Evolution Requires Reduction in Genetic Diversity

More to the point alleles being added mean mutation that increased genetic diversity.Enjoy

You continue to say this even though you haven't addressed the consilience of evidence in Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1. When I bring up this evidence in other threads you say you can't explain it. And this has been done, as I noted in Message 413: Message 420This is an ongoing process in the greenish warblers, genetic isolation has not occurred at this point and each population still interbreeds with the neighboring population in the hybrid zones. We do not see one population with more alleles than the others.We do not see the pattern of genetic loss that your hypothesis claims.Enjoy.

I'm afraid I must have done some real damage to my eyes because they aren't recovering as they usually do from overuse. They're better but I should take lots of breaks from the internet. But it's not. You all say that and you're wrong. You and Dr. A both point to the number of different breeds {phenotypes} that came out of the domestic sheep O.aries as your evidence for an increase in genetic diversity and this is wrong wrong wrong as I've explained many times. This is *my* argument, I should know when somebody gets it or not. I've said over and over this is about HOW you get so many breeds, and that's by LOSING genetic diversity as each evolves its new traits. All the number of breeds tells you is how much diversity was in the original O.aries population, and apparently it had quite high genetic diversity for so many breeds to come from it. But it would have been already IN O. aries, not ADDED when O.aries split from O.orientalis, which you apparently think, though you say nothing about how it would be possible for a very large increase in genetic diversity to occur. Mutations are really the only option and mutations do not occur at such a rate, not to mention that it is well known that most of them add nothing of use anyway.The reality is that O. aries would have had less genetic diversity than the original population it shared with O. orientalis before O.Aries formed its own breed or subpopulation. But even with its remaining great genetic diversity each breed that then formed out of O. aries' high diversity also had to lose diversity as it developed its own new collection of traits, because this is what happens with such splits. It's brought about by the new gene frequencies that usually include the loss of some alleles because of the smaller number of individuals that were isolated in order to produce the new breed.I'm sorry I have to keep repeating myself but you are NOT getting it, and Dr. A is NOT getting it. But it does. The fact that you don't see how this happens shows you continue not to get it. I've said my argument is counterintuitive and it is.You can't get a breed or new subspecies by adding genetic diversity but even if you could, where is your increase in diversity going to come from? As I say above mutation is the only possible source and it's completely insufficient for the job, too slow and with too many negative results.But you are saying something like: in order to get a collie from a pack of wild dogs you have to add genetic diversity. This is not how it works. Breeders normally subtract to get their breeds. A pack of dogs should normally have lots of genetic diversity, at least more than any given breed that could be developed out of it. To get breeds out of it you subtract all the genetic material that does not support the traits of the breed you are developing. This is actual fact, the reality of how breeding works.Today they add some genetic diversity back into their breeds by mixing them with other dogs because of the very fact that breeds ARE created by eliminating genetic diversity which has led to genetic diseases, so they compromise the pure traits of their breed for the sake of its health by adding some genetic diversity back into it: by doing this they lose some of the desired traits by adding in genetic diversity, just as the desired traits were originally gained by losing genetic diversity. It's counterintuitive but it's fact. No, I am speaking of what it takes to form a breed from an original larger population. I'm not comparing the breeds with each other, I'm comparing each with the original population from which they formed from a smaller pool of gene frequencies. Each new breed formed by the same means: by losing genetic diversity. The long-hared breed lost the genetic means for short hair; the shorthaired breeds lost the genetic means for long hair; etc. etc. etc. All in relation to the ORIGINAL gene pool, not each other. The new gene frequencies for each new breed are in relation to the original gene frequencies of the population they came from. Could have been the original O. aries or could have been one of the breeds that came from it, but the new breed's gene pool develops from its "mother" population with no reference whatever to the other breeds that are similarly developed. But that's a great error. THE most fundamental error of confusing phenotypic with genetic diversity which is the problem here over and over again. All those different phenotypes can only develop by losing genetic diversity from that of the original "mother" population.My comparison IS between the original gene pool and the breeds formed from it at each level. After O. aries split from O. orientalis both populations might have had decreased genetic diversity from the original, depending on the numbers of individuals in each group, and O.orientalis might also have been able to continue to produce a great variety of subspecies just as O. aries did, and if it didn't that might simply have been because natural population splits didn't occur and it would have taken human intervention to bring them about as it did with O. aries. Again, not true. This is extraordinarily muddled. Evolution is indeed about how ancestral species produce descendant subspecies, breeds or races, which is why I focus on the processes that bring this about. It is a sort of article of faith that this requires an increase in genetic diversity, but when you think through what is actually happening as new subspecies form you have to realize that it requires the loss of genetic diversity in each case, just as the development of domestic breeds does. You are just repeating the party line, which is nothing but an assumption that in reality doesn't occur; what occurs in reality is the loss of genetic diversity I keep harping on. This sounds right: you *ASSUME* some additional genetic material "between" ancestor and descendants, which comes from where? Can't come from the normal production of mutations as discussed above, so are you conjuring it out of thin air?So I guess you are saying you have a completely new and different collection of genetic possibilities, that is, a new genetic diversity, that somehow miraculously got itself added to the gene pool of the descendant populations? That is, not the same genetic diversity that was in the original population getting distributed among the various breeds as I'm saying.First, there's no possible way it could happen, as discussed above, and second, it isn't needed. An ancestral species with high genetic diversity, which was obviously the case with O. orientalis, can bear many population splits forming new subspecies with their attendant loss of diversity. Even many breeds developing from those breeds may be possible if the original genetic diversity was quite high.You haven't even tried to show how it's possible for this increase in genetic diversity to occur that you believe must occur for new subspecies to form, you do just assert it, which really is nothing more than reciting the evolution party line. You came on promising to show us something new but all you've done so far is repeat the basic error of confusing phenotypic with genetic diversity, asserting that the apparent increase in phenotypic diversity proves an increase in genetic diversity which it does not.Perhaps you'll have more luck when you try to prove whatever it is you want to prove about the genetic diversity of the various "hominids" you've mentioned.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I want to get back to your post eventually, RAZD, but there's a lot in this thread to deal with and my eyes don't last very long right now.As for mutation as the source of new alleles, are you really including all those KNOWN mutations that do nothing whatever for the good of the organism, are either disease sources or functionally redundant or have no function at all, while the known "beneficial" mutations are so few and far between a species is more likely to go extinct waiting around for even one to come rescue it from a genetically depleted condition?I've proposed that the genes that have many alleles get them by some form of mutation, but the accidents in replication that are today the source of all these useless mutations could hardly be the source of anything useful to the organism. But also unless somebody has given the information above and I've missed it, some of these additional allleles may be just the usual mutational uselessness anyway. If my eyes hold out I'll read upthread some.

Just had to repeat this. This alone shows you haven't a clue to my argument or you'd at least get how losing genetic material causes more phenotypic variation. Relying on imagination just shows you aren't thinking it through.

But my argument goes against the very assumptions that lead you to say that, which is why DNA evidence is required. Ability to interbreed is an artificial category invented for the ToE. In reality this inability occurs WITHIN a species and is no marker of forming a new species at all, especially since if you did test the DNA they should show a very evident loss of genetic diversity from previous populations, most likely in the form of more fixed loci.Also, you get reduced genetic diversity even without so-called "speciation" which is a misnomer anyway as I just said. The point of DNA analysis would be to look for evidence of this reduction from population to population, probably mostly concentrating on the formation of fixed loci for the most characteristic traits of a population, or if possible, the reduction in number of alleles for those traits from the previous population from which it developed. Hybrid zones may make the investigation difficult but those are usually identifiable. The only marker I have in mind is the number of fixed loci from population to population, showing that a population has been reduced to one allele for a given trait. This should be possible to identify, shouldn't it? A general reduction in alleles for the characteristic traits could also be shown, couldn't it? But of course that couldn't prove an argument that disagrees with the assumptions of the ToE.However, I'd expect the best evidence to come from species that are reproductively isolated and NOT interbreeding with others. Only if you aren't interested in trying to find out if my argument is correct but prefer to hold on to your evolutionist assumptions.

Er, no. It's a line of demarcation that exists in nature. It's the one classification that isn't artificial, arbitrary, or subjective. Now, do you really wish to claim that two populations that can't interbreed are the same species? If so, what's to stop us from saying that you're the same species as a chimpanzee?

It's not that it's artificial in the sense that it doesn't exist, it's artificial in the sense that it is not a new species. It could be a new subspecies but that doesn't require inability to interbreed.Yes I do want to claim that two populations that can't interbreed are the same species. Such as O. orientalis and O. aries for instance, both of the Species Sheep. The idea is supposed to suggest a new platform for evolution, but the usual cause of the inability to interbreed, if the cause is genetic rather than preferential, is loss of genetic diversity which creates a genetic mismatch with the former population, and is very far from a platform for further evolution. "Speciation" implies a stepping stone in evoljution to new Species and people actually believe it although it is genetically impossible.Different Species can't interbreed either, it's just that inability to interbreed isn't the definition of a new species.

Instead of changing the English language so that "speciation is impossible" is what you want to say, why not change what you're saying until it's what you would say if you spoke English like everyone else?

I'm going to have to do that but I'll also not answer other posts while I'm working on yours so maybe I can get through it all.One thing I know after skimming through this and spending some time on your Pelycodus example is that I am really not getting what the chart shows. The whiteness of the chart hurts my eyes so I don't want to spend more time on it but I spent enough to know I'm not getting what I'm supposed to get out of it. I need a clearer description of what the lines represent for one thing. Anything you can do to make it clearer would help. I probably won't get to it for a while anyway.So back to the beginning: Sure, though I don't think this is pertinent to our discussion here since despite the different purpose the methods are the same. I know you believe this but nothing has yet really challenged the point I keep trying to make. First of all I have never heard of the parents of twins having this sort of experience before this. And it doesn't fit with what is said about mutations not making a noticeable difference for many generations, besides all the negatives that far outnumber anything positive that they ever produce. Mutations occur, yes, but not useful mutations except very very rarely, and not even mutations that actually code for something recognizable either. This is what I've gleaned from various discussions of mutations, not something I made up. Although this quote is talking about "genetic data" the way it's written sounds like this isn't from studying the DNA but inferences made from the differences in the phenotypes. I'm just noting this in passing, however, because the conclusion drawn is probably true enough and it probably doesn't impinge on the point I keep trying to make anyway. So they started in the south and then subpopulations formed on both the east and west sides of the "ring," which basically shows that this isn't a typical ring species, but more like two separate rings that went halfway around the ring on both sides and then met at the top of the ring.OK. Not necessarily. It depends on how many individuals split off to form the two subpopulations. Even one subpopulation could start from a large enough number to change the gene frequencies even in the original "mother" population, but two subpopulations could increase that number of emigrating individuals enough to make it certain the original population was reduced in numbers enough to change its gene frequencies. Since there's no way to know the actual history this is just a likely guess, but the principle is accurate: the original population could have changed genetically even as much as the migrating subpopulations.ABE: also, I have to ask HOW "they would KNOW that one population was the source of the others" which you answer: "as it would still have ALL the alleles of ALL the varietals." But this wiouldn't be apparent by just looking at the phenotype; you'd have to analyze the DNA and so far you've said nothing about that as the method used, and it sounds like the alleles are being inferred from the phenotypic traits. The phenotype isn't going to tell you that, just as looking at O. orientalis can't tell you anything about the great genetic diversity it must possess for O. aries and all its subsequent breeds to form from it. In fact the only reliable way to tell anything about a population's genetic diversity would be DNA analysis. According to my view of the phenotypic presentation, it might be more likely that later populations in a series would show more dramatic or specialized traits from the original due to the more reduced genetic diversity, while the ancestral population would likely have a more "average" look, but I'm not sure this guess holds up, i'ts just a possibility./ABE Is this "genetic evidence" from DNA analysis or again an inference from the phenotypic differences? I don't think you can know how many alleles each population has from looking at the phenotypes. In any case as I just said there is no reason to expect that the original population would retain all the original genetic material if the numbers that migrated way from it were great enough to change its gene frequencies along with the frequencies of the subpopulations. Yes, well, continued gene flow can make it more difficult to see the necessity of loss of alleles in developing new phenotypes, which is why I like to stick to the situation where no gene flow continues and no hybrid zones are formed. There may not be such a perfect situation in ring species in reality but there should be enough isolation in the ring to make the point. But this is why I'd like to set up a lab to demonstrate the point, where you can prevent gene flow between populations and prevent hybrid zones as well. That way all you have is separate populations that breed only among themselves. This fact makes it hard to see the point I'm making but it doesn't challenge the point because the point rests on reproductive isolation and explicitly excludes any gene flow. This depends on how long the separated populations have inbred among themselves in reproductive isolation before the overlap zone forms. It's important to keep in mind that populations with different gene frequencies are going to develop those different gene frequencies in a way that can radically alter the genetic fit between the two. If a hybrid zone develops it will be between a population that, say, originally had more alleles for one kind of plumage while the other had none of those, at least not expressed, but alleles for a different kind of plumage. When a hybrid zone forms we have a genetic situation that combines characteristics in a way that was impossible in each population separately, and the combination of the two different kinds of plumage would very likely produce something entirely different. This isn't a mere combination of separated alleles but a combination of traits based on new genetic combinations that developed from separate gene frequencies, increasing some, decreasing others. But it's not at all a problem for my argument, it's just a different and more complicated genetic picture to sort out. It remains true that if a subpopulation develops IN REPRODUCTIVE ISOLATION, meaning without continued gene flow or resumed gene flow in hybridization then alleles will of necessity be lost in developing its new traits. I do keep emphasizing reproductive isolation, and here you are taking that condition away so you aren't answering my argument at all. But again, RAZD, you are introducing a condition I've specifically eliminated from my argument for the sake of clarity. It can't challenge my basic argument, all it does is add complicating factors that interfere with demonstrating it neatly and cleanly. yes, and I did so above already. 1) The original population lost enough of its own alleles with the loss of large enough numbers of individuals to change its own gene frequencies. AND 2) hybridization doesn't just restore alleles as they originally existed in the original population because they've undergone a complete makeover as each separate population developed new traits from its new gene frequencies which means forming completely new combinations that can't just uncombine back to the original population's combinations. Well the problems you've brought up aren't based on my hypothesis but on your inclusion of gene flow which my hypothesis carefully leaves out, and on your failure to grasp that hybridization isn't a simple recovery of the original population's genome if that population also had new gene frequencies as a result of the migration, and if there was any time to generate new allelic combinations from the new gene frequencies by inbreeding in the separate populations before gene flow was reestablished --or actually even if gene flow remained limited and the genetic recombinations occurred mainly in the separated populations anyway.Believe me I've thought through an enormous variety of possibiltiies in working out this hypothesis of mine.===============Pelycodus is up next. Can you make that chart easier to understand? Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : add ABE paragraphEdited by Faith, : No reason given.

The modern idea of ring species is that they don't exist. In fact some people said that many years ago when I was learning about evolution but now there's genetic evidence that shows that they all seem to have had a geographic isolation event at some or at several points in their evolution. SeeThere are no ring species – Why Evolution Is TrueIt's still proof of evolution, just not the neat story we'd like it to be. Shame, I was very fond of the gull ring.

For purpose of feedback I shall shortly represent your position as I conceive it:

• no genetic innovation is possible but genetic deterioration is happening all the time instead, that's why we see junk DNA today - all old rubble from old worn and torn genes
• when we see phenotype diversification occurring, this is therefore not caused by genetic innovations but by activating genetic diversity that's still left in the genomes by selective processes
• as no genetic innovation is possible, every split into different breeds or subspecies causes genetic depletion among those, every single breed or subspecies only taking away a subset of the original genome.

Where is the increase in diversity coming from?
Explained numerous times by now and not addressed by you.
See the E. coli experiment which plainly demonstrates how:

• mutations ARE bringing genetic diversity, completely unravelled by Lenski how on the molecular and gene level
• it took about 31,000 generations and some 19 years to accomplish that. Not very slow I think
• negative results do not matter. they are weeded out by natural selection.

Yes we can get a breed or new subspecies by adding genetic diversity. Because such genetic change due to mutations (plus natural selection) as observed in Lenski's experiment, will cumulate when further environmental changes occur. When those changes accumulate beyond the species' boundaries, that is, when reproductive and genetic isolation occurs, speciation takes place.And that's what we exactly observe in the fossil record.
Now, I know you have problems with radiometric dating, so let's only take the fossil record as it pops up as it is. Even then you observe the distinct geological formations and strata to differ enormously in the particular fossil record they contain. Sheer logic says that lower strata found beneath those ones more aloft are older.In other words, the geological formations show that life changed throughout the course of the natural history of life. Moreover, this change does not attest any loss in complexity.For instance, in the Early Cambrian the following life forms were completely absent:
- fish
- amphibians
- reptiles
- dinosaurs
- mammals
- birds
- all land plants.See the listing of the subsequent, geological strata of the Grand Canyon as depicted on the website of the Old Earth Ministries: Creation Science Rebuttals, Stratigraphy and the Young Earth Global Flood Model, Part 1. There you see the Early Cambrian is situated below a pile of ~880 metres of strata.There is no way you can explain the forming of completely new animal and plant groups without genetic innovation. We are talking here about taxonomic phyla, clades, classes and the like, not about breeds. And note again, I didn't need any dating technique. I only draw the only logical conclusion from layered superposition of geological strata: a sedimentary rock layer in a tectonically undisturbed sequence is younger than the one beneath it and older than the one above it.In the lowest strata of the Grand Canyon, the ones below the Early Cambrian, only contain trace fossils and stromatolites. That is, only unicellular life.In other words, not only the geological strata are stratified, but the fossil record itself as well. This point is well understood by me and others here - as far as I can see - and addressed accordingly. I am still awaiting your answers on:

• We see a gain in the number of alleles per gene by all means maximal possible in Adam & Eve or Noah's crew, compared with the number per gene we observe in extant human genomes today
• we do not see a loss in genetic diversity of the original ancestral genome but it being distributed among the breeds
• genetic innovation has experimentally demonstrated.

Yes there is a way it can happen, see the Lenski experiment example.Also, I MUST happen because otherwise we can't explain the vast transitions in life's history as observed in the fossil record. We NEED it to explain the observed stratigraphy of the fossil record.The empirical evidence for such genetic innovation as provided, the Lenski experiment, is YET to be addressed by you.The higher genetic diversity in ancestral genomes is YET to be backed by you through observational, empirical evidence.The supposed loss in genetic diversity in species' genomes is YET to be backed by you through observational, empirical evidence. There are examples of ancient genomes of H. Neanderthalis, H. Heidelbergensis, H. Denisova and archaic H. sapiens as well, all sequenced by now, which could provide the material needed for that.

It is still a neat story in its latest rendition.
Only the mechanism - previously only a continuous gene flow scenario but now it seems also geographical isolation instances involved - is shown to be different than previously thought. But both mechanisms are evolutionary and therefore it is still a very strong evidence for evolution. Even the name "ring species" satisfies still.

What I think is most wrong with Jerry Cpyne's classical evolutionism is his supposition that the genetic changes from population to population are the result of adaptations to the environment.Of course I particularly like ring species because they make my anti-evolution argument: you are getting a series of subspecies by the reduction of genetic diversity from subpopulation to subpopulation rather than "speciation" at any point as evolution defines it. The problem with ring species for either demonstration is the continued gene flow between the populations wherever that exists. I'm not sure it exists between ALL the populations in every ring species though, but that there can be complete geographic isolation in some cases. Even though it is messy because of the gene flow, I think these series of populations still serve the point I'm trying to make but it would take DNA analysis to find out.Evolutionists assume way too much about the formation of these subpopulations, such as that the genetic changes are due to environmental pressures. This completely ignores and glosses over the purely genetic causes of the genetic / phenotypic changes, meaning the very dramatic effects that occur simply as a result of the new gene frequencies brought about by the splitting off of some individuals to form the new population. Contrary to Darwin's thinking, the finches he studied most likelyl got their variety of beaks this way, and it's the beaks that do the adapting by finding the food best suited to their abilities, rather than the other way around. The beaks come first, the environment is the passive part of the relationship rather than the driving factor of the changes in the creature's traits as the ToE says. Most environments already have a choice of insects, seeds, berries and other hard and soft forms of food, and there's no reason to suppose much change in the environmental offerings from location to location. Not that that form of selection doesn't ever occur, but the ToE makes way too much of it. Darwin's Galapagos tortoise certainly didn't change its appearance for any adaptive reason brought about by natural selection of its traits; it simply got geographically isolated with a new set of gene frequencies from the population on the mainland it descended from.Simple shuffling of genes due to new gene frequencies is the real cause of the genetic changes, in other words the migration itself of individuals from population to population does the work of microevolution..So that wherever you can identify a subpopulation formed from a smaller number of individuals than the one it formed from you ought to be able to identify the reduction in genetic diversity I'm talking about, which I would guess would show up most clearly in the increase in fixed loci for the most characteristic traits of the subpopulation as compared to its "mother" population. Since even the original or mother population can have changed gene frequencies due to the loss of individuals to migration, the changes might not be easy to ascertain with any certainty. Which is why creating a ring species in the laboratory without gene flow or hybrid zones would make the point best. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I didn't stick to my plan of not answering other posts but I really don't know what the Pelycodus chart is about. This is part of your discussion of the chart about Pelycodus. I get that going up the chart is going from older to newer specimens but I need more of an explanation of the whole chart. The names and numbers on the left margin refer to what? locations of some fossils I assume, and their ages or numbers or what? And what do the numbers along the bottom indicate: millions of years?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.