The End of Evolution By Means of Natural Selection

Hi again Faith, Let's look at the evidence for Pelycodus:A Smooth Fossil Transition: Pelycodus

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Pelycodus was a tree-dwelling primate that looked A complete fossil much like a modern lemur. The skull shown is probably 7.5 centimeters long.

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The numbers down the left hand side indicate the depth (in feet) at which each group of fossils was found. As is usual in geology, the diagram gives the data for the deepest (oldest) fossils at the bottom, and the upper (youngest) fossils at the top. The diagram covers about five million years.

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The numbers across the bottom are a measure of body size. Each horizontal line shows the range of sizes that were found at that depth. The dark part of each line shows the average value, and the standard deviation around the average.

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The dashed lines show the overall trend. The species at the bottom is Pelycodus ralstoni, but at the top we find two species, Notharctus nunienus and Notharctus venticolus. The two species later became even more distinct, and the descendants of nunienus are now labeled as genus Smilodectes instead of genus Notharctus.

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As you look from bottom to top, you will see that each group has some overlap with what came before. There are no major breaks or sudden jumps. And the form of the creatures was changing steadily.

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You can see the trend to larger size from generation to generation along with the variation in size within each generation. Near the top you have a speciation event, where the variation increases and then splits into a large and a small daughter population, each with variation within each new species similar to previous generations. Notice too that the amount of variation also varies and fluctuates from bottom to top. Some generations show twice the variation than the previous or later generations. This is true - to get new species you must have speciation. So?Enjoy.

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Hello RAZD,
The size of a creature is its phenotype. Although I don't think fossils demonstrate what you think they demonstrate, for the sake of argument I'll ignore that and just answer that you are talking about diversity at the phenotypic level and I'm talking about GENETIC diversity, which I'm claiming is reduced with any population split that produces an appreciably smaller daughter population, and certainly the closer you get to speciation, at which point it may be very severely depleted. From which point further evolution simply can't happen.Phenotypes may vary quite a bit as the number of alleles/traits is reduced in a new smaller population or at speciation, as alleles for former traits have been left behind in the parent population. This allows formerly suppressed traits to be expressed in the new population. Change in phenotypic diversity IS evolution. What's missed is that it doesn't happen without a corresponding loss of genetic diversity, and that means it really can't go anywhere near as far as the ToE claims it does. That's my argument. Thank you. Of course you must. Others here appear to be suggesting otherwise. Many signs on this thread that the evolutionists are not on the same page about many things. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Hi, Faith. Faith, you're not helping yourself here. Nothing that has been said by evolutionists on this thread can realistically be interpreted to mean they think speciation is not needed. Comments like this make everybody think you aren't taking the time necessary to assimilate what you read.I think it would be in everybody's best interest for you to ignore what people are saying on this thread and focus on our Great Debate thread.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

I think that, as usual, Faith is confused. What people have said is that it is quite possible for evolution to happen without speciation ocurring. What is not possible is to have a theory of the evolutionary history of life on Earth that doesn't account for speciation.More specifically it is possible for the same population at very distant times to become 2 distinct morphospecies at least. Undfortunately the real test that is needed is not so much genes from fossils but the ability to try and breed between populations vastly separated in time. I guess that we could start looking at that sort of thing now, or at least preparing for such studies in the future, if we started systematically freezing down sperm and egg stocks of specific populations of interest, but I think it might be hard to account for the differences in interfertility that might simply result from the materials being in long term storage.In other words, if one species becomes two contemporaneous species then you have obviously had a speciation event. If however one species over time becomes what we would identify as a distinct species, based on morphological criteria, then I'm not sure if you could say there has been a speciation event or not.TTFN,WK

Thank you for saying it more accurately. I sometimes leave out the qualifiers that show the latter is what I'm talking about and not the mere change in populations that is microevolution, generally called evolution.

While we can advise you, and have advised you, on how to make your posts less flagrantly inaccurate, we can't actually write them for you.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Random mutations. You know, that thing you keep ignoring which increases genetic diversity. Let's start off with some questoins so we can at least find some common ground.Do you agree or disagree that mutations occur?Do you agree or disagree that mutations from one generation are passed on to the next?Do you agree or disagree that the differences between species is due to a difference in DNA sequence?Those three questions should be enough.

Why can't evolution happen if mutations introduce new genetic variation over time?

ha ha, I feel the same way. Around here, I don't think I could get away with saying bluejays are blue without someone demanding that I cite my source to prove it. I think I might view mutations a bit differently than you do.
As you know, the rungs of the DNA 'ladder' are made of 4 different bases - often abbreviated as the letters A,C,G, and T. The arrangement of these 4 letters determines our genes. Changes (mutations) are often made in this sequence and these changes in sequence changes our genes. All that is required for new genes (and therefore, new genotypes, new phenotypes, and new allelles) is merely a change in sequence on this ladder - and this happens all the time. We are born with 100+ mutations. You are right that natural selection reduces genetic variation by its removal of maladapted individuals (and consequently the genes/phenotypes/alleles associated with those maladaptations) from a population. Balance is restored by the fact that new mutations are always occurring.I'm not totally sure what you mean by reduction. But consider this: the larger the population and the higher the mutation rate = the more mutations (and therefore more variation, variety, phenotypes, genes, alleles, etc) in that population. So lets imagine a pool filled with mutations from that population - natural selection can scoop out a lot of them, but more mutations will come along to take the place of what was lost.

Mutations and all the rest are being discussed on the Great Debate thread between me and Bluejay:EvC Forum: Reduction of Alleles by Natural Selection (Faith and ZenMonkey Only)The discussion of mutations starts about message 23 or so.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Hi Faith,Just a simple question, perhaps for you to take to the Great Debate Reduction of Alleles by Natural Selection (Faith and ZenMonkey Only)Can you define what the difference is between the phenotype and the genotype?Do you think it is possible for identical twins - hereditarily with virtually identical genotypes (there could be some mutational differences during growth) - to have extremely different phenotypes?Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : link

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Yes, of course there is a direct correspondence between genotype and phenotype. Point is that when the number is reduced as in the migration of a smaller population away from a larger one, you may get increased diversity of expressed traits as new ones will emerge that weren't expressed in the parent population, although you have fewer genes/phenotypes than the former population. This is what happens in ring species. New traits show up because of reduced genetic diversity because of reduced numbers in each new migration from the former population. Reducing the numbers brings out the new traits. Looks like increased diversity. Evolutionists take it for increased diversity and superficially it is increased diversity. But the actual fact is although you have some new traits that hadn't shown up in this species before, you've got a reduced number of possible traits, because some were left behind in the parent population, therefore reduced genetic diversity.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I again and most earnestly encourage you to focus your efforts on the Reduction of Alleles by Natural Selection (Faith and ZenMonkey Only) thread.--Percy

Hi Faith,I notice that many of your messages have a ton of edits just after you post them. If you examine the message entry page you'll see several buttons below the message box. One of them is "Preview". If you click on the "Preview" button you'll see precisely how your message will look when it is posted. Unlike much other discussion board software, dBoard uses the exact same code to render previews as it does the messages in the threads. There won't be any differences. If you use "Preview" you'll save yourself a lot of edits, plus dBCode errors are displayed in red, making them easy to find and fix.--Percy

For the lurking readers, not necessarily for Faith (who can address the issue on the Great Debate Reduction of Alleles by Natural Selection (Faith and ZenMonkey Only), as I suggested doing in Message 236)No Faith, this is not what happens in ring species. According to your assertion, we should find decreasing genetic diversity as we go from parent population to daughter population to daughter population in a ring species. This assertion predicts that the parent population (a) has the most genetic diversity and (b) possesses all the genetic diversity of each daughter population. The greenish warbler ring species

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Greenish warblers (Phylloscopus trochiloides) inhabit forests across much of northern and central Asia. In central Siberia, two distinct forms of greenish warbler coexist without interbreeding, and therefore these forms can be considered distinct species. The two forms are connected by a long chain of populations encircling the Tibetan Plateau to the south, and traits change gradually through this ring of populations. There is no place where there is an obvious species boundary along the southern side of the ring. Hence the two distinct 'species' in Siberia are apparently connected by gene flow. By studying geographic variation in the ring of populations, we can study how speciation has occurred. This unusual situation has been termed a 'circular overlap' or 'ring species'. There are very few known examples of ring species.

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There are 6 varieties of Phylloscopus trochiloides: Five of these varieties form a ring, with P.t.nitidus being the outlier, off to the west of the ring:

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Map of Asia showing the six subspecies of the greenish warbler described by Ticehurst in 1938. The crosshatched blue and red area in central Siberia shows the contact zone between viridanus and plumbeitarsus, which do not interbreed. Colors grade together where Ticehurst described gradual morphological change. The gap in northern China is most likely the result of habitat destruction.

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The only places where we see traits combined between varieties is in the hybrid zones, of which there currently are four, with the gap between P.t.plumbeitarsus and P.t.obscuratus being lost as a result of habitat destruction, and the gap between P.t.nitidus and P.t.viridanus or P.t.ludlowi being lost to history. The hybrid zones are all smaller than the daughter variety population zones, counter to your assertion. None of the hybrid zones exhibit specific traits common to any of the varieties other than the two neighboring daughter variety population zones, counter to your assertion.The two largest daughter varieties are the west Siberian greenish warblers (P.t.viridanus) and the east Siberian greenish warblers (P.t.plumbeitarsus ), and neither of them exhibit traits common to the other varieties and outside their neighboring hybrid zone, nor do they exhibit all the traits found in the neighboring hybrid zones, counter to your assertion. Neither P.t.viridanus nor P.t.plumbeitarsus exhibit the traits specific to the other population, counter to your assertion.Then we have the genetic information from actual genetic studies on the actual daughter variety populations for the greenish warblers (ibid):

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Genetics and history
Genetic data show a pattern very similar to the pattern of variation in plumage and songs. The two northern forms viridanus and plumbeitarsus are highly distinct genetically, but there is a gradient in genetic characteristics through the southern ring of populations. All of these patterns are consistent with the hypothesis, first proposed by Ticehurst (1938), that greenish warblers were once confined to the southern portion of their range and then expanded northward along two pathways, evolving differences as they moved north. When the two expanding fronts met in central Siberia, they were different enough that they do not interbreed.

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So viridanus has genes that plumbeitarsus does not have.
So plumbeitarsus has genes that viridanus does not have.Furthermore:

• P.t.viridanus has genes that no other variety has,
• P.t.nitidus has genes that no other variety has,
• P.t.ludlowi has genes that no other variety has,
• P.t.trochiloides has genes that no other variety has,
• P.t.obscuratus has genes that no other variety has, and
• P.t.plumbeitarsus has genes that no other variety has.

This too is counter to your assertion. None of the six different varieties has markedly more nor less genetic variation than any other, also counter to your assertion. Not one piece of the data supports your assertion, all of the data runs counter to your assertion.Curiously, all the data supports the evolutionary biological observation that new mutations arise continually, and the evolutionary biological prediction that differential evolution in isolated populations will result in different new mutations being added to the existing mixes in the daughter populations from generation to generation. The differences between the daughter variety populations is not explained by gene loss, but by changes to which specific genes are being passed, including which new mutations, from one generation to the next, and where the only gene sharing between daughter variety populations is through hybrid zones between daughter variety population zones, as long as such hybrid zones last.The data supports the evolutionary biological prediction that new mutations are added to the mix of mutations in breeding populations, and that subsequent evolution can include some of these new mutations.Interestingly, the most robust populations based on area populated are viridanus and plumbeitarsus, the ones at the ends of the ring. This suggests that each has become very adapted to their ecological opportunities, and that neither is headed towards extinction, rather that their differentiation into new species will continue.Enjoy.

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