"Best" evidence for evolution.

Fine, you want to dispute it and I'll leave it at that because it doesn't really matter.

OK, even with their long short legs they waddle. Wonderful.

OK they have short legs.

From the Google Page'Which seems to me to demonstrate what I keep saying: it's all about the change in phenotype or surface traits, surface changes in other words. It purports to show that these changes are different from pure chance. But it really doesn't represent those processes realistically at all so it couldn't demonstrate any such thing.Are you talking about nonbiological engineering or what? I really can't tell. But if you are then the genetic substrate makes no difference to those situations. It's only relevant when we're talking about biological evolution. And despite what you claimed, that it isn't even about evolution, the Google quote says of course it is. But that is EXACTLY what I said, it has NOTHING to do with genotypes, gene expression, genetic diversity etc. Which doesn't matter in nonbiological uses of such programs but very important if you are talking about a model for how evolution works.

I think I'll just ignore you because of your abusive speech.Maybe I should just chalk it up to your being a Scorpio?Whatever.

Had a nice nap on the fainting couch and my pearls are in the safe so I'll answer some of this: I don't evewn know what cumulative slection looks like. Have you described it anywhere? I doubt it would make much difference to my point but I don't know. But still what interests me about WEASEL is its nave representation of openended phenotypic variation. HOWEVER, I can put that aside for the moment to try to get your point about cumulative selection. Which so far is a big "so what?" to me.Read through the rest of your post and find it to be sheer gobbledygook. Do you think you could just spell out what cumulative selection is and skip all the supposed debunkings of my point of view which you misrepresent anyway?

In a way I guess you could say they lose "the individuals genomes," by losing the specific alleles that make traits that are not the selected trait. This means of course eliminating some individuals from the breed. If you are breeding a fluffy white dog you want to eliminate any genetic material for sleek black fur or any other kind of fur that is not fluffy white.By the time you get your breed "pure" you will have eliminated all the dogs that have contrary charact3eristics and will be able to breed your purebreds and preserve your selected white fluffy fur. All the alleles for all the other k9inds of fur will not be in your purebred population, only those that code for your chosen characteristics and these will all be homozygous. This is how you lose genetic diversity. And the evidence that you lose it is that breeding purebreds has come to be recognized as promoting genetic disorders, so they've pulled back on doing such aggressive inbreeding and started incorporating other individuals to improve the genetic diversity for the sake of the animal's health.There is no way you are going to get MORE genetic diversity no matter how energetically you bash me. Evben in the rest of the population that contains all the genetic material elimninated from the breed you don't get MORE genetic diversity. You may or may not get less there too. Sorry, natural selection ALWAYS decreases genetic diversity. And yes gene flow interferes with it by ADDING more genetic diversity.AbE: This is why reproductive isolation of a daughter population is what brings about a new composite phenotype. In this case the selection is random, not focused on a particular trait or traits, but it will have a new set of gene frequencies from the parent population, and if it's a much smaller population, formed from few individuals, it will have much decreased genetic diversity and will form its new composite phenotype from a much reduced gene pool. The smaller the new gene pool, meaning the less genetic diversity, the more dramatic the new phenotype. If gene flow comes back into the new population the new phenotype will be destroyed, just as if you allow your purebred to mate with another breed or a mutt you will destroy its charcteristics. The point is that to get a coherent composite phenotype in the wild requires reproductive isolation just as breeding does, and that means reduced genetic diversity in your new population.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.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

So just as I regard the Class Aves as definitive of the Bird Kind, and won't use the term "species" because it's co-opted by the ToE to another usage, I will regard the Class Trilobites as definitive of the Trilobite Kind. For cats and dogs it's the Families, Felidae and Canidae, though I have yet to ponder the Suborders Feliforma and Caniforma to see if they should be included in the Cat Kind and Dog Kind.And I'm going to have to continue to use the term "species" when discussing ring species because that is the common usage and I don't see any need to get into the strictly scientific designations. If such designations are clearly needed in some discussion or other, that's another story. Otherwise the insistence on the strictly scientific terminology is just a way of obstructing communication. Well I've many times shown that there is such a barrier and it's only a dogmatic blind adherence to the "science" that refuses to recognize it cuz it blows the ToE to smithereens. But I don't have to prove this at EvC, I can work it out for others elsewhere. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Oh I've proved it all right and all you are doing is trying to obscure it by calling me a llar. You tried to say mutations destroy the idea but I answered effectively that they don't because selection always overrides any increase in genetic divewrsity brought about by any means from gene flow to mutation, by always reducing genetic diversity from any source. And mutation doesn't happen anyway in these populations or no composite phenotype in the wild or breed in domestic programs could ever maintain their integrity, and the cheetah and the elephant seal would not be on the verge of extinction. Sorry, I've proved you wrong over and over and over, you just refuse to recognize it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

So apparently what cumulative selection must mean is say the sztring of selections that create the species in ring species? I've discussed this many times. I've proposed that each new population must show a reduction in genetic diversity from the previous as the new phenotype or set of traits is developed from a reduced number of individuals from the previous population. Each new species starts with a portion of the previous population, a relatively small number of individuals. This is a selection event in itself. It creates a new set of gene frequencies from the previous population's, which should show a reduction in genetic diversity from that population as the new traits emerge into a new composite phenotype for the new population or "species" in the ring.So if WEASEL and MONKEY model cumulative selection they reflect the problem I've been talking about, a failure to understand that each new selection involves a reduction in genetic diversity.

I wasn't talking about a bottleneck, I was talking about the emigration of a smallish number of individuals from a parent population to form a new daughter population in reproductive isolation. Just this smaller number of individuals will produce a new set of traits for a new composite phenotype over a few generations of breeding in isolation, and depending on the number of individuals this will involve some level of reduced genetic diversity.Mutations don't enter into it. They may contribute a change from time to time but there's no reason to think they contribute more than that.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Make it a hundred that separate from a population of a thousand. I'm not talkinjg about a bottleneck, I'm talking about some normal number that would emigrate, some portion of a population that would possess less genetic diversity and that means just about any smallish portion. It would possess its own set of gene frequencies which is how you get the new traits in the new composite phenotype of the new species in the ring. If half the population emigrates then there will probably not be a lot of change but there will probably be some, and in this case in both populations.

Absolutely, juist what I'm talking about although I haven't regarded such a large portion of a population to be a bottleneck. But as usual that's just a semantic glitch people like to throw ibnto the discussion from time to time. No problem, the wpoint is that the smaller population WILL lose the infrequently occurring alleles and under those circumstance some dramatically new traits can develop and create a new composite phenotype quite different from the parent population and all the others in the ring species. This is due to the loss of genetic diversity, in this case the loss of the low frequency alleles. Just what I've been saying has to happen. And they call the resulting new population with its own new traits a "species." I'd call it a "subspecies" or variation myself, and since this is a ring species another population will develop out of this one two by the emigtation of some number to a new location where it will also develop its own peculiar composite phenotype due to reduced genetic diversity.

It's not an assumption, I've worked it out. First you can't maintain a species in the wild or a breed in artificial selection if you have any kind of increase in genetic diversity, wether through gene flow or mutation. Since both breeds and species in the wild maintain an identifiable characteristics we know that neither of these sources of increase occur, or that they are extremely rare.Second, if such increases do occur, usually from resumed gene flow rather than mutation, since mutation doesn't contribute much change in a short period of time, then if a population split occurs or any other kind of selection we will again have reduced genetic diversity which always occurs when new traits form a new composite phenotype. Selection IS the driving force of evolution and it always decreases genetic diversity.

All populations that have an identifiable homogenous composite phenotype (to use dwise's term which I think is a good one) have a reduced genetic diversity compared to the parent population they came from. It's got nothing to do with any "mqaximum" of diversity, it's a relative thing: daughter populations formed from a small portion of the parent population, that form in reproductive isolation, and are not subject to gene flow, have reduced genetic diversity from the parent population. instead of just pronouncing me wrong you have to prove me wrong and you always fail to do so.Breeds are just like this kind of populaton in the wild that forms from a limited number of individuals in reproductive isolation. Genetically it's the same situation and reduced genetic diversity is always the necessary concomitant to the development of the new population or subpopulation or species or subspecies or varliety or whatever you want to call it.Mutation really has no role in this as I discussed above, and most of it is just wishful thinking anyway, as beneficial mutations don't occur frequently or fast enough to have the effects you imagine. Besides which, as I show above, they would only destroy any newly formed subpopulation's composite phenotype, or any breed, if they did occur, because they are just one form of gene flow which destroys what selection is trying to do.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.