Evolution Requires Reduction in Genetic Diversity

THANK YOU!! The culling contributes to the reduction of genetic diversity, certainly, but it isn't THE reason for it. The mere fact of inbreeding a small population produces reduced genetic diversity, and culling will contribute and further reduce the genetic diversity but you are getting the reduction in genetic diversity even without severe culling. Right. Which point I've made here more than once. Apparently Tangle can't read. Right. MUCH less. I'm willing to be the one who erred but it was a misreading and I am certainly aware that dogs are a subset of wolves and to pillory me for that as Percy is doing is grossly unfair and a distraction from the argument. It depends on what is meant by the terms. A breed is at least analagous to a subspecies in nature. And most selection and isolation events in nature produce inter-fertile offspring as well, though they may be reproductively isolated by various natural barriers.I'm not hanging anything on the inability to interbreed which is the artificial definition of Speciation, I'm ONLY arguing that producing new phenotypes that characterize a new population, which does happen in the wild as a result of reproductive isolation of small populations, is the same as what happens in domestic breeding as far as that goes. I think ring species demonstrate the principle I'm trying to describe here. They may be able to reproduce with the populations on either side of them but at the extremes they usually cannot interbreed. Even if they can that's not the crucial point. The point is only that the phenotypic differences among the different populations are most likely the product of simple migration and geographic isolation from each other, WHICH DECREASES GENETIC DIVERSITY FROM MOTHER POPULATION TO DAUGHTER POPULATION AROUND THE RING. IF this is how the ring develops, which I think it has to be, then the result should be decreasing genetic diversity from subpopulation to subpopulation through migration and reproductive isolation alone. Again you are missing the main point. SPECIATION IS NOT THE POINT, though certainly it may occur and by exactly the same processes I'm describing. But the POINT is the production of new varieties by reproductive isolation, and the varieties may continue to be able to interbreed, that's not the important part. As long as they maintain reproductive isolation for whatever reason they will maintain their particular phenotypic character. I don't care whether it leads to speciation or not, the point is that these processes that produce new varieties, breeds, "species" or phenotypes or subspecies or subsubspecies can only do so by reducing genetic diversity, and you do not get the production of new varieties, breeds, "species" or phenotypes in any other way.No, this argument is not over at all. Since I don't think it's really been grasped by most of you, certainly by those who so loudly claim it has, it's not even really begun.

Acknowledge your errors, your silly water in water out idea that produced nothing but confusion here and your misuse of the pigeon example -- yes misuse --0 and stop claiming so self righteously that you are the one being misunderstood as if only you are allowed to make that claim and maybe I'll see things differently.But right now the misrepresentations and the misunderstandings are getting to me and I have to take another break before I explode.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

1. Allele for gene that governs beak type. (There may be more than one gene for beak type, this is just to make it simpler.)2. Mutation occurs in this allele, in an allele that governs beak type. There is a mistake in replication and the allele is changed.3. Sometimes such changes don't affect the phenotype, in this case the beak itself, sometimes they do. Let's say this one changes what the allele does, and therefore changes the beak type in some way.4. The mutation has therefore replaced the allele for the other beak type with a new allele for a new beak type.5. If the change makes a unique beak type then yes, among all the alleles for beak type in the whole gene pool it is an addition to the possible allele types and their beak types. No, I meant all possible beak types for the species, not toucan type beaks or pelican type beaks etc. I'm assuming there is a limited number of variations possible and that the gene pool already has them all if it's a fairly genetically diverse gene pool.But the potential range is probably a lot greater than we have any idea, which we might find out by breeding the birds for a particular beak type. We could very possibly get extreme beaks that way just as Darwin got such dramatic changes by determinedly breeding his pigeons for particular characteristics. Get a population with a characteristic beak, lose all the alleles for the other beak types over time if the characteristic beak is favored, but it's even possible the alleles for all the other types are left behind in a migration and the new beak is truly accidental or randomly "selected" by chance.If a mutation produced the new beak, if it is selected you still have to reduce or lose all the alleles for the other beak types, so then you'll have this population with the mutated beak and reduced genetic diversity in the loss of other alleles for the other beak types which inhibits further change, absolutely stops it cold if ALL the other alleles are lost and the new allele gets paired up with itself in all the individuals in the population, that is, if it reaches the state of fixed loci for its beak type, or total homozygosity for the population. Good luck waiting around for a new allele for a new beak type to show up by mutation, especially since the existing one wouldn't have achieved its position if it hadn't been favored, that is, selected.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The American Curl may be unique in being developed from a mutation, the "increased diversity" is to the tune of one allele as you say, and while they were breeding it with other types of COURSE it would not lose genetic diversity but in fact increase it, hybridization being one of the ways to replenish a depleted gene pool. *Duh*But once breeding becomes a matter of inbreeding ONLY with American Curls then you'll see the loss of genetic diversity I'm talking about as alleles for all the other types of ears will be reduced and even ultimately disappear from the gene pool altogether.But it's still possible in my mind that even this very rare characteristic was not a mutation but a very rare combination of existing alleles for perhaps more than one gene. Very rare. Yes, possible. So that you don't really "know" that it was a mutation.Sorry you find reality so much not to your liking.

Funny but I haven't yet seen ANYONE recognize what I'm talking about except Percy and NoNukes and both of them go on to say things that clearly show they aren't getting it in any consistent way.Which wouldn't surprise me since although the idea is simple it really isn't easy to keep in mind and it is easy to get it confused. You AREN'T getting it but claiming you are makes the whole thing worse. You assert it but don't demonstrate it.It's NOT "purely an arithmetic thing" like adding and subtracting as I've said many times already. Just that comment alone proves you don't have a clue. It is NOT water-in-water-out. You are the one that's screwed up. I have NOT argued for new populations "adapting to a different environment." I have SPECIFICALLY said more than once that I don't think adaptation is the driving force of the phenotypic changes. You CANNOT read, why do you pretend you can?The point is that MERE change in gene frequencies is enough to make a new variety, adaptation is NOT the driving force in most cases. NOTHING you say makes much sense. Since I am not arguing about adaptation this example is ridiculously off topic. Get the argument first, stop claiming you do get it when you obviously don't and since you will not or can not, please exit this thread.

KOFH2U AND THE ARCHANGEL guy are not on topic in this thread.
Please start your own thread.

What on EARTH is your point here? It has NOTHING to do with the point of this thread that I can see.How is this an example of speciation? And since speciation isn't the main point of my thread what does it have to do with my argument? And if you're trying to prove greater genetic diversity along with speciation why don't you even bother to give the evidence that there IS greater genetic diversity and/or even speciation? And even if both are true OBVIOUSLY IT'S AN EXCEPTION.

GOLLY GEE, TWO WHOLE CASES! An epidemic of mutation-based breeds!And again, you don't KNOW if this was a mutation. Mutations are mostly an imaginary artifact of evolutionism, a sort of god invoked to explain every kind of novelty.And here you have another EAR anomaly. TWO "mutations" in the EAR! Wow, how likely is that? Sure does seem to me to be far more likely the result of rare but normally occurring. allelic combinations Which proves absolutely nothing with respect to my argument here. Which must need to be repeated AGAIN, since it's so consistently misunderstood:The argument is that reduced genetic diversity is the natural result of the SELECTING AND ISOLATING processes that PRODUCE new phenotypes.What you have in this case is something else: you HAVE the new trait or phenotype in one individual and two of its offspring and you are ADDING genetic diversity in order to preserve the trait while PREVENTING the loss of genetic diversity that could threaten the creature.Yes you can ADD GENETIC DIVERSITY, by cross breeding, by hybridization, by anything that increases GENE FLOW. Interesting that of course this IS how it was done with the Curl instead of relying on the god Mutation to do the work of improving its genetic diversity.When all you have is a single individual with a trait you want to preserve, that's already a case of such depleted genetic diversity you MUST cross-breed to improve its chances of survival, but adding genetic diversity has nothing to do with FORMING the phenotype which ALWAYS comes about along with reduced genetic diversity. In this case quite extreme, since only the single founding individual had the trait.You are increasing gene flow, you are not selecting or isolating you are adding; but selection and isolation are the opposite of gene flow and these are THE methods of producing and maintaining new phenotypes or traits.And if the breed is now to be subjected to more rigorous inbreeding after thirty years of protecting its genetic diversity you will NOW start getting the reduced genetic diversity that is ALWAYS the effect of the selection and isolation processes. I've never made an issue about any particular AMOUNT of genetic diversity, the point is always the TREND in that direction through selection and isolation. Haven't seen any actual EVIDENCE here, just the usual evolutionist hocus-pocus invocation of the god Mutation, which can also be invoked in "studies" because of unconscious bias. HOWEVER, I DID acknowledge that PERHAPS it IS a mutation. I merely have my doubts, and now that you've pointed out another "mutation" involving the ear of the cat I have even more doubts. But as I understand it there are situations in which even a dominant can be suppressed in the phenotype and brought to phenotypic expression only through a rare combination of alleles for more than one gene. Is that not so? Funny how evolutionists project like this onto creationists. Seems to be your only real accomplishment in these arguments.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Interesting information about different breeds, thanks. Well, at least recognition of a novel trait in a single individual, but as for its source being mutation, no you don't know that. You don't know but what thirty years previously the same trait showed up in a remote area where it soon got interbred back into oblivion. These traits on the other hand are showing up where people have enough interest in such things to treat them as something special. Which of course I not only acknowledged but elaborated in my own post. I didn't say they were. Clearly they emerged as single novel traits in individuals (but this in itself doesn't have to be the result of a mutation but can be the result of the simple absence of of the other genetic combinations for other versions of the same trait occurring through normal sexual recombination) And for some reason the god Mutation favors autosomal dominant alleles and likes to repeat them for the same trait from time to time? And PERHAPS you are right. But I have my doubts nevertheless. As I said, I understand that even dominant alleles can be suppressed in the phenotype and only show up in particular combinations of alleles for more than one gene.

Funny they don't say anything to prove it then. I KNOW that at least five posters on this thread got it seriously seriously wrong, confusing genotype with phenotype, and the rest are iffy at best. IF YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT SPECIATION, that is, new species defined by evolutionists as having lost the ability to interbreed with other populations of the same species, which I assume you mean, then I do believe that too CAN happen but I don't emphasize this. It does follow logically from the idea that new subspecies are formed by the same processes, however. I think it quite likely that the last "species" in a ring species," for instance, could develop the inability to interbreed with the other populations in the ring simply from having lost enough genetic diversity to prevent interbreeding.In any case this is all PART of my argument, if a secondary part, and not something separate that I'm arguing. You assert this over and over but have not proved it. Analogies like water in and water out are certainly not evidence. Mutation is invoked as the answer to reduced genetic diversity's being necessary to evolution although in reality all it can do is delay evolution by countering the necessary processes of selection and isolation. Anything that increases gene flow such as hybridization, cross breeding, etc., will interfere with these processes, and can actually completely destroy the characteristics of a formerly established population by mixing it with others and increasing its genetic diversity. Most traits would just get scattered again or buried in the new mix. The only time a rare trait would be preserved would be in the examples Dr. A is describing where the genetic diversity is replenished by carefully protecting the desired trait from getting swamped.All mutation could possibly do is add diversity to the same effect as the other sources of gene flow. You get lots of diversity this way, NOT the development of subspecies, let alone Speciation. Only when selection and isolation act on the population once again could you get new subspecies. So says the ToE, and all you are doing is asserting the theory, but I believe the facts are simple and obvious: all it takes to form a new variety or breed is new gene frequencies, a fairly frequent and completely random occurrence in nature.Actually the adaptation argument is not essential to my main argument here, I merely think it is true. But there is something DYNAMIC and not merely arithmetical about the effect on the population that selection and isolation have as opposed to increases in gene flow, mutations or whatnot that add to the genetic diversity. Selection and isolation are not merely subtraction, but something dynamic. It's hard to get it expressed.

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Increases in genetic diversity most commonly show up as separate traits in individuals that just meander around in the population, UNTIL some set of them are SELECTED AND ISOLATED as a group, at which point this new collection of traits starts to get inbred, and over a number of generations will eventually develop a new collective phenotype for a new subpopulation or subspecies. This isn't mere subtraction. Subtraction of alleles is NECESSARY to this development but what's going on phenotypically in the new population as a result of the genetic subtraction is the formation of a new subspecies that eventually develops a homogeneous collective character if nothing interferes to prevent it, such as the reintroduction of gene flow.How I wish Yes but the fact is trivial in context Also trivial since the important point is that the loss is the cause of the development of a new trait throughout a subpopulation, part of the formation of an entirely new phenotype or variety, which one would think is the important thing to evolutionists, the development of NEW PHENOTYPES TOWARD THE EXPECTATION OF DEVELOPING A NEW SPECIES, which is THE hope of the ToE. But if it takes the reduction of genetic diversity to produce a new subpopulation/new phenotype, then you are not ever going to get anywhere near a whole new species, you'll just keep getting new interesting varieties of the same species until you run out of genetic possibilties for variation. Of course many other varieties can still be forming from the mother populations but they too will eventually come to the same genetic depletion if they keep forming new subpopulations. Yes it is. Sigh.I hope maybe I've made my case more clearly above but I'm not holding my breath. I would have thought I was sufficiently clear many times earlier. But you are adding that part about "selection BY the environment." The selection I'm talking about is brought about by accidental factors in most cases, the mere migration of a portion of a larger population, quite randomly, without any active selection by the environment itself, that's ALL It takes to begin the formation of a whole new subspecies. And since it can occur in exactly the same type of environment with the same kinds of food sources and so on, there is no pressure whatever from the environment. Which isn't to say that such pressures aren't a factor in some environments, and very specific adaptations may certainly occur which we do often see in nature. Nature has no specific taste the way human beings have. Seems YOU are now the one confusing domestic breeding with natural causes of the development of new subspecies. I'd just be happy if they'd recognize they are missing the point, whether that is my fault or not.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

When a thread gets this active I miss posts, I even miss whole pages, and if I get in a rush I don't get my thoughts formulated very well.Anyway I just saw this post for the first time and thought I'd like to answer it, meanwhile of course not answering many others.Oh well.So you're asking if we start off with wolves, and we get all the different breeds of dogs Yes. IN EACH NEW BREED, not in the total gene pool which may contain all the original genetic diversity collectively. Beware of the term "diversity" without the modifier "genetic."My argument, again, is this: To get all that PHENOTYPIC variation requires that each phenotype or breed LOSE the genetic diversity for all the other breeds.EACH phenotype or subspecies or breed has its own peculiar collection of alleles and genes, and NOT those for the other phenotypes or subspecies or breeds, although some of course may still be in the gene pool but not expressed. However, if the breed "breeds true" it won't have them at all for its characteristic traits, it will be homozygous for its own pecular characteristics. The question seems nonsensical but to make some sort of sense of it, IF we just let all those new breeds of dogs interbreed with each other, or perhaps made sure we got them all mixed together with some careful assistance, for some great number of generations, would the result be anything like the wolf from which they all descended? Probably not but I'm not sure I could say why. Most likely I'm actually very glad these questions got asked because they make it clear just how I am not getting across my point -- or even if I'm not sure how at least I see that I AM being misunderstood as I have been able to tell although it is being denied right and left here.Anyway.The question is, basically, if reduction in diversity can produce so many new phenotypes why couldn't it produce the entire array of living things that evolution claims selection does? Because you eventually run out of genetic possibilities as a result of continued loss of genetic diversity. You eventually arrive at a point of genetic depletion beyond which further development of phenotypes cannot occur. You have come to the end of Evolution.For a particular line of variation, for a particular breed or variety or subspecies.So I'll use dogs again. All those different dog breeds are separate lines of variation from the original wolf--- as a general rule (that is, there may of course have been many cross-breedings and hybridization and remixing of gene pools along the line in some cases, but AS A GENERAL RULE each breed was produced by selection of its own particular traits accompanied by loss of the alleles for different traits, which is what I mean by the reduction of genetic diversity, which may even be not just reduction but complete loss of the genes/alleles for other versions of its own characteristic traits. The breed may be homozygous at those genes if they breed true for those traits, the alleles for all the OTHER traits having been left back in the previous populations, the other breeds, the wolf itself perhaps (although it's important to remember that by being the source of all those different breeds the wolf too would have lost numbers and therefore genetic diversity as well.)The point again is that you get such great PHENOTYPIC diversity BY losing GENETIC diversity, and on any particular line where new phenotypes are developing IF the processes keep repeating from new subspecies to new subspecies you will eventually run out of genetic possibilities while still getting only a new version of a dog, or a cat, or whatever it is you started out with. The new breeds or varieties are being formed merely by smaller numbers from the former populations of the same species, forming new populations that breed only among themselves, their own gene pool (which with dogs and cats would HAVE to be human-guided or it would never happen with the promiscuous little beasts, but anyway in the process of inbreeding they will develop the traits peculiar to their own subset of genes and alleles, which exist in new frequencies compared to the former or mother population's gene pool. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Whew! Must say that the imaginative fantastical wishfulness of the evolutionist takes the breath away. How could one fight such castles in the air? There are always many more where those came from.Oh well, we try. Well, back to reality for a moment here. What really happens is that the genetic diversity that gets eaten up is the diversity that belongs to the particular Kind because the genome that is losing diversity contains only the genes/alleles for that Kind or Species or Baramin which is developing so many new varieties, phenotypes, subspecies. You are losing alleles for the SAME genes/traits you are developing into phenotypes, not alleles for traits that belong to elephants or bats, but only the traits that belong to the species you are breeding or that is evolving new subspecies.This all goes on WITHIN the existing genotype. To get from that to some other genotype would require not addition in the sense of mutations, which also only gets eaten up by the selection processes anyway, but structural changes in the genome which are not part of the observed formation of phenotypes as we know them. You are always only getting dogs from dogs (and here I do think of the wolf as just the original Dog anyway), cats from cats, elephants from elephants and so on.But of course I mustn't underestimate the power of the evolutionist imagination to get elephants out of dogs or whatever, or to get alleles for elephant trunks out of alleles for dog noses etc., which is all they have anyway, the whole ToE being nothing but an imaginative construct into which they cram all the facts of reality, which don't fit very well but that doesn't stop them. Far as I know or would suppose, there is probably yet a great deal of genetic diversity in many of the Species or Kinds.Well since I can't beat mental castle-building I might as well get some sleep.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Which I'm careful to say. The fact is you do get stable species and those traits don't mutate or the mutations don't spread in the population because if they did you wouldn't have a species. But you do have species. (Mutations and their spread n the population are an article of faith anyway; the probability of this happening at any rate that you would need it to happen to stop the effects of the NECESSARY reduction in genetic diversity that MUST happen for a species to form, is just about nil. Witness cheetah, witness elephant seal. It can't, increased diversity interferes. Nevertheless you do get true breeds. Therefore you aren't getting the increased diversity you think you are, the mutations you think you are getting.

I'll answer this here. The point is that I don't believe this novel variation exists, or if it exists at all not to any extent sufficient to produce viable alleles for the formation of a species. Sometimes I'll allow for the sake of argument that this is happening although I believe it doesn't, because there is no difference as far as the outcome goes: you still are getting changed allele frequencies when there is a population split and the expression of whatever traits are high frequency and dominating in the new population occurs along with the reduction or elimination of competing traits, i.e. competing alleles for other versions of those traits. You aren't going to get a new trait picture without the elimination of competing alleles. If you get an increase in diversity you just don't get the new trait picture, you'll never get a species.For all intents and purposes it really doesn't matter if the variants are produced by mutation or by builtin alleles anyway; in either case selection leads to reduced genetic diversity. Total straw man of course, just a refusal to understand what I'm saying. Mutations would only act as gene flow acts, to produce new variants for selection to act upon. For species to develop requires selection or the culling of traits that are not part of the new trait picture of the species. This cujlling is a decrease in genetic diversity for the new population /subspecies /species. This decrease HAS to happn if you are getting a new trait picture or a new species. This is exemplified easily with domestic breeding: you can't get a distinctive breed when alleles for traits that are not part of the breed you want keep showing up in individuals. These have to go if there is to be a distinctive breed. In the wild you do get distinctive new species, so what has to be happening there is that the traits for these species are developing in the absence of alleles for other traits. It's simple, it's obvious, it has to happen or the species that do in fact occur wouldn't be occurring. But of course it can, I've never said otherwise, all I've been emphasizing is that a new species IS different from the pareht species or it wouldn't BE a newq species. This doesn't mean that it doesn't share a great deal with the parent. It's even easier to build a straw man version of any idea that contradicts evolution because there are so many of you and you have a vested interest in your theory.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Huh?Or: Yeah. So? And? Huh?Or: So? And? Have no idea what you're talking about except that it's some kind of weird straw man.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.