Evolution Requires Reduction in Genetic Diversity

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.

Possibly it did. But since it's autosomal dominant, it then requires a new mutation to bring it back from oblivion. If there had always been the genes, then there would always have been these types of cats. Good. So, here we have the production of new breeds by a process that increases the genetic diversity of the breed. Are we done here? But we know the traits are autosomal dominant. That was an odd thing to say. What is your point? But I've explained why that's not the case. If it required a combination of alleles, then it would behave (superficially) as though it was recessive, not dominant.Edited by Dr Adequate, : 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.

Sure, eventually but not before the awesome diversity of the morganucodons has been whittled down to the nondiversity displayed by such relatively homogeneous creatures as the elephant, the giraffe, the weasel, the whale, the bat ...Clearly what happened here is that some lineages descending from the morganucodons lost the genes for not being elephants, others lost the genes for not being bats, and so forth, until from the rich genetic diversity of the morganucodons, we ended up with the genetically impoverished wasteland of the modern Mammalia.Obviously after so much diversity has been lost, all that this process can produce nowadays is the wide range of nondiversity seen in all the various breeds of dogs, cats, pigeons, etc. But it is clear that any amount of diversity could have been destroyed in the past, even narrowing down diversity from the genetic abundance of a single ancestral species to the lack of diversity displayed by the many families of modern mammals.

Your claims about the people you're debating with have as little basis in reality as your claims about mutation, selection, adaptation and evolution in general. It's simply your habit when you have no counterarguments to claim that people who disagree with you don't understand you. The reality is that they understand your position very well. Well, yes, of course you don't want to emphasize speciation, because you have no explanation for it. We have a world full of different species that science believes were produced by evolution, a process of descent with modification (mutation and allele remixing) and selection, and your position requires that all these species actually came about through just selection alone.But it's impossible for selection alone to produce speciation because a subpopulation can only possess genes and alleles already present in the main population. In general all the different species in the world differ in their genes and alleles. This could never have come about by selection alone. If you think it could then explain how.As I keep telling you, you're failing to consider the implications of your ideas. As I also keep telling you, most of the misunderstandings are coming from you, and this is yet another example. The bathtub analogy had nothing to do with speciation. You had claimed that mutation and selection could not occur simultaneously in a population, and the bathtub analogy was an illustration of how this does occur. In any population new alleles are being constantly produced through the imperfection of genetic copying during reproduction, and old alleles are constantly being selected out. Mutation is essential to evolution in order to produce speciation, something that you're trying to, as you said earlier, deemphasize. The theory of evolution was developed to explain how the huge diversity of species observed around the world originated, and here you are you're trying to ignore the theory of evolution's very raison d'tre.All you have is an explanation for new phenotypes of an existing species, and it's the same explanation evolution already had. What you're missing is an explanation for the origin of species. Well, yes, this is true, but it has nothing to do with mutation. Gene flow between populations will make the populations less diverse overall because the populations will come to share alleles that they didn't previously share, but mutation contributes novel alleles which increase diversity. No, Faith, I am not just asserting the theory. I have explained why selection produces adaptation several times, and I'll do so again. Environments perform selection by determining which individuals survive to contribute their genes to the next generation. That's why mammals in cold climates have thicker fur than those in warm climates. It's why white fur is seen in arctic environments and not forest environments. It's why the fur color of pocket mice changes according to their environment. This is just basic, fundamental biology that we know is true of nature because it is precisely what we observe when we study nature. Most people who come to think something is true have some basis for it, but not you. You just think something is so, and that's good enough for you. If you can't find any reasons for thinking something then it's probably because it's not true, but you don't need to keep telling us what you think. We know what you think, and we keep explaining to you with facts and analysis why what you think is wrong, and the best you can do is tell us you're going to continue to think it anyway but can't tell us why. Figure out what it is that we know about reality that convinces you of your point of view and explain what it is.Ask yourself what is not dynamic about water flowing in and out of a bathtub at the same time and at possibly varying rates. When you find an answer, let us know. Well, if my analogy is an illustration of what is trivially true, Faith, then I guess there was nothing wrong with it, was there. Just as there was nothing wrong with the pigeon example, either. Your claims of being misunderstood and of the analogies and examples being wrong is just what you always say when you have no answer. If the number of alleles in a population does not increase, how can you get an increase in genetic diversity? The question is rhetorical, of course, and the rest of the paragraph looks like you couldn't figure out what you were trying to say. Is there no fact so obvious you won't deny it, Faith? It was a simple analogy. Nature has a variety of "tastes". Nature is hot, cold, wet, dry, windy, calm, high altitude, low altitude, etc. and so forth and on and on. And the life that develops in any environment must be suited (adapted) to the "taste" of that environment, i.e., the specific environmental conditions, else they will be selected against. Just as I will select against music that doesn't suit my own personal taste. Could you please stop with the knee jerk "no that's wrong" responses and put just a little thought into things first?--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

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.

It's your theory of evolution I'm talking about here. The one I adhere to is somewhat different. The castle in the air is of your building, I'm just asking you to tell us more about the details of its architecture. Yeah, in this case the mammal Kind. Well, now you are. But this is only because so much genetic diversity has already been lost in the process of producing the various families, genera, and species of animals.

Science's view is that the mammal 'kind', from mice to whales, to elephants descended from a tiny shrew like critter. According to your 'theory', which of the existing mammalian beasts was on the ark? Did the mouse contain all the diversity from which was whittled the elephant or vice versa?

Dr Adequate was describing your own theory back to you. Your description of your theory, "Castles in the air," seems quite apt.Poor Dr A. What's the point of ridicule if the target can't even recognize which way the barbs are directed? This is new, at least in this thread. So you're not even trying to propose a theory that can produce new species. You think that all existing species have always existed. This is obviously false. We can just look at the fossil record and know that modern species have not always existed.I wish you'd said this a long time ago. I was under the impression that you were attempting to describe an alternative theory for the origin of species. I see now that you've actually got two theories, one of which you're talking about in this thread to explain the origin of subspecies and about which we all pretty much agree, and another theory that you haven't been talking about that explains the origin of species and which I assume is just the standard creationist "God did it."--Percy

I think she actually did imply this a long time ago. This thread has had a number of jumping off points, because boiled down to its essence the entire support for the premise of this thread is the assertion that that mutations don't contribute variation for evolution to progress.Initially Faith said that evolution was exactly like breeding. Later she acknowledged that evolution was only analogous to breeding. That's failure one. You cannot prove anything by arguing from analogy. Such arguments always break.Faith has also has said that she isn't talking about speciation. If that's true, then who cares about the rest of the argument. This thread is not about evolution at all. Failure two.Faith acknowledges the possibility that some breeds may have been created around mutation, although she doubts that to be the case. More importantly though, she complains about the small number of cited examples (as if...). However the thread says that evolution 'Requires' reduction in Genetic diversity. 'Requires means no exceptions. In other places Faith talks about the 'General Rule'. But a single exception is enough. Failure three.Faith says that mutations interfere with speciation because they delay creating a highly specific phenotype. On the other hand, she acknowledges the great variety in human beings and dogs. But all humans are in one species as are all dogs. In other words, nature's species do not consist of highly specific phenotypes such as toy poodles. The breeding analogy then is totally broken and the argument that breeds represent some loss of diversity from the species is also demonstrably wrong. Failure and jumping off points number four and five.Dr. Adequate describes the special breeding procedures for Curly cat that involved breeding the original curly cat and descendants with cats outside of that small circle. Faith noted that once the forced outbreeding stopped, then diversity would decrease. Faith failed to observe that the matter of what cats the curly eared type bred with was totally controlled by human beings.Of course, out in the wild, the only thing that would determine which cats a curly eared cat would breed with would be the forces of natural selection. Absent a deliberate, guided and enforced policy, no exact phenotype results. Failure/Jumping off point six.And of course, none of us agree with Faith because we're all too stupid to follow her logic. I'll admit that I have picked at a few posters over some minor points, mostly out of boredom with the main line of argument, but the fact is that all of the participants understand Faith's posts. It's just that the posts are devoid of any persuasive reasoning and full of errors illogic. This kind of reasoning would not persuade a drunk to follow you to a keg of beer.I stop here not because I have listed all of the illogic I could cite, but because these examples ought to be enough. I was never under that impression.Faith's alternate view of evolution is contained in Genesis 2. "Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array." In other words, there is no evolution. Mutations generate only disease and trash. There is only breeding to form less diverse critters from the original created kinds, those kinds having super, packed genomes containing all variety possible. The creation of these kinds was completed before God rested from the unimaginable exertions involved with creating an entire universe in only six days. Yes, Percy, that's it. Edited by NoNukes, : Remove sentence that suggests dogs and people are in the same species.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I stated earlier in this thread, and was jeered, that Faith's whole attitude is Attempting to debate Faith is a fruitless endeavor.Her answer for everything is "God did it"Edited by Theodoric, : No reason given.

At one time, there were no grizzly bears, so your example is a really poor one. At one time there were no bears period, and at a time even further back there were no mammals to speak of. Obviously, mutations do crop up and cause species to change.Even more, we have cited peer reviewed papers where whole genomes of families have been sequenced in order to find the mutations, and they were there. We have cited dominant Mendelian traits in cats that are obvious mutations, and yet you still close your eyes and ears.What do we need to do to convince you to accept the facts of mutation?

I went back and reread her OP and you're right. When I first read her OP I found it too long and fragmented (it was composed of cut-n-pastes from other messages) to get a clear idea of what she was saying, so I asked her to rewrite it, but I also included a summary of what I thought she was saying and said that if my summary was close enough for her purposes that I could just promote the thread and she wouldn't have to do a rewrite. She said it was fine, so I promoted the thread, but if you go back and read my summary (Message 3) you'll see that I definitely believed she was including speciation. I actually don't have any problem with an analogy between selection in breeding and selection in nature. Darwin used the same analogy. My problem was Faith's claim that breeding was analogous to evolution because evolution was really only capable of selection, which is of course false. I do think that breeding for specific traits reduces diversity. Fixing certain traits by eliminating competing alleles is one of the goals of breeding.Here's another analogy. I watched the Bruins/Canadiens hockey game yesterday, and the Canadiens were guilty of a few flops (overreacting to contact in order to gain a penalty). Both Faith and Bolder-dash seemed to have left in huffs that bear a strong resemblance to flops.--Percy

I think this blog post

• O O O That Evo ha looshinist Mizrabul Buh-loosyist Cantwinferlosinist Ra-ag

can be taken to indicate withdrawal of Faith from further participation.

it's a common trope. when you can't win by debate, retreat to the pulpit.