Can Domestic Selection cause Macroevolution?

NS is about the pressures excerted on a population by its enviroment .. and , in effect , these pressure will kill off the population unless the population is adapterd to the pressures ... over time these pressure may change and a small group with in the population may be better suited to survive the new presssures , and so will out breed the rest of the population and become the dominate variant .. until the pressure change again ..DS is about a derired outcome by a controling influence , it will pay no respect to the pressures from the enviroment , and will move the population to a new , posibly artifical enviroment to aid the selective process , DS will allow traits that LOWER the overall fittness for survial to become prevalent , accepting these as a cost of acheving the desired outcome ...the two are very different in how a individual is selected , how the population is shaped , and what factors direct the selective process .a good analogy is buying a car ..using NS ..you look at the service history , check tires , brakes , listen to the engine , try the lights .. then pickusing DS ..you ask is it blue ? does it have leather seats ? and does it have a 8-slot cd player ?both ways you get a car .... but very different carsThis message has been edited by ikabod, 04-04-2006 06:38 AM

in replyYes human activites setup pressure on populations and effect the NS , BUT these are side effects of the human activity .. they are not seeking to drive selection , for example when we grow fields of wheat we do not do it to affect the NS pressues on field mice , we are not trying to DS field mice fitter to live in mono culture wheat fields , the same if we flood a valley to create a resovior , we do them for our reasons and the byproduct is a enviromental change on the local populations .. Just as if a natural landslide blocks a valley mouth and turns a river into a new lake .as to symbiotic relationships .. taking firstly the ant / fungus example the NS pressures are still there on the ants , and the fungus has swapped being vunerable to its own set of pressures and now is sharing the same pressures as the ants .with humans i would question if its a real symbiotic relationship , as humans can do without a particual breed / strain of plant , and will migrate to other areas to grow different crops , and in fact it is the humans who massivly decresse the size of the plants gene pool , a good example is apples , a centry ago there was hundreds of varities of english apples grown , now there is a handful , and they are only grown for commercial reasons , we dont need any apples , so if people buy pears and not apple we will stop growing apples , the reason for apple survival are pure DS not NS

Quantum mechanics is not a tool for anaylsing living system ... given enought time you could use quatum mechanics to describe every partical and bit of energy that goes to make up a cat but you cannot use quatum mechanics to describe the the hunting behaviour of the cat stalking a mouse or the enviromental pressure on the cat from a massive drop in mouse population due to ,say, disease .given that what you go on to say is equally non applicable .