"Best" evidence for evolution.

Of course I'm not "neglecting" that, it's what happens with standard microevolutionary variation within a species which is what I'm always talkinga bout. You get a new set of gene frequencides with every new population split and that is a CHANGE IN THE GENOME for pete's sake. You'll never get anything BUT variations within the species through these normal processes. That was my whole point.I think your picture of the foot is bogus somehow.

Instead of reminiscing about utterly irrelevant things, how about addressing some part of the actual argument here?

...where it will also result in a tiny phenotypic change with no effect on fitness.

It's being spread through the population; how is it accumulating? Brown eyhes spread through a population without accumulating.

You guys need to get together. Someone else here said every genome is different. And that's what I have in mind. Each individual has its own genetic makeup, its own genome, its own alleles for particular genes. When a population splits off its a new mix of those individual genomes than that in the parent population. That's how we get new "gene frequencies," meaning new proportions of the various alleles that exist in the total population. Some will be more numerous in the new population than the old, some less numerous. Depending on the size of the new population, if it's very small, some alleles may not even exist in this new group. From this new mix of alleles the new population will develop a phenotype somewhat different from the parent. This is how a population split caused the formation of the blue wildebeests from the black wildebeests, how the salamanders in the California ring species developed different markings on their hides, how you get all the variation in any ring species. Isolated new populations bring out the dominant alleles of their new gene frequencies. But it isn't anything like what I'm saying. You don't seem to be aware of the fact that individuals have different mixes of alleles from each other and that isolating a portion of a population is going to bring about a new set of frequencies which make for new combinations of the alleles that over many generations of breeding among themselves will bring out a new overall look or phenotype for that population. Blue wildebeest, black wildebeest. All the different breeds of cattle that were merely the result of isolating small populations from the original wild herd. How wrong you are. And somebody here, maybe RAZD, said something completely different not too long ago. Well, I have a completely different view of this. The new population starts out with its own set of gene frequencies which are different from the parent population's, and this is in fact very well known. This new set of gene frequencies when combined over generations in isolation will produce the changes that make the new population different from the parent population. The idea that environmental pressure causes the changes isn't very convincing since in most cases there is hardly any change at all in the environment. Say in the ring species of salamanders in Califronia, they just kept putting out new subpopulations that developed new skin patterns in reproductive isolation, even in relative isolation where hybrids were forming. There's really not time enough for selective pressures to have an effect, or mutations. It's all due to the new set of gene frequencies in each new population being worked through the population down the generations in reproductive isolation.Consider the Jutland cattle that formed four completely different subspecies in only a few years simply because of reproductive isolation from each other. No change in environment, no time for selective pressures or mutations to make the difference. Or the Mrcaru lizards that developed the large jaws and a valve in the gut that made digesting tougher food easier than the parent population ate. There wasn't different food on their island where they were isolated from the food on the mainland where the parent population lived, it was purely a genetic thing that hnappened from their own peculiar mix of gene frequencies. This brought out the larger jaws and that caused them to gravitate to the new foods the stronger jaws could deal with, and prefer them over their original diet. All this happened within thirty years. The entire population that developed from only ten individuals that were relasesd onto the island had the larger jaws and valve in the digestive tract. They didn't have to eat the tougher food but since they could they did. I think this is what really happens in most of the scenarios that get interpreted the other way around: as pressure from the environement. My guess would be that is a very very rare scenario. Most populatoins couldn't survive at all under those circumstances.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Your information on the history of these things isn't really relevant. The relevant thing is whether the genetics is correct and I'm going to go on arguing that it is.Your only alternative offering seems to be mutation. But I donbt "Extremely fast directional selection" means what exactly? I assume you are describing what I've been saying.So I guess you are going to go on to say HOW it is "wrong" -- because it ignores mutations? [qs]There are strong candidates for de novo 20th century mutations within dog breeds, causing noticeable morphological change, that have been subseqently selected for. I mentioned earlier the mutation in the [i]Runx2(apparently the coding within this quote is interfering with the quote codes I put in and I don't know how to fix the problem)What I'm arguing for doesn't automatically preclude occasional mutations that contribute to the new phenotype, but if mutations are really what you all say they are, rare occurrence that normally do not affect the phenotype at all, that is they are "neutral," occasionally do something deleterious that has to be weeded out of the population, and only very occasiobnally contribute something to the phenotype that becomes part of the genome of the new population, it suggests an extremely rare occurrence in any population. Like the gene in English bulldogs you mention. Such phenomena suggest to me some kind of error, such as mistaking a naturally occurring combination of built in alleles for a mutation. If you have solid genetic evidence that it is a mutation, OK, but this whole idea raises all kinds of questions as I'm saying here.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Some thoughts left over from that post: This actually describes the situation of a "purebred" animal which shares all or the majority of its genes with all the others in the population, which means the population as a whole has very low genetic diversity. That's what "near exact" copies of a genome in a population would actually be. That is not the situation in the wild where great genetic diversity prevails even in large populations with a homogeneous "look" to it which is brought out by the the most numerous alleles in the population, and no doubt the dominant ones, as opposed to recessive. (Recessive alleles can only come to dominate the "look" in a population when the genetic diversity is fairly low and these fixed or homozygous alleles come to be the most numerous. I hope this is clear; it's just a side point I wanted to make).So what you are describing is more like the plight of the cheetah and the elephant seal, with their "near-exact" copies of each others' genome, which can increase in population despite their severely depleted genetic variability or diversity, (which, again, "near exact copies of each others' genome means) but cannot and do not change as you say they do. If they could, the survival of the cheetah would not be in question as it is.That being the case it is pure wishfulness that they can change as you describe: Again if this could happen in a population with "near-exact copies of each others' genome" the cheetah would not be on the verge of extinction. It is pure wishfulness that this happens in such a severely genetically depleted population.I argue, of course, that these processes are not the cause of the changes in a daughter population of any level of genetic diversity anyway. Which is what my first post in answer to you was arguing. You get the "composite phenotype" of the new population simply by the breeding among the members in isolation from other popualtions, which mixes the set of gene frequencies the original founders of the new population happened to possess. That's all it takes to get a completely new subpopulation or subspecies. Mutations are not needed and in most cases environmental selective pressures have nothing to do with it. Yes I'm sorry, this is a problem I don't know how to solve. it is very difficult to be clear when the word "species" is merely a term that means a "kind" and there are levels of "kinds" involved as species or populations split off and vary from the parent species or population.But what I usually mean by "species" is pretty simple: the major groupings of creatures we name all the time: cats, dogs, elephants, horses, pigs, snails, crows, ferns, oaks and so on. Subpopulations, daughter populations, subspecies of all these groups are still the same "Kind." But I do need a consistent and clear way to designate all these things. I do try, however.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

What do I mean by a "brand new" phenomenon.I do have trouble following your post, but nothing you've said suggests evolution beyond the species, but only microevolution within the species, variations on the genes possessed by the species and nothing that would produce something "brand new."Just to try to give an example: Something brand new would be the change from reptilian hide or skin to the fur or hair covered mammals. Or the change to the mammalian ear from the reptilian. I know you say that is already evidenced in a transitional but the argument didn't get through to me.As for what the animal in the picture would become I assume it is one variation on a specific species or Kind and would change in accord with the genetic material in the genome of that population.lEdited by Faith, : No reason given.

BECAUSE THEY RUN OUT OF GENETIC MATERIAL, GENETIC FUEL AS IT WERE, GENETIC DIVERSITY, GENETIC VARIABILITY. The changes that are supposedly open ended USE UP genetic material as it were. To get a new phenotype means GETTING RID OF alleles for other characteristics. This is why I keep referring to breeding practices where at least the phenomenon ought to be easily recornized. To get a neew breed you have to GET RID OF all the genetic material for all the other breeds. And this is what happens in the wild too when a new population becomes characterized by a new composite phenotype. The genetic material that underlay the composite phenotype of the parent population has been left behind and a new set of alleles is now getting expressed. Nothing new has been adde3d, it's just a new combination of a different set of alleles while the original set has been eliminated or reduced to the point that the new ones can emerge. It takes GENETIC LOSS to get new phenotypes. The WEASEl program is just an expression of the usuel wishfulness of the ToE. What is assumed to happen cannot in reality happen.Back later.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You're right, make it "birds."

I feel I should add that I am just about never able to get the whole model I have in mind into one post. For one thing it isn't usually relevant to the question I'm answering. But I just want to say that I know anything I say along these lines always raises questions, and I've already thought through and have answers to most of those what would come up. Just want to say that.

Yes I do think hummingbirds and ostriches are the same species. They have all the same body parts, same basic body structure.. They are both clearly birds -- beaks, feathers, wings, bird legs etc. By one species I mean that they share the same genome. Their genome does not include hair or fur for instance.Many species have varieties that (micro) evolved to the point of inability to interbreed with one another.Mammals are not one species however. Bears are bears and are not horses or cows or dogs or cats etc.I've been wondering about rodents. Have to spend some time on that one.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I think I'd include all reptiles in one species, sharing one genome, but I'm not committed to sorting all this out. I don't think it's particularly relevant to anything. Right now just having some agreement on terminology is the main point and I'm not sure this discussion really helps with that, such as how the word "species" is to be used, which is where this topic came up. I just need to be able to use the word or alternative words to get across what I'm talking about where there is confusion about what I mean..Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

All you are doing is repeating the status quo point of view, claiming I'm ignorant of it but I'm not. I have a different way of looking at all that, I dispute a lot of that. I'm presenting an entirely different system. Mutations do not apply to this part of the discussion anyway which is about variation within species. Mutations are an issue only when I'm talking about how it could be possible at all for one species to evolve into an entirely different species, such as reptile to mammal or ape to human. Otherwiswe mutations are not relevant to this part of the discussion.I watched an animation of WEASEL and I know how it works and it's obvious it does not take reduction of genetic diversity into account. And as you say it doesn't deal with genetics at all, but that is why it gives a false idea of how evolution works. None of this is surprising since the ToE itself doesn't take reduction of genetic diversity into account but just goes on blithely assuming you can get from one species to another the same way you get new variations within a species. I'm disputing all that.Sorry, the WEASEL program misrepresents the reality of what happens when a species is evolving, meaning producing new variations.I will have to come back to ponder your comments on cumulative selection since I'm not sure what you mean. But what I'd say in general is that selection reduces genetic diversity and that is obviously not taken into account in your MONKEY model or the WEASEL model, or indeed in any discussion whatever of how evolution works.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Which is why I don't use it much but it is in fact apt since you can't get evolution at all unless you have genetic diversity.And yes of course selection must result in the loss of genetic material. You really need to stop and think about this. When you select a particular trait for whatever reason you must eliminate other traits. If a poisonous type of prey animal is selected and multiplies because it is the best defense against a predator, what has happened is the elimination of all the nonpoisonous genetic material from the population. ALL selection processes work this way, including the simple selection brought about by the emigration of a portion of a population to form a new population in geographic isolation. New gene frequencies means the loss of some gen4etic material as the new composite phenotype is formed. Domestic selection works the same way only more pointedly and drastically. You actively and aggressively eliminate all the characteristics you do not want in your breed, that's selection decreasing genetic diversity. It's certainly what happens in Founder Effect or Bottleneck when for whatever reason only a few individuals of a species survive to reproduce due to some natural disaster perhaps. All they have is the genetic stuff they share among themselves, all the rest of the genetic material that belongs to that species is left behind in other parts of the population that the new population is isolated from.So think about this please. Any form of selection HAS to reduce genetic diversity in the selected population. If the genetic material is still present in a population this can happen, but in some cases, such as a bottlenecked variety of any species, such as the cheetah or the elephant seal, or a purebred of any species, the genetic material is no longer present and you cannot get new functionality at all. In the case of the purebred you don't want it anyway, the whole point was to get a pure breed without any interfering genetic possibilities. This has nothing to do with the current topic. [qs]This has nothing to do with the current topic. I have to assume you don't know what I'm talking about. Yes, IF the genetic material for that trait is still present in the population. And remember I usually say "reduced" genetic diversity because I'm well aware the low frequency alleles do not necessarily completely disappear, they simply don't have an effect on the new composite phenotype of a daughter population as they may have had in the parent population.But I am aware of the example of the pocket mice and the speckled (sorry the correct term esecapes me at the moment) moth where presumably the changes in color are the result of mutations, which makes no sense to me because supposedly mutations can't be produced on demand. So something else is going on there that needs to be explained better. In general, however, traits can come back after being selected against if the genetic material is still present and otherwise not. Obviously in the case of the teeth in birds the genetic material is still there for teeth so under the right circumstances we could still get a bird population with teeth. Ah yes the "peppered" moth. I just discussed all this above. You are making the point I always tryb to make in those discussions, that the genetic material for the alternative color is still present in the population and will be selected when the selection pressure changes, and that's why it can reemerge to characterize the next population. But I've encountered objections to that idea and the claim that the changes are not brought about by the continuihng presence of the genetic material for the other color but are brought about by mutations, and the scientific literature is quoted to prove it. So supposedly they'd say you are wrong too. Perhaps you could address this mutation idea that your fellow evolutionists have laid on me time and time again. Yes I agree. However, there are certainly populations where the trait has been completely and totally eliminated and will never come back. Purebreds, Founder Effect, Bottleneck. In any case you've got the reduction of genetic diversity. It may be temporary as a trait is simply suppressed and can come back but while the competing trait is dominant in the population the genes for the other trait are reduced. And the same will happen when the other trait comes to dominate as the genes for the competing trait will be reduced/suppressed in the population. Obviously this is the first time you've participated in this discussion though I've had it for years with other memebers of the forum. So you are just repeating the same old stuff I've answered a million times. I've already answered it above anyway so I'll leave it at that for now. The mechanism is selection, and the example I usually give of a typical form of random selection is the change in gene frequencies when a daughter population breaks off from the parent population. Yes I think that should be regared as a form of selection since it does what selection does, it creates a new gene pool. This is how you get the reduction in genetic diversity as the traits of the parent population and their underlying genetic substrate are reduced/suppressed/eliminated for the emergence of a new composite phenotype that characterizes the new population. The old characteristics may or may not be completely eliminated, it's a matter of how many alleles for the old stuff remain in the new population and if the new population is very small none at all may remain for some traits.I may come back to this for your further comments about the WEASEL program but I've already said a lot about that so we'll see.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.