A barrier to macroevolution & objections to it

I'd like this to be more or less a continuation of the thread, What is the mechanism that prevents microevolution to become macroevolution?, on which I argued as usual for the mechanism of reduction of genetic diversity through selection and population-splitting processes, but I'd like to extend it to include the claim that mutations can overcome this barrier to macroevolution. But since it's apparently hard for the argument about the reducing processes to stick in anyone's mind, it needs to be reviewed.On that thread at the very end, Percy said: I would say it's unfortunate that Percy didn't read more of the thread since he missed the whole argument that answered his walking analogy.When the same doubt about the topic's being addressed came up earlier in the thread, Ben answered it quite well {edit: Pretty well anyway; not quite right on but close}:http://EvC Forum: What is the mechanism that prevents microevolution to become macroevolution? -->EvC Forum: What is the mechanism that prevents microevolution to become macroevolution? Percy continues: This has been answered already many times by my argument. The only way the walking analogy would work at all, and then not really, is if you modify it to say that micro-walking is like a steep uphill hike in which baggage is periodically jettisoned from the backpack to make it easier, until you arrive at the foot of a sheer vertical cliff without any of the gear that would be needed to scale it (macro-walk it), because it has been jettisoned along the way. THAT is the boundary between micro-and macro-evolution, and the path to that point is the definition of the Kind. Defining that boundary is the whole point of my argument. The boundary is the fact that all the processes of evolution either maintain genetic diversity while varying frequencies of alleles, or reduce genetic diversity by eliminating alleles from new populations, the very populations considered most likely to lead to speciation, and the overall trend of this is slow reduction.There is nothing whatever that could increase it except mutation.Adding mutations to this is really more like interfering with a perfectly well-designed system than it is furthering anything useful, but on the assurance given by evolutionists that mutations do indeed provide useful alleles and increase genetic diversity enough and in the right direction to power evolution through to macroevolution, I've asked for evidence that this is so, and all I get is the usual short list of supposedly beneficial mutations. This does not meet the requirement, about which I'll say more in response to the following:RickB in http://EvC Forum: What is the mechanism that prevents microevolution to become macroevolution? -->EvC Forum: What is the mechanism that prevents microevolution to become macroevolution?: A logical conclusion is a logical conclusion. There is no other from the premises I have assembled, which you do not bother to mention, preferring to make an unsupported pronouncement. I've rejected the evidence as insufficient and therefore no evidence at all, if it's meant to demonstrate increase in alleles and genetic diversity after speciation. To do that you'd have to actually MEASURE alleles in a population after speciation, you can't merely assume that the occasional beneficial mutation in another species is sufficient to prove this. And the ball is in your court, not mine, because I've shown that all the other processes reduce genetic diversity, so it's up to those who claim mutation overcomes this to prove it. The whole point of the discussion about all the processes that reduce genetic diversity is that they come up against a brick wall beyond which no further variation or evolution is possible. Wherever this barrier is found is the outer edge of the Kind. You may want a definition, but a barrier should do as well instead.But also, in another thread MJFloresta suggested that a Kind might be defined by all that could be interbred even artificially, assuming that some species simply stop interbreeding from lack of inclination rather than inability, and I thought that possibly a useful way to think about it. Then kuresu posted a list of hybrids that is quite extensive, and intuitively satisfying as a suggestion for what a Kind would include, which I thought would be a great start toward a definition of the Kinds. It's not that we haven't offered some thought along these lines.Anything that clarifies the argument about the processes that reduce genetic diversity or supports the claim that mutations overcome this effect should be on-topic in this thread. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

What I actually said, if you will be so kind as to review it, is "all the OTHER processes..." meaning other than mutation. I am trying to keep the focus there, not deny mutation, just keep mutation from being blurred in with these other processes in such a way that it keeps this fact obscured, that all of them reduce genetic diversity. I'm pretty sure nobody faced this fact until I started hammering away at it, and some still haven't recognized it. Evidence that mutation increases alleles after speciation has been promised but not delivered, and that is where the ball remains until it is delivered. All anyone has actually offered is some paltry examples of very iffy beneficial mutations. To prove that mutation increases alleles would involve, at a minimum, COUNTING ALLELES before and after speciation.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Unfortunately for your claim, "modification" has historically meant not just mutation but all the processes I've been showing to reduce genetic diversity, such as migration of small populations, natural selection, bottleneck and so on. Historically these have all been listed together with mutation as "evolutionary processes," not making the distinction I've been taking pains to make.This has been a big confusion, because these processes do bring about a change in the phenotype, new traits, and appear to be "evolutionary processes" for that reason. The fact that all they do is select from among alleles that are already present in the population, often by eliminating some altogether, implies that there's no way such a process could be the power to fuel evolution, but historically it has been treated as such. Conservationists know better. They know that selection processes, even random selection processes like migration, and certainly bottleneck, can reduce genetic diversity to the peril of the species, not what you'd call a happy prospect for macroevolution.So, that leaves ONLY mutation for the ToE to depend upon. Let's say I'm waiting for some actual evidence on which to base a change of opinion. I've done a very good job of showing how most of the supposed evolutionary processes work against evolution, and now I'm waiting to see evidence that mutation could REALLY move the whole shebang in the opposite direction all by itself.Showing me that mutations exist proves nothing. I know they exist. I also know most of them do nothing useful at all, and those that do also do something destructive at the same time. Very odd idea that these examples are the evidence that is required. I don't accept it because it doesn't meet the requirement. You want me to pretend it meets it like you all do?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Yes, thank you. And worse than that, it's not even outright denied, it's sometimes seemingly tacitly accepted when it is agreed that mutation IS the power that drives evolution. But so far nobody has shown the slightest understanding or clear unequivocal recognition of this stasis and loss of diversity in everything but mutation. There is no ground for considering mutation's possible effect until that is done.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It has to produce useful allelesIt has to produce more useful alleles than deleterious or useless alleles. Evolution can't possibly have been built on a trade-off between disease and health.It has to produce enough of them to take a new species from a state of sometimes severe genetic depletion to genetic abundance, where its parent species started many selections behind it. The development of a new species, after all, is the point at which evolution is supposed to turn to macroevolution, so if in fact the new species has a lot fewer alleles per gene than other populations from which it speciated, mutation has to restore all that, and that would only get it back to where the original population is. So it has to provide a lot more than that.And this is a very odd situation, since speciation itself is supposed to be this launching point for macroevolution. Why then are we having to add anything in at this point, a whole bunch of mutations to make up for the loss of genetic diversity, and note well, the very loss of diversity that makes the speciation happen in the first place. There is something wrong with this picture. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This does seem to be what people assume, and it may account for most of the confusion. Why it is assumed is a question. Is it only because it is vaguely recognized that speciation otherwise does often/usually/always deplete genetic diversity?But breeders have always selected from traits already present, not traits that just appeared for the purpose of choosing them. You can't just assume their origin was mutation once upon a time. Natural selection selects traits already present, of course. Except for this one bacteria experiment that appears to show mutation out of the blue of a useful new trait, and that's the ONLY experiment that has shown such a thing, in a one-celled animal, really not a basis for assuming that as a normal occurrence in complex organisms. There is no reason to think that the observed changes in phenotype as a result of population split have any other basis than the expression of already- present alleles that are no longer in competition with others from the previous population.

These have been posted earlier as evidence that mutation can answer all the genetic-diversity-reducing processes. They haven't been ignored, they've been discussed and answered.

Yes. Which it doesn't deserve because so much of it is based on mere inferences and assumptions, hypotheticals worked out on paper but not in reality. Yes, if you ASSUME that all life is related, then you have to ASSUME a mechanism to account for it, and mutation SEEMS to be the key. All of this is hypothetical stuff, but it is treated as if it had far more solidity than that. I can point out that all the processes of evolution IN FACT tend to reduce genetic diversity, and I'm answered with nothing but a hypothetical about how mutation can overcome that, although in actual fact the only mutations ever offered are an extremely short list of few and far between examples, two of which are in one-celled bacteria when I'm trying to discuss multi-celled chipmunks, and the vast majority of known mutations are either deleterious or it isn't known what they do if anything.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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You are being way too literal-minded in your demand for a barrier with a simple definition. The barrier is the end point of sequences of the selection and population splitting processes, the point beyond which there is not enough genetic diversity to adapt further, the point at which the number of alleles for many genes are seriously reduced, sometimes down to one -- the end point of the processes that bring about change, the very processes supposed to bring about macroevolution. Barrier=inevitable point at which speciation possibilities have been exhausted due to decrease in genetic diversity. This is only seen when a population has been brought to this point, and since many haven't arrived there it can't be demonstrated for every kind, but it can be seen in some, especially in severely bottlenecked species and inbred domestic species, and these are living examples of where these processes all go.This is assuming that mutation does nothing to appreciably increase genetic diversity, which I do asume, despite the fact that I know that mutations occur apparently quite frequently. And as usual, the best clues to this are in the dog breeding and conservation programs, where it is regularly acknowledged because it is a practical fact they have to deal with all the time, that developing new phenotypes reduces genetic diversity.This ought simply to be acknolwedged here, but you all fight it. Clearly defined breeds USUALLY suffer from genetic depletion. What does that say about the prospects for evolution from ANY of the processes that select and split populations AND mutation? Mutations happen "frequently" -- this has been shown. Yet when you read about breeding programs, that sometimes assume hundreds and even thousands of years of selection of a breed, they don't talk in terms of mutations they can count on to save their breeds from the BAD consequences of inbreeding. They talk of the need to reintroduce alleles from other populations, not referred to as "mutations" either. Mutations are spoken of in terms of how they HARM a breed.As in the following discussions:Dog breedinghttp://www.canine-genetics.com/pgbreed.htmThere's good stuff in those articles and I hope I get back to discuss some of it, but for now I just want to bring out a few statements from this one in which loss of alleles is discussed as a major problem:Article, the Downside of InbreedingThis article discusses the fact that many alleles that are not selected are nevertheless reduced or eliminated by the process of selecting others.Of course you know about the downside of inbreeding, but I'm saying that the implications of this fact for the ToE have not been appreciated. Why aren't breeders looking for help among all those mutations we know occur? Obviously because they don't see mutations as their friend. And of course you can answer that mutations take time. But what that means is that beneficial mutations are extremely rare, so rare that all anyone can come up with is that short list that includes the nylon eating bacteria and the antibiotic resistant bacteria and the tradeoff sickle cell malaria-protection mutation and the tradeoff HIV protection mutation and a few others. Meanwhile mutations occur very frequently and they are not a good thing. RAZD was arguing on the other thread that even a bottleneck or founder effect will not reduce alleles. This is simply false. Why didn't anyone else answer him? Here's a straightforward statement: This is in the wild. Low genetic diversity is EXPECTED if a significant bottleneck occurred AT SPECIATION.Obviously loss of alleles is an expected and observed occurrence both in breeding and in the wild.The role of mutations to counter this, on the other hand, is merely assumed, not observed or demonstrated.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I think it's fair to call your own limitations a "barrier" to jumping to the moon. When I call inevitable reduction in genetic diversity the "barrier" to macroevolution it's a similar thing -- it's something built into the system, it just exhausts itself.If the processes of evolution deplete genetic diversity then the theory that change should just keep on happening step by step is countered by the processes of change themselves. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This thread is not just about defining the barrier but about the various objections to such definitions of a barrier, and those objections are just as open to refutation as anything else.

This is no shifting of anything. This is what MJ has been arguing, that mutation has not been demonstrated to do what it's claimed to do, that there is nothing but inference and assumption in support of that major doctrine of the ToE that mutation is the engine that drives it all. There is plenty of evidence that mutations occur, but none whatever that they can accomplish what the theory claims they can. The actual evidence tends in the other direction, to deleterious mutations and mutations that kill functions or have no known function, and very few that can even be shown to have a beneficial effect let alone the ability to produce what the ToE claims for them. It's ALL hypotheticals, NO actual proof. On the evidence that the evidence for them is nothing but assumption and inference. On the evidence of the lack of evidence for what is claimed for mutations as capable of bringing about all life.

Your objection is word games. The barrier has been shown.

How much you have limits it. This is the barrier.

AS I SAID, IT IS NOT EVIDENCE, it is assumption and inference only; therefore I am not rejecting evidence. More like "mutation in the gaps" since I haven't mentioned God but mutation is assumed to power macroevolution when there is no evidence for its doing any such thing. This thread is about a barrier to macroevolution, for which I've produced scientific facts and reasoned argument therefrom. You are reading things into my arguments that are not there.