Molecular Population Genetics and Diversity through Mutation

I think Population 2 falls under the first of the three measures of genetic diversity I found at Wikipedia: Polymorphous loci means many alleles per locus. A change in that number between populations is what you'd look for to check for increase or decrease. Not easy I suppose.

I looked, read the abstract. One thing you may need to know is that my eyes can't take much glare of white backgrounds, which is the reason I often don't read linked papers or only read small parts of them. It's always a big help if someone puts the gist of it into their own words. Just writing a post in this white box is hard on my eyes. It's an interesting proposal since I find it difficult to believe that natural selection could act on a single locus and not affect others, just because it usually works on the individual as a whole. But I won't be reading the paper to find out how they arrived at this conclusion. Also, the term "linkage disequilibrium" is one of those jargon terms that are meaningless to me. As is the rest of the abstract. Oh well.However, I think I do get your statement that polymorphic loci refers to "nucleotide sequence variation among the alleles at a locus. Highly polymorphic loci have highly variable nucleotide sequences." I could be wrong I suppose but variation in the sequence would be expected from allele to allele, wouldn't it? I mean they are different and do different things. The only problem is when you've got a mutation that doesn't do anything instead of an allele that does. This is where the idea of nucleotide diversity loses me. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

That's good to know, thanks!I've got some issues with Chrome I have to iron out first but that sounds like a great solution to this problem.

Yes I see you added the line about nucleotide diversity. Dr. A pulled that same trick on me once.It doesn't help with understanding, however. So are you saying that MtDNA and microsatellites are measuring nucleotide diversity?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

My view of all these things seems to be pretty compatible with standard creationist thinking as I've encountered it.

These are mutations of course. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Creationists usually discuss it as "loss of information" which certainly implies that evolution doesn't work because it loses information, though I haven't found it elaborated much. I think my terms are clearer and I made it my own particular argument. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I think you get the prize for muddled thinking on any subject I've ever discussed with you. However, "it," which is pretty clear from the context, is my argument about loss of genetic diversity by evolutionary processes. That's my version of it. The usual creationist version is the argument about loss of information. The information that is lost is genetic information. That's probably a fairly muddled way of putting it but it will do for the moment: my argument is along the same lines. Evolution loses, it does not accumulate, anything. That's the essence of MY argument. They call it information, I call it genetic diversity but the same thing is intended. It's you who are muddled as usual. You have misrepresented my argument in this thread and on other occasions many times. There's hardly any point in mentioning it any more. Mutations aren't the core of my argument either. They come up because people here make them the issue, as they also would if loss of information were the argument instead. And now this thread is into a more sophisticated version of the mutation challenge than usual, the use of mitochondrial DNA and microsatellites to measure genetic diversity, and although just getting a basic idea of what on earth these are and do has been difficult, to put it mildly, and I still don't see any rational explanation for any of it, I have some small improved idea about it that has convinced me it's one of the more major deceptions in the whole deceptive mess of the ToE. There are differences, mostly because I've elaborated a different terminology and way of approaching it, but otherwise they are basically the same argument. It takes a supremely muddled mind even to have that idea, which you keep repeating. Genesis doesn't REQUIRE any particular approach to these questions. But evolutionary science does and evolution contradicts basic facts in Genesis and that's why arguments based on the Bible aim to show the fallacies in evolution. You are welcome to make your own argument. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I'm not famliar with that argument though I suppose this is a version of it, from Jonathan Sarfati: However he also gives the argument I recognize as a version of my own: I keep losing the page I'm on but here's another page from the same book: That's Chapter 5. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 all get into the problem of evolution's inability to provide new information, which is a version of my argument.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

But I just said I DON'T use the argument about information, but that it's a VERSION of my argument which is about genetic diversity. And I DON'T say that mutations are a loss in information, OR a loss in genetic diversity either. So you've got this discussion all garbled somehow or other.My argument is that to get new traits or phenotypes you have to lose genetic diversity. Jonathan Sarfati probably disagrees with me. He'd say you can't get anything NEW without new information, that all the changes we see are brought about by existing information. He also doesn't think we should use the term "microevolution." I haven't been convinced he's right about that.Anyway I don't have an opinion about mutations you find in chimps. Not my argument. I don't discuss mutations as a loss in information. What I would say is that different races are the result of isolation of some portion of the entire human population, which contains a particular set of genetic possibilities, or new gene frequencies, that form the race after many generations of mixing together the new gene frequencies. This is also how you get domestic breeds and subspecies in the wild -- by losing some genetic material so that a particular set of genetic possibilities form the new breed or species. The point of this is that whenever you get phenotypic change you also get loss of genetic possibilities or of genetic diversity. But the ToE assumes you can get endless phenotypic changes without taking into account that it requires loss of genetic diversity to get them. All this occurs with the existing or built-in genetic possibilities, or microevolution, nothing new is added, nor can it be added. Again I don't argue about information, only about genetic diversity. And since phenotypic change requires a loss of genetic diversity you DO need an increase if evolution is to continue past the boundary of the Species. I gather Sarfati and others might not bother about the loss of genetic diversity but just say all changes we see occur from the existing "information," and if you are going to get something truly new you are going to need new information, and that doesn't occur. It's a very poor analogy for the actual situation being described.

It really does help conversation if the context is taken into account. I was talking about the formation of domestic breeds and how once you have the breed you've been developing you don't want mutations coming along because they would mess up the traits you've so carefully established. And the reason I make this argument is that I keep hearing how mutations can just increase genetic diversity after you have a breed or subspecies as if that would be a good thing. First it doesn't happen, you aren't going to get new traits from mutations, but if you did it would only prevent the formation of a breed or a recognizable species in the wild. Made that case many times already. You can't get a breed if the alleles for other traits than those of your breed are present in the breed's gene pool. Those alleles have to be lost. Their loss is NECESSARY to producing and maintaining the desired traits of your breed. Yes necessary necessary necessary. Chimps and humans are separate species with no genetic relatedness. I'm talking about the kinds of changes /differences you get between populations of the same species due to built-in genetic possibilities. Mutations have nothing to do with it.

I think you've mistaken Mr. Evo Bias for that friend. You assume mutations without any warrant for assuming it. I can hardly believe you are that dense. Perhaps it's intentional. Or maybe you ARE that dense.EACH of those breeds has its own specific genetic substrate that EXCLUDES the genetic diversity in the ENTIRE REST OF THE DOG SPECIES. Each has its own set of characteristics and the genetic material that underlies them. Each has ONLY its own genotype for its own phenotype. It DOESN'T have the genetic stuff for the other breeds. There may be many different versions of chihuahuas but each has its own genotype and not that of the others. There is a specific recipe you could say for each breed. And if you are a breeder of a particular breed you don't want the other characteristics popping up after you've established it.Dogs are marvelously genetically diverse AS A KIND, or family or Species or whatever the category is, which is why so many breeds can be developed from that Kind. Mutations had nothing to do with their diversity, it's built in to the Kind.But to get each breed requires LOSING the genetic stuff for all the other traits that don't belong to the breed but continue in other breeds and the Dog Population as a whole.Why is this so hard to get?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

WHen I'm accepting mutations for the sake of argument, yes, the idea is to point out that even if they work as you think they do they would do things you don't want them to do, and in fact they don't do anyway. All the mutations I keep hearing are going to come along and replenish the lost genetic diversity brought about by developing a species or breed would in fact just mess up the species or breed, which doesn't further the assumptions of the ToE. The whole point is that it's necessary to lose genetic diversity to get those phenotypic changes that are usually considered to be the evidence of evolution. Why would you want to destroy that evidence? The only mutations that happen are destructive in one way or another, they contribute nothing to an organism of use to the organism. If they do change anything, they change traits for the worse, not for the better. I'm not talking about MY judgment of what's aesthetically pleasing, I'm talking about breeders wanting to get the best version of their breed, which new genetic input would only wreck. WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT TO GET? Well, obviously it's because if I'm right, bye bye ToE. I don't get this question. Breeders want a certain set of traits so they breed for those traits, if you mean the "survival of the lineage" in the sense of the preservation of those traits, the question is absurd -- those particular chosen traits are the breed. The question is nonsensical. '
Huh? If somebody was breeding some animal for its ability to run on all fours, then losing that ability would be the loss of that breed. Obviously.But humans never did run on all fours, just as a matter of boring fact. \
No, it's design similarity. There is no genetic relatedness. Those mutations are unfortunate errors and ticking time bombs for disease, nothing that furthers the wellbeing of the organism.

You have developed the most amazing ability to misattribute quotes to me. I was quoting Jonathan Sarfati, I didn't say that myself. That's his angle on the creationist argument and I don't completely agree with him. I'm not sure what he means by "can only eliminate traits." He may be right and in fact I may say the same thing in other ways, but the point is this is Sarfati's statement, not mine.The moth situation is not as clear as you are saying it is.

There are two different theories here about the cause of "differences in DNA sequence." MUTATIONS are not responsible for them, BUILT-IN NATURALLY OCCURRING ALLELES, or differences in DNA sequence, are responsible for them. We are not genetically related to chimps. There are no mutations that could possibly occur to form one species from another. In the best possible scenario mutations would only substitute one ordinary allele for another, which is redundant and unnecessary, but in reality they don't do even that much, they either manage not to do anything good or bad, or they render an allele unfunctional, or they produce an actual disease process. The ToE needs mutations but the mutations it needs don't exist.And if you understand my argument the formation of phenotypes has to lose genetic diversity so even if all your genetic diversity is made up of mutations when phenotypes are selected most of that diversity is excluded from the new population anyway, NECESSARILY excluded or you don't get the new phenotypes that are supposedly the evidence of evolution. Perhaps it would help if you assumed the lotus position and meditated on this for a while. {ABE: Sorry, trying to be amusing. Seriously, if you prayed to the living God of the Bible you'd probably start understanding these things. /ABE} This statement is what is meaningless. Did you mean "living dead species?" Anyway I have NO idea what you are talking about. The loss in genetic diversity occurs when new phenotypes are developing. It MUST occur. This should be obvious just from knowing how breeding works. The only explanation of all of this is that living things did not evolve from a common ancestor but belong to their own particular genetic Kind or Species, within which much variation is possible. For this variation to occur the evolving population must lose genetic diversity so that it can't vary beyond the point where there is no more diversity left. There may be plenty of genetic diversity in other subspecies or breeds of the same Kind, but where it is varying or evolving it has to lose diversity. This is the built-in limit to evolution that defines the limit to the Kind as well. What you are calling mutations are not mutations, they are naturally occurring built-in genetic differences. You consistently confuse natural allelic forms with mutations. But when I'm talking about mutations coming along to mess up a breed I'm talking hypothetically for the sake of argument, that once the breed is formed, which requires reduction in geneitic diversity, it would wreck the breed for there to be any new genetic input, whether from mutations, (which I include only for the sake of argument because I believe they are predominantly destructive) or resumed gene flow due to immigration of other individuals. The only reason I emphasize the preservation of a breed or species is to make the point that the ToE claims new species or phenotypes to be evidence of evolution and I'm showing that it can't be because it's genetically limited. There aren't any mutations happening in these dogs, period. It's all hypothetical for the sake of argument. The dog breeds are developed from natural built-in genetic variability. Oh but it does, it makes a perfect analogy. Even Darwin understood that much. My basic argument proves that the ToE doesn't work. That leaves design. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.