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Author Topic:   MACROevolution vs MICROevolution - what is it?
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 851 of 908 (818293)
08-26-2017 9:51 AM
Reply to: Message 840 by Faith
08-26-2017 2:20 AM


Faith writes:
A line of thought got derailed back there somewhere thanks to Percy's hairsplitting semantic distractions.
Gee, my recollection is that you stated you were going to abandon the term "species" and use "kind" instead, and then you never gave "kind" a workable definition, and then you continued to use the term "species" anyway, often right alongside the undefined term "kind". No one can be sure what you're saying, including you, and this is yet another example of you not doing what you said you were going to do. But you do this everyday, we're used to it.
And once again you're blaming someone else for your problems. As long as you renounce responsibility for the quality of your arguments and their success or failure, instead shifting that responsibility to others, you'll never have sufficient motivation for the carry-through that might result in ideas that aren't obviously false, oftentimes self-evidently so.
My answer is that I don't think speciation according to that definition occurs in nature either...
Discussion of this idea wasn't derailed by me but by you. I responded in detail in Message 827. You chose not to address my response when you replied in Message 829, instead calling my post "a bunch of wacko accusatory nonsense" and congratulating yourself for responding so economically. Once again you have no one to blame but yourself.
The evidence we have says that once a population separates into subpopulations, the lower the gene flow between them and the longer they remain separate the more different they will become genetically. This is because of introduction of mutations, changing allele frequencies, and different selection pressures. This process is what we observe in nature.
Genetic analysis tells us that this process has been ongoing since the beginning of life. For example, measuring genetic distance tells us the amount of genetic divergence that has occurred between species or between populations of the same species. For another example, phylogenetics tells us the evolutionary history and relationships between species or populations. It's how we know that a hippopotamus is more closely related to whales than pigs.
...so breeding is a good model even by that standard.
The evidence just presented says you are glaringly wrong to claim that selective breeding is a good model for evolution. Selective breeding is a good model for selection, but selection is only one part of evolution.
I compared the grizzly with the panda which brought some kind of uproar because they are supposedly different species.
Uproar? I think you mean only that yet another of your errors was called to your attention. You make so many errors that people don't make a big deal over most of them, just the most glaring or funny.
But both are true bears of the family Ursidae so what is this ridiculous uproar about anyway?
You suggested they might be able to interbreed, which if you'd bothered to look it up you would have discovered was an absurd suggestion.
I'm makig a simple point: inability to breed doesn't distinguish some different "species" in the wild same as it doesn't distinguish between domestic breeds.
You're making the mistake of trying to redefine species. It already has a definition. Inability to interbreed is the very definition of the boundary between species, whether wild or domesticated.
Whatever brings about that inability doesn't remove the animal from its basic Species or Kind:
You still haven't defined "kind" - please stop using the term until you define it.
a panda is a bear, a grizzly is a bear, a polar bear is a bear.
As was explained before, pandas have only 42 chromosomes, brown bears (grizzlies and polar bears are subspecies of brown bears) have 74. Of course pandas are very unlikely to be able to breed with brown bears, and of course brown bears can breed with each other.
A lion is a cat and a tiger is a cat, certainly at least as genetically different from each other as a golden retriever is from a cocker spaniel, and there is no problem with interbreeding between either group.
Wrong again. A golden retriever and a cocker spaniel are the same species and can mate and produce viable offspring, mutts that can breed to produce more mutts. Lions and tigers are different though closely related species but more distantly related than dog breeds, so ligers and tigons are rarely fertile.
So stop with the hairsplitting semantics. My point holds: breeding is a good model of evolution on many counts.
Every point you made was wrong, so of course your conclusion does not hold: selective breeding by itself is not a good model of evolution because if ignores mutation, which plays a major role in evolution. Mutation is the "descent with modification" part of evolution that goes beyond mere changes in allele frequency.
There was another big uproar about my opinion on speciation. Simple English escapes some people who get themselves so steeped in technical terminology they can't think.
You cannot redefine terms to suit your purposes, and you can't use terms for which you have no definition.
All this is too tiresome. Either my opponents are low IQ or experiencing early dementia or just don't want to understand anything I'm saying.
We understand what you're saying, and most of it is either wrong or nonsense or made up.
Whatever the reason yes THEY are making the discussion impossible and accusing me of being the problem.
When you lash out at others and blame them for your problems, they are naturally going to respond that you bring the problems on yourself by not availing yourself of easily available information, by ignoring evidence, by not seeking evidence supportive of your views, and by making things up out of thin air (the claim of 95% functional DNA in the past comes to mind).
When there is one lone YEC against half a dozen rabid evos you'd think a little more effort would be made to understand the creationist.
Your ideas are so wacky that not even the creationists will own you.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 840 by Faith, posted 08-26-2017 2:20 AM Faith has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.7


(2)
Message 852 of 908 (818294)
08-26-2017 10:08 AM
Reply to: Message 843 by Faith
08-26-2017 2:55 AM


Faith writes:
It was my theory. Theories are by definition "made up."
No, theories are not by definition "made up." Try looking up scientific theory. It's a framework of understanding constructed around a body of evidence that both explains it and generalizes from it.
Your "ideas" are made up. They don't cohere with any body of evidence, their "explanations" are only attempts to reconcile the Bible with the real world, and they definitely do not generalize.
I thought that was the likely cause of the inability to interbreed.
Yes, you thought genetic depletion could be the cause of the inability to interbreed, despite that it makes no sense and is in direct conflict with how we already know breeding works.
Why do you have to make it sound like something evil when it is a perfectly standard thought process?
Coming up with ideas that have no evidence, that conflict with existing evidence, and that make to rational sense, is not a "perfectly standard thought process." It is ignorant and obtuse and fanciful. And insisting on such ideas in the face of continual correction and the providing of factual information is worse.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 843 by Faith, posted 08-26-2017 2:55 AM Faith has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 856 of 908 (818300)
08-26-2017 11:32 AM
Reply to: Message 853 by Faith
08-26-2017 10:48 AM


Faith writes:
Sorry if I don't read through insulting posts, they raise my blood pressure and it's not a pleasant feeling.
The insults start with you. People then respond with the truth about your ideas, and you find the truth insulting. If you don't like the truth about your arguments then come up with better arguments. Stop making things up and start finding evidence for your ideas.
Yes I understand, nothing could possibly be true if it isn't in lockstep with evo theory.
But no one is telling you you're wrong because the theory of evolution says so. We're telling you you're wrong because either you've: a) Made something up out of whole cloth, like your 95% functional DNA claim; b) Said something that was unsupported by any evidence, like your claim that what are thought to different species are in many cases the same species and could viably interbreed; c) Said something that was directly contradicted by facts and evidence, like your claim that evolution could come to end through genetic depletion, or that mutations don't play a significant role in evolution.
Definitions must all be in line with evo theory,
Are you daft? You're actually complaining that you can't make up your own definitions?
...you can't have an original thought because evo theory says something else.
Much fiction contains a great deal of originality, but that doesn't make it true.
I understand, that's the rules here. Sorry I don't play by them but I don't.
If you continue making things up then you'll continue being wrong.
I'm still not completely sure there aren't some cases where the cause of inability to interbreed is genetic depletion. It must at times at least be the result of normally occurring genetic differences brought about by microevolution.
Biology is exceptionally complicated and messy, so I don't think anyone would ever say it's impossible for genetic depletion to result in genetic incompatibility, but it must be incredibly rare. How often do breeders report creation of a new species?
YEC isn't the ToE and I have many many objections to different tenets of the ToE. Utter heresy of course, and you can excommunicate me if you like since it's your church as it were, but I don't agree with the classification system,...
Why don't you agree with the classification system?
...I don't agree with the definition of "speciation,"...
You can't redefine words that already have a definition - what is so hard for you to understand about that. If you have something else you think is really happening when we think it's speciation then that's fine, describe it and tell us about it, but you can't call it speciation. That term already has a definition. This shouldn't have to be explained. You're being incredibly obtuse.
...I do think breeding is a good model of what happens in evolution which at the very least requires reducing in genetic diversity due to random selection;...
I assume by breeding that you mean selective breeding. Every time you say this and I explain that evolution includes both selection and mutation, when you return to the subject you just repeat your claim again unchanged and still without any support. Never is there any accompanying evidence or rationale.
Selective breeding is a good example of the power of selection. It isn't a good example of evolution because evolution also includes mutation. Why don't you continue watching those population genetics videos so that you reach the ones on mutation? You'll love the first one on mutation because it starts with an equation that assumes mutations are deleterious. The study of beneficial mutations is more complicated because they're more rare, making it difficult to confirm theory with experimentation.
...I know microevolution occurs normally in a very short period of time, hundreds of years being a pretty long time, I know it only takes new combinations of the original created DNA to bring about new characteristics, and that this requires losing the genetic stuff for other characteristics,...
You're talking about selective breeding again, and there is little disagreement about that.
...and overall I know the ToE is a crock.
What you know is how to express opinions that have no basis in fact.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 853 by Faith, posted 08-26-2017 10:48 AM Faith has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 857 of 908 (818301)
08-26-2017 11:37 AM
Reply to: Message 855 by Faith
08-26-2017 11:32 AM


Faith writes:
SO many ways there are to state the status quo without bothering to think about the challenges to it.
This is directly contradicted by the many lengthy replies responding to your "challenges". The problem for you is that the quality of your "challenges" is very low. They have little to no evidence, they contradict existing evidence, and they often make little sense. The status quo that you're maintaining is to continue repeating your "challenges" while never addressing any of the criticisms.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 855 by Faith, posted 08-26-2017 11:32 AM Faith has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.7


(1)
Message 860 of 908 (818306)
08-26-2017 1:53 PM
Reply to: Message 855 by Faith
08-26-2017 11:32 AM


Faith writes:
And Percy, if you come back to this post: I'm not reading anything else you post.
Your statements about what you're going to do are as unreliable as everything else you say. The way to carry a discussion is not to make things up, not to ignore evidence, not to ignore people, not to stick your head in the sand. If you don't like the weaknesses in your arguments pointed out then stop making weak arguments.
You've made a career out of taking offense. You've resorted to it so often, threatened to pick up your toys and go home so frequently, nobody pays it any attention any more. Obviously it isn't working for you, obviously it isn't good for you, obviously you need to stop doing this, so why not just stop? It has no place in a scientific discussion anyway.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 855 by Faith, posted 08-26-2017 11:32 AM Faith has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 865 of 908 (818315)
08-26-2017 7:49 PM
Reply to: Message 864 by Faith
08-26-2017 6:43 PM


Re: Come into the Light Faith, leave the darkness.
Faith writes:
Calling me ignorant will get you nowhere.
The term "ignorant" isn't being employed that way. It's an explanation and a fact, not an insult. It's why you're unable to construct rational evidence-based arguments.
Dwise1 said that something that is also instructive, that for you confusion is an ally. The last thing you want is for a clear picture of evolution to emerge. I'd go a little beyond that and say that it's actually chaos that is your friend. As soon as things start to go against you in a thread you begin to sow as much dissension and discord as possible in order to bring constructive discussion to a halt.
Just like in this thread. Congratulations!
So all we can do is counter your tumult and ignorance with accurate information. Natural selection is analogous to selective breeding. Mutation is analogous to cross-breeding. Species does have a definition and kind does not. Most species around the world are not capable of interbreeding to create viable offspring. Given what we know of the genomes of species today and of mutation rates, it is impossible that all species went through a genetic bottleneck 4000 years ago that left them with only two alleles per gene. Speciation (that you claim isn't really speciation) is not caused by genetic defects that prevent a population from interbreeding with other populations of the same species.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 864 by Faith, posted 08-26-2017 6:43 PM Faith has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 871 of 908 (818333)
08-27-2017 9:02 AM
Reply to: Message 867 by Faith
08-26-2017 11:02 PM


Re: Sumry uv the weirdness
Faith writes:
EvC is obviously some kind of alternative universe.
EvC is just like all the other science sites out there, dedicated to following the evidence where it leads, a conviction foreign to you. Probably the only reason you're here is because the dark background is easy on your eyes.
Nothing here makes sense, nobody makes sense, what people say about me would be funny if it weren't so bizarre.
Actually, it would be funny if you weren't so loony. Explain to us how it makes sense that you can invent your own word definitions, that you can use words that have no definition, that you can make up numbers out of thin air (95% of genomes used to be functional), that you can make up facts out of thin air (ancient animals had far more traits than they do today; most species today are not species but are subspecies). That's not sense, that's delusion. And asking people to join you in your delusions is just ludicrous.
In any case I'm no longer discussing anything with people who insult me in such bizarre ways with such a strange lack of understanding of the argument.
We *do* understand your arguments and can see that they have no evidence and make no sense. That's why we so emphatically reject them
You've threatened to leave uncountable times, and yet you're still here.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 867 by Faith, posted 08-26-2017 11:02 PM Faith has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.7


(1)
Message 874 of 908 (818361)
08-27-2017 2:51 PM
Reply to: Message 872 by Faith
08-27-2017 10:42 AM


Re: Sumry uv Sum uv thuh evdince agin thuh ToE
Faith writes:
What is being called ignorance on my part is really disagreement.
No, we've only called you ignorant when you've made pronouncements about things of which you were obviously ignorant. Usually it's willful ignorance, things about which you know evidence exists (because we've told you), you've just decided to ignore it.
You all like to think it's ignorance to object to the ToE.
But I don't think anyone here blames people for being ignorant about the theory of evolution. Everybody's ignorant of a great deal. It's more the kind of willful ignorance you demonstrate that we object to, things like (sic) "I don't accept your evidence, I'm not giving my reasons, and if you don't like it you can go fly a kite."
And when you disagree with a theory, when you subscribe to a different paradigm about scientific things, there's no way to avoid defining things differently.
You're still making a case for making up your own definitions? You are perverse.
You do not have a different paradigm. You don't even have anything that makes sense.
I do try to be clear and for the most part I do think I succeed but obviously not well enough for some people who just don't want to consider a different way of looking at things.
What is clear is how and how often you are wrong, often declaring things that stand in stark contradiction to the facts.
I'm not ignorant of the idea of speciation, I don't think what's called by that name is rightly called by that name.
Don't be idiotic. Speciation already has a definition. If you'd like introduce your own type of speciation into the discussion then it's easy to come up with your own term - you can call it "Faith speciation." What you can't do is go assign speciation a different definition.
And what I've written about it that Percy called nonsensical isn't nonsensical at all, it's just Percy's difficulty reading simple English, or his determination not to understand. I believe I've given evidence for this thought in examples of animals in the wild that have no problem interbreeding but are related to each other about the same as dog breeds are related to each other, which also can interbreed.
This has already been thoroughly rebutted. Speciation is a gradual process, because evolution is a gradual process. The differentiation of two populations of a species into separate species is gradual. As the populations become more and more different, gene flow between them becomes less and less possible. While the two populations are sufficiently similar then virile hybrids are possible, but as the populations become more and more different then virile hybrids become less and less likely, and eventually no hybrids are possible at all.
Lions and tigers are phenotypically and genetically very similar, so similar their skeletons cannot be told apart. They can still produce sterile hybrids, and occasionally even virile ones. The existence in nature of species that are still sufficiently similar that they can to some extent interbreed is just what the theory of evolution predicts. It isn't evidence for your silly idea that many species of the world can interbreed, we just don't know it. There has been a great deal of genetic analysis of species like genetic distance and phylogenetics that demonstrate just how different species are.
Domestic breeding is a good model for what happens in evolution, especially loss of genetic diversity from population to population but also even in its lack of "speciation."
You're just again repeating your bald declaration about breeding. Selective breeding of course demonstrates the power of natural selection, and about that we agree. But it ignores mutation and so is not a good example of evolution.
I'm not ignorant of the idea of environment-driven adaptation, I just have the chutzpah to think adaptation is usually genetically driven and I think the Pod Mrcaru lizards are one piece of evidence of that.
Genetically driven adaptation? How would that work, pray tell?
The changes in the Pod Mrcaru lizards were driven by selection pressures from the availability of a different food source (plants rather than insects) resulting in adaptations. About your earlier claim of speciation, genetically the Pod Mrcaru lizards are identical to their parent population on Pod Kopiste and are not different species.
I'm not ignorant of the idea of fitness-driven evolution either, I just think it doesn't happen much.
How is "fitness-driven evolution" different from "environment-driven adaptation"? I'm not sure what you're trying to say.
In any case, selection, environment, fitness and adaptation are just different parts of the same process. Selection of the most fit for an environment gradually produces adaptations that improve fitness.
'm not ignorant of fossil evidence for evolution from species to species but the fact that trilobites and coelacanths exist in so many adjacent supposed "time periods" while reptiles and mammals were buried only one "time period" apart, is evidence against it.
You say too little here to recognize any argument. How does the time distribution of trilobites and coelacanths versus reptiles and mammals in the fossil record argue against evolution?
Not to mention that microevolution occurs in observable time, making millions of years utterly ridiculous.
Another argument that makes no sense. The effects of microevolution that occur in every generation accumulate gradually over time into the effects of macroevolution. There is nothing in that that places a limit on the amount of time. By what logic and rationale do you conclude that it makes "millions of years utterly ridiculous"?
And of course the mere fact of sedimentary layers containing fossils is itself evidence against time periods and for the Flood.
Yet another argument that makes no sense, but not the topic of this thread.
I'm not ignorant of the idea that mutations are the source of genetic variability, I just think it's utterly screamingly ridiculous given their record of producing thousands of genetic diseases,...
Once again you've stated a position with no evidence or reasoning. Mutations can be deleterious, neutral or beneficial. Selection tends to remove deleterious mutations from a population, neutral mutations propagate through a population by drift, and beneficial mutations are positively selected for and can propagate rapidly through a population.
...and besides it's absolutely unnecessary given the elegant original design of DNA.
Where is the evidence for this "elegant original design of DNA"? Why are you ignoring the evidence from ancient DNA that says that DNA then was pretty much like DNA now?
I'm not threatening to leave, I'm just not going to read insulting posts any more.
What you really mean is that you're going to ignore counterarguments and counterevidence and just keep repeating your unsupported claims over and over again, which is all you did in your message. Everything you claimed has already been rebutted in posts that you didn't reply to.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 872 by Faith, posted 08-27-2017 10:42 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 888 by Faith, posted 08-29-2017 10:14 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 884 of 908 (818447)
08-28-2017 3:53 PM
Reply to: Message 878 by Faith
08-28-2017 1:44 PM


Re: What Really Happens
Faith writes:
As so often is the case when discussing mutations, you make it sound as if they just come along exactly as needed to further the claims of the ToE.
Taq did not make it sound like mutations "come along exactly as needed," and they don't do that. If mutations occurred as needed there would never be extinction. What has been said over and over and over again is that mutations occur randomly, and that they are random regarding fitness. Nothing like your claim has ever been said or implied.
Plus a mutation doesn't have to be beneficial to reach fixation (AB => BB). Neutral and mildly deleterious mutations become fixated in populations all the time.
Just how much time are you imagining for this scenario to unfold?
For how often mutations occur we've often used the example of humans, which have around 60 mutations per individual. Maybe somebody else can tell you how often they occur in a coding region and how often they are mildly deleterious versus neutral versus beneficial.
How long it takes for fixation depends upon selection pressures, size of the population, and generation times.
And have you ever seen it happen anywhere perchance?
Given mutation rates, mutations occur in all individuals in every generation almost without exception. And our examination of genomes reveals that fixation happens all time time (and you agree that fixation occurs anyway). So of course mutation followed by fixation must happen all the time.
Given that it shouldn't take long at all, a matter of years even, to get a new variety or race from a smallish number of founders (Pod Mrcaru), more time of course with a larger founding number but still within a human time frame, what's your estimate how likely it is that your scenario will occur at all in that time period?
Taq's example was of a single allele mutating into two alleles and then becoming fixated into one. Mutations happen in every reproductive event, so there need be no waiting for a mutation. According to the Widipedia article on fixation:
quote:
Kimura and Ohta (1969) showed that a new mutation that eventually fixes will spend an average of 4Ne generations as a polymorphism in the population. Average time to fixation Ne is the effective population size, the number of individuals in an idealised population under genetic drift required to produce an equivalent amount of genetic diversity.
The definition of Ne is a little hard to follow, maybe Taq can explain it better.
Also, you're talking change in ONE allele, so you have to be assuming that particular change is going to make a big difference in the new population? If you have to add other changes in other genes your odds are going to diminish too.
You're getting the arguments confused. Here's Taq's original example from Message 815:
Taq in Message 815 writes:
Start -Mutation---Selection-----Middle-----Selection------End
allele:    AA                               AB                       BB
It was a rebuttal to your claim that evolution halts once a population is homozygous (AA). It wasn't a claim that a single allele change can "make a big difference in the new population." It wasn't even talking about new populations, just your claim about evolution halting with homozygosity.
Meanwhile ordinary recombination of a new set of gene frequencies from the genomes of the founders will bring out new characteristics in the new population within years without mutations.
Again (and again and again), we do not disagree about selective breeding and the ability of phenotypes to change without speciation.
I'm talking about a trend through a number of population splits that will ULTIMATELY show the loss of genetic diversity that has to occur for the new phenotypes to emerge, because this is the only way you get new phenotypes, which domestic breeding exemplifies.
One more time, we do not disagree about selective breeding. But without mutation you cannot produce a new species. And as people keep asking you in various ways, how is it that you don't understand the difference between necessity and sufficiency. Mutations are sufficient to produce phenotypic change, they aren't necessary. But mutations are necessary for speciation.
Not only are mutations unnecessary to this process but they couldn't possibly occur as needed and their usual effect is destructive anyway rather than beneficial.
You're just repeating yourself. Mutations are unnecessary for anything analogous to selective breeding, but they are essential for speciation. Mutations can be deleterious, neutral or beneficial. Deleterious mutations tend to get selected out of a population, neutral mutations will drift, and beneficial mutations will tend to get selected for.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Grammar.
Edited by Percy, : mutaion => speciation in last paragraph.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 878 by Faith, posted 08-28-2017 1:44 PM Faith has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 886 of 908 (818451)
08-28-2017 5:03 PM
Reply to: Message 885 by Taq
08-28-2017 4:16 PM


Re: Modern dog breeds required mutations
I've come across mentions of mutations in dog breeds several times. Looking for them just now I turned up a couple.
This article describes mutations that cause disease:
And this article describes a study that thinks they've identified the mutation behind smooshed-faced dogs:
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 885 by Taq, posted 08-28-2017 4:16 PM Taq has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 887 of 908 (818453)
08-28-2017 5:39 PM
Reply to: Message 879 by Faith
08-28-2017 1:45 PM


Re: Sumry uv Sum uv thuh evdince agin thuh ToE
Faith writes:
This is an insulting post so I'm ignoring it.
It was not an insulting post. Taq only corrected your errors, and apparently you find this insulting. Seems like there's a simple solution: accept the corrections and incorporate them into future posts. Problem solved.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 879 by Faith, posted 08-28-2017 1:45 PM Faith has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.7


(1)
Message 891 of 908 (818538)
08-30-2017 8:08 AM
Reply to: Message 888 by Faith
08-29-2017 10:14 PM


Re: Sumry uv Sum uv thuh evdince agin thuh ToE
Faith writes:
Phenotypic changes occur as a result of random new gene frequencies. Lizards get big heads and jaws just from such random changes accumulating in their new population.
The quality of larger heads and jaws would only increase in a population if it were selected for by the environment.
What's actually true is that every population contains inherent variation. The particular set of variations contained in the founder population have a big influence on future directions of evolution. Those qualities best adapted to the environment are selected for and become more common and more emphasized in following generations. Mutations can assist in this process.
Why are you ignoring selection? You go on and on about breeding being a model for evolution, and breeding is all about selection. Selection controls which genes gets passed on to the next generation, not genetics.
The food doesn't drive the change, but the change causes the lizards to gravitate to food that their new jaws can handle.
But variation comes first, not change. Selection chooses among that variation according to fitness, according to which is best adapted. Those selected to reproduce get to pass their genes on to the next generation.
Every population contains variation. For your lizards, some have bigger heads, some smaller. Some have bigger jaws, some smaller. Some have bigger feet, some smaller. Some have longer tails, some shorter. Some have sharper teeth, some duller. Some are faster, some slower. Those qualities providing the best adaptation to the environment are most likely to become passed on to the next generation. And again, mutations can assist in this process. Over longer time periods and greater environmental change, mutations are essential.
The test of the theory would be whether the kind of food their parent population ate is also available on their new island;
That's not a test of your theory. If the food source requiring larger heads and jaws existed on both islands, then by your idea both islands should get lizards with larger heads and jaws.
...and it most likely is because when they first landed there they were identical to the lizards of the parent population; it would have taken some generations for the new head and jaws and digestive system to emerge.
Again, if the food sources between the two islands were the same, the lizards on the two islands would be the same.
What really happened is that Pod Mrcaru had a new and plentiful food source in the form of plants (as opposed to the primary food source of insects on Pod Kapisto), so the lizards adapted to that food source.
As I read further in your insulting unintelligent post I realize that if you'd bothered to follow anything I've been arguing at length on this subject you wouldn't have all the silly objections and questions you have.
And yet even for the single point you chose to rebut among all my points, you couldn't even get that right. The changes in the lizards on Pod Mrcaru resulted from selection, not genetically driven adaptation.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 888 by Faith, posted 08-29-2017 10:14 PM Faith has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 892 of 908 (818540)
08-30-2017 8:24 AM
Reply to: Message 889 by Faith
08-29-2017 10:24 PM


Re: Modern dog breeds required mutations
Faith writes:
The fact that some traits are caused by mutations proves what exactly?
Well, this sentence by itself proves that you've finally conceded you were wrong that mutations don't exist, and later that you were wrong that they played no positive role.
Mutations are not only the source of some traits of relatively recent occurrence, ultimately they're the source of all alleles everywhere. There must be few if any alleles in any life anywhere that have survived in their original form from billions of years ago.
I just think it's utterly screamingly ridiculous given their record of producing thousands of genetic diseases,...
Deleterious mutations are selected against and are removed from the population. Mildly deleterious to neutral mutations propagate through drift. Beneficial mutations are selected for and can spread rapidly through a population.
...and besides it's absolutely unnecessary given the elegant original design of DNA
There is no evidence that the "original design of DNA" was any more elegant than the DNA of today. Evidence from ancient DNA tells us that DNA then was pretty much like DNA today.
And I do suspect that some mutations are really the chemical reconstruction of a former lost allele,...
It would be possible for mutation to bring back an allele that was resident in the population in the past and then lost.
Alleles are, after all, just a string of chemical codes, there could be some principle by which they recur from time to time.
The word you're looking for is "mutation."
Which doesn't change the fact that the vast majority aren't beneficial.
But deleterious mutations are removed while beneficial mutations are kept. What happens over time to the fitness of a population that rejects deleterious mutations while keeping beneficial ones?
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Typo.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 889 by Faith, posted 08-29-2017 10:24 PM Faith has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.7


(4)
Message 896 of 908 (827237)
01-21-2018 8:05 AM
Reply to: Message 894 by DOCJ
01-21-2018 5:43 AM


Re: adam, eve, and eden, but no flood ...
Hi DOCJ,
You're either mostly off topic or completely off-topic, I can't tell which because you make no effort to show how your points tie in to the topic, if at all.
DOCJ writes:
The idea of blackholes, dark energy, inflation, etc and the like are weak ideas.
That "blackholes, dark energy, inflation, etc and the like are weak ideas" is an incredibly weak idea.
Okay, you've called the scientific position weak ideas. I've called that idea a weak idea. Now what? I guess we'll just have to look at the evidence, huh? Gee, what a novel idea! But not here, it would be off topic. This thread is about micro and macroevolution.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 894 by DOCJ, posted 01-21-2018 5:43 AM DOCJ has not replied

  
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