the phylogeographic challenge to creationism

Since the explanations are "simplified, digested and made easy" for my sake, yet are way too much for me to digest in a reading or in some cases ever, due to my ignorance, certainly; and since it is all so clear and simple to you, I wonder if you would be so kind as to explain to me briefly in your own words exactly what my opponents have collectively been saying to me over the last, oh, 60 to 70 posts. I'm sure it would be an immense help. Thanks Nosy. Appreciate it.This message has been edited by Faith, 11-29-2005 05:20 PM

This stuff takes careful thinking and with twenty to thirty other posts that also take careful thinking I don't have time for it.All I can say back to you at this point is that I haven't claimed that ALL the processes of evolution ALWAYS reduce genetic diversity. At least I've tried to remember to acknowledge that they don't.This message has been edited by Faith, 11-29-2005 05:32 PM

I've noted mutation as an exception in just about every post. But I haven't yet seen that mutation confers anything like a genuine useful trait.

I'm thinking along lines of a TREND, an overall reduction of genetic diversity throughout all populations or all life forms over all time. I know that in any particular formation of one population from another this may not occur, but the idea is to see if overall it occurs, as it seems to me it does. These processes either reduce genetic diversity or they more or less maintain the status quo, they don't increase it. Seems to me that the ONLY thing that increases genetic diversity is mutation. In the creationist way of thinking, hybridization doesn't add anything, it merely recombines parts of what is already the genetic allotment of a Kind. Thinking evolutionistically, mutation is continually adding genetic material -- but not everybody talks about it as a normal predictably beneficial process as you do.Your high school students are just trying to absorb what you are teaching. I am trying to find out what's wrong with it. That is, I'm trying to think through things that you already have answers for, and think about them from a creationist point of view which contradicts your point of view. I think that may make it a bit more difficult for me to learn the official terms. Or it is a personal flaw, as it seems I learn them only to lose them. Something to do with my age perhaps. In any case, correct term or not, Mick knew what I meant by the word "suppression" and I'm sorry I can't communicate with you that easily.I have had less time to think about all this in the last few days, a situation which will continue for a few more days, and what there is to think about is more than usual, so I'm lagging behind, but I wanted to answer that much of your post.

Hybridization, sexual recombination etc. Not a genuine increase according to a creationist, simply a way the trend to reduction is masked in a large gene pool.According to my conjectures, it is in species that are threatened with extinction where this trend of genetic reduction reaches its final extreme, that's why it is noted at that point, and those extremes do tend to be where "speciation" has recently occurred, no? In any case, I am convinced those extremes prove the overall trend, "the way of all flesh" as it were.I am certain there is a genetic allotment so your flat assertion that it's been disproved doesn't deter me. It is a terrible handicap to have no experience of talking biology with a nonbiologist. I don't know if it's possible to overcome that. I don't know if I could anticipate a communication problem soon enough to correct it, but maybe you could have in mind that if I'm using a scientific-sounding term that doesn't sound right to you, perhaps I'm using it in a nonscientific way. That might help.Thanks for the acknowledgment that most mutations are unsuccessful. How sure are you that that leaves enough useful ones to counteract the genetic reduction effects of selection, migration, bottleneck and so on? What kind of data/statistics could even be available about this?Thanks for keeping your post short.This message has been edited by Faith, 11-30-2005 11:26 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 11-30-2005 11:29 AM

No reason? Plenty of reason. The reduction of genetic diversity is a huge problem for evolutionism if it were faced honestly, and at the moment the ONLY thing countering it is mutation, which interestingly seems to be growing and acquiring powers of genetic increase by the minute in the minds of evolutionists. Mutation introduces changes that are called mistakes -- mistakes in DNA replication. MOST of them as Mammuthus just acknowleged, abort.This "all the time" refrain seems designed to obscure just how useless most mutation is, and it is very hard to get any kind of handle on how much potential there REALLY is in mutation to counteract the genetic-reduction effects of the other ironically-named Processes of Evolution. It seems to be ASSUMED that mutation is the driving force of evolution these days with rather little to back it up. Oh, I'm SURE it is seen all the time as emphasized here, but what it really is and what it really does remains obscure.

I thought science was interested in the truth and willing to consider what creationists think. My mistake.

Here's some help that is needed from an admin:I don't seem to be able to edit my posts. The edits don't take. Could someone look into that? Thanks.Also, my request for your attempt to abstract the meat of my opponents' arguments was sincere. It would be a great help.Also, your insistence that creationists argue like evolutionists is simply an insistence that creationists BECOME evolutionists. You need to cool it.

If the diversity is of no use to the "evolving" organism, but a disease process that portends its eventual demise then it is meaningless even to speak in terms of mutations increasing genetic diversity, as of course, to state the obvious, the reason genetic diversity matters so much to evolution is that it provides adaptive possibilities for the sake of survival, which deleterious and neutral alleles don't.And how about the possibility that any supposed increase in evolutionarily useful genetic diversity through mutation is exceeded by the decrease in diversity that is brought about by various "Evolutionary Processes" that act on that population? These processes MAY exceed the useful mutation rate even to some great degree, could reduce the diversity significantly more than the mutations supposedly increase it. How would one be able to determine this and if you haven't determined this how can you pronounce so assertively that mutation does in fact increase diversity in any sense that is meaningful for evolution?So you get, say, what, 1000 mutations in a population that don't abort, at 1000 loci, and then by migration or selection 200 of them separate from the parent population and develop a new "species." And I don't see what's wrong with calling this a "new phenotype" as that is how a new species is recognized, by this type that proliferates in the new population that differs from the parent population in some recognizable way, no?Anyway, in the process of separating you have no idea how many thousands of alleles that existed in the original population may no longer occur in the new population -- or both populations for that matter -- at thousands of loci. How do you know whether these eliminations do or don't exceed the increase in alleles by mutation (and again evolutionally USEFUL alleles as this continues under dispute)?And please note that I'm not talking only about NS, Natural Selection, but ALL the processes that isolate a population and develop a new type or "species" -- all the "Evolutionary Processes" that lead to the development of new types and to speciation. Certainly on many of the occasions such a split occurs there may be many other "hidden" forms of the same alleles that were eliminated still present, as in the case of the small beaks DBlevins brought up, but it's still an overall reduction in allelic diversity. Many many genes are affected by selection or migration etc. at one selection or other population reduction, many alleles, not just those involving one character such as beaks. Overall you have to agree that these processes DO reduce diversity -- the best that is possible is that they may manage not to reduce it too drastically but still genetic reduction is the overall effect and increase is never the result. [AbE: I still plan to consider Mammuthus' case of the cichlids so I hope too many don't jump on this particular post yet].The question remains whether mutation adds allelic diversity in sufficient numbers OR quality to be a meaningful counteraction to the inexorable trend to genetic reduction brought about by the "Evolutionary Processes." Well, yes, it amounts to the same thing.This message has been edited by Faith, 11-30-2005 10:51 PM

Please review the posts by Mick, 28, Message 29 and Message 32 that agree that genetic diversity IS reduced by the processes we are discussing, so if you are arguing with me you are also arguing with him. You are talking about what everybody knows happens in breeding programs, and it's basically the same thing Mick described in the OP as well only his example occurred by migration rather than selection. You can select more or less of anything and breed for it by selecting the varieties with more of what you want and eliminating those you don't want. The point is that in order to breed anything you have to ELIMINATE all the competing types, whether the oilier or the less oily it doesn't matter -- this is what I'm talking about, the REDUCTION OF GENETIC DIVERSITY which ALWAYS accompanies the production of new types. Clearly, DB, you are missing the point entirely. What we are talking about is that in order to produce new breeds, and "variation in the species" you have to ELIMINATE competing traits and that ALWAYS involves a reduction in genetic diversity. What you seem to be overlooking is that you have eliminated some types from the population and that this involves a reduction in genetic diversity -- the fact that the same trait remains in another genetic form doesn't change the fact that you have eliminated it in its other forms. As I've been maintaining, as always, you produce new phenotypes BY reducing genetic diversity. You are going to get small beaks in the NEW population only along with the deeper beaks, as I believe you said, but no longer the simple small beaks of the parent population. These have been eliminated, reducing genetic possibilities/diversity. Yes, you're right. I tend to be thinking of the situation where the migrating population is much smaller so the genetic situation in the parent population may not be affected enough to change appreciably, but yes, if you remove any alleles from a population there will be a corresponding observable effect to some degree. Please review the posts by Mick (28, 29, 32) that I have mentioned, to see that he and I agree on this basic process of genetic reduction corresponding to the development of new types. The frequency refers to the fact that it occurs in more individuals in the new population, so that with respect to the defining characteristics of the new population there is always an increase in the frequency of the alleles for those characteristics or traits. But this particular genetic picture dominates in the new population, comes to characterize it as a new type or even a new "species" because of the elimination or sharp reduction of other alleles for those characteristics that existed in the parent population. In fact the parent population may also change in the direction of those alleles that did not leave with the migrants. Yes but meanwhile you HAVE eliminated the majority of the small beaks, and all of the small beaks of the type that characterized the parent population, which means you have reduced the genetic diversity. If they are all the same alleles, that shows a reduction in diversity as diversity implies different alleles for a trait. There is no longer the possibility of a small beak occurring in this new population if the allele for small beaks has been completely eliminated. This is a reduction in diversity. I've answered you DB. I believe I have shown that the misperception is yours. Again, please review the dialogue with Mick up to about message 36 or so. First, before we consider mutation, let's establish that you are wrong about my main point about the reduction of genetic diversity with the formation of new types or varieties or species through the reproductive segregation of a part of a population.Mutation then emerges as the ONLY process that ADDS genetic material to the mix, and whether what it adds ever produces anything truly beneficial to the species, or whether such beneficial changes occur at a rate that can overcome the reduction effect of the migrating, selecting, isolating processes then becomes the question. It seems to me to be highly problematic to say the least, and that even with the most ideally positive input of mutation those processes nevertheless eventually inevitably produce a trend of reduced genetic diversity over time.This message has been edited by Faith, 12-01-2005 02:33 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 12-01-2005 10:12 AM

Isn't sympatry just a version of reproductive isolation between members of the same species? If so, this isn't a different example and of course genetic diversity decreases as the genes of the parent population are left behind and fewer genes are maximized in the new population. If it is, I will try to get how it's different. OK, I'll have to comment as I go to keep on top of this. So far this sounds like the wrong question. Why it occurs is not important, as it is just another case of the situation we are discussing on this thread and this situation comes about by many processes. So this is apparently another one of the processes that isolate populations of the same species from one another reproductively. Mick's examples were of geographic isolation. Whatever isolates the populations, the same mechanisms are at work: each population has a portion of the original gene pool and expresses it phenotypically to the exclusion of the genetic types in the other pool. So, as with Mick's chipmunks, you get two separate varieties of the same species that either have no opportunity, no ability or no interest in interbreeding. And in all these cases genetic diversity IS reduced as in order for the differences in traits to emerge, the alleles for the other forms of those traits must have been eliminated or significantly reduced in the new population or "species." Or were possibly recessive until the dominant forms were eliminated and allowed them to come to expression in the phenotype. Or were produced by genetic drift or whatever, again all processes that involve the reduction of genetic diversity in the service of developing new phenotypes, traits, characteristics, "species." A "propensity for explosive speciation" simply suggests to me that they have a propensity to split into smaller populations that stop breeding with the parent population, for whatever reason -- a habit of migration, or picky sexual selection or whatever? (Fish are sexual, sort of anyway, right?) In any case I see no difference in teh genetic situation from the example Mick gave or any situation produced by the Evolutionary Processes (migration, genetic drift, natural selection, sexual selection, founder effect, bottleneck, and so on -- also including mutation but that's the exception in that it increases alleles and genetic diversity and is now starting to be discussed on this thread as the separate process it is). You are giving new examples but there's no difference in the genetic picture that I can see -- wherever you have a new population started by some individuals from the parent population you have a genetically reduced population with new phenotypic expressions that differentiate it from the parent population. I'm not sure what this focus on lineages is intended to prove, but as with the above, I expect variation within species and nothing about it contradicts creationist expectations so if you think it does I hope you will be more specific.This message has been edited by Faith, 12-01-2005 03:18 AM

MIGHT. Sounds awfully conjectural, and I'm trying to get across that I'm talking about an overall trend to reduction, despite the fact that any particular case may show an increase. Hybridization does add alleles so it's not the same kind of process as the others which merely reduce alleles in order to produce new types, and focusing on it can confuse this discussion. My point is that the MAJORITY of the processes that lead to speciation (selection, migration, bottleneck etc) subtract alleles. Perhaps that's a clearer way of putting it. Mutation and hybridization or sexual recombination add them, but the others subtract. The question becomes whether, overall, in the whole evolutionary picture across all species, the factors that increase outstrip the factors that decrease or vice versa. What you CALL speciation DOES happen ALL THE TIME, but a creationist does not regard it as anything more than variation within a species. LOTS of variations/breeds/subspecies occur all the time, which I've been saying from the beginning, but there is a limit to this process and my whole point here is to suggest that that limit is the fact that the overall trend of the "evolutionary processes" is a reduction in alleles and in genetic diversity which ultimately has an end point, even at its extreme the extinction of the species, and does NOT lead in the direction of genetic increase EXCEPT in particular, less frequent, and temporary cases when hybridization or mutation can be shown to bring this about -- and I'd like to leave these for a separate discussion as they only muddy up the point about the overall genetic reduction that otherwise always accompanies the formation of new "species" (breeds, types, varieties, subspecies). Yes and it is true that I tend to have in mind the dramatic cases where whole rafts of alleles have been completely eliminated from the new population, and the fact that some remain at all, in new frequencies, does mean that diversity itself is not reduced. Still this does it seems to me represent the trend I'm talking about only less dramatically. That is, getting a new phenotype does always involve the REMOVAL of the alleles for other phenotypes and the more this process of splitting continues the greater the reduction. It does not involve an addition (again, as I understand it, addition of alleles only happens with mutation and hybridization or sexual recombination and I'm trying to treat these as separate processes.) If there is IN FACT genetic descent from one to the other the processes ARE the same, but while I could see that elephants and manatees might have that relationship (without knowing the genetics involved of course), I can't see it between bears and dogs. Bears and raccoons, yes. Dogs and wolves yes. (Perhaps hyenas are not related as some have suggested earlier in the thread, but subjectively I would want to include them with dogs). Admittedly this is a subjective categorization but while there may be no evidence for it, there is no evidence against it either. Evolution assumes genetic descent partly because there has not been shown any stopping point in the evolutionary processes under discussion but creationists deny it and there is no evidence for it. All you have is the observed mechanisms of species variation we are discussing, and again, the overall trend in the edevelopment of such new types or variations or breeds is to genetic reduction (again, for the purpose of highlighting this fact leaving out mutation and hybridization)which hardly supports evolution. And again, the very possibility of evolution apparently depends completely on mutation and the other additive processes as the majority of what have been called evolutionary processes only subtract genetic potentials. And again again, I'm trying to keep the focus on these subtracting processes in this thread. I don't see how the term "suppression" came into this at this point, but I think maybe the general point got discussed above. Please do not introduce the idea of mutation in this discussion. For the sake of clarity I need to keep the discussion confined to the genetic situation given at the time of the split of the populations. If one red ball creates a new population it will be a population of red balls. Since one red ball stays behind in the old population it will now occur at this new reduced frequency. But it WILL be a REDUCED frequency of red balls as one of the two has left. Therefore the blue balls will dominate even MORE in the old population than they did before the split. It will be a BLUER parent population. And this will have occurred because of the REMOVAL of a red ball. The point is always that the removal or elimination of some genetic potential is the WAY new types emerge through these particular processes [selection, (natural, domestic or sexual), migration, bottleneck etc.] what you call "speciation." And again, this is to leave out mutation and hybridization for the moment, simply in order to demonstrate that the process I'm focusing on is a process of removal or reduction, and leaving out hybridization and mutation it is ALWAYS a process of removal or reduction. See above. I don't know how you are reading me to be saying we're "growing a new phenotype." And again, please leave out mutation in order that these processes I'm trying to highlight can be seen clearly as the reducing processes they are. Which gives us a BLUER parent population (purple but less red-purple and more blue-purple than before) and an all-red new population. This is simply evolutionist faith, an assumption that is taken for granted but has not been proved. But if there is an overall reduction in genetic potential or diversity with these processes (selection, migration, population reduction and reduction of breeding etc) that lead to "speciation," then there is a natural end point to evolution and that end point is the limits of variation/subspecies formation possible in all directions within the Kind beyond which only extinction is possible. Are you talking about hybridization or what? What exactly is it you are "seeing?" This does get into the other subject I've been trying to keep separate, mutation and other additive processes like hybridization, and crashfrog also claimed that even the cheetah shows a buildup of such diversity. I'm afraid of confusing the topic by getting into this, but I really do not know what it is you think you are actually SEEING. The cheetah is about as genetically compromised as you can get, so if it has been accumulating diversity it isn't the greatest case for evolution anyway. Creationists answer that all the changes that are seen are limited by the Kind, and I'm trying to suggest a major mechanism how that may happen. Evolutionists always answer that they can't prove their belief that it is open-ended because of the time factor, but all the observations that have been made suggest nothing more than that variation is possible and in fact may be highly frequent, within a species or Kind without implying anything beyond the species or Kind. Not at all. All that has happened is that evolutions have been ASSUMING an openended process, but they can't demonstrate it. Now we are getting into mutations and I want to think about that separately. I see, so I guess I don't have to bother thinking about the selection processes that show this to be highly unlikely. In any case, this is just a statement of faith, an abstraction that needs serious unpacking if I'm going to understand any of it. Evolutionists have never shown that there is any genetic connection between dogs and cats. You simply assume it. No problem with cats though. All cats are of one Kind. A cheetah is a cat related to the house cat. They both diverged from earlier cats, which diverged from the original Cat. But every piece of evidence only demonstrates what everybody knows about breeding, and nothing whatever that shows you can get anything but a dog from a dog. Not at all, it is a different understanding of the evidence. I haven't yet seen this convincingly demonstrated at all. What diversity there is appears to be useless evolutionarily anyway, and when the reducing processes like selection get to work on it in order to speciate it you are reducing genetic diversity anyway as I've been saying, so you still have to show that the increasing factors outdo the decreasing factors. There is very little evidence that can't be explained in creationist terms without any reference whatever to faith or belief etc.This message has been edited by Faith, 12-01-2005 11:46 AM

Yes. It really isn't all that massive anyway. Size differences can be huge, particular features may be reduced or exaggerated, and all be the same species. I have no problem considering the sabre-toothed tiger a cousin of the tabby. No, I haven't gone that far, it simply struck me that the behaviors that we associate with existing species quite strikingly continue in the most bizarre breeds, so that they may in fact be a clue to a Kind -- but there may also be others. I would expect that to occur to some extent along with the other bodily changes. But I wouldn't expect it to change far enough to change some defining characteristics of the species (and I do think the behaviors I listed MAY be that).

I thought you were talking about BREEDING such morphological changes so that we KNOW that they are inherited, not comparing two different Kinds whose supposed genetic relatedness is only a fiction of the evolutionist's imagination. I gave a list of behaviors I associate with dogs and cats. Feel free to add or subtract or modify. The only test I can think of would involve breeding animals with an eye to eradicating those behaviors.AbE: Certainly you can modify them, exaggerate or diminish them, but get me a dog that eats rabbit food and uses a litter box, or a cat that wags its tail and barks at strangers and I'll be convinced.This message has been edited by Faith, 12-01-2005 01:08 PM

Definitely all I believe, or at least most. I don't know how far this could go, it was completely off the top of my head, and then I thought it did seem to have the potential for getting at something definitive of the different Kinds. But even cats do a sort of tail wagging that I could see being selected to the point that it begins to resemble more the way dogs do it. I can't even guess what the limits might be, it just seemed likely that these groups of behaviors have something definitive about them. I'd be interested. I'm curious to see how far it could go.