Molecular Population Genetics and Diversity through Mutation

I guess she could be just ignoring existing variation. But of course it is obviously daft to think that restoring variation to the same level as the parent species would make the daughter species anything but a "nice clear species" (to the extent that real species are "clear"). After all the parent species had the same level of variation.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

I've taken an interest in the season of Winter, specifically in the changes that mark its beginning. I have observed that every year, as we enter winter the temperature inevitably does down. And it turns out that this is true everywhere in the world, even in the Southern Hemisphere where the seasons are reversed.Obviously this means that world temperatures are on an inevitable downward trend.Some people tali about other seasons, or even invoking the dubious "science" of global warming. But that is just a tactic to confuse the issue. By thinking only of Winter we can see the clear downward trend, which will inevitably end when the temperature reaches absolute zero.

Heterozygosity is not the issue. It is really funny that you claim that your idea is defensible - but instead of defending it you go and talk about something completely different.At the least you are talking about hundreds of extra genes, and you identify "junk DNA" as the "remains" of these genes (even though the vast majority of it is not composed of identifiable pseudogenes)

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It affects the living people by wiping out ALL the alleles for a great number of genes, in some cases leaving those few survivors on the ark with many homozygous loci and no opportunities to make them heterozygous;

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I assume that you mean that every person on the Ark was homozygous, with the same allele, and all the OTHER alleles were therefore wiped out ?

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so as those are passed on down the centuries, and people divided into races, they are vulnerable to incompatible combinations and mutations that eventually kill the gene

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The "incompatible combinations" doesn't make much sense (it isn't that likely and it wouldn't affect the gene at all). And useful genes wouldn't be "killed" by mutation anyway (don't forget that you would need to eliminate the "live" version which would not be easy in the face of selection favouring its retention)

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A mutation here a mutation there over a few thousand years should take its toll on fixed loci

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Not really. Why would it ?What should be true is that we should have evidence of recently inactivated genes. Once they are inactivated they will mutate at the neutral rate, with no selection to interfere. So we should be able to get pretty good estimates of the time since the gene "died". Do we have evidence of many human genes being inactivated in the last 4000 years or so?And how does this explain modern genetic diversity ? Isn't the whole point to explain why there are loci with many more alleles than your beliefs would lead us to expect, without invoking mutation ?

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There was probably scattered homozygosity on the ark for all those loci, rather than total homozygosity, but the vast majority of alleles would have been lost forever in the Flood.

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Thats walking back quite a way from your original statement. And makes your rather implausible claims even less plausible (because the inactivated gene has to win out over all the alleles)

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HOW it might have happened is still speculative, however, something to think about, it just seems the most likely explanation of junk DNA from the YEC point of view. Perhaps you could try thinking like a YEC for a moment, maybe you'd come up with the explanation.

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That it happened at all is - to be kind - wildly speculative, the more so since most "junk DNA" is not recognisable as pseudogenes at all.

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Absolutely. There are lots of observed facts that support YEC so we make use of them.

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If "junk DNA" supported YEC why are you inventing silly bullshit in an attempt to "explain" it ? Really it seems that the truth is that there are lots of observed facts that contradict YEC and "must" be "explained" or suppressed.

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The supposed contrary evidence in the case of junk DNA is a very iffy thing. Although they think they have found some function there it doesn't seem to be very clear what it does

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It isn't clear that the supposed evidence of "function" is sufficient to conclude any real function for anything considered genuine junk (not all non-coding DNA is junk)But equally it IS clear that there is no good reason to suppose that even most junk DNA consists of pseudogenes let alone all of it as you claim for some reason I cannot fathom.

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Who said it's "evidence?" I merely present it as a hypothesis that fits the Biblical Flood, and the Biblical Fall for that matter, a lot better than it fits the ToE. It fits so well that it wouldn't make sense to give it up until something definite is known about noncoding DNA one way or the other, which isn't the case now and by the looks of it won't be for some time to come.

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Obviously that is untrue. At the very least you have jumped to a daft conclusion without considering the facts that we do know, or even the plausibility of your scenario. The kindest thing I can say is that you are in no position to claim that junk DNA does better fit with TEC belief - and that you are quite clearly wrong to say so.

You mean it's another thing we mustn't look at too closely, lest we find out that it is evidence against YEC belief.

But the usual creationist argument is that mutations always lose information, although they never seem to come up with any good reasons to believe it. They almost never come up,with a measure of information either, making the whole thing vacuous.That's quite a way from your argument which tries at every stage to ignore mutations.

Well, no. Arguing that mutations lose traits still claims that mutations can add genetic diversity. So it is quite a different argument, although still foolish and still short of evidence.

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My basic argument proves that the ToE doesn't work. That leaves design.

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You've even managed to confuse yourself. You refuse to deal with the actual theory of evolution, insisting on your own (strawman) instead. And we don't care if you prove that false because none of us believe it.In the real theory of evolution genetic variation can increase. Evolution does not act like a peculiarly close-minded breeder, who cannot accept any new variation (as you admit there are plenty of possible variations that do not get in the way of real breeders - and evolution has no intended outcome that variations could interfere with anyway).The real theory of evolution accepts the fact that mutations can produce useful traits - and even with the restrictions imposed by your demand for proof some small examples have been found. Simply assuming that it cannot happen is convenient for you but hardly a convincing argument.And if praying to God doesn't help you understand, why should we expect it to help anyone else ?

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The evidence that mutations produce real traits is terrifically scarce, an odd situation here or there, and even then there are other explanations than mutation for particular changes.

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The cases with absolute proof are rare because it is hard to get absolute proof. The evidence is far more abundant.

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I'll say it again: even if mutations did do what you claim, they could make nothing new, could do nothing more than contribute to the pool of ordinary allelic variations, which would be redundant since there is plenty already built in; and that pool has to be reduced in order to get new phenotypes.

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The whole point of your argument is that the "built in" variation is NOT sufficient. Adding to it, then, is precisely what we need to answer you.

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As long as reduction in genetic diversity is needed for this purpose the ToE is a dead duck.

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This assertion of yours has already been refuted. So long as genetic diversity can increase between speciation events it can offset any losses during speciation events.

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But in reality they don't do all that anyway, with a few really questionable exceptions they contribute zip to the wellbeing of organism

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In your, biased, opinion.

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And God has indeed helped me to understand these things.

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How like a creationist - always blaming someone else for your mistakes.

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Don't know where you got this idea. It's entirely sufficient.

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The point of your argument is that variation must run out, bringing evolution to a halt. This is the only truly relevant "sufficiency" to this discussion.

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And mutations can't help conservation. Carefully reintroducing gene flow through remixing separated populations is the only help for it, and that's a lot of what conservationists do.

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A solution which takes thousands of years - perhaps many thousands - while providing no short-term help is obviously worse than a solution that can have effects within a few generations. So your point has no relevance to the discussion - it is true no matter which side is right. Are you going to blame God for your failure to understand that ?

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That's only a problem for evolutionists who have to believe all living things descended from others.

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Which is, of course, the point of your argument.Although you are wrong again because there is considerable evidence for common ancestry and throwing out the best explanation we have for it inevitably creates problems.

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And even if I don't know exactly how it occurred it makes sense that junk DNA was once functioning genes that would have increased the possibilities for variation enormously.

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It really doesn't. Especially not in the timescale allowed by YEC belief.

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Wonderful. No difference between disease and health, no difference between healthy genetic diversity needed by the genetically impoverished seals and some kind of useless mutational diversity. This is science?

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And now you are complaining that scientists haven't invented more jargon. Of course the sole reason for the complaint is that you got the definition wrong. But you have to blame other people as usual.

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HE WAS REFERRING TO PHENOTYPIC DIVERSITY WHICH MAKES HASH OUT OF MY ARGUMENT WHICH IS ALL ABOUT GENETIC DIVERSITY. If you can't grasp that much and obviously you can't just as he can't this discussion is hopeless. How do I keep trying to convince myself it's not when it so clearly is?

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But of course the two are not separate even in your argument. Selection - natural and artificial - is by phenotype. And if these phenotypic variations are all allowed within the breed, how can you say that a new mutation would automatically be rejected by a breeder ? Are you suggesting that new mutations must always fall outside the acceptable phenotypic range ? Because that is the only way it could happen.Even then the extension to evolution would be silly, because evolution does not have the artificial standards used by breeders - so expecting it to follow them is just plain daft.

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All the more hopeless since I found out that polymorphic genes seem to be predominantly disease-causers and none of you bothered to mention that fact,

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Are they, or is this something you made up ? I doubt that it is true for the many different alleles in the immune system or in the alleles for human eye colour for a start.

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The deception in this discussion is worse than even I imagined. It's appalling, it's disgusting

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Only in the sense that your lies are really, really silly. Maybe if you pray more, your God will give you some better ones.

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Then there was that Wikipedia article that pretty much defined polymorphic genes as disease-causers.

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The article obviously said no such thing. Try reading it. Or even the section you quoted.

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In fact as I think about it now ALL mutations of alleles create polymorphic genes.

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Mutations usually create new alleles (at least at the level of genetic sequences) but it is abusing the terminology rather to say that is creating a polymorphic gene.