And you have been wrong a bazillion times. This is completely assbackwards. When you are getting new traits you are adding diversity.
Here you seem to be saying that new traits can only emerge from added diversity, but then you go on to say something more inclusive:
The processes of evolution absolutely do not require a reduction of diversity.
This seems to allow that new traits can also emerge from reduced diversity, so I'm not sure what your position is, and Faith may not be either.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. There are several different arguments going on here.
Comparing breeding with evolution can only be applied superficially and just to the selection process.
The only comparison is really artificial selection vs natural selection. The breeder selects the closest individuals to the target to mate in the next generation. Each mating is essentially a bottle neck. The primary way new traits emerge is from homozygous recessive matches. The characters that are controlled by multiple genes will be displayed distinctly to reflect homozygous dominant or heterozygous or homozygous recessive traits. There are only the 2 individuals so the number of possible new traits to be displayed in the offspring is relatively limited. Diversity is reduced and continues to be reduced each generation by the breeder. Any mutation that is displayed as a trait may be of interest to the breeder and may or may not be used in subsequent matings.
In a natural population, all of the individuals in a generation may have a chance to mate and pass on their genes plus any genes that were modified by mutation. There is no target, no ideal phenotype. Mutations that are not lethal may be passed on to subsequent generations and may possibly persist in the population for many generations. Diversity is added with each new generation through mutations and individual genes may or may not be passed to offspring depending on differential mating success and the random shuffling of genes that occurs at each mating. There is no gatekeeper allowing only certain individuals to mate. Small founder populations will have an overall genome that is a subset of the whole population but speciation seldom occurs in a single generation, but rather over many generations during which there is gene flow between the populations that is gradually reduced. Most of these founder populations fail to be viable and go extinct. The reduction of diversity may be a contributing factor. Occasionally, a founder population persists long enough to be viable as its genome becomes more diverse.
Comparing breeding and artificial selection with evolution and natural selection is only useful for showing that characters can be selected to be traits in the next generation.
That is what Darwin was showing with his breeding experiments; that traits can be selected, but he did not know about the underlying mechanisms of genes or the rules that governed their combination and expression. His leap of inspiration was that natural selection and differential breeding success could make great changes in species over time.
Breeding and Evolution are equivalent only in that superficial way; during mating they involve the combination of genes and the expression of characters. That is all there is to breeding, but evolution includes increasing diversity through mutation, and genetic drift, gene flow and selection through differential breeding success of the whole population over multiple generations.
What has been learned about genetics so far shows no evidence that genomes of individual organisms were ever frontloaded with multiple versions of each gene that have subsequently been lost. What the evidence does show is that diversity has increased in whole populations as genes are mutated to form new alleles.
ABE: Saying that there is a rule that evolution or speciation requires loss of diversity is incorrect and is not supported by reality. All we have to do is look at the millions of species that are alive on the planet right now to see that this rule is not true. Using this rule to make the claim that evolution is running down or that evolution will stop working is refuted by the reality of millions of species on the planet right now that continue to evolve in defiance of this rule
Edited by Tanypteryx, : added last paragraph
Edited by Tanypteryx, : grammer
Edited by Tanypteryx, : grammer
What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy
The attribution was wrong, must have been thinking "Faith" while I was supposed to be typing "Tanypteryx", who replied in Message 406 and apparently wasn't confused by the mistake.
Apparently breeding can result in speciation. At least there is one known instance, according to Wikipedia on Speciation:
New species have been created by domesticated animal husbandry, but the initial dates and methods of the initiation of such species are not clear. For example, domestic sheep were created by hybridisation, and no longer produce viable offspring with Ovis orientalis, one species from which they are descended.[23]
============ Thought I'd be able to post today but my eyes are hurting, so I have to put it off again.
No one doubts this, especially given the necessarily multi-faceted definition of species. While breeding *can* result in speciation, it almost never does, even though each and every mating pair is specifically selected rather than the much more random selection of mating pairs in nature.
As Tanypteryx reminds us, and as Darwin made clear in Origins, domestic breeding provides a clear example of the power of selection. What it doesn't provide is an effective method of creating new species.
The only thing I suggest is that genes died as a result of all those people and animals dying in the Flood, whose traits were lost to the species and therefore the alleles for those traits, so the genes just died and remain in the genome as corpses.
Je Suis Charlie
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
Hi Faith, hope you are feeling better. I've been in bed with a sever cold\flue\allergy (not sure which, but headaches and coughing, so I'm just catching up on these threads).
Apparently breeding can result in speciation. At least there is one known instance, according to Wikipedia on Speciation:
There are many instances of speciation known about, but that is not one of the traits that are normally considered desirable during breeding (because you may want\need to use hybridization).
One of the reasons that (I think) there is less speciation in domestic breeds versus wild variants is that breeders frequently cross-breed to (a) cure genetic diseases and (b) generate new variants, so they end up breeding for continued ability to interbreed between varieties.
Now if Faith's hypothesis were correct, it seems to me that a corollary would be that hybridizing between variations should be able to recover (or tend to recover) the original base genetics, ie you should be able to combine the genomes of O. aries to get O. orientalis ... and do it without losing traits ...
Interesting point. Now, looking at the great variety of domestic sheep would we really say that O. aries has less diversity than O. orientalis?
Let's go back to the very core of evolution theory. Basically, evolution needs a gain in biodiversity otherwise it can't explain the emergence of, say, multicellular life out of unicellular life or the vast diversification in all kingdoms of life into the taxes we see today or for that matter in any past era of the natural history of the earth.
This gain in biodiversity evidently also implies an increase in genetic diversification. The mere fact that there may be examples of speciation accompanied by a decrease in genetic diversity does not detract anything from this basic understanding.
Breeding by humans is just application of evolutionary mechanisms: selection acting on genetic variation. The most important difference between breeding and nature is the type of selective criteria - in breeding it's things like the looks, hunting traits or meatiness, in nature it's survival and/or reproduction chances.
Now O. aries indeed has more genetic diversity than O. orientalis. The variety in phenotype in your picture tells the story.
And sheep indeed perfectly show how it works: first more genetic diversity emerges, reflecting the selective criteria.
Of course there's also genetic drift which occurs irrespective of any selective pressure. Genetic drift can conduce to speciation by allowing the accumulation of non-adaptive mutations that can facilitate population subdivision. Genetic drift may contribute to speciation, if after a genetic bottleneck the resulting small group does survive.
That being said, I refocus on adaptive processes.
What your picture of the variety in O. aries shows is that the elementary requirement of evolution theory has been met: genetic diversity has been added. When one of the breeds would continue to diverge genetically from the other breeds or from O. orientalis to the extent genetic isolation occurs, we have speciation.
Of course the definition of "species" is multi-layered. I suggest that we THEREFORE should confine ourselves to the definition of genetic isolation. I don't think excluding other aspects or criteria for speciation does not jeopardize or blur the essence of the debate.
"It's only all about sexual recombination of existing traits since Adam and Eve" Now here starts one of the major disagreements with Faith. She says that there is NO genetic INNOVATION occurring in sheep in the first place. Faith contends it's only all about reshuffling existing alleles through sexual recombination (thus basically Mendelian genetics) that were present from the very beginning (Adam and Eve). So, you can show her all kinds of pictures of sheep breeds - she just won't be much impressed.
Now to my opinion her flaws here are:
if you count the maximum number of alleles possible in Adam and Eve per gene, it would be 4. In that case, without any genetic innovation - and that's exactly Faith's position - there also would be no more than 4 alleles per genes maximally present in Noah's crew. And, as no genetic innovation is allowed in her scenario, today we would stuck with a maximum of 4 alleles per gene as well. But there is a bunch of genes in the current human genome having far more than 4 alleles.
So, plain observation learns that alleles must have been added since the days of Adam and Eve. The mere fact that some traits are related to more than one gene does not change anything to this simple observation.
In sexual recombination nothing not a single allele is altered. Alleles in sexual combination do not blend but are sorted out intact. In Faith's scenario the increase from 4 alleles per gene (Adam and Eve) up to 59 ones per some genes in the extant human genome cannot be explained in Faith's scenario.
I tried to investigate the possibility of those added alleles to emerge from junk DNA. But that's only possible when the DNA sequence of the pseudogenes is altered. Again that would imply mutations but that again is excluded from Faith's equations.
Faith says that mutations are only neutral or deleterious causing the initial genetic diversity to shrink to its current 5%. Which is an incorrect figure but even when it differs, there is still junk DNA and the exact figure needs not to be discussed here to discuss the principle points. Her contention implies that most of the genes and or alleles form the initial genome mus have been rendered into pseudogenes.
First of all, LESS genetic diversity is not what we observe as the number of alleles increased in many genes as indicated above. What we actually need is a gain in genetic diversity. But Faith is proclaiming an - enormous - LOSS instead.
When such a major parts of the genes and alleles had been lost and turned into junk DNA, I was wondering what all the traits were those genes were coding for.
Any claim needs to be backed up by empirical evidence. I offered some solutions to provide such evidence, like the genome sequences of ancient hominids that are known (H. Denisova, H. Neanderthalis, H. sapiens, H. Heidelbergensis). Those provide some means to compare among each other as well as with the extant human genome. Such comparisons have been performed, by Pbo and others. Until Faith does not come up with empirical evidence, to me only this counts: a lack of empirical evidence does not need evidence.
The impossibility for genetic mutations to produce genetic change that brings more fitness, is directly demonstrated by me by Lenski's E. coli experiment. As I understood, more examples are provided by others here. In other words: genetic innovation is proved in the lab. That also does not need further evidence.
The snark was because you didn't answer the reasonable questions and produced some 101 genetic information not asked for.
And yet, you STILL didn't answer the main questions.
THAN, not "then." [THAN the current genomes of extant humans."] This is a HORRIBLE grammatical error people are making these days.
Why this snark? You are not my language teacher. BTW. it is "diversity" and not "diversithy". People are making a lot of awful spelling errors these days indeed. Moreover, English is not my native language so now and then I will make some mistake. Get used to it.
OK, yes, that is what I meant. I think the original genome could have had more genes per trait, meaning five or six where now there are three or four. Yes I believe there has been a great loss of genes and genetic diversithy in human AND ANIMAL genomes since Adam and Eve, but more since the huge bottleneck of the Flood that wiped out most living creatures, which I suggest is most likely the source of junk DNA. And more genes per trait is one way the earlier genome was probably fuller than it is now.
Very well then, so may I have the empirical evidence for it? Where in the scientific literature can we find evidence for the claim that the original genomes had more genetic diversity than today?
It's a reasoned guess that fits the biblical facts and also observations about both mutations and the loss of genetic diversity in evolutionary processes.
The bible does not comply to any criterion of scientific methodology and epistemology. You might as well had referred to the Rig Veda or any other random Bronze age mythology book. I asked you for empirical evidence. That is, observational evidence. We are on a scientific forum here.
Neither did I ask for your reasonable guesses but for observational, empirical evidence. Even reasonable guesses are just assertions.
So, that leaves only this part of your contention intact:
....and also observations about both mutations and the loss of genetic diversity in evolutionary processes.
Yes, that's exactly what I asked for. Now, where may we find those observations in the genetic literature?
And you will not find this answer by explaining how skin colour in extant humans (of whom we know the genome) is related to 4 genes.
We do not have the gene sequence of Adam and Eve. But we DO have the gene sequence of Homo Neanderthalis, Homo Denisovia and Homo Heidelbergensis. And the genome sequence of many specimens of archaic Homo sapiens as well.
Or we may retrieve information from DNA of old human remains and compare them to modern human DNA. Or just look for genetic evidence in the extant human genome by smart comparison.
It's all there.
Since you are bound to get the dates wrong there's really little point in arguing as you suggest above. And forget mitochondrial DNA if that's part of your argument.
Dates?????? WHERE did I mention dates??????
I neatly pointed you out to the all kinds of ancient genetic information we have in hominid specimens as possible sources for your evidence.
We are not discussing dating but your claim that genomes have lost genetic diversity. Stay tuned please.
And I didn't meant "do your homework" to denigrate you, I just asked "do your homework", which, as a non-native speaker of English, I thought it is also to be understood just as a saying "May I recommend that you cut to the chase and present your argument for this now" (which were YOUR words).
So, let's use your wording if that feels better: "May I recommend that you cut to the chase and present your evidence now"?
You've got all you're getting, my good reasoning. If you object then go argue with someone else.
I DO object your reasoning when I consider it to be incorrect, that's part of normal debating. In this case it makes no sense to start a new discussion line when the initial points are not resolved. It makes no sense to start to discuss causes of loss in genetic diversity when we do not even agree on WHETHER it occurred and HOW precisely.
AND I was not only asking for good reasoning but also for empirical evidence.
The question can't possibly require more than a brief answer. If you just want to drive me off this thread with your attitude, say so and I'll go or just ignore your posts.
Now let me clarify. The *topic* here was your claim that evolution theory requires a gain in genetic diversity and that subpopulations split into new species have less genetic diversity.
I answered this is a misinterpretation of evolution theory, which obliges me to shortly explain it.
Then you started to discuss the WHOLE of evolution theory in all its aspects. But the topic here is not the validity of evolution theory. The topic here is your claim. EVEN when you later manage to prove evolution theory to be incorrect on all those OTHER aspects, STILL you have to represent its contentions CORRECTLY in debate.
So it makes no sense to discuss the whole of evolution theory when ONLY your representation on genetic diversity is subject of this debate.
Otherwise the debate hives off in 100 directions and mostly this ends up in nothing.
That's all and that's why I wrote "I don't think I will go to explain the whole of biology and genetics to you. I don't think this suits the purpose of this forum here".
Which you utterly failed to demonstrate in your last post although you declared victory.
Well indeed it's the subject here! what's wrong to emphasize one's assessment?
Just to be clear, does "variance" mean "diversity?"
Well I try to avoid repetitive use of the same words in the same sentence or paragraph. So yes they are used as synonyms here.
Sorry, I just proved that it is.
Not that I know. I am still awaiting your response on the points I made:
1. there is no overall loss in genetic diversity, it's only parcelled out in two isolated genomes - the evolutionary requirement for initial gain in genetic diversity is met.
2. the fact that after the split into two genetically isolated genomes, both of those sub-genomes take away only a subset of the original, total genome DOES NOT detract ANYTHING of the simple fact that there was an initial gain in genetic diversity BEFORE the split, which is what evolution theory ACTUALLY requires.
3. evolution theory DOES NOT require each of the subset genomes AFTER the split to retain all the initial genetic diversity at the moment of the split. As a matter of fact, evolution theory predicts those two sub-genomes to be SPECIALISED due to different environmental conditions. And specialization implies the reinforcement of some traits, mostly at the expense of other ones. If you think otherwise, show me the papers by evolutionists who say so. So your rendition of evolution theory on this is flawed.
5. In other words, the evolutionary requirement for a gain in genetic diversity has been met. A POSSIBLE loss of genetic diversity in any of the sub-genomes AFTER the split is NOT an evolutionary requirement. MORE THAN THAT, it is the thing for evolution theory TO EXPLAIN ("speciation", which is a split into two genetically isolated sub-genomes). Hence, it is the CONSEQUENCE of the evolutionary processes as conceived. And you CAN'T take the consequence of a process as its own requirement.
The OBJECT of evolution theory is to explain speciation. When speciation occurs, there MUST be an initial gain in genetic diversity. >>>This requirement has been met<<<. There also MIGHT be a SUBSEQUENT loss in genetic diversity in any of the diverted sub-genomes AFTER THE SPLIT but that's a CONSEQUENCE of and the THING TO BE EXPLAINED by evolution theory.
I hope you acknowledge that you cannot take THE THING TO BE EXPLAINED as a REQUIREMENT for a scientific theory. That would be circular reasoning.
6. MOREOVER, I EVEN hardly doubt any of the resulting sub-genomes after the split ACTUALLY to have smaller genetic diversity than the original overall genome before the split, as I tried to explain in the elaborated example in my post #163.
None of these points but #1. were addressed by you.
... would we really say that O. aries has less diversity than O. orientalis?
Which is a misrepresentation of my argument again.
I usually start back at the Flood to point out that there had to be enormous genetic diversity in the few representatives of each species on the ark to explain how such a great variety of subspecies of each representative emerged since then.
The explanation for the many different kinds of domestic sheep is just that: there was enough genetic diversity in the original subpopulation of domestic sheep to allow the development of all the different breeds.
Nevertheless none of those breeds or subspecies could have developed unless it developed in reproductive isolation from the rest of the sheep, and developed out of the new gene frequencies, which usually involves a loss of some alleles, or the loss of genetic diversity in its collective genome. Not always, depends mostly on how many individuals form the new population.
Because, again, my argument is that you only get new breeds or phenotypes by losing the genetic material for other breeds and phenotypes. I'd be SO happy if you actually GOT the argument and had a really GOOD objection to it instead of these typical straw man objections.
Even now in any of the separate breeds of domestic sheep there may still be quite a bit of genetic diversity, enough for further population splits developing their own new phenotypes. The process I'm trying to keep up front is a TREND, a population doesn't usually reach absolute genetic depletion from any given diversification, it depends on how much genetic diversity it started out with, but if the trend continues through many more population splits it could reach that point of complete genetic depletion.
Faith writes: The only thing I suggest is that genes died as a result of all those people and animals dying in the Flood, whose traits were lost to the species and therefore the alleles for those traits, so the genes just died and remain in the genome as corpses.
Hello RAZD, I'm skipping over your long post again but just temporarily. My eyes are still in bad shape after three days and I may yet have to take more time off. My own fault I'm sure, pushed the envelope too far as they say. It's hard to read through sunglasses but at least the pain is gone for now. Sorry you've been sick. Do you do vegetable juices?
can I say "Baaa humbug" ??? One of the reasons that (I think) there is less speciation in domestic breeds versus wild variants is that breeders frequently cross-breed to (a) cure genetic diseases and (b) generate new variants, so they end up breeding for continued ability to interbreed between varieties.
Yes, but this is a fairly new trend, not sure if it holds up for the earlier methods.
Now if Faith's hypothesis were correct, it seems to me that a corollary would be that hybridizing between variations should be able to recover (or tend to recover) the original base genetics, ie you should be able to combine the genomes of O. aries to get O. orientalis ... and do it without losing traits ...
I think that would depend on how far the processes of evolution have gone, because after a time of inbreeding of a new subpopulation its genome would have changed, developing its own gene frequencies, losing alleles that don't get passed on, increasing others and so on, so that even if hybridization is still possible it probably won't recover the original genetic situation exactly. But quite a bit should be recovered nevertheless. If not, it will develop a new breed anyway.
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