Take it easy on the length, there. I'm only going to respond to the first 10% of what you wrote because you must have misunderstood the example to have given the answer you did.
First let us be clear that you believe that allele reduction is the way speciation happens.
Speciation is only the logical end point of the processes I am talking about. Varieties, breeds, races, whatever, are also being formed by the same processes all along the continuum. Allele reduction is going on in all of them and is the reason for the phenotypic changes in all of them.
You think that speciation first begins when a small daughter population becomes separated from the parent population.
Please don't limit me to what is merely one of my examples. This is one reason for all the misunderstanding here. I choose a smaller population for the usual example because it shows the processes more clearly and THAT'S WHAT I'VE SAID ALL ALONG, but I also claim the same processes are going on wherever new varieties emerge, and that can be from an equal population split or from drift within a large population and so on.
At this earliest stage they are of course the same species. The daughter population begins with only a subset of the alleles of the parent population, and it may even carry with it all of some alleles leaving the parent population without those alleles. This means that both parent and daughter populations have subsets of the total allele complement of the original parent population.
Fine
The daughter population, being much smaller, has the smaller subset of alleles.
Fine. Just don't forget that a smaller population is simply the handiest example and not the only one that demonstrates the same processes.
Your scenario continues by saying that over time the daughter population experiences combinations of alleles that never appeared in the parent population, and that it is these unique combinations of alleles that cause speciation.
They may or may not have "never" appeared in the parent population, but they certainly occur in different FREQUENCIES from the parent population. If they never appeared then the difference will be more conspicuous but just the change in frequencies of MANY genes with MANY different frequencies of alleles is going to make the population appear distinctively different from the original.
Now that I've set the stage, in more detail this time, I want to once again present my example. We have a parent and a daughter population. The original parent population had 26 genes A through Z and four alleles per gene 1 through 4. The daughter population has over time lost some alleles that it started with and only has two alleles per gene 3 through 4. Here are the chromosomes for Organism P from the parent population and organism D from the daughter population:
Organism P:-------------------------------------------------| A1 | B3 | C2 | ... | X4 | Y2 | Z4 |-------------------------------------------------Organism D:-------------------------------------------------| A3 | B4 | C4 | ... | X3 | Y4 | Z3 |-------------------------------------------------
Even though much time has passed since the separation of the original parent population into a parent and a daughter population, both parent and daughter populations only have alleles from the original parent population. No matter what allele combinations you choose for the daughter population, it will still be a subset from the original parent population, and that makes it genetically a member of the same species as the original parent population.
First, stop implying that I'm calling the daughter population a "new species" -- I am not. Second, despite your listing of all the different genes and alleles you are not taking into account what happens to them ALL TOGETHER in many different combinations as the new population inbreeds among its members. Each individual allele may have a twin or a sibling back in the first population but by the time they are all mixed together in new combinations they start to be a NEW population, a new variety, and ULTIMATELY after much more than just one such split, perhaps a new species.
Let me say this another way: you can't create a new species by merely recombining the alleles.
Funny, breeders do it all the time. Stop using the word "species." I use "variety" I use "breed" and so on.
Go talk to the population geneticists. I put up some links to such comments.
In other words, without new alleles, speciation is impossible.
Not according to the population geneticists who appear to talk as if isolation alone could do the job -- a bottleneck is an example. Simply forming a new breed from a few starter animals is an example. Then when inbreeding, drift and selection are also added to the effect you can very well have at least a new variety from these processes alone.
Now remember, you believe that creating new alleles is impossible, that the number of alleles in a population can only decline, but I've just shown that without new alleles you cannot get speciation.
You've asserted it, you have not shown it.
Therefore your claim that allele reduction can produce new species is proven wrong.
By assertion only, no evidence? My my, science has sure degenerated.
Now of course it's possible for allele combinations to produce physical differences that make two populations unfertile with one another, such as might be the case with a size difference or behavioral difference, but genetically you cannot create a new species just by mixing and recombining the original set or a subset of alleles.
Funny, isn't the DEFINITION of speciation the occurrence of inability to interbreed with former populations?
ALSO, I'VE BEEN ACCEPTING MUTATIONS FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT. Your whole focus here seems to be to prove that mutations are needed. No, I disagree, and you haven't proved anything about it, but I'm still accepting them for the sake of argument!!!!
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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