowledge is sighing for... I console myself with the consideration that this belongs to our common nature. - Francesco Petrarca
"Nothing is easier than to persuade people who want to be persuaded and already believe." - another Petrarca gem.
Ignorance is a most formidable opponent rivaled only by arrogance; but when the two join forces, one is all but invincible.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 123 by Faith, posted 10-16-2015 2:48 PM Faith has replied

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Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 141 of 259 (771014)
10-16-2015 11:10 PM
Reply to: Message 140 by herebedragons
10-16-2015 10:26 PM


Re: Some "intelligent" questions
There is no reason to surmise what might or might happen "When animals came off the ark," as that is an entirely unsupported premise.
You might just as well speculate on what Hamlet would have done or not done under some particular circumstances.
In either case you are engaging in a thought experiment, or more accurately, literary criticism as both what happened during or after the flood and how Hamlet would have acted or reacted are speculations about fictional events.
Both are amenable to thought experiments or literary criticism, but one should not confuse either of those with reality.

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
If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle
If a religion's teachings are true, then it should have nothing to fear from science...--dwise1
"Multiculturalism" demands that the US be tolerant of everything except its own past, culture, traditions, and identity.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 140 by herebedragons, posted 10-16-2015 10:26 PM herebedragons has not replied

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


Message 142 of 259 (771016)
10-17-2015 12:05 AM
Reply to: Message 140 by herebedragons
10-16-2015 10:26 PM


Re: Some "intelligent" questions
I shouldn't start with the latest post but of course it grabbed my attention so here goes. HOpe to get back to the earlier ones.
Nitpick: It's not a "premise," it's the conclusion.
No, it's not really a conclusion. You have made some observations and are trying to explain those observations. Maybe you have presented an hypothesis, but hypotheses are "If..., then..." statements, so what you have presented is not an hypothesis. So, its a premise; it is your starting position which you assume to be true.
That is not the case, HBD. When I was first putting together this argument it was a conclusion I drew from the processes I had come to understand are considered to be "processes of evolution" which I got from hanging out on the UCB evolution site. That list includes mutation among the processes and it took me a while to realize it's in a separate category from the processes that actually have to do with evolving. I remember sorting through how mutation, gene flow, migration in the sense of increasing a population with formerly separated individuals etc are different categories, do different things. I also hung out on the Wikipedia Speciation page and put some things together from that source as well, from how the processes are understood to lead to speciation. I don't know the steps I took to get to the conclusion, whether partly influenced by some creationist input, which is usually cast in terms of "information" which I know I felt I understood better in terms of genetic diversity. I don't remember all the influences that came together to form this argument in my mind, it's been a long time, but it was a conclusion from many pieces of information and no premise, and it's my own in the end, my own argument, my own conclusion. This little history may mean nothing to you but it reminds me that the loss of genetic diversity through processes of evolution is definitely a conclusion I came to from my own encounters with evolutionist concepts. I didn't start out thinking any such thing. I was just trying to make sense of the concepts as presented on those and other sites and came to have a completely different idea of how all those concepts work together.
I'm talking about observable recognizable changes in the phenotypic presentation of a species, so if it doesn't affect those changes then no it doesn't count.
So then to be clear, we are not talking about genetic diversity, but phenotypic diversity... perhaps allelic diversity; but not genetic diversity.
No we are talking about genetic diversity though to my mind allelic diversity is synonymous with that and could be substituted if there was any reason to do so. Phenotypic presentation is what you get from the genetic substrate of course and if you aren't getting phenotypic changes then you aren't getting a new subspecies, but getting a new subspecies is of course the whole point of all this.
In the species/family as a whole sounds like high diversity. But I'm not interested in what happens to the species/family as a whole.
When animals came off the ark, they would have been the start of a new family of animals (let's assume that family is roughly equivalent to "kind"). So, what happens to the family as a whole IS important to your argument. A family of organisms is made up of individual species and if the individual species are genetically depleted, the whole family is genetically depleted.
All I was saying was that this discussion is not focused on that level of things. I'm focusing for now on what happens at the level of the daughter population.
Sure we can go there, and have at times, but it's a side trip. If you want to discuss that we can, there's a lot that can be said about all that, but this post isn't the time or place.
This is just another example of not wanting to deal with ALL the evidence.
Actually it was a simple straightforward truthful statement about what the topic on the table is at the moment. I'm not focused on how much genetic diversity there is in the entire family of any creature and I don't see its relevance in this context. The only point I'm trying to keep in focus is how genetic diversity is lost at those points where new subspecies are developing.
Plants may be genetically different enough from the animals I have in mind to need a different explanation, I don't know, but if animals haven't run out of genetic diversity after beaucoup population splits into beaucoup new subspecies, it's because they started out with tons of heterozygous genes and no junk DNA.
This is assuming the conclusion and is why your whole point is a premise rather than an hypothesis. You have no evidence that the original population started out with "tons of heterozygous genes and no junk DNA," you assume it is true because you assume your initial premise is true.
You seem to be in a mood to find things to accuse me of. Seems to me all I was doing was giving straight honest answers to your questions. It is my hypothesis, OK? that there must have been much greater genetic diversity on the ark, which I came to understand in terms of greater heterozygosity and less junk DNA. It's a hypothesis I arrived at after quite a bit of trying out ideas. So if you ask me to explain a continuing high level of genetic diversity in any creature now I go back to that way of thinking about it. You have to start with very high genetic diversity in my scenario if you are to maintain enough for everything that had to evolve from it. Really pretty simple train of thought, nothing underhanded that I can see. It does happen that by now the various parts of my scenario do fit together pretty well.
You know plant genetics and I don't and fruit flies too I guess. Sounds like they have lots more genetic possibilities than animals.
Flies are animals. But either way, you keep wanting to avoid discussing anything that contradicts your premise.
Where is this accusation coming from HBD? I really have no idea why you keep thinking along these lines. You were asking me about plants and fruit flies, both of which aren't part of my argument. I suppose you could fill me in to the point that they might become part of my argument but at the moment they aren't. I have bigger animals in mind for my argument just because I do and not because I'm avoiding something else. What am I avoiding about plants and fruit flies anyway? All I was saying was that perhaps plant genetics is complicated in ways that are importantly different from dog and human genetics. It has to be different somehow for there to be that many different species. I have no idea what I'm supposed to be avoiding by these answers to your questions. Perhaps you had some ulterior motive in asking them that I failed to appreciate?
Lots of stuff like polyploidy or that sort of thing?
Polyploidy would be mutation, no?
I don't know. I just have this vague notion that plants are subject to that condition and that it would make for important genetic differences from the animals I usually think about. That's all, nothing underhanded. Perhaps you could educate me some about plant genetics here.
Unless the principles involved are entirely different, however, I would assume that plants too would eventually run out of genetic diversity.
You would assume... but do they? Is there evidence that plants are running out of diversity?
I don't focus on plants. You'd have to tell me. Do they lose the ability to interbreed with others of their kind after many population splits? Are there many endangered species of plants due to genetic depletion? Do they suffer from overbreeding the way animals do? Do they suffer from fixed loci after bottlenecks? Etc. etc.
Again you are asking questions that I don't think can be answered
Cannot be answered by your premise, which is precisely my point.
Good grief you are in a suspicious mood. Simply cannot be answered by ME. I don't know the answer. Why are you making this into some kind of skulduggery on my part? I answered your questions simply and honestly, that's all I know. Sounds to me now like you intended them to catch me at something?
I really have no idea what the problem is. Just as a general statement, if one model is true and another false you'd be better off with the true one even if you've adapted to the false one, right?
Yes, of course we would be better off with the "true" model. The problem is, how do we know what the "true" model is?
It was a comment I should have refrained from making since of course it's obvious.
We test it. We use it to make predictions. We use it to solve problems and answer questions about the world. We really have no way to know for certain that any model is the "true" model, but we can determine the BEST model considering the information we currently have.
My questions were to assess how well your model could work to answer questions scientists ask.
And my answer was that I'm not thinking on that level at all and I have no idea how it would apply to the situations you are talking about because I'm focused elsewhere.
But all I'm interested in is what a sequence of new subspecies that require reduced genetic diversity does to the ToE.
That's the whole problem, Faith, you are not looking for the best model to explain the evidence you are simply looking to discredit the ToE.
And I see nothing wrong with that at all. I discovered some things that DO discredit the ToE. Seems important to me to make the case. How it would all work together in a model for the uses you are talking about is simply not something I'm focused on and I don't see why I should be at this point, or why you are holding this axe over my head.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 140 by herebedragons, posted 10-16-2015 10:26 PM herebedragons has replied

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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 143 of 259 (771019)
10-17-2015 4:46 AM
Reply to: Message 115 by PaulK
10-16-2015 10:39 AM


Re: Faith doesn't get it
Faith claims:
If subpopulations form from the subpopulations, as in a ring species, that line of possible variations can ultimately reach genetic depletion, beyond which any further evolution is impossible for lack of the genetic fuel as it were.
But as I have shown this is false. Evolution slows down as variation declines but it will not stop.
And
What this implies is that the genome of each species defines the limit of that species' possible variations, beyond which no further evolution is possible.
Which is the same falsehood.
In reality "genetic depletion" is never seen to result from selection and will not result from normal drift. It is only the bottlenecks produced by severe population loss, or by breeding practices that are seen to produce such problems. The problems are largely a result of "linkage" - bad alleles close to good, which tend to be transmitted together. Natural selection, with it's slower pace has more opportunities to break the link and lose the bad (which will be selected against)

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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 144 of 259 (771020)
10-17-2015 6:47 AM
Reply to: Message 142 by Faith
10-17-2015 12:05 AM


Re: Some "intelligent" questions
Faith, is it really that important that people agree with you - even if you happen to be wrong?
One of your biggest problems here is that many of us care about the truth and you just want to drive a bulldozer over all that. It's certainly the reason for the most recent Admin intervention.

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Admin
Director
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From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.3


Message 145 of 259 (771022)
10-17-2015 9:00 AM
Reply to: Message 142 by Faith
10-17-2015 12:05 AM


Re: Some "intelligent" questions
Faith writes:
herebedragons writes:
This is assuming the conclusion and is why your whole point is a premise rather than an hypothesis. You have no evidence that the original population started out with "tons of heterozygous genes and no junk DNA," you assume it is true because you assume your initial premise is true.
You seem to be in a mood to find things to accuse me of.
Herebedragons is challenging your ideas, which is what discussion here is for. He's not accusing you of anything, and you shouldn't be accusing him of anything.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

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


Message 146 of 259 (771025)
10-17-2015 10:58 AM
Reply to: Message 145 by Admin
10-17-2015 9:00 AM


Re: Some "intelligent" questions
Apparently I missed the "challenge." I don't get it. The whole thing hits me as a series of incomprehensible accusations of this or that fallacy or error, based on some preoccupations of HBD's own that have nothing to do with what I've been arguing.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 147 of 259 (771032)
10-17-2015 2:28 PM
Reply to: Message 138 by Coyote
10-16-2015 9:33 PM


Adding alleles makes species more adaptive
A population with a greater diversity has an advantage--there is a greater chance that some members of that population will be adequately-adapted to the new conditions.
Similar to an organism with a greater genetic diversity will be under less selection stress in a changing ecology
The narrower the range of diversity, the more chance that environmental or other changes can cause an extinction due to the population's poor adaptation to the new conditions.
Similar to an organism with less genetic diversity will be under greater selection stress from changes in the ecology.
A wide diversity of alleles/traits means those same rapidly changing environmental/other conditions more likely allow one end or the other of the bell curve to survive and reproduce, rather than causing extinction of the whole population.
The species as a whole is better fit to adapt to changing situations.
Hey, sounds like evolution to me!
Indeed, and the "micro"evolution processes that occur in a species population are the same as the processes that occur in an ecological web of species -- more successful phenomes (whole species) will survive better and breed more than less successful phenomes, and the frequency of the organisms within all the species changes over time with the response to these "micro"evolutionary processes.
This is "macro"evolution -- changes within species populations via anagenesis, emergence of new species populations via cladogenesis, selection of whole species for survival and breeding based on their fitness within the ecology, including the selection pressure from other species and their relative fitness.
Enjoy

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This message is a reply to:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 148 of 259 (771033)
10-17-2015 3:45 PM
Reply to: Message 138 by Coyote
10-16-2015 9:33 PM


Re: Adding alleles prevents evolution from occurring
A population with a greater diversity has an advantage--there is a greater chance that some members of that population will be adequately-adapted to the new conditions.
This is correct, but irrelevant to my argument.
The narrower the range of diversity, the more chance that environmental or other changes can cause an extinction due to the population's poor adaptation to the new conditions.
This is also correct and irrelevant to my argument.
That is what can "prevent evolution from occurring." Narrow range of diversity and rapidly changing environmental/other conditions more likely leads to extinction than evolution.
Obviously you have no idea what my argument is.
A wide diversity of alleles/traits means those same rapidly changing environmental/other conditions more likely allow one end or the other of the bell curve to survive and reproduce, rather than causing extinction of the whole population.
As I've said many times, high genetic diversity is a healthy condition for the species. But my argument is that the processes of evolution itself are subtractive processes that break up that genetic diversity in order to create new phenotypes out of it. Evolution IS the creation of new phenotypes and especially a new subspecies from those phenotypes, right? Well, for that to happen alleles have to be lost for other phenotypes. This is SO basic. If all you have is the high genetic diversity you don't have evolution. You may have a large stable healthy population but you don't have evolution or the creation of new phenotypes.

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


Message 149 of 259 (771034)
10-17-2015 3:49 PM
Reply to: Message 140 by herebedragons
10-16-2015 10:26 PM


Re: Some "intelligent" questions
That's the whole problem, Faith, you are not looking for the best model to explain the evidence you are simply looking to discredit the ToE.
I think I'll repeat my answer to this. I am not "looking for" anything and have no idea why you'd expect me to. I FOUND information that DOES discredit the ToE, and like a good creationist I present it. You'd prefer me to be doing something else I guess.

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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


(3)
Message 150 of 259 (771035)
10-17-2015 4:22 PM
Reply to: Message 149 by Faith
10-17-2015 3:49 PM


Re: Some "intelligent" questions
No Faith, all you have is an argument that you are desperate to believe.
You are unable to answer the objections and because you cannot you retreat into blind belief. And make up excuses to hide from the truth.
And that is why you fail to convince anybody.
The fact that you can't defend your argument may convince you of its truth. But it's hardly going to convince anyone else.

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