Evolution Requires Reduction in Genetic Diversity

Like twelve? Or just like breeding?That's tiny.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

You don't have a case. You have yet to even lay out a scenario.Let's not dance around the issue. What we are discussing is strictly a numbers game where the variables include the initial diversity, the number of new traits that will be required before you acknowledge that evolution has happened (something closely tied to the definition of species), the time frame for mutations to act on, and the some way of estimating the rate of non-deleterious phenotype affecting mutations, and then some way to quantify the effect of natural selection. A suitable rough model might include a set of linear first order differential equations.You have not given a single number or quantification, or even a guess for any of those things. Yet you want everyone to believe that you have proven that the diversity existing in the current population of humans (let's call that the target population) could not have evolved from a reasonable sized population of reasonably diverse Homo Erectus specimens in say one million years using known human mutation rates. And you actually ar3e attempting to do that using examples covering a few decades and a couple of heads of cattle.You've been thinking about this for a decade, so show me something that is not simply based on your assertions that evolution is impossible and that non deleterious mutations are impossibly rare. I'm a mathematically oriented guy. My background is physics/chemistry/engineering not biology. Have you got anything for me?Or skip the equations and just walk me through an analysis that gives me some reason to think that you are even discussing the proper scale of the problem. Respond when we ask you to define your terms or ask for clarification with something other than the non answers you give.Because without some of that, you are just hand waving. If you read some scientific papers on evolution you'll see a completely different approach. If they have made bad assumptions or miscalculated, you will know.My personal assumption is that you've spent 10 years naval gazing. Surely you expected a skeptical audience when you posted here, but it appears to me that you really have naught point diddly-squat to show us. Prove me wrong. Demonstrate that fine scientific mind.While you ponder those matters, I want to know where you got the idea that wildebeests and Scandinavians are essentially homogenous. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Nevermind. I asked a ridiculous question.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

You are going to need to quantify the ups and downs before you have an argument. But at least here you acknowledge that there are ups.Do you think that dogs are more diverse or less diverse than wolves? I read today that dogs are the most diverse land animal. I don't know if that is true, but I think your thesis requires that dogs be less diverse than wolves. Would you care to express an opinon on that?Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

A bear differing in no way from other bears other than having gained white fur is automatically better suited for stalking prey in snowy areas.In other words, fur color is functional. In addition to enhancing hiding and/or sneakiness, fur color may provide respiratory advantages in some environments. Fur length and fur density are also functional. So are silly looking minor things like the ability to move one's outer ears.Perhaps a better way of distinguishing the mutations you believe are possible from the ones you believe are not would be useful here. But shucking and jiving about the definition of functional is going to cost you even more of your credibility.Or maybe a loss of credibility on the topic is simply not possible for you.

I'm not doing any such thing. You are simply denying the premise that white fur can be a mutation, or an addition to the genome. Well that's completely wrong.

Not needed for what? Perhaps a better choice of words would be that they are not wanted. Not wanted by you.Mutations are not needed to do the limited things you want to allow, like producing at least some of the breeds of dogs or explaining why family members can vary so much. But mutations are needed to drive changes as described by the theory of evolution. In short what your position is exposed to be is simply denying that mutations exit. Yet your claim is that the theory of mutations cannot work even with mutations.Of course there is irrefutable genetic evidence for mutations of the very sort that you deny. Tigers, chinchillas, and mice are all known to have mutated variants that affect their color to the point where the exact mutation have been identified. So what your position amounts to is just denying the truth. It is not that such mutations are simply not needed. For you to be right, they cannot exist, even in relatively rare numbers. And yet they do.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Faith's argument is that evolution is just like making a new type of dog out of existing dos. If you want to make a new zebra colored poodle, you might try to get there by mixing/matching doggie parents and getting rid of the puppies that aren't trending towards having the black and white stripes. If you succeed, you you get a new dog that you really cannot use to breed a Dalmation-like collie later because you've bred or excluded that possibility from the the zebra dogs genetic make up. Clearly the dog cannot have any of the dominant or near dominant genes that would prevent striping.Yeah, I get that. A zebra colored dog breed created during a single man's lifetime isn't going to be very diverse. But there are a thousand reasons why evolution can produce a different result than does such a breeding scheme. Faith isn't necessarily consistent about what principle she wants to use to deny that distinction, but her purpose for doing so is pretty clear.It is amazing what you can come up with when you aren't handicapped by knowledge and reason.

FWIW, I don't think Faith's position on the sheep species is that far off. There is some disagreement about the proper relative classification of O. orientalis and O. aries.The definition of speciation might be fairly clear, but the fit between the term speciation and our classification scheme is not totally consistent.Also as you suggest, Faith's discussion is short on examples of anything except breeding. Perhaps a different example might be worth considering.In my opinion, a single dominant mutation, such as a mutation giving humans functioning 'proto-wings' or 'proto-gills' would be sufficient basis to call a large population with those features a new species even if the group were interfertile with human beings. If you disagree then let's call that group a grouping rather than a species.And over time, I don't see any reason why that group could not become every bit as diverse as humanity is now. The only requirement for the new species is that it have the new feature. Variation in ear lobe shape, skin color, hair straightness, susceptability to desease and blood chemistry would not interfere with forming the species and thus new mutations or even interbreeding with baseline humans can still add diversity to the new grouping.If on the other hand, someone wants to claim that humans with gills are still of the same species as those without, then that person has not defined away evolution. They are simply ignoring evolution. Change is happening despite their dictionary, and the change is not limited by exhausting diversity.On the other hand the theory that animals not being able to breed together must or usually? comes from loss of diversity is total BS. Chromosonal count differences, for example, that have little to nothing to do with diversity, are completely capable of interfering with inter species breeding. Is the inability of dogs and cats to breed together connected to diversity in any way?Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Actually, you cannot make the call even then. Genetic innovation is not necessarily a reason to declare animals separate species. We know for example that some dog breeds possess mutations not present in other dogs, but all dogs are considered to be of the same species.

This is a bit of an over simplification. It is the overall fitness of an individual that gets tested, and even some hampering traits and loss of ability can get carried along for the ride because they don't hamper fitness sufficiently to be selected against because individual is fit enough based on other traits. And not all traits are tested in every environment.For example if humans once had some ability to detect magnetic fields that allowed them to migrate long distances and find their way home, we could do perfectly well without that sense now. Generally speaking, people who live within cities no longer need the ability to detect poisonous natural plants, run long distances at a stretch, endure extreme temperatures, or detect predators by smell. If some of those abilities were loss, there would be very little selection pressure as a result.And of course many traits that shorten life to something that is still well beyond child bearing/siring years are not selected against at all.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Nicely done. Giving up on a favorite idea is hard for any of us. But your taking it one step further and explicitly admitting changing your mind (rather than letting us guess) is surely something to celebrate. But the Flood loss could not represent any loss of function that Noah and his sons still possessed right? Surely those eight people possessed all of the vital functions for humans. Besides the silly notion that the people missing after the flood could have done something to the genes of living people, the flood itself could not have possible eliminated any essential human functions or else Noah and family would have had to be sickly.

It is enough that junk DNA cannot be related to a loss of diversity caused by the bottleneck that is an inevitable consequence of a global level hear extinction event 4500 years ago. Given things like lack of toleration of transplanted organs even for family members, there is plenty of evidence that the current genetic diversity of humanity, even within single single families, exceeds than which can be explained by the number of alleles present in just 8, not so diverse people absent some mechanism to ADD diversity.And as you have acknowledged, junk DNA has nothing at all to do with that. As I see it, if you want to pack diversity into the non-diverse group of Noah, sons and their wives, only some kind of super genome is left to you as explanation.As for whether we are more sickly than Noah. I note that every one of us humans are considerably weaker and more frail than Achilles and Hercules are claimed to be.

Interesting. Of course when I attribute the consequences of something you say to you, I cannot know that you really haven't thought through the consequences.Now I'm going to have to delete your quoted statement from my signature. Grrr! And yet Noah and his family must necessarily represent an incredibly homogeneous grouping by any standard. How does your thinking accommodate that?Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.