WTF is wrong with people

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How fitting, a totally off-the-wall mega-bizarre misreading to end the discussion.

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It's not at all bizarre. You refuse to do an experiment to support your claims. The reason given is other peoples beliefs, beliefs that you clearly disagree with and that you think would be refuted by the experiment.As usual it seems that you "bizarre misreading" is what you said,

Even more bizarre that you repeat such a bizarre misreading.But then this IS the Twilight Zone.Crossed with Alice in Wonderland.Or maybe it's just one of Franz Kafka's nightmares.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

If it's a misreading, explain what you meant. That should be easy for you.

You may not mean what you've written there but you seem to have said a similar thing several times and it's confusing a few issues.What classical ToE says is that when a group of organisms are separated from the main population by some kind of barrier - water, mountains, forrest etc, they (obviously) no longer have access to the main population's genetic pool, they have a subset of it.Over time the two population's genetic make up will change - by drift and mutation.It's separation that allows the process of differential change to happen simply because the two populations can not interbreed to maintain a uniform gene pool.After separation though, it's selection that determines which changes are kept and which are discarded. If the two population have identical environments we can reasonably expect few, or very gradual changes to occur because the population is already fitted to its environment.If the environment is very different we can expect faster and more dramatic changes. (or the sub-population will simply die.)So even if we accept what (I think) you claim, that the sub-population contains all the genes to create a phenotype, it seems self-evident to me (and biology) that the phenotypes best fitted to the new environment will be selected for.If you look at the classic case of the peppered moth it's really easy to accept selection (by differential predation) as the reason why dark moths prosper where trees darkened by pollution are prevalent and light moths where the reverse is true.In other words, there's no reason for you to reject selection - you can hang on to your erroneous model but still accept selection.

No, Faith, I'm not blowing hot air. This is just you demonstrating your inability to think things through, or apparently even remember what's just been said about raising gerbils, hamsters and mice in the home. There are plenty of people who have raised gerbils for 20 and 30 years, yet no conversation like this has ever happened: "What the heck are these?" "Gerbils." "I've never seen any gerbils that looked like that before." "Well, we bought a pair 20 years ago, just let them mate on their own, gave the excess away, and this is what they look like now after a 100 generations."Add to that all the recent human-caused reductions in habitat that are causing population declines in many species along with unavoidable reductions in genetic diversity, yet we don't see new phenotypes springing up all around the world.You have an undemonstrated hypothesis that you're promoting as an accurate description of reality, despite that it's never been observed and isn't consistent with what is currently known within biology. Selection observed in the Pod Mrcaru lizards? No, of course not, there was a war going on. But selection itself, has been observed, verified, studied, analyzed, dissected and deconstructed. It's a known process. New phenotypes from reductions of genetic diversity have never been observed and are not consistent with what is currently known within biology. Boy, another whopper. I guess no Faith message is complete without one.Selection does not cause reproductive isolation. Selection operates on all populations everywhere all the time. After reproductive isolation occurs then unless the environments of the two populations are somehow identical, the selection pressures will be different and the genetic and morphological makeup of the two populations will begin to diverge. Since I never said this, I have no idea what it means. What I did say is that no one has ever observed reductions in genetic diversity causing new phenotypes to emerge except under selection pressures. For example, experiments with bacteria frequently begin with a very small initial population (a great reduction in genetic diversity), yet unless the environment is modified (i.e., change the selection pressures) the bacteria don't change.Speaking of bacteria, some common types reproduce every few hours, like some strains of E. coli. You say you're too old to conduct lengthy experiments, but experiments with bacteria could be completed in just a few short weeks. Place a few bacteria on 10 or 20 separate but identical substrates and see how different the populations are after a month. I'm betting you'll get 10 or 20 separate but pretty much identical populations.But you could just save yourself a lot of time by accepting the fact that despite all the millions of bacterial experiments that have been conducted over the years, no one has ever observed anything that would confirm your hypothesis about new phenotypes emerging as a result of reduced genetic diversity alone. Change requires selection. (Drift can cause change, but because of it's undirected and random nature would take much longer.)About those Berkeley webpages you referenced, they're pretty poor (incredibly poor, actually, and the explanation of mutations, migration and drift unbelievably bad) and only seem to be increasing your confusion. I encourage others here to take a look at this page in particular and comment about how Berkeley could have produced something so awful: --PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.

I wasn't quite sure how to interpret this.If by "genetic makeup" you mean the original set of genes and their alleles, then changes in the members of that set can take place through both mutation (introduction of the new alleles or new genes or even new chromosomes) or selection (removal of alleles, genes and even chromosomes) from the population).If by "genetic makeup" you mean the original allele frequencies, then change can take place through mutation, through allele and gene shuffling during reproduction, through selection, and through drift.I agree with you that Faith's rejection of selection seems unnecessary for maintaining her creationist viewpoints.--Percy

Is this an error? I don't see her position as rejecting selection. She seems instead to reject mutation and drift as a means of propagating diversity.She does not appear to even know what selection is. Selection is simply our name for the natural process whereby the slowest gazelle gets eaten first and the weakest puppy gets no milk. Is that really something anyone denies?Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

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About those Berkeley webpages you referenced, they're pretty poor (incredibly poor, actually, and the explanation of mutations, migration and drift unbelievably bad) and only seem to be increasing your confusion. I encourage others here to take a look at this page in particular and comment about how Berkeley could have produced something so awful:

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Mechanisms: the processes of evolution - Understanding Evolution

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That's not great but Faith's understanding of it is worse. How could anyone figure out that when she talks about migration, she means individuals from other areas bringing in alleles for phenotypic variations not found in the local population ? That is NOT reproductive isolation or a reduction in genetic diversity! It's gene flow and an increase in the genetic and phenotypic diversity of the local population.

The specifics of Faith's denial of selection is that she only accepts selection on the basis of shortage. For example, she accepts that a reduction of the availability of insects as a food source could be a selection pressure on the lizards of Pod Mrcaru. But she rejects that the plentiful availability of vegetation as a food source could be a selection pressure.She also doesn't seem to understand is that even an unchanging environment exerts selection pressures.--Percy

I simply mean that both population's genotypes - the mother population and the split population - will change in the normal ways through drift and mutation but they will do so independently of each other. They may then (or may not) diverge far enough to become non-interbreeding species.The wall lizards are a little confusing because we don't actually know what the driving factor for the change to a more vegetarian diet was - although we can speculate that it was because of the relative abundance of vegetation on the new island.My money though is not on mutation to create the jaw and digestive tract changes - including the ability trap bacteria to break down cellulose - it seems far more likely to be a genetic trait from an earlier population has popped back up because the environment suits it.The mice though are very close to a proof of mutation then selection.Faith tho' seem to think that the mere act of separation is enough to create what she calls a variety - which is daft; there needs to be a mechanic for a change which, as we know is drift or mutation and a mechanic to direct the change, which we know is selection.

Well, small is continuous with big, isn't it? We see small things grow into big things all the time. We see small changes become big changes all the time.What is on topic is the question of WTF makes creationists think otherwise. We keep asking them to show us the line between small and big, what stops small from becoming big, but they have no answer.

Which is the main example I've been giving but I also include other ways reproductive isolation can come about. Even within a larger population there can be the formation of such a subset through reproductive choice among some individuals; I've understood that to be drift but maybe I don't have that quite right. Natural Selection also brings this about by favoring some individuals over other, which become the new subset. My argument is all about how the new allele frequencies alone that occur simply because of the population split are powerful enough agents of change, bringing out new phenotypes that eventually become characteristic of the new population, apart from any other agent, apart from selection pressure. I get the general idea that drift can remove alleles but I have to admit that I don't really get how. In any case the mere change in frequencies the split itself brings about ought to be enough to bring about a new set of phenotypes and eventually a new look for the whole population, which is now a new variation or race etc. Seems to me that there are many ways such a population split occurs, and drift probably also works to form the final subset. Exactly. But you don't seem to be thinking of the change in allele frequencies that the separation automatically brings about as the major change factor. This is apparently part of the theory, as Percy expresses the same thing, but as I keep saying, there's often no evidence that this is actually observed to be the determining factor, it IS merely believed to be, and in the case of the lizards on Pod Mrcaru they deduce it based on greater vegetation, but my argument is that the changed allele frequencies in the new smaller population alone are sufficient to bring about the vegetation eating capacity of the whole new population. You don't need selection and there is no evidence really that selection has operated. Not that selection COULDN'T be a factor, just that in most cases it seems to be supposed to be when there's no real evidence for it and no reason for it either. Yes, that is the ToE idea but what I'm saying is that you are GOING to get change anyway. You are overlooking the powerful change factor of the change in allele frequencies that is brought about entirely by the population split itself, and in a much smaller new population there is likely to be a complete absence of some alleles that were present in the original population along with a higher proportion of others, which makes for a potent new mix for developing new phenotypes. Yes, if the environment is VERY different then selection is going to have a bigger role, but you still have to have the genetic ability, the particular alleles, for the new population to develop in whatever direction is favored by the environment. Sometimes this capacity seems to be assumed by those who talk about selection as the major driving force. Especially if the new population is formed from very small numbers what could possibly give optimism that it HAS the genetic capacity to vary in a way that can adapt to a drastically new environment? That's asking more than just expecting the original creature to make do with whatever's available. If there really is selection pressure, which often is assumed but not shown, as on Pod Mrcaru, and if the genetic substrate for a phenotype that can adapt to a radically new enivornment is somehow present in the new population, which again seems to me to be a lot to expect, especially if the new population is founded on few individuals. The most common situation, it seems to me, has to be that the new environment is *good enough* to support the new population from the beginning so that phenotyhpic changes are brought about by the new allele frequencies rather than selection pressure, and that since there is no real competition among the different phenotypes the first generation will simply die off from old age and the new generations will make use of their new phenotypes to deal with the environment as dictated by their own abilities. That is one definite case where selection can be seen in operation. Both kinds of moths were already present in the population and the birds selected them according to the color of the tree bark. I'm not denying selection, I'm trying to emphasize the importance of the simple fact that allele frequencies change when there is a population split and can make great changes in the phenotype without selection pressure at all. I don't reject selection. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You have the most amazing talent for misreading me.My view of migration is that a subpopulation splits off from the mother population and moves some distance away where in reproductive isolation it inbreeds among itself. There IS no "local population" in my scenario, the migrating subpopulation has found its own home for itself in which by inbreeding among its individuals for some number of generations it produces its own new characteristics and becomes a new variety or race or "species" or "breed." All based on its own genes/alleles.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I've answered this many times and have been answering it all along in this thread.

The irony is that everybody seems to be misreading you. Is it possible that you're the one who's miswriting?