First of all, the difference between an otter and a dog is not only one protein substituion.
Damn straight it isn't. Its a a big leap from that. I'm replying to this since it is response to my demonstration earlier
Message 156 I did not say 'the difference between an otter and a dog is only one protein substituion' what I said was in response to your challenge in
Message 141:
I would like to see evidence that it's possible to breed an otter (or any other non-canine type) from a dog
And I showed you how it was possible that a dog can become more otterlike. I showed how it was
possible I then asked you present evidence that demonstrated that it is impossible. A good start would be to find the sequence of mutations that would be required that were impossible to achieve.
We know that ancestors can be rebred into existence (on a morphological side), so I guess the best way to breed an otter from a dog would be to start with a wolf, and breed that backwards to something morphologically like
Tomarctus, and breed that morphologically back to
Cynodictus. (images can be found on
this page)
We are already getting quite close to an otterish shape...we just go back and back, and then start going forward towards the otter. It probably won't look exactly like an otter, unless we were being very strict in our selection, had millions of breeding animals and a lot of time on our hands (a small army of breeding experts will probably be needed).
I've shown you how it might be possible, can you show it is impossible?