Dogs will be Dogs will be ???

The phrase "genetic capacity" refers to the present capacity of existing genomes, not to any limitations on change through time. For example, an individual man may have the genetic capacity to reach a height of 6' 2" given the perfect diet and lifestyle while growing up. Another 5'11" and another 6'5" etc.It's got nothing to do with what the capacities of their descendents can potentially be.The same thing applies if you're referring to population groups. The capacity of existing canines is not the potential capacity of their descendents. That relates to the question you're being asked. With enough time and enough mutations, why not? You could have said the same looking at the original wolf population. But how would you have decided the limit to what might be achieved? The great dane is much larger than the largest individual that you would have been looking at. The fastest dogs, much faster than the fastest, and the dogs with the best sense of smell, better than the best smellers, etc.You're deciding the future limits to recombination, mutation and artificial selection (dog breeding) without explaining why, just as you do with natural selection. A new mutation is new capacity, by definition. It certainly isn't! A population group going through a bottleneck would decrease its total genetic diversity. Coming out of a bottleneck, it will increase it. But it does not require a bottleneck to fix a beneficial mutation across the group. I suspect that individual breeds of dogs have less diversity than wild wolves, but that dogs as a whole have more. The breeds that wouldn't survive in the wild do not happen in the normal evolutionary process, by definition. Some would survive, certainly (Dingos did). Mutations and recombination increase diversity in the genome of a species over time. All dogs, incidentally, may have descended from a very small number of wolves. Evolution would be more about the change in the genetic capacities of a population group than their increase, when you think about it. Really? Is that a standard creationist claim? It might take a few hundred generations, but I'm sure it could be done. I thought you were supposed to be answering the "how many micros make a macro" question. You haven't.But since you ask, I'll give you the whole batch of mutations that went into building up their supposedly irreducibly complex mammalian blood clotting system, the evolution and increasing complexity/capacity of which you can read about here.Each individual mutation required would have been micro-evolution, but together, they certainly add up to macro. Edited by bluegenes, : typo

Of course they are not. Convergent evolution and mimicry are very old news.If you agree with the study you're referring to, you're certainly accepting a much greater degree of evolution than most creationists.So, flamingos and grebes are the same kind, eh? With that level of evolution accepted, we not only have common ancestry with the apes, but also with old world monkeys.You've put us firmly in the primate kind. Well done.

Dogs (and wild canids) have evolved a tendency to evolve, and have a high capacity for morphological change.This is very interesting, and sort of ties in to the topic.http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/esm017v1Creationist AOkid asked for advantageous mutations in dogs that related to morphology. The canids have received advantageous mutations which enable them to make morphological changes far more easily than almost all other mammals, and therefore can adapt rapidly to changes in circumstances. They are a morphologically flexible family, partially due to "a genome-wide increase in the basal germ-line slippage mutation rate."This is the reason, presumably, that we've been able to produce much more variety in them than in any other domestic animals.Note, AOkid, that this means a higher tendency to mutate along the germline, and therefore an increase in diversity which both extends and changes their collective genetic capacity. Edited by bluegenes, : grammar

An interesting line on this is that for a mutation to be beneficial in domestic dogs, all it has to do is produce (or contribute to) a characteristic which pleases the species with which it has a symbiotic relationship. So every non-wolf-like breed we like and select for has advantageous "morphological" mutations, by definition, including toy dogs that wouldn't have a hope in hell in the wild.So the same point goes for domestic species that you've made for wild ones. The existence and survival of anything distinct is automatic proof of "beneficial" mutations.

Is it relevant that there's more variation in morphology between Andaman Islanders and Dutch people than there is between lions and tigers?If I were a YEC, I'd use the dog variety as an excuse for putting as much as possible in one Kind, to help solve the overcrowded Ark problem. Therefore, all horse ancestor/ancestor-relatives are one kind. Pick a feasible intermediate as being representative of the Ark pair, then there are two lines of micro-evolutionary descent. The now extinct line, decreasing in size and increasing in digits, culminating in hyracotherium, and the other, leading to the modern horse.Problem solved. Easy for a Young Earth Paleontologist.* *{ABE}An academic post at Oxymoron University.Edited by bluegenes, : ***

A high tendency to mutate would show increased variation in morphology in the fossil record. From the study:

quote:

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The correlation of enhanced slippage rates with major evolutionary radiations suggests that the possession of a "slippery" genome may bestow on some taxa greater potential for rapid evolutionary change.

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Try reading that paper very carefully, and you might find some others that it refers to interesting as well. You're looking for mutations that confer benefits on the phenotype, right? Benefits that could show in the fossil record?As I said, read carefully. Are you using "capacity" to mean diversity? Do feel free to point to anything in the literature that supports your views. Germline mutations contribute to increased diversity, wouldn't you think?

Your source and RAZD's source are equally legitimate, as Bruce J. MacFadden is both director of the Florida museum exhibit, and author of your article. Those who don't have a subscription to "Science" can download the PDF of your MacFadden article HERE. (Scroll down a bit past the end of another article).Just a technical note.

No problem. I really put the post in because I could make the paper and chart you were referring to available to anyone reading the thread who didn't have a "Science" subscription (it may take a minute or two to download the PDF, even with broadband).It's the same essential view, by the same person. I'm glad you agree that it's accurate, as MacFadden has spent 25 years studying these things. RAZD probably thinks it's accurate as well, so what's the debate about? Edited by bluegenes, : typos