A New Run at the End of Evolution by Genetic Processes Argument

The cause and effect statement above cannot be given a free pass.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Let us imagine that a species has become genetically homogenous, with only one allele per locus. Can it still evolve? If the answer is "yes" Faith's argument is disproven.Even if we neglect stabilising selection and neutral drift, there is still the possibility if a beneficial mutation occurring in the species and starting to spread through the population by selection. Evolution, even in that case, would not stop, only be slowed to the rate at which beneficial mutations arrived.Faith's argument has many other flaws, but even neglecting them it still fails.

This is exactly the sort of "rebuttal" I've answered a million times alreadyThe situation of fixed loci, only one allele, meaning a pair of them, per locus, is the dire situation of the cheetah, from which recovery is not expected by conservationists at all.The scenario I keep describing, a series of population splits one from another, can lead to a similar situation of fixed loci, but my main point is to give an example where evolution is particularly active, and where it reduces genetic diversity from population to population, even perhaps arriving at the situation of fixed loci, which is always a possibility. Mutation is too slow to keep up in such a situation, besides which it becomes subject to the same subtractive processes anyway, and certainly once the genetic diversity has been depleted to the extent of so much fixed loci it's gone way beyond the point where a conservationist or a breeder would have to act to try to replenish it.But the REALLY main point is that since evolution does reduce genetic diversity it puts the ToE in a very strange and untenable position. The standard expectation is that there is no end to evolutionary processes: "What's to stop microevolution from becoming macroevolution?" is the usual question. Well, the fact that evolution itself reduces genetic diversity is what stops it. You don't have evolution unless you have this reduction in genetic diversity. You don't get new phenotypes without getting rid of the alleles for other phenotypes. Breeders know this. Conservationists know it too, though for them it's a problem situation rather than a desirable one.Oddly, Paul seems to think that even if you get total genetic depletion evolution can continue as if nothing had happened to interrupt it. He's conceding the depletion at the same time denying that it's a major impediment to the usual expectations of a steady progress up the evolutionary ladder so commonly visualized in descriptions of how evolution supposedly works. He thinks it's a refutation to imagine a mutation coming along to let evolution continue, a very rare and unlikely event, and even if it did occur what evolution needs is robust genetic diversity, not depleted genetic diversity from which it has to be rescued. And then it gets rescued and say many more mutations build up the genetic diversity again, you still have to reduce the genetic diversity for evolution to continue because that's what evolution does.So, if reduction in genetic diversity always occurs with the development of new phenotypes, and it must, always always always, you simply do not have anything remotely like the popular idea of endless onward and upward evolution that is always pictured and presented to the public.Paul's optimistic idea that a mutation COULD rescue this dire situation is hardly what is visualized about the ease of evolution just proceeding from one variation to another species to species to species up the fossil ladder and up the Linnaean tree without a glitch from creature to creature, but beyond that his optimism is hardly warranted. What are the chances the cheetah will manage not to go extinct before this mutation comes along to rescue it? This particular mutation out of all the possible mutations too. This one that would give it new life, occur in the right place, and spread to the next generation reviving and reviving and reviving. Not good odds at all. And then it has to rebuild its former genetic diversity because you don't get evolution at all unless you have genetic diversity.It's all quite logically clear what I'm saying. You want evidence go talk to the people who are caring for the cheetahs.Oh but the cheetah isn't a proper species because species evolve more slowly or something like that? I don't know. Anything to confuse things. Obviously it's a species. But you don't need a bottleneck to produce the genetic situation of fixed loci. Overzealous breeding programs used to do that quite regularly and it was fixed loci that defined a pure breed too. But a series of population splits such as occurs in ring species should get the creature to the same condition in the last populations of the series because each population has to lose genetic diversity to bring out its own special characteristics.Anyway, what kind of evolution is it that has to wait around for a mutation to rescue a genetically depleted creature? Evolution always pictures abundant diversity, depends on it. The fact that the very processes of evolution have to reduce genetic diversity kills the whole ToE.Paul's refutation is not only no refutation, it's weird.

Go back and read your OP. It's perfectly clear what it claims, and perfectly clear that I have successfully refuted it.

Wrong. Evolution as a whole sometimes reduces genetic diversity and sometimes increases diversity. This is a two-step feedback response system that is repeated in each and every generation: Like walking on first one foot and then the next.There are many instances where mutations have added alleles and hence increased diversity. To say whether or not one dominates over the other means you need to do the numbers ... for every species (because each species will have different selection pressure, which is where the reductive pressure occurs).See Blue Jays post on beneficial mutations that resulted in new alleles.See Taqs post on hemoglobin C.Beneficial mutations have been observed adding diversity with new evolved alleles. The reason that the Cheetah is "endangered" is because of loss of habitat and low reproductive rate. But extinction of species is not necessarily an indication that evolution is failing, because new species are also observed evolving, adding to the overall biological diversity.Natural selection works on whole species as well as on individuals; replace the word "mutations" in the above graphic with "speciation" and this shows how biological diversity is increased on one hand while the extinction of some species reduces it on the other hand.And what we see when observing habitats over long periods of time is that the specific mix of species may vary, as new species move in and old species get pushed out, but the ecological load remains fairly constant. Logical (generally) as far as it goes, but wrong and incomplete -- it doesn't address all the facts. Logic based on false premises is false no matter how good the logic is.In addition, the basic argument commits the logical fallacy of the part for the whole

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Because the parts of a whole have a certain property, it is argued that the whole has that property. That whole may be either an object composed of different parts, or it may be a collection or set of individual members.

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ie -- natural selection reduces genetic diversity by removing less successful alleles, thus all evolution results in loss of alleles.This is false because mutations introduce new alleles or modify existing alleles, and when the less successful alleles are removed it is because the new or modified alleles displace them by being more successful at survival and breeding. Say something new Faith.For answers to the rest of this latest post of yours see Message 49, which still awaits you. Answer the problems that have already been pointed out in your arguments, because until you do so, your arguments *ARE* refuted. By evidence.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : .

Indeed, and the evidence given in Blue Jays post and Taqs post on beneficial mutations that resulted in new alleles shows that the answer is yes.Q.E.D.?Enjoy

OK. I have a few questions based on your "genetic depletion" premise.Do changes or differences in a gene count as diversity if they are in a non-coding region such as introns or intergenic spacers and have no discernible effect on phenotype? And could those polymorphisms allow identity with a particular group or population to be adequately made? In other words, what criteria identifies a sub-species with the larger species group?Would you predict that a family such as Orchidaceae or Asteraceae, with more than 20,000 species each, would have low diversity or high diversity? Should breeding programs with orchids continue attempting to create new varieties, or have they run out of diversity yet? If they have not run out of diversity, then why have they not, with more than 20,000 species. Or what about Drosophilidea which has over 3,000 species, some of which are used extensively in genetic studies and are known for the high amount of diversity they exhibit? Your idea seems to predict Drosophila melanogaster should be depleted of genetic diversity, but its not. Drosphilidea, Ochidaceae and Asteraceae all have had way more branching events than Felidea, of which cheetahs are a member; yet cheetahs suffer genetic depletion because of those branching events and the others mentioned do not. Why?Since total genetic diversity, which it seems to mean the sum total of all the alleles at all loci in a population, is for all practical purposes impossible to measure at this time (I don't think you realize what a daunting task measuring something like that would be) could you recommend a surrogate measure? Are there genetic markers that would provide a good estimate of genetic diversity?What method do you use to determine how closely related populations are? If a population splits and the daughter population becomes a new sub-species and then that daughter population splits again and the split becomes a grand-daughter population, the grand-daughter population will be more closely related to the daughter population than it is to the parent population, right? So, what criteria do you use to determine which is the daughter population and which is the grand-daughter population and can you give an example of this methodology being applied to real populations?Further expanding the above idea, if population splits occurred very rapidly after the flood bottleneck we should now have great, great, great, great, great grand-daughter populations living as extant sub-species. If fact, the grand-daughter populations would have split off to make aunt and great aunt populations as well.Would you be able determine ancestry based on genetic diversity data? Here's what I mean... you suggest that some population in the past had very high genetic diversity and as sub-populations split off from that population, they lost diversity. So, it would seem that groups with high genetic diversity are more ancestral than populations with low diversity, which would be the derived form. In other words, could we take the dog group and arrange it based on genetic diversity, come up with some sort of branching tree-like structure and have a good idea how the dog group developed? Based solely on genetic diversity. Can you give an example of a study that used that or a similar methodology?Finally, in cladistics we refer to all species that share a common ancestor as a monophyletic group. Your scenario would have the same situation; all species or sub-species that descended from the original ark pair would form a monophyletic group or clade. What criteria would you use to determine which monophyletic group a sub-species belongs to? For example, does a fox and its kin belong to the wolf/dog clade or does it belong to a different clade (maybe the fox clade) and what criteria do you use to determine that?I am not sure you will consider any of these questions to be "intelligent," but these are the kinds of things I find troubling about your scenario. These are issues that I don't think your "genetic depletion model" can address, but the standard genetic model does address quite well. How could I use this model in my own population study? Why should I adopt this model when the model I already have appears to work so well, and I don't see any practical way to apply this model (nor does it even seem plausible)?HBD

This alone would be enough to reproductively isolate populations in the wild - Great Danes would not be able to mate with Chihuahuas for instance and could be considered biologically distinct species. Some people consider dogs to be an example of a ring species, separated not by geographical location, but by morphology. To be fair, "species" is a very contentious subject. Every taxonomist has his/her own criteria for what should be classified as a separate species. There are of course general guidelines and some very useful definitions, but they can't be universally applied in all situations and a lot of subjectivity comes into play when assigning taxonomic categories.Ultimately, classification of species, sub-species or whatever, is a human construct used to convey particular information about a particular population. Referring to Great Danes and Chihuahuas as sub-species of the wolf conveys particular information about those population's habits, purpose, relationships, etc. just as referring to lions and tigers as separate species (although they can make viable hybrids) conveys particular information about those population's habits, habitats, locale etc.Faith's attempt to rename recognized species as sub-species is really just an attempt to distance her idea from the concept of macroevolution. However, it is completely unnecessary and confusing. Taxonomy is used for the convenience of human discussion, the organisms don't care whether we call them species or sub-species. Even were all species created as is 6,000 years ago, we would still be able to classify them in this hierarchical system of species, genus, family etc. based on shared characteristics. So what hierarchical system is used is really irrelevant.What we would not be able to do (or would not expect to be able to do) if every species were created as is, is to attach any significance to ancestry based on those classification systems. However, we CAN significantly attach information about ancestry to our classification system and just calling something a sub-species does not change that.* I am pretty sure you know all this, but you asked HBD

Hi PaulK,You don't quote what in Faith's Message 108 you're replying to, and referencing back to Faith's 1600 word opening post doesn't help. Please clarify.

to avoid side trails, I'm simply responding to her claim that I haven't refuted her argument. As for the rest, I think it worth seeing how she responds. Clarification will be coming, but the form is yet to be decided depending on Faith"s response.

Indeed. For practical purposes "species" is used for independent distinct breeding populations. When one such species divides into two species, those species each have the independent distinct characteristic of species that the parent species had.Every organism that lives or ever lived belongs to a species. The formation of nested clades is what makes macroevolution, not what we call the latest results.Enjoy.

Hi, Faith. This cheetah story has been somewhat misrepresented, I think. The primary genetic bottleneck in cheetahs seems to date back to the Pleistocene (10,000 years ago), as this paper suggests, with modern anthropogenic effects having only exacerbated the problem. So recovery from this genetic bottleneck isn’t really the major consideration for conservation: rather, there is some concern that the cheetah may be unusually vulnerable to certain diseases. However, this paper found that at least one cheetah population shows evidence of having partially recovered its pre-bottleneck diversity at the immune-gene loci studied in that paper, and the unusually high rates of non-synonymous mutations indicates positive selection for increased diversity at these loci. To me, the couple of cheetah papers I just read seem to indicate that cheetahs have indeed accumulated new genetic diversity since their last genetic bottleneck. So, PaulK was at least partially correct: evolution has, indeed, continued after "total genetic depletion."The "as if nothing had happened to interrupt it" part is not supported by this data, but then I don't believe that accurately represents what PaulK said.-----One interesting thing to me is that, in the cheetah example, the effects of a severe genetic bottleneck seem to have carried over for 10,000 years or more. So, you're certainly right that reduction in genetic diversity can be a major obstacle to survival and later diversification of a population.But, my reading of the evidence suggests that mutation offers an avenue for adding new alleles, or a means of counteracting the depletion of diversity caused by selection. Even the cheetah example indicates that additive process of mutation can outpace the subtractive process of selection, and result in a net accumulation of alleles.Do you understand why I have come to this conclusion?

Hi Faith,Though I'm replying to you, this is actually suggestions for subtopics for the general discussion to focus on. About the very last part of this quote, the part about mutations being too slow, I think this is a key point that Faith believes she has demonstrated is true, and that no one else believes that she has. I'd like to see people encourage Faith to try to support this point. See if she'll elaborate on why she thinks the endangered species like the cheetah and artificial processes like breeding prove mutation is too slow. See if she'll explain her reasons for rejecting the possibility that mutations can provide adaptation. I think what Faith really means here is that selection reduces genetic diversity. See if she'll verify whether that's the case, that she really does understand that evolution includes both selection and mutation (among other things), and that she understands what actually happens when mutations propagate through a population. This is perhaps Faith's central confusion. The error in this thinking has been explained to Faith many times, but none have succeeded. I encourage people to continue seeking novel approaches that might help Faith see the errors in her thinking. I encourage Faith to do the same, to continue seeking novel approaches that might help the evolutionists see the errors in their thinking.I will here insert a reminder that no one should begin stating that they've already explained everything they have to explain, or that all the fault is on the other side, or that the other side is delusional, etc. Sorry for the impending emphasis, I don't usually do this, but I'm going to be very quick on the trigger, so I'm going to very clear that though I'm very happy to see these sincere attempts at productive discussion, I have been disclaiming about this until I'm blue in the face and it hasn't done any good, SO I WILL QUICKLY SUSPEND ANYONE WHO GOES OFF THE RAILS IN TERMS OF PRODUCTIVE DISCUSSION. I DON'T CARE IF YOU THINK I'M ATTILA THE MODERATOR, THE MOST HEINOUS ADMIN SINCE HITLER, AND THE MOST INCOMPETENT DISCUSSION LEADER SINCE HOMER SIMPSON. I *AM* THE MODERATOR AND I *WILL* SUSPEND ANYONE WHO STEPS UNREASONABLY OUT OF LINE.This is a simple one that I'll handle myself. Faith, scientists do not believe in an evolutionary ladder. They accept explanations that include change over time, selection, competition and adaptation. Perhaps discussing evolutionary topics like competition and arms races might be helpful in seeing why the fossil record records many improvements over time. The cheetah is another good topic for discussion. How can Faith be helped to understand that the cheetah may well go extinct, as many species both in living memory and in the fossil record, have gone extinct, and it doesn't at all prove her point that mutations can't add diversity or affect the course of evolution? From Faith's perspective, how can she add something to her cheetah example to help people see how it disproves evolution?

Well, Faith hasn't come up with anything new, so I may as well provisionally summarize now.Faith has constructed a brand new theory of evolution of her own. The distinctive feature of the Faith theory is that it ignores known genetic mechanisms which we can watch in action. Mutation is simply ignored. Events are freely posited that run contrary to the law of natural selection. Indeed, the only mechanisms that are taken into account would seem to be the founder effect and recombination.Such a theory, having been deliberately crippled and blinded, must necessarily fail to explain evolutionary phenomena. And that's what it's for. It is intended to be unable to explain macroevolution, so that Faith can reverse the usual practice of science by rejecting the fact of macroevolution because it doesn't fit the Faith Theory (whereas a scientist would say: "What do you know, the theory I carefully designed to be wrong is wrong.")Faith tries to lend credence to her theory by claiming that it does explain the sort of microevolutionary events that she doesn't want to deny. The trouble is, it doesn't. The experience of geneticists and of breeders are full of evolutionary events which don't fit into her paradigm because they're known to involve mutation. (We have given her examples. She has ignored them.)Indeed, Faith has yet to provide a single example of a breed or subspecies or species which is known to have been produced by Faithesque mechanisms. I emphasize known because of course she can baselessly conjecture that such a thing has happened (as with the cheetah); what she can't do is produce any observations showing that it has.Finally, we should note that the Faith theory doesn't even fail in the way it's supposed to. Recall that the purpose of the Faith theory is that it should be unable to explain past macroevolutionary events, so that they can be dismissed as inconsistent with the theory. But it is also purported to be sufficient to explain the production of all modern dog breeds from two wolves. Now if this can have been achieved in the past by a process of loss of genetic diversity, then what can not? Why couldn't an even greater loss of diversity have produced all mammals from Morganucodon? Or humans from some more basal ape? If we take the Faith theory seriously, its consequence is that evolution will stop at some unspecified point in the future, but it seems to place no limit on how much could already have happened in the past. This has been drawn to Faith's attention and she has made no real attempt to fix it; her response has simply been along the lines of "that's ridiculous". So it is, Faith, but it's your theory as it now stands.

Yeah, I read that last paper and my impression was that it was not clear that they were new alleles or previously unrecorded ones. It would be interesting to see if DNA from the 1985 studies could be compared to DNA from recent specimens from the same populations to see if there are differences.One of my thoughts on this issue is that IF Faithilution (microevolution is due to loss of alleles alone) then there should be genetic deserts where species die off and leave vacancies in the ecologies, because the neighboring near relatives would not be able to recreate the extinct species (due to their own depletions) to fill those niches.Another is that any split according to her concept would suffer depletion. IE there should be similar issues with lions and leopards as there are with cheetahs (other that loss of habitat due to human activities).Enjoy