Evolution Requires Reduction in Genetic Diversity

Two populations. One adapted for cold, one adapted for warm. The researchers found a gene involved in cold tolerance and sequenced it. The population in the warm climate had an allele that produced a non-functional protein and the plant was not cold tolerant. Here is a partial sequence showing the region of the deletion. Yea, so you think a gene that produces a truncated, non-functional protein was part of the original creation? And it is just now being expressed by a change in allele frequency? Plus there is not a population split involved in this case - the species' range is continuous between Italy and Sweden.The specifics of how and why are really not addressed by these papers, but the Swedish allele is probably ancestral and the ancestral range was not so far south. The mutation allowed the population to expand its range further south.One thing I didn't address in my previous post (because I thought it might be too much detail) is that there are adaptive tradoffs involved with cold resistance. So if the plant has the cold resistant allele, it doesn't do well in a climate where it doesn't need it. Read the papers that present the data and make your own judgement.HBD

Where did the non-functional allele come from in the first place? Here is the sequence alignment. HBD

Percy already addressed this, but yea, I didn't just declare it I demonstrated it. I could give you dozens of examples like that; genetic diversity is very, well... diverse.Whats more... you failed to respond to my direct question, again! So what is it? How would you rate genetic diversity in this case?Anyone else have an idea?HBD

Sorry to be a pain but since I often guess wrong about your posts, would you just say briefly why you are posting this information and what you think it proves in relation to the topic?Thanks.

I don't get why you want me to "rate genetic diversity"

HBDEdited by herebedragons, : No reason given.

To which you respond HBD

I wrote this a few posts back ... doesn't get much simpler than this.

So, since you haven't replied I think we can assume that I was correct. That your claim that

quote:

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Everything I've seen about the cheetah is that it was formed by a bottleneck, a purely random and not health-promoting event.

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is based on nothing but your own wishful thinking. Not one source, not one piece of evidence, not one argument beyond your own assumptions.But your whole argument is based on the idea of drift producing adaptive change - and idea rightly rejected by biologists because it relies too heavily on chance. A desperate and irrational need to deny any significant role for natural selection in evolution is not a good reason for overturning that judgement. And anyone who really cared about the truth would agree.

Hi Faith,Since it might not have been obvious, let me explain that the quotes HBD provided in his Message 876 were his attempt to answer your question about why he posted the information and how it was relevant to the topic. The thread history revealed in the quotes shows that he posted the information about that specific example in response to your assertion that his claims were "totally hypothetical." His example was one of adaptation through mutation, and it is relevant because it is evidence against two of your contentions:

• Mutations do not produce significant traits.
• Adaptation through selection is rare.

I didn't originally reply to this because JonF and HBD both responded, but you haven't replied to them. HBD explained in Message 823 that in the Italian population of Arabidopsis thaliana that its CBF-2 gene contained a "deletion of 13 nucleotides which resulted in a stop codon and a truncated protein." This is the kind of allelic difference that simple mutations produce.I assume you prefer to believe that in the absence of observations of the original mutation actually happening that the genetic difference between the two Arabidopsis thaliana population was there from the beginning, but we know that the copying of genetic material that occurs during reproduction is not perfect and that mutations are an inevitable byproduct of all reproductive events. You've avoided all arguments that mutations must have happened, for instance, the argument that the human genome (and indeed probably the genomes all species everywhere) contains far more diversity than could have originated from Noah's small family, unless mutations occurred (and for a much longer period than the 4500 years since the flood).You cannot continue insisting that something hasn't been proved simply because you refuse to discuss it, so I'm ruling that you have to address the issue of the origin of existing diversity from a small family group for humans and from 1 or 7 pairs for the rest of life. Until you do then I'm ruling that mutations explain genetic differences and can have significant phenotypic effects.Also, you've been ignoring my requests for clarification, so to help discussion move ahead, and until you actually do respond with clarifications, participants should assume this about your postion:

• Speciation as defined by the science of biology is impossible.

There were other points on which I was seeking clarification, but one at a time.

Yes as far as the event goes, no to the ToE interpretation of it:
Speciation is a term given to an event that does in fact occur and is in fact characterized by inability to interbreed. My argument is that the new species thus formed can't be the basis for further evolution because it lacks sufficient genetic diversity. Spreading through the population is the same thing as forming a new subspecies by a population split: spreading requires the loss of competing alleles or loss of genetic diversity just as I keep saying all the "subtractive" or "selection" processes do.I doubt that mutations contribute much in the way of functioning alleles, but IF THEY DO, which is the concession I always try to make here, then they are NOT "any less able to cause significant phenotypic change than new allele combinations of existing alleles" -- the effect should be the same. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well, this is sure to receive a lot of comment. Let me rephrase so you can confirm the correct interpretation:

• A new species can form from an existing species, but only once, and once that speciation event occurs there can be no further speciation events for either the new species or the original species.

This needs to be boiled down into something concise, so again let me rephrase so you can confirm the correct interpretation:

• Mutations are unlikely to contribute functional genetic material.
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• But any functional genetic material contributed by mutations can have the same degree of phenotypic impact as new allele combinations.

Please confirm or correct the italicized bullet points.

And your reason why new diversity cannot be added to the newly formed species is what exactly?Tell us in quantitative or qualitative terms how much diversity a population must have and then how much must be lost via speciation so that we can see that the final diversity is insufficient. And then explain why new mutations cannot overcome the problem. Provide arguments/evidence and not just assertions.Because without that, what you are calling argument is mere assertion and thus cannot be said to demonstrate anything other than your belief.And then perhaps this thread can given a mercy killing. I'll be using this admission to check your work.

I don't see a claim from Faith about the original species.