MACROevolution vs MICROevolution - what is it?

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Mutation is not at all necessary;

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Oh but it is. Your argument proves that.

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all it takes is the built-in genetic diversity.

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That there was sufficient "built in diversity" - to,explain even the evolution you accept - is an assumption on your part. Whereas we know that mutation is real.

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But it's the selection that brings about evolution.

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Selection - using the term correctly - is necessary for adaptive change. But without mutations providing variation for it to work with it runs out quite quickly - as YOU argue. That's why there are limits to how far you can change a breed.Really, when you say mutation isn't needed you say that your argument is even more wrong than everyone else already says. You can't have it both ways.

You're battling facts with fantasy again. Well, this is accurate now that you've left out the claim that evolution *is* selection. As has been said many times now, there's no argument about breeding. What you call "the party line" is knowledge based upon facts. Well, I'm sure you're going to keep asserting, but you don't seem to know very much that is true. By "built-in genetic diversity" you mean diversity that existed in organisms before the flood and then was spread among the descendants after the flood to form all the species we observe in the world today? I'd like to see these "mathematical formulas of Population Genetics" that "seem to affirm it." I've got to comment on how amazing it is that yesterday you were struggling to understand an oversimplified 2:45 video on population genetics, and today you've mastered the "mathematical formulas." Good for you! I can't wait to see the math. How so? Why quotes around "observed," and where has this "built-in genetic diversity" been observed? The conclusions of the ToE are based upon facts and observations going back a couple hundred years. We can provide knowledge and facts limited only by the amount you can absorb. No genome has ever been discovered with all the genes and alleles necessary for a new species neatly packed away just waiting to somehow be distributed into offspring to create a new species. Since copying mistakes, mutations, are impossible to stop, are inevitable, there is no way that DNA cannot evolve. The genetic interrelatedness of species shows that they evolved. When mutations accumulate in a population so that it is genetically incompatible with other populations of the same species and can no longer interbreed with them, then that is a new species. It's evolution beyond the species level and is called macroevolution. And yet though mutations are present in all offspring of every species, and though this has been true since the beginning of life, it does not "mess things up." Selection removes the unfit from a population, and mutation provides new variation.--Percy

Wow, what a bundle of inconsistencies! Point me again to the research demonstrating the character of evolution after the flood? Okay, speciation is "a crock," but then you say: So you think speciation is "a crock", but you also think "population growth followed by migration" caused speciation. And since it happened in years rather than millennia, how is that not rapid? And how, exactly, does "population growth followed by migration" cause speciation? Where does this supposed "built-in genetic diversity" come into play? Since ability to interbreed is what defines a species, at least for the sexual species we've been talking about, then how can interbreeding be irrelevant? So there's no such thing as macroevolution, but your scenario includes macroevolution (speciation brought on by "population growth followed by migration"), so that's a kind of significant contradiction.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

Your pattern seems to be, "If an argument disproves my point, I'll first claim its wrong, then I'll claim I don't understand it, then I'll claim I'm being unfairly overwhelmed technically, then I'll claim there's no facts just assertions, then when the facts can't be denied I'll claim it's just an interpretation, then I'll change my argument, then I'll claim no one understands my argument, and then I'll wrap around to the beginning again." Wait a minute. A bit ago you were claiming that you could prove your claims about built-in genetic diversity with the mathematics of population genetics. But if the actual truth is that you have "a very limited area of knowledge" (an understatement obvious to everyone) then you were not being truthful about having that population genetics math.You can't have it both ways. You can't be both ignorant and knowledgable about something like population genetics at the same time. The claims you've been making require more than enough knowledge and intelligence to understand HBD's arguments. Either you've been making claims out of ignorance, or you're not being truthful about not being able to understand HBD's arguments. You're being very obtuse and unclear. You've repeatedly backed off your argument that breeding proves evolution can't produce speciation, and then you've repeatedly reinstated it again. Each time you back off this argument HBD says that if all you're arguing is that at some point a process of reducing genetic diversity (i.e., breeding) reaches its limits, then there is agreement. But then he goes on to say that he doesn't believe that's all you're arguing, that you're also arguing that breeding is a model for how evolution works, and that since breeding doesn't produce new species then evolution can't either. And then you prove him right by repeatedly going back to that argument. How about a little consistency? So if that's your argument then stop saying that speciation isn't your focus, because proving that speciation isn't possible is precisely your focus. Wow - get confused much? HBD wasn't dismissing your argument at all.What really happens is that each time you again start claiming that you're only arguing that breeding produces reduced genetic diversity and homogeneity, HBD says that's something that is trivially true and on which there is agreement (e.g., "I have agreed and pointed out several times now that this is trivially true." From Message 719). He also says he doesn't believe you, that he thinks you actually still believe breeding's inability to produce new species is a model for evolution and proves evolution can't produce new species. And then you make precisely that argument yet again and prove him right, and then you repeat the cycle and deny-the claim/repeat-the claim a few posts later. I think HBD, like the rest of us, have just been responding to your changing arguments. First you claim you know, then you claim you don't know but will one day. Then you claim you know again. Then you're not arguing anything other than breeding reducing genetic diversity. Then you're arguing that it also disproves speciation. Then you're not. Then you are. It goes on and on. You change your arguments multiple times daily.--Percy

Well, that's shallow... so I am right that you purposefully don't understand my arguments... so it's not me, it's you being unwilling to stretch yourself. OK. What is being pointed out is how it is inappropriate to extrapolate your ideas that come from selective breeding to the entirety of evolutionary theory. So your insight into how breeding works is absolutely trivial to how evolution works as a whole.Just like Mendelian inheritance and Punnett squares are trivial to population genetics. They are correct and proper, but play a very minor role in population genetics. They are totally incomplete by themselves.And as I said, you are missing significant pieces. Your insight into breeding is incomplete by itself. Right.So... you ARE saying that selection, isolation and reduction in genetic diversity can produce these relationships: This is a phylogeny of the genus Panthera, which even most young earthers agree share a common ancestor (actually, I think the "cat kind" generally involves more genera than just Panthera, so this would be a limited representation of the "cat kind.").If your answer is "Yes, the process I am arguing for produced these relationships." Then my arguments are right on target and absolutely are not irrelevant. They address exactly this issue... that the process you are arguing does not produce the separate species as shown in the Panthera genus. The process you are describing is incomplete and cannot account for the differences between, for example, Panthera leo and Panthera tigris.If your answer is "No. That is not what I am arguing." Then your argument is trivial and has little ability to address the ToE explanation for the origin of species. We know and agree how breeding works, that's not the issue.The issue is your leap from "Hey, I figured out how breeding works." to "How the breeding process works proves the ToE wrong." That is an illogical and entirely wrong-headed leap and THAT is what I and others are arguing against. Now this is simply an untruth. I have argued at length as to why I think it's wrong. Just because you can't understand it doesn't mean I haven't argued it. If you don't understand the counter arguments, and are unwilling to try, that's on you. I think my analogy about you only being willing to dip your toes in the water and then drawing conclusions about what the entire ocean is like is very appropriate. I certainly haven't explored the entire "ocean" myself, but I have done way more than "dip my toes in." I am trying to tell you that your ideas about the "ocean" are wrong, and I know that because I have explored other "places." If you don't want to get out and do more than "dip your toes in," that's completely fine... but don't think you can accurately describe the entire "ocean." SHEESH HBD

Excellent way of expressing it. I was trying to say something like this, but couldn't quite come up with the right words.HBD

Did you actually say anything at all substantive in that whole post? If you did I can't find it.

Everything I've said is truthful, I really don't u7nderstand your problem.

Oh sorry, here I'll point out the substantive parts: Thanks for pointing out my lack of clarity as to what I thought was important to type out.Now... does your process explain the diversity in Panthera or not?HBD

Yes, built in at the Creation. abe: if you add functioning genes where there is now junk DNA, and assume much greater heterozygosity, say at least 50% I'd guess that's enough to account for all of it. Who knows, maybe eventually I will be able to show this mathematically, but it's not as if I've left you in the dark about what I think accounts for it all. /abe It6's the lack of reference to mutations, which would have added alleles and changed the allele frequencies in the calculations that I was referring to. Abe: In the Punnett square you have an A allele and an a allele and their combinations are the basis of the calculations of their frequencies in the population. If mutations are occurring all the time there would be many more alleles for a given gene that would change the frequencies. Even if there was only one mutant allele, say A' that pairs with the a in other individuals, that changes the frequency of the a. Maybe this is taken into account later on; I was just saying I would think it would be mentioned at this point if mutations are a big factor in population genetics. /abeI get the basic idea of the math but I don't think I could calculate the frequencies beyond the examples given. abe: That's why I said I'd hyave to listen again and take notes. Even then I don't know if I could get goot enough at understanding the math to use it freely for such calculations. /abeEdited by Faith, : ADDED QUITE A BITEdited by Faith, : No reason given.

I can't read your long post. I can't see the chart, it's blinding.If I don't know the order of evolution of one kind of cat from another how could I possibly know where to apply my argument to the example? ABE: the little I can see of your chart suggests it's the usual taxonomic arrangement? What is it supposed to demonstrate that you think disproves my argument? /abeYou are accusing me of stuff based on nothing. I haven't lied about anything, I haven't changed my argument, and so far I still don't have a clue what you think is wrong with my argument, or even if you yet really understand it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I realized I didn't think it through right about the effect of mutations. It wouldn't be "other" individuals with the mutant A, all the individuals would be counted for that particular gene, but the possibility of an A' should have been noted if mutations do occur as much as is claimed. How it would be counted I don't know. The a frequency should be constant in any case since it's the same in all individuals.

Ooh, good one, I'll add this to the list of your prevarications. And I'll add this one too from a later message: Great stuff for bringing discussion to a screeching halt.--Percy

I can't possibly have said that.HBD's plant example uses plant language that I can't translate into my own context. Then his title threw me, the claim to be disproving something about speciation which is at best a side issue in my argument.I use the breeding example as the basis for showing that to get a new population with new characteristics requires selection which requires a loss of genetic diversity. I'm not aware of changing anything in my argument, it can only be that when I answer in a certain context I don't make the whole argument and you and HBD then misread it. Nothing has ever changed in my basic argument. Breeding is the main example I use to demonstrate what selection does, which is loss genetic diversity, and that you can't get a new population of anything in the wild either unless genetic diversity is lost and that mutations only interfere.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You are once again ignoring your own argument. You have been saying that evolution will stop because genetic diversity will run out. This is contradicted by the fact that mutations increase genetic diversity, even if that new diversity is reduced in the future.The analogy of a car's gas tank is valid. Cars don't stop running after 400 miles, the distance they can drive on one tank of gas. More fuel is constantly added to the tank so that the car never stops. All you want to do is point to the engine reducing the gas in the tank. You ignore all of the gas going into the tank. Evolution never stops because new variation is constantly added to the population through mutations. New gas is added to the tank of evolution.Here is a simple example:

Generation 1     Generation 500         Generation 1,000
Alleles:         AA               AB                     BB

We start with a population which is homozygous for allele A. A mutation occurs which produces allele B. After 500 generations the population is heterozygous for alleles A and B, which is an increase in genetic diversity. After another 500 generations, allele B replaces allele A. You start and finish with the same amount of genetic diversity. Genetic diversity stays the same, and evolution moves on.In the future, you can have a mutation that produces allele C which goes through the same process. Evolution never stops.