The End of Evolution By Means of Natural Selection

The fact that evolution can rationalize extinctions has nothing to do with my presentation of the mechanisms of natural selection and other isolating factors, which is perfectly orthodox from everything I've read on the subject.There may be many reasons for extinctions in any given case, but reduced genetic diversity IS definitely one of them, as any conservationist could tell you. Actually I have very clearly spelled out the sequence that does occur in actual reality, which IS the evidence, and it ought to be recognizable to anyone who knows anything about these things. If you reduce a population to a few members, anyone with any knowledge of population genetics should recognize that as a condition of reduced genetic diversity. Rahvin, that is FUNDAMENTAL, I certainly didn’t make it up and I know you know it too.The seal population was drastically reduced in numbers, therefore drastically reduced in genetic diversity, therefore its regenerated population numbers are also reduced in genetic diversity as they all inherited the reduced diversity of their few founder ancestors. Whether further diversity can be recovered or not is another subject, but as it stands they are a large population with MUCH less genetic diversity than their original population, and it appears they are doing just fine and are not threatened with extinction. This is obvious and I know you know this; you just for some reason are throwing in irrelevancies that only obscure the point.All I’m doing is taking something that IS recognized but not generally recognized in the context of its effect on evolution theory. I’m pointing out the effect. See, I knew you knew it. No, it doesn’t, nor have I claimed it does. I have not said one thing about a mutation barrier Rahvin. * You seem to be making this up as you go. Yes, of course many recessive traits will come to the fore in a condition of drastically reduced genetic diversity, but why is that necessarily a bad thing? A whole population of blue-eyed humans can result from such a bottleneck, right? It’s most likely what happens when some breeder comes up with a brand new trait never before seen — it’s usually attributed to a mutation, but in fact it’s probably just a very rare recessive allele that found its very rare mate and got expressed.As for the human bottleneck it’s quite possible that the loss of diversity nevertheless left us with enough genetic variability to continue without the help of mutations. I know that flies in the face of uniformitarian assumptions, but it IS a possibility. The same would be true of all other living things too.I know I don’t have to answer every post down to the last detail but I’d like to try for a while. I’m sure I’ll reach a point where I’ll stop doing that eventually. For now I’m going to stop answering your very long post but I’ll be back with the rest of it next, however long that takes.Cheers.--------------------------------------------------------
*I just realized where you get this notion of a "mutation barrier." Since you like everyone else here think exclusively in terms of mutation as the source of all variation, when I say that the condition of speciation with its drastically reduced genetic diversity makes further evolution impossible you figure I'm saying mutations can't happen. Well, I DON'T think of this as a barrier to mutation, I think of it as a barrier to further natural selection; but I DO assume that mutations are not going to save the day in this condition, and I believe the example of endangered species ought to make that only too clear to you too. Even those who believe mutation is going to save them assume this won't happen for a long long time. But they are threatened NOW. When endangered species are rescued they are rescued IN their condition of genetic reduction. They are protected so that they can reproduce and increase in numbers -- BUT this does not restore their genetic diversity. And as far as I've seen mutation is not coming along to help them with this.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : to add last paragraph from the asteriskEdited by Faith, : Spacing correctionsEdited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Rahvin 1, part 2 OK, I’ll drop the significant, I forgot what I had in mind there anyway, but the challenge was to show that you didn’t lose genetic diversity by these changes and you haven’t given the slightest hint about that. According to everything I know about genetics there’s no way you didn’t lose genetic diversity; it’s how one GETS new varieties, breeds, species. You can’t have the alleles for the other colors of eyes in a population characterized by one particular color. Elementary my dear R. 1) I’m ONLY talking about the subgroup, because it demonstrates what happens when you have selection or other forms of genetic isolation, major engines of evolution, and what you get is genetic reduction along with the development of a new phenotype characteristic of the new group.2) Even if the parent population were very large you still may have a LITTLE reduction in genetic diversity when it loses a subgroup because that group may take a rare allele with it and the parent population will no longer have it.3) Even if the impact on the parent population is negligible genetically speaking because the loss of the alleles in the subgroup is not large enough to have affected it, you do NOT have an increase in genetic diversity in the parent population. Where on earth are you getting that idea?4) And it’s the same if you are talking about separately branching subgroups -- there is also no source of genetic increase here either. There may be little or no loss if the two populations are about equal in size and the parent population was very large, as in the hypothetical example Percy gave, but you certainly do NOT have an increase in ANY case. Yet here you are pronouncing this as if it were a known fact. Seems to me others here should be able to correct you instead of leaving it to me. This is simply flat-out false. You do NOT get a genetic increase from any of the processes that split populations, you get either no effect or you get a reduction. Well, to be clear, what you actually described was not both, but the appearance in a culture of a drug-resistant variation apparently out of thin air, otherwise known as a mutation. Yes, I grasped that. It’s an argument for mutation. It’s come up before, even at EvC a few years ago. All I can do is accept it as given, I don’t dispute it, though with more knowledge I might raise some questions about what’s really going on there. In any case I’m not sure what the point is. I’m not abandoning my argument because of what bacteria do. I’m not talking about bacteria and I’m not at all sure their genetics should be so readily assumed to apply to sexually reproducing animals. I’m talking about cheetahs and seals and eagles and seagulls and chipmunks and salamanders and it’s only an evasion to switch the topic to bacteria. But it doesn’t in sexually reproducing animals, and uncritical extrapolating from bacteria or even fruit flies is questionable to say the least, at best irrelevant even if applicable: the cheetah’s diversity is NOT increasing and isn't going to in human time. Again, I’m not at all sure you have any warrant for assuming that what happens with HIV can be extrapolated to all living things.In any case, I KNOW that what I’ve said about selection leading to reduced genetic diversity for the examples I’ve given is correct and you can only answer me effectively by focusing on my kind of examples. Hm. But doesn’t the fact that this cell IS drug resistant, while all the others aren’t, mean that it possesses a particular genetic formula — an allele or alleles — that the others don’t have, that codes for this protection? There is some confusion here I believe, that needs sorting out. I suspect you are merely ASSUMING a growth in diversity along with the growth in population and don’t have any evidence that this is actually the case. I can’t just take your word for it. If you do have evidence, please describe it.In order to get an ENTIRE population resistant to medications you MUST have eliminated all the genetic types that DON’T have that capacity, and this is a condition of reduced genetic diversity, NOT increased diversity. If you got a single cell with this ability after all the others were eliminated, its offspring with that capacity are not going to be more diverse, they are going to have the genetic capacity of this founder cell.Again, I suspect you are ASSUMING a growth in genetic variability, in any case you are not demonstrating it. All the logic of genetics I’m aware of leads to the conclusion that a decrease in diversity is the necessary outcome of selection. Bacteria may be different in some crucial ways, where apparently something else can happen from time to time, a new genetic possibility just sort of gallop in from the ether or something just in time to save the fort, I’m not at all clear about this, but whether it can or not you still haven’t shown any genetic increase in the total population. In a SENSE evolution never stops but in another sense it does. Populations often do reach a state of equilibrium from which they are not evolving in any appreciable way for long long periods of time, even granting that there is always some degree of change from generation to generation. AND, as I am suggesting, it also stops at a certain degree of genetic depletion which often occurs at speciation. If you have a large number of fixed loci you are NOT going to get further evolution in any sense that matters. You ASSUME that mutation changes things at this point. Except in bacteria and possibly fruit flies (?) it simply DOES NOT. Oh MAYBE in thousands or millions of years. How hypothetical can you get and still think you are talking about reality?But I’m trying to keep the focus on the processes that lead to speciation, and that means the selecting and isolating processes; the variability in the population is simply the raw material that these processes operate on. Listen, if I have to I KNOW I can find some major evolutionist saying just this, I’m not saying anything new here. And you know it too, only you only know it in a context that fits your assumptions and you seem to forget it when your focus shifts -- or something like that. And here you are stating what I AM TRYING TO KEEP IN FOCUS though in different terms than I would use. We don’t need the mutations part, the normal scattering of alleles in a large population is sufficient for selection to operate as described. I doubt that selection is the most important engine of evolution myself, genetic drift being possibly more important, and I’ve found plenty of evolutionists saying the same thing, but the basic formula is correct enough though I would rewrite it: So long as a variety of naturally occurring alleles are passed down from parent to child, selection and other isolating processes will continue to increase the frequency of the selected or isolated traits, while decreasing the frequency of traits that are in competition with them. And here I’m going to stop again in this marathon slog through your long long post. More later. Sorry to go on at such length but you’ve raised a bunch of issues I can’t just ignore.Edited by Faith, : To add italicsEdited by Faith, : to correct a quote format

Hello Percy,
I'm going through all the posts on this thread in order. I may have to give this up eventually but that's the plan for now and that's why I answered your message 15. I'm still working on 18 but need a break from the intensity.I'm also not going to answer this post of yours until later, except to say one thing: I have never said that variation cannot increase. For one thing I'm focused on genetic variability, not variation.More later.

Yes and we get that new variety of finch by subtracting alleles that don't fit the blueprint.I'll get to YOUR other posts eventually too. All in good order.

Man you guys deny the obvious, how domestic selection works and how Darwin based his natural selection on it, and you accuse me of ignoring things I've answered twenty times already and accuse me of not seeing things I've already taken account of. It's YOU who can't see. Give me time to get to it and I'll EXPLAIN why you continue to get varieties, AND explain the difference between that and genetic variability which has obviously escaped you.But to be fair, I expected this.Talk to you more later.Cheers.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Yes. This is evolution by natural selection. You get a new phenotype, this non-resistant bacteria and you get it by losing genetic diversity. Yes. What I’m talking about. Yes. I get the impression you are simply assuming it increases in diversity due to mutations rather than reporting on something you’ve actually observed. Whoa, simmer down. You are just jumping on imprecise wording, which in a subject like this is going to occur rather frequently, so give a person a break. I’ve said this in so many ways by now you ought to know what I mean anyway. I’m simply repeating the FACT that selection and isolation, NOT MUTATION, are what bring about the new phenotype that characterizes a whole new population. OF COURSE the phenotype must already be there. I’m talking about how it comes to characterize a whole new population/variation/breed/species. Evolution by natural selection, remember? Rahvin, in this respect you’re preaching to the choir again. You yell that I’m wrong but I meant the same thing I’ve been saying all along and that is exactly what you are saying here about how selection works. As I’ve said from the beginning, it doesn’t matter where the new variation comes from -- a mutation or a rarely expressed allele or a normally occurring allele for that matter -- if it is selected it will rapidly increase in frequency as the competition is [eliminated] from its reproductive opportunities. You’ve got a mutation that comes to characterize a whole population by this means, exactly what I’ve been talking about. In order for it to come to characterize the population the competition must be eliminated, reducing genetic diversity. Evolution by natural selection. Don’t just rush on to the mutation part. This is the part I’m trying to keep in focus. I thought what you got was a population of clones with the occasional drug resistant type, not the sort of increase in genetic diversity you seem to be implying now. You’ve asserted this many times without proving it. No, in most populations you WOULDN’T reach that point, so it’s a straw man to imply I’ve said any such thing. I’m talking about a TREND and it IS a trend that is demonstrable. Go look at the links in the OP. It’s also demonstrated in endangered species — bottleneck is merely an extreme version of the very same processes of selection and isolation, ALL of which reduce genetic diversity in the process of forming new population characteristics. I’ve also suggested that sampling the DNA in the series of populations in a ring species would prove the point empirically. You are again failing to grasp what I’m trying to say here so let me try to clarify.One form of selection is for a trait to merely increase and spread through a population, but even in that case it does so by replacing other alleles for the same trait. How could it be otherwise? The trait in question can’t come to characterize the population unless it does this. All the competition has to go. Or perhaps be preserved in the recessive position or something like that. So that if it is strongly selected eventually down the generations ALL competing alleles will be eliminated from the population, just more slowly than they would be if there were a more immediate drastic selection pressure. It doesn’t have to be total, that’s a matter of how severe the selection pressure is. But the trend is undeniable. You’ve GOT to replace the unhelpful alleles with the helpful one. That’s what selection DOES.
There is no getting around this, selection and isolating processes ALWAYS reduce genetic diversity. Always. If you keep your sights on the phenotypic changes being brought about, which is all too easy to do, you can manage not to notice that this is in fact what is going on at the level of the genotype.
You switched your focus to the animal here and lost track of the genetic situation. B isn’t going to go extinct, and I haven’t suggested such a scenario either. Through preferential reproduction, over generations eventually ALL the individual animals will HAVE the selected allele — B’s offspring will eventually have it if B does not, and that’s simply because it didn’t get passed that far in the population yet but assuming the reproductive selection holds up eventually ALL the members of the population will have it. It takes time for a selected allele to work its way through the whole group. It COULD go pretty fast if it’s a matter of protection against a predator or something like that, so that the individuals that don’t have it will simply be eaten and those with it will form the new population. But I’m using an example of a less drastic selection, a selection that confers an advantage but isn’t life or death, such as the frog’s fly-catching mutation that Pink Sasquatch brought up on the original thread. I’ve PROVED it, Rahvin. You do NOT get a new dog breed unless you separate it from all genetic input that doesn’t contribute to the type you want. Nor did I say it did, for heaven’s sake! What it DOES involve is the reduction of the genetic diversity in any subpopulation that is appreciably smaller in numbers than the parent population. (A larger subpopulation may retain the basic genetic and phenotypic character of the parent population.) This is because alleles are likely to have been left behind in the parent population, and CERTAIN to have been left behind if the subpopulation is VERY small. It ALSO involves the development of a new phenotypic characteristic to the new subpopulation. This is the result of the reduction in genetic diversity which allows the new frequencies of alleles to be expressed, particularly for alleles formerly suppressed in the parent population to be expressed, because the competition has been removed. This makes no sense. The continued existence of the parent population does NOT increase diversity — not genetic diversity in any case.Also, the fact that the alleles that are lost to the subpopulation remain in the parent population is a point that only obscures the fact that the natural selection that is bringing about the new phenotype and reducing the genetic diversity is going on in the subpopulation. For THAT population the diversity is reduced, and it's ONLY that population that is under discussion. It's the one that shows that natural selection and migration and other ways populations get reduced and isolated produce new phenotypes BY reducing genetic diversity. It doesn't matter what remains in the parent population. It's irrelevant to the point.The split has brought out new phenotypes in the new population but this is because the genetic diversity has been reduced there. THIS IS THE GENETIC LAW I’M TALKING ABOUT. What has happened in this situation is that the migrated population, usually appreciably smaller than the parent population, develops a new phenotype that sets it apart from the old population. It does this because it has reduced genetic options compared to the parent population. It takes this reduction to bring about the new characteristics. I know I’m repeating myself but since you never seem to notice I’ve said it twenty times already I have to repeat it yet again. Cheetah. Overhunted seal. Overhunted eagle. Guinea pigs. Raccoons. Bears. No way are you going to get the incredible range of viable variations you get with dogs from any of these animals. I have no doubt there are many species with lots and lots of remaining genetic diversity and nothing I’ve said implies otherwise. You can in fact breed them for quite some time into the future without getting anywhere near genetic depletion. That doesn’t contradict the fact that selected variation is ALWAYS accompanied by a corresponding reduction in genetic diversity -- not depletion, not anywhere near depletion, but reduction. However, I’m not sure it’s quite right to compare plants with animals in this respect. I know it simply from the fact that we do have severely genetically reduced animals, endangered species. You perhaps keep them off in a separate compartment in your mind as I think evolutionists tend to do, but I see them as representative of selection processes. Bottleneck is simply a more rapid version of all the selection processes. I have not said it does and this has nothing to do with what I AM saying. I'm not interested in variation or frequencies AS SUCH, my point is what happens genetically to a population as new phenotypes are being formed in it, on out to speciation. What's happening in other populations is another subject. (However, "frequency of trait" isn't quite the right expression, so I'm not sure what you have in mind). This isn’t an increase, it’s simply the preservation of whatever other traits were also in the same animals you chose to breed from. When you breed animals you breed WHOLE animals with their whole collection of genes and whatever alleles come with them, you can’t just select smallness and not get all the other traits the bred animals possess. When I speak of a single allele it is to show what selection does. The same thing happens if a thousand alleles for a hundred genes are simultaneously selected by breeding the animal that possesses that particular combination. As long as you keep mating it with other animals with the same characteristics and eliminate characteristics that are different you’ll end up with a new breed with reduced genetic diversity compared to the parent population. GENETIC LAW. Seems to me you’ve been disagreeing with me about this all along. You argue and argue and argue with exactly the same point in different words and then suddenly I say it a certain way and you agree. What I just said above that you are so strenuously disagreeing with is exactly what I said above that but in different words that you agreed with. What is the problem here? To get a new breed you eliminate alleles is the same thing as saying A subpopulation will have less genetic diversity than the total population. What IS the problem here? What? You are making no sense. You seem to be objecting just for the sake of objecting. You just agreed with it two lines above!! I was merely restating the same concept about breeding in different words and now you are going on and on about a single bacteria?Here, let me try to sort this out.You think that your example of getting new traits like antibiotic resistance in a whole population of bacteria contradicts my statement that you have to reduce genetic variability to get a new breed.First of all you can’t switch from dogs to bacteria as if they were equivalent. What I said is true for dogs; I have no idea if it’s also true for bacteria. But don’t scream at me when I’m talking about dogs because bacteria behave differently.Second you are confusing the process of bringing about a new phenotype (the mutation) with the process of that phenotype's being the basis for a new population. I seriously doubt that you are getting an increase in genetic diversity as that population grows, but if you are then bacteria simply have nothing in common with dogs.I don’t know if anything was gained by working my way through this long post but I did it and I’m going to leave it at that.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well, Dr. A, you write short posts so I'm tempted to answer them even though I'm trying to stick to my plan of getting through the whole thread in order.I'm not talking about "net loss." It doesn't matter what remains in the parent population (or the overall population that includes the subpopulations either) as far as the point I'm trying to make goes.I'm making a point about how you don't get new phenotypes without a loss of genetic diversity in the population that is becoming characterized by a new phenotype. The parent population in question is not developing a new characteristic phenotype. If it is then it has to be losing alleles too. It doesn't matter if they're lost by being left behind in the parent population or lost by disaster, they still have to be lost from the new population if a new phenotype is to emerge.The evolving population is losing genetic diversity in the process of developing its new characteristics that differentiate it from the parent population.I'm talking about a process, and the amount of variation OR variability elsewhere is irrelevant to this process. In this process genetic variability is NECESSARILY lost. You don't get a new phenotype UNLESS it is lost. You don't get speciation UNLESS it is lost.Even if the allele were originally a mutation, when it gets selected OTHER alleles for the same trait have to be eliminated for it to spread in the new population and bring about a new phenotype. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Actually, the defeat of evolution IS by facts that every biologist knows to be true about evolution, only they deny them when they are brought into that context and affirm them when they can fit them into their evolutionist assumptions.What I'm arguing OUGHT to be easily recognized, but check this thread -- it's being fought tooth and nail, this very ordinary obvious truth. Weirdly misunderstood, weirdly twisted.That's because I'm bringing out its implications which are normally overlooked.Evolutionists simply automatically stick mutation in there to counter the implications of this obvious ordinary fact so my job is to try to pry you all loose from that facile and false connection.Need lots of rest for this task. Good night.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I'm up to message 21, RAZD's first and was about to start there but I think I'm going to try to reorient this thread a bit at this point instead.I understand why mutation and other sources of variation keep being brought up. Of course, because I'm trying to prove they are rendered GENETICALLY null in the ultimate playing out of evolution. I'm trying to PROVE this, I'm not merely asserting it, Percy. I'm NOT pursuing the various SOURCES of variation, such as recombination versus mutation, my focus is on the processes which SELECT AND ISOLATE. I should probably avoid pursuing all discussion about the sources of variation because it really is irrelevant to the point I'm trying to make.BECAUSE evolutionists naturally automatically think in terms that include both selection and genetic increase, obviously I have my work cut out for me and the odds of succeeding at getting any of this across are far from good, but to me it's worth a try.When Dawkins describes evolution by natural selection he speaks as if there were a simple progression from one form to another, as if selection and isolation didn't reduce genetic diversity. It's not that he doesn't KNOW that genetic diversity is reduced, he simply ASSUMES that mutation and other sources of variation overcome it so he doesn't take it into account. He brings out all kinds of interesting biological adaptations as if they demonstrate this open-ended progression that he is assuming, whereas all they actually demonstrate is the amount of normal adaptation that can occur on the way to genetic depletion. He constructs his little computer biomorphs as if there were none of the REAL effects of natural selection at all, merely change building on change.If you look only at the phenotype that's the way it LOOKS. If you look at the various ring species, you see series of populations characterized by interesting changes in the phenotype from each to the next. The reason these changes could occur is that each new population was formed from a small complement of alleles taken from the previous population, leaving behind other alleles that would have competed with the new emerging phenotype. You need reproductive isolation for a new phenotype to develop.You can get blended versions if there is some gene flow but the picture of what happens is clearer if there is complete reproductive isolation. You all know this, but somehow you forget that reduced genetic diversity must be the result of this scenario and that if you increase the diversity you simply interfere with the development of a new phenotype.Yet you all talk about INCREASING the genetic diversity after it's been decreased, claiming this is normal. Not only does it not happen, but if it did happen you wouldn't be getting these new phenotypes. You NEED the reduced genetic diversity for these to emerge.By the time the last in a series of ring species is formed the genetic diversity ought to be quite reduced from that of the first population, and the fact that first and last populations can usually not interbreed is an indication that that is probably the case. This COULD be studied, but it OUGHT to be logically proved.If mutations or gene flow or any other source of variation kept intruding on this process you would not get these clear established phenotypes.I know that even in saying all this I'm up against your assumption that mutation is going on all the time and IS contributing to the construction of new varieties. I do believe that is just an assumption, that the reality is that phenotypes require the elimination of alleles for other phenotypes. Maybe some of the alleles in the new phenotype were originally mutations, that could be, but when a new population is coming to be characterized by this phenotype it can only happen by leaving behind competing alleles, mutation-originated or not.Think about dogs again, domestic breeding. You keep saying that after selection reduces genetic diversity new mutations come in and increase the variability again. In breeding that would produce nothing but chaos, you'd no longer have the breed, you'd start getting blurry versions of it. To hold onto a good breed REQUIRES that there be no interference from "foreign" alleles. The entrance of new alleles is a BAD thing for domestic breeding, you don't want it.But you all talk about that's what must happen in NATURAL selection as if it were a good thing. There too you simply destroy any new phenotype or "breed" that happens to emerge in nature by the addition of mutations or any other source of genetic input such as recombination, gene flow etc.BUT doesn't the theory of evolution say that evolution occurs in the direction new phenotypes are being formed? Doesn't it imply evolution builds upon any line that is producing new phenotypes?Doesn't it imply that the cutting edge of evolution is at the end of a series of ring species, or at any point of speciation, or --back to domestic breeding-- where you have come up with a good new breed? Isn't that the direction evolution is supposed to move in? Isn't that where it's supposed to be open ended? Where the CHANGE is happening?But the fact is that in all these instances, where the change IS happening, where phenotypes ARE being formed, where speciation has occurred, where a new breed has developed, that is exactly precisely where evolution comes to a halt. All along the line in such a progression of phenotypes genetic diversity will be reducing. When you get to speciation it can be quite radically reduced. Some species have a great many fixed loci. This is the NATURAL end result of the processes of selection and isolation.Oh there may be PLENTY of genetic diversity left in the parent populations that were left behind by the evolving subpopulations. BUT THAT IS NOT WHERE EVOLUTION IS HAPPENING. Where evolution is happening you are getting progressive loss of genetic diversity and it COULDN"T BE ANY OTHER WAY. You simply do NOT get a new phenotype, a new variation, a new breed of dog, without losing genetic options.Now I know you are all mentally throwing tons of mutations into this description as you read it. You think of evolution as being open-ended, and despite your KNOWING that genetic diversity is reduced by selection and isolation the reality of it hasn't been allowed to alter your assumptions. You keep these ideas in separate mental compartments.So you are throwing new mutations at these genetically depleted new species, not recognizing that the very existence of the new species requires the genetic depletion and if you add mutations you only destroy the species and evolution itself.No, there IS a natural end to the processes of evolution because to get new varieties (phenotypes) you have to reduce genetic options.Oh we'll go on fighting of course, but we're only going to be repeating ourselves in one way or another I'm sure. I'll go back and respond to the posts in order as I planned to do. I'll try to pare down my answers to cut down on the repetitiousness.And one other thing. I know what I'm saying is true for dogs and cats and humans and guinea pigs and giraffes and mice. I don't know how true it may be for fruit flies, bacteria, viruses and plants, so there's no point in using them in this argument. It IS true for dogs et. al.Thanks.ONE MORE THING: Language is not precise enough for the clarity that is needed in this kind of discussion. I may be using terms in a way you wouldn't use them. I wrote this all off the top of my head and probably didn't get it said particularly well. I may be misspeaking here and there even on my own terms and muddying the message myself. Experts are going to use terminology in a way laypeople wouldn't. Etc. etc. etc. Please before rushing in to object to this or that in what I've said here think through the possibility that what you think I'm saying may not be what I think I'm saying. It may help cut down on unnecessary confusion. The topic is difficult enough without that.ThanksEdited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : to add last paragraph

I believe you can usually find the beginning and end of a ring species even though they surround a natural barrier in a more or less connected circle. The last in the series may not be the ultimate last, there may be more to come, but it is the end at the moment. Once the circle is connected you usually just get hybridization from that point anyway. I'm predicting that there may be a genetic barrier to interbreeding -- not between just any two species in the ring but at least between the first and the last because of the amount of genetic reduction I'd expect from the first to the last. The main thing is the reduction in genetic diversity progressing from first to last in the population. I think this should be logically expectable but it could be studied. Of course. Each population has its own collection and frequencies of alleles. There are all kinds of other things that can enter into any such progression of variations, but the simple mechanics of a small proportion of a population's splitting off to become the basis for the next population and repeating for each subsequent population logically entails a progressive loss of genetic diversity. Any number of other factors can enter in from continuing selection to hybridization to retained gene flow, but the basic pattern I'm describing should be logically recognizable. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Depends on how you are using the terms. You can have A variety in the sense of a highly refined breed of dog or type of flower, and in the case of the dog it should exhibit reduced genetic variability with respect to the dog population as a whole.To get "varieties" means for them to be subjected to selection which reduces their genetic variability.Variety is about phenotypes, variability is about genotypes.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I can get all your posts on the screen but I can't figure out how to reply to them as a group. That doesn't increase genetic diversity with respect to each subpopulation. If a subpopulation acquires only SOME of the alleles in the division, others are being eliminated -- possessed by other subpopulations -- and a new phenotype can develop for each particular subpopulation from its particular reduced collection of alleles. There is ALWAYS a reduction in genetic diversity when you select out or isolate alleles and build a new population from this reduced group. Always. Doesn't seem to work out that way in reality. To get a new species you have to lose alleles. A group of humans that get isolated on an island and interbreed for generations will evolve own characteristics and have much less genetic diversity than the human population as a whole. Their differences from other human populations are not due to mutations but to their sharing among themselves a limited collection of genetic possibilities.Same with Darwin's finches.Human evolution from a supposed common ancestor with chimps couldn't have happened. If mutation does occur then this is true. You will have more genetic possibilities or more genetic diversity/variability in the population. True. And it's possible neither population loses any alleles, just changes frequencies. You are postulating a branching of populations that doesn't lose alleles, just shuffles them. That can happen but that's pretty slow evolution. Really it seems you have a brand new theory of evolution. You have something like a theory of evolution by mutation rather than evolution by natural selection. Sure, if you have populations that are constantly acquiring new alleles through mutation and never lose any you can get change or some kind of evolution over time but it won't be adaptive evolution by natural selection and in fact how is it going to develop a phenotypic characteristic for the whole population either? Seems you would only get a population of the same species with lots and lots of different varieties of that species all mixed together.To get REAL evolution something has to be selected or isolated from among all those varieties and as soon as that happens, what I'm describing about the necessary loss of genetic diversity in this process has to occur. You are now talking so much in the abstract that you are losing the context here. I'm trying to stick to what goes on in observed populations all the time in our own living reality. I'm being abstract too but at least my context is something going on in the present. You have to explain how this supposed surfeit of alleles relates to the usual processes of evolution under natural selection and genetic drift and so on. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Not if what I'm saying is true they didn't. This is an article of faith derived from the theory of evolution. Reality belies it. By describing what actually happens in reality, which is both logically verifiable and testable.But I'm not saying mutations have NO role; I don't know if they do or not but obviously SOME sources of variation are required for evolution to work on. I do believe they are largely built in but it may be that there is some way that something like mutations do produce alleles -- I would assume a regularly occurring predictable collection of alleles and nothing truly novel myself but what do I know? Many things are possible.But what I am describing I believe is simply what happens in the nitty gritty mechanics of evolution that develops new varieties and ultimately speciation. It's reality. Yes, this is what the theory of evolution assumes about alleles and mutations. But the reality of how evolution works through the processes defined as its mechanisms leads away from a lot of assumptions evolutionists hold including this one.What REALLY happens genetically in evolution is what I'm describing. All sorts of evolutionist assumptions would have to be rethought if this is true.And it is true.I'll get to the rest of your post later.Except to say that the mutations you are describing, that actually occur, are not helpful to evolution because they aren't helpful to any living thing except by some rare fluke that plays off a disease against a benefit.But again, there MAY be some allele formation through mutation. It doesn't change the effect of the processes of selection I'm describing in any case.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I assume they were part of the original creation. But I don't want that to be part of this argument and I've been accepting mutations as their source all along. The way you said something led me to object to it, but I'm happy to drop it. Let's leave it at that.I've been proving it all along. The thread has been getting sidetracked by misunderstandings and irrelevancies but the proof is there for anyone who will think it through. I can't afford the DNA tests on ring species not to mention my arthritis wouldn't let me go out and catch a salamander anyway, and I don't have the means to open a lab or finance one, but what I'm saying IS subject to testing -- DNA samples to test for genetic diversity in various populations after known speciation events.I'm happy with my thread so far really. It would be wonderful if someone got persuaded but I know that's not going to happen. I have to be content to get it said to my own satisfaction.I was going to go look up some quotes that might help, if I can find them. Better go do that.

Both are true, I've been proving it all along -- domestic selection, dog breeding, endangered species, concerns of conservationists, link in original OP demonstrating replacement of allele by selected allele etc., and reasoning stepwise through what happens to the genetic situation in a population undergoing selection and isolation -- which here and there down the thread the occasional combatant has AGREED describes the situation.AND the testing suggestion as WELL. It's not a contradiction. I've referred to BOTH methods of proof.Evolutionists don't do research in this direction and I haven't found this discussed on creationist sites. They focus on how mutations don't add "information," they don't focus on how selection/isolation reduces genetic diversity.This is the sort of thing that is normally recognized when pointed out, as in the conservationist context, but when you also point out that it spells doom for evolution then it's no longer recognized and suddenly there isn't a reduction but all kinds of mutations and increase instead.Back later. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.