Evolution Requires Reduction in Genetic Diversity

As walkists admit (such as the notoriously pro-walkist Wikipedia): "In humans and other bipeds, walking is generally distinguished from running in that only one foot at a time leaves contact with the ground and there is a period of double-support."This means that walking requires leaving the right foot fixed in one place. Because I am not very bright, I shall now insist that this means that walking requires the right foot must be fixed in one place all the time. This means that someone walking cannot move from the spot, but can only turn around in circles.On this principle, I shall assert that micro-walking (for example to the shops and back) is perfectly possible, even though this flatly contradicts what I've just said. I'm not big on logical consistency. However, macro-walking, for example hiking the Appalachian trail, is clearly impossible, because you could not do that by merely revolving on the spot, which as I've explained is all a person can ever do when walking.Now, I know that some of you will point out that walking also involves moving the right foot, and that micro-walking, the existence of which I admit, definitely involves moving the right foot and indeed allows one to travel from place to place. How do I know that you will say that? Because it's what you said last time I raised this damnfool argument, and the time before that.However, I'm sure I can ignore these obvious facts for the rest of this thread, and also for the duration of the other thread I'll start in another couple of months to say exactly the same thing. Instead I shall repeatedly assert that the process of walking requires the right foot to remain stationary, focusing obsessively on this one aspect of the process of walking and ignoring everything else about it, as though this somehow proved my point.What I lack in intelligence, I make up for in the tenacity with which I can maintain an argument the deep unfathomable stupidity of which is completely obvious to every single person I try it out on.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Good analogy. Maybe better than mine, but in any case they're along the same lines.The thing is that Faith is basing her argument on deliberately ignoring facts known to her.For example, she says: She knows that the total evolutionary process involves the introduction of variation, just as she knows that the water cycle involves evaporation and rain, and she knows that walking involves motion of the right foot.But then, she feels free to say: "The variation you keep wanting me to take into account simply does not enter into what I'm trying to get said". That is, looking at all the facts would destroy her argument. And from her point of view, that's actually a reason to ignore them, because: "The variation you keep wanting me to take into account simply does not enter into what I'm trying to get said".What can one say to someone like this? To us, arguments should be based on the facts, but she feels entitled to ignore the facts known to her, and undisputed by her that don't support "what I'm trying to get said". Rivers will run dry, and walking is impossible. We can prove that, so long as we ignore facts that we know perfectly well.

And so we get comedy like this: So it's like: ""The right foot never moves"? Where are you getting that? I'm talking about how it is stationary when it stands still."She doesn't realize that she's abandoned the condition that would actually make her argument work. It's an undeniable truth when she's founding her argument on it, and she doesn't believe a word of it when someone suggests that she's naive enough to believe it.

Well, yes. And rivers run down to the sea.Evolution requires a reduction of genetic diversity at a certain point, just as the process of walking requires that the right foot should stay still at a certain point, and the water cycle requires that some water should flow from the sea to the land.Now, if someone points out that in constructing your argument you are ignoring known processes, it does not make that a strawman argument for you to point out that you know perfectly well that those processes exist, but that for the purposes of your argument you are ignoring them.---A: John Smith is guilty of this crime.B: Prove it.A: OK, he had a very strong motive.B: But he has a completely airtight alibi. At the point when we know the crime was committed, we also know that he was a thousand miles away addressing an audience of a hundred policeman, all of them willing to testify that he was present. Your argument ignores that.A: Strawman! Strawman! I know perfectly well that his alibi proves him innocent. Do you think I'm stupid?B: So in that case, why do you say that he's guilty of the crime?A: Because he had a very strong motive.B: But you are ignoring the fact that all the objective evidence shows that he's innocent.A: Strawman! Strawman! I have said that all the objective evidence shows that he's innocent. I'm not even talking about that. Why do you even keep mentioning it? I'm talking about my proof that he's guilty.... and so forth.

This conflicts with our actual observations; for example observations of clonal lines of haploid species.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

True. And to move the left foot by walking, the right foot has to stay in the same place.But this is not an argument that the right foot always stays in the same place, and that progress by walking is impossible.

That has been settled by direct observation. We know for a fact that they do.

No, of course not. Yes, of course. No, of course not.---This is like trying to explain the concept of addition to someone trying to criticize the theory of gravity.11,656 posts on this forum, and you haven't even got this far?Start again. Start a thread entitled: "I'm Sorry, I Still Don't Know What The Theory Of Evolution Is, So Will Someone Please Explain It To Me?"

Do you have supporting evidence for that opinion?Otherwise, I'll listen to geneticists who think that it is. Especially as you wrote: So your mere opinion, based on nothing, doesn't carry all that much weight. And when you're standing on your right foot and moving your left foot forward, your right foot is staying still!

And once moving your left foot, your right foot is staying still. And once water is running down to the sea in rivers, the same water isn't evaporating from the sea to form rainclouds.Never mind genetics, you're ignoring things about time and number that you should have learned in kindergarten.Bob has three apples. I give him an orange. I take away an apple. Would he have more or fewer pieces of fruit, or the same? If you said "the same", do you see how this is possible even though I took a piece of fruit away from him?What if I repeated this process two more times? What would Bob have? Would he have more or fewer pieces of fruit, or the same? If you said "the same", can you see how this is possible even though I've taken away all his apples?

That was remarkably free of meaningful content even for you.At least Faith is trying to make sense ... I think.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

I'll just sit here watching you beat yourself up. Does anyone have some popcorn? I want some popcorn. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

If anyone else had posted that, then I would say: "By golly! A creationist has nearly understood the theory of evolution!"Since it's you, I presume that you haven't. But in your frantic ridiculous attempts to be wrong, that is the very closest you've got to being right.

So, just to be clear: if we start off with this: and end up with this: ... that represents a decrease in genetic diversity, yes? 'Cos obviously looking at the two pictures, the question that comes to mind is: "Damn, where did all the diversity go?"Is it therefore true that if the process had gone the other way --- if we'd started off with all those dog breeds and ended up with two wolves on some sort of a magic boat --- we'd have increased genetic diversity?Now the other question I'd like answered (I've asked this before, perhaps you were busy) is whether there are any theoretical limits to what this reduction in diversity can achieve. If it can produce all these nondiverse dog breeds from a common ancestor, could not an even greater loss of diversity have produced (for example) all mammals from a common ancestor? If not, why not? If you started off with this: ... and ended up with this ... ... wouldn't that just represent an even greater loss of diversity?