A New Run at the End of Evolution by Genetic Processes Argument

Yes, that might be a good way to proceed. And if this were not at least the fifth time around for the exact same discussion with the exact same nonsense arguments and made up genetics, you would see posters with quite a bit more patience. Faith claims that only she knows how genetics really works. She explains her lack of evidence for her positions as the result of real scientists being blinded by their love for the theory of evolution. If you disagree with Faith, you are just going to be told that you don't understand her position.There are already threads open with large amounts of discussion on this topic. Why in the world we needed yet another one instead of just having Faith pick up from one of the threads where Faith has been confronted with the details, evidence, and even examples needs to be explained. All starting from scratch does is allow lying about previous discussions.

In my view, at least the first half of this sentence could use some explaining. 'Breeds' are so poorly defined that some 'breeds' might well be formed simply by separating out some recessive variations from some parent species. At least that seems to be the case for me.The second half of the statement I have no problem with.ABE:Perhaps your point is that the source of essentially all alleles we are ever likely to investigate are mutations.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

This is just my personal impression, but is it even reasonable to cite the effects of a dog breeding program as evidence of the effect of isolation separately from selection? Because surely dog breeders don't just isolate dogs when creating a breed. They select, then isolate, and then select again among the offspring. How is it even possible to look at the result and claim that the result is evidence strictly of isolation and inbreeding?Not sure that this is a new point, but new or old, it certainly casts a huge amount of doubt on this process as evidence for Faith's proposal.Beyond that, the distinction of the process from natural selection pretty much dooms the argument anyway.

Dog breeding does not lead to speciation. Every dog on earth is of a single species and a single subspecies, namely Canis lupus familiaris.So whatever happens during dog breeding, even if it is a reduction of diversity, there is no evidence whatsoever that it leads to the inability of the produced animals to interbreed, and thus speciation. The only thing that keeps male dogs way from female dogs are size differences and human beings throwing (figuratively) buckets of cold water on a dog orgy. Take away the humans, and what would soon result is a bunch of mutts. Heck, many dog breeds could not survive a single generation of competition in the wild.Breeding incompatibilities result from an acquired diversity from the parent species. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

The cause and effect statement above cannot be given a free pass.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I agree. That's really part of the basis for the question. It appears that Faith's definition of species is a bunch of homogeneous critters. She concludes that a mutation simply prevents the process of becoming homogeneous and thus cannot be considered in a process of speciation.But if speciation can be said, as a whole, to require a loss of diversity in all cases, then there ought to be some process or set of processes, and an end result upon which such an accusation can be attached. So I think the question of what is meant by speciation is a valid one even if species itself is not. Clearly dog breeding does not lead to speciation by any reasonable definition that would implicate evolution and/or common descent.Dog breeders want some homogenity, but they are wary of doing too much inbreeding and in some cases they deliberately seek out the incorporation of diversity. I don't believe Faith's posts acknowledge any such thing. So at least on that basis her description of dog breeding is wrong.And as countless people have mentioned, natural selection acts only on traits that enhance survival to breed/rear the next generation and thus the expected result is something completely different man enforced selections, where even a bad arrangements of spots is reason even to neuter an animal and remove it from the gene pool. Real speciation is not modeled in ways that are exhibited by dog breeding.And I'd also point out that the idea that races have any real basis such that different races ought to be considered sub species is not completely without any scientific merit. Beyond that, those groups are only superficially homogeneous anyway.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Just thought this comment was worth repeating.

quote:

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When the scientists genetically inhibited lower jaw development in both fetal mice and chickens, the mice formed neither eardrums nor ear canals. In contrast, the birds grew two upper jaws, from which two sets of eardrums and ear canals sprouted. The results, published in Nature Communications, confirm that the middle ear grows out of the lower jaw in mammals but emerges from the upper jaw in birds

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Most likely, this stuff is just over my head, but I don't understand why this experiment conclusive decides the issue. I'd appreciate any explanation/insight you or one of the life science experts might have.

One of the serious errors you make when you analogize from breeds to species is exemplified by this statement. Just how "homogeneous" is the grouping 'kitty cat'? What variation must we disallow before we kick an animal out of the 'kitty kat' grouping? What variations can subspecies of humans have before we decide that they are not human anymore? If indeed races are subspecies, if a mutation of a black person produced a narrow nose or light skin, is the result no longer Negroid? Other than superficially using the features by which we differentiate races, are the races homogeneous? I've heard that all black people look alike, but isn't that just the way things look to some non discerning white folks?There are uncountable differences between a lion and a domestic cat. The likelihood that any random mutation or variation added to a cat might diminish the difference must be incredibly small given all the possible traits that might be varied. The view of species as necessarily homogeneous is totally flawed. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

off topic blather removedEdited by NoNukes, : No reason given.