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Author Topic:   "Best" evidence for evolution.
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 451 of 830 (870713)
01-24-2020 6:46 AM
Reply to: Message 448 by dwise1
01-24-2020 3:07 AM


Evolution decreases genetic diversity which eventually brings evolution to an end
All you are doing is repeating the status quo point of view, claiming I'm ignorant of it but I'm not. I have a different way of looking at all that, I dispute a lot of that. I'm presenting an entirely different system. Mutations do not apply to this part of the discussion anyway which is about variation within species. Mutations are an issue only when I'm talking about how it could be possible at all for one species to evolve into an entirely different species, such as reptile to mammal or ape to human. Otherwiswe mutations are not relevant to this part of the discussion.
I watched an animation of WEASEL and I know how it works and it's obvious it does not take reduction of genetic diversity into account. And as you say it doesn't deal with genetics at all, but that is why it gives a false idea of how evolution works. None of this is surprising since the ToE itself doesn't take reduction of genetic diversity into account but just goes on blithely assuming you can get from one species to another the same way you get new variations within a species. I'm disputing all that.
Sorry, the WEASEL program misrepresents the reality of what happens when a species is evolving, meaning producing new variations.
I will have to come back to ponder your comments on cumulative selection since I'm not sure what you mean. But what I'd say in general is that selection reduces genetic diversity and that is obviously not taken into account in your MONKEY model or the WEASEL model, or indeed in any discussion whatever of how evolution works.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 448 by dwise1, posted 01-24-2020 3:07 AM dwise1 has not replied

  
frako
Member (Idle past 305 days)
Posts: 2932
From: slovenija
Joined: 09-04-2010


(1)
Message 452 of 830 (870714)
01-24-2020 7:27 AM
Reply to: Message 450 by Faith
01-24-2020 6:32 AM


Re: what is "something brand new" if a new specie isn't enough?
Why not just include all fungi as a species, all animals as a species, all plants as a species. it should make it easier for you to defend your silly ideas about evolution.

Christianity, One woman's lie about an affair that got seriously out of hand
What are the Christians gonna do to me ..... Forgive me, good luck with that.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 450 by Faith, posted 01-24-2020 6:32 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 454 by Faith, posted 01-24-2020 7:45 AM frako has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 453 of 830 (870715)
01-24-2020 7:40 AM
Reply to: Message 448 by dwise1
01-24-2020 3:07 AM


Re: My 2 sense worth
No, natural selection does not result in the loss of "GENETIC MATERIAL" which you describe as "GENETIC FUEL", which is a very bad analogy that doesn't even apply.
Which is why I don't use it much but it is in fact apt since you can't get evolution at all unless you have genetic diversity.
And yes of course selection must result in the loss of genetic material. You really need to stop and think about this. When you select a particular trait for whatever reason you must eliminate other traits. If a poisonous type of prey animal is selected and multiplies because it is the best defense against a predator, what has happened is the elimination of all the nonpoisonous genetic material from the population. ALL selection processes work this way, including the simple selection brought about by the emigration of a portion of a population to form a new population in geographic isolation. New gene frequencies means the loss of some gen4etic material as the new composite phenotype is formed. Domestic selection works the same way only more pointedly and drastically. You actively and aggressively eliminate all the characteristics you do not want in your breed, that's selection decreasing genetic diversity. It's certainly what happens in Founder Effect or Bottleneck when for whatever reason only a few individuals of a species survive to reproduce due to some natural disaster perhaps. All they have is the genetic stuff they share among themselves, all the rest of the genetic material that belongs to that species is left behind in other parts of the population that the new population is isolated from.
So think about this please. Any form of selection HAS to reduce genetic diversity in the selected population.
You don't burn up genetic material! Instead, it changes! New functionality can be added and old functionality can be lost, but the genes for that old functionality doesn't simply disappear and could even be restored by a future mutation.
If the genetic material is still present in a population this can happen, but in some cases, such as a bottlenecked variety of any species, such as the cheetah or the elephant seal, or a purebred of any species, the genetic material is no longer present and you cannot get new functionality at all. In the case of the purebred you don't want it anyway, the whole point was to get a pure breed without any interfering genetic possibilities.
For example, birds still have genes for growing teeth. In experiments, placing embryo mouse gum tissue on a chick embryo jaw triggers those teeth genes causing the chick embryo to start growing teeth.
This has nothing to do with the current topic.
[qs]This has nothing to do with the current topic. I have to assume you don't know what I'm talking about.
More trivially, a trait can go away through natural selection and then come back again in full force when the environment changes.
Yes, IF the genetic material for that trait is still present in the population. And remember I usually say "reduced" genetic diversity because I'm well aware the low frequency alleles do not necessarily completely disappear, they simply don't have an effect on the new composite phenotype of a daughter population as they may have had in the parent population.
But I am aware of the example of the pocket mice and the speckled (sorry the correct term esecapes me at the moment) moth where presumably the changes in color are the result of mutations, which makes no sense to me because supposedly mutations can't be produced on demand. So something else is going on there that needs to be explained better. In general, however, traits can come back after being selected against if the genetic material is still present and otherwise not. Obviously in the case of the teeth in birds the genetic material is still there for teeth so under the right circumstances we could still get a bird population with teeth.
The best known example is the peppered moth. It started out with light coloration so that it could camouflage itself on light-colored tree bark. Then when soot from the Industrial Revolution darkened the bark, the moths lost their light coloration and became dark instead. Finally, when the air pollution was alleviated and the tree bark became light again, the moths went back to being light colored. The genes for coloration never went away. Natural selection changing gene frequency does not remove those unexpressed genes from the genome (as you have repeatedly and falsely claimed would be the case).
Ah yes the "peppered" moth. I just discussed all this above. You are making the point I always tryb to make in those discussions, that the genetic material for the alternative color is still present in the population and will be selected when the selection pressure changes, and that's why it can reemerge to characterize the next population. But I've encountered objections to that idea and the claim that the changes are not brought about by the continuihng presence of the genetic material for the other color but are brought about by mutations, and the scientific literature is quoted to prove it. So supposedly they'd say you are wrong too. Perhaps you could address this mutation idea that your fellow evolutionists have laid on me time and time again.
Old genes rarely go away; they just stop being expressed.
Yes I agree. However, there are certainly populations where the trait has been completely and totally eliminated and will never come back. Purebreds, Founder Effect, Bottleneck. In any case you've got the reduction of genetic diversity. It may be temporary as a trait is simply suppressed and can come back but while the competing trait is dominant in the population the genes for the other trait are reduced. And the same will happen when the other trait comes to dominate as the genes for the competing trait will be reduced/suppressed in the population.
Genomes don't lose "GENETIC MATERIAL", but instead accumulate more genetic material along with changing what they had or just simply stop using some of the old stuff, but that old stuff is still there. Your silly nonsense about genomes becoming smaller is just that, silly nonsense.
Obviously this is the first time you've participated in this discussion though I've had it for years with other memebers of the forum. So you are just repeating the same old stuff I've answered a million times. I've already answered it above anyway so I'll leave it at that for now.
BTW, I told you, "Give us a valid reason. Give us a mechanism." You have done neither! All you did was to repeat your contrary-to-reality nonsense assertions that are based on nothing but your abject ignrance and wishful thinking.
The mechanism is selection, and the example I usually give of a typical form of random selection is the change in gene frequencies when a daughter population breaks off from the parent population. Yes I think that should be regared as a form of selection since it does what selection does, it creates a new gene pool. This is how you get the reduction in genetic diversity as the traits of the parent population and their underlying genetic substrate are reduced/suppressed/eliminated for the emergence of a new composite phenotype that characterizes the new population. The old characteristics may or may not be completely eliminated, it's a matter of how many alleles for the old stuff remain in the new population and if the new population is very small none at all may remain for some traits.
I may come back to this for your further comments about the WEASEL program but I've already said a lot about that so we'll see.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 454 of 830 (870716)
01-24-2020 7:45 AM
Reply to: Message 452 by frako
01-24-2020 7:27 AM


Re: what is "something brand new" if a new specie isn't enough?
Perhaps all fungi should be considered one species. All animals of course not, because a species has to have specific shared characteristics such as the beaks, feathers, wings, bird legs of birds. If it has all those characteristics it's a bird. I know some characteristics can be suppressed such as the bird legs in penguins. I'd still call them birds. But I could change my mind about some of this, I haven't spent a lot of time on it.
AbE: I just looked up penguins and see that they actually have real bird legs under their feathers. No truncation there at all.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 452 by frako, posted 01-24-2020 7:27 AM frako has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 455 by frako, posted 01-24-2020 8:09 AM Faith has replied

  
frako
Member (Idle past 305 days)
Posts: 2932
From: slovenija
Joined: 09-04-2010


Message 455 of 830 (870718)
01-24-2020 8:09 AM
Reply to: Message 454 by Faith
01-24-2020 7:45 AM


Re: what is "something brand new" if a new specie isn't enough?
I know some characteristics can be suppressed such as the bird legs and feathers in penguins.
Told you just say there are only 3 species, fungi, plant and animal so you dont run in to these sort of problems.

Christianity, One woman's lie about an affair that got seriously out of hand
What are the Christians gonna do to me ..... Forgive me, good luck with that.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 454 by Faith, posted 01-24-2020 7:45 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 456 by Faith, posted 01-24-2020 8:11 AM frako has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 456 of 830 (870719)
01-24-2020 8:11 AM
Reply to: Message 455 by frako
01-24-2020 8:09 AM


Classification of "species"
Right, well it turned out wshen I looked up penguins that there is no problem. They have feathers though a very short version of feathers, and they have actual bird legs just hidden by those feathers. When you see their skeletons you realize they are true birds and not some odd anomaly as they appear to be on the surface.
Anyway, you are welcome to make up your own taxonomy.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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 Message 455 by frako, posted 01-24-2020 8:09 AM frako has not replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


(1)
Message 457 of 830 (870720)
01-24-2020 8:30 AM
Reply to: Message 450 by Faith
01-24-2020 6:32 AM


Re: what is "something brand new" if a new specie isn't enough?
Faith writes:
I think I'd include all reptiles in one species
You reckon a sparrow is the same species as a crocodile, snake and tortoise?
but I'm not committed to sorting all this out.
Luckily we don't need to rely on you to 'sort it out'. There's been a couple of centuries worth of global scientific effort put into it. Starting with creationists themselves.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 450 by Faith, posted 01-24-2020 6:32 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 458 by Faith, posted 01-24-2020 8:35 AM Tangle has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 458 of 830 (870721)
01-24-2020 8:35 AM
Reply to: Message 457 by Tangle
01-24-2020 8:30 AM


Re: what is "something brand new" if a new specie isn't enough?
How very strange. I'm talking about classifying all reptiles together as a species and you throw in a sparrow, a bird, as if I'd included it which of course I had not.
This discussion is for the sake of trying to improve communication so don't throw birds into the reptile species please.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 457 by Tangle, posted 01-24-2020 8:30 AM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 459 by PaulK, posted 01-24-2020 8:45 AM Faith has replied
 Message 460 by Tangle, posted 01-24-2020 9:58 AM Faith has replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


(3)
Message 459 of 830 (870722)
01-24-2020 8:45 AM
Reply to: Message 458 by Faith
01-24-2020 8:35 AM


Re: what is "something brand new" if a new specie isn't enough?
It actually makes sense. Crocodiles are genetically closer to birds than they are to lizards. So if you want to say that all reptiles have the same genome you ought to include birds.
quote:
This discussion is for the sake of trying to improve communication
It doesn’t look like it. It would be easier if you didn’t try using your own private classification based on uninformed guesses.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 458 by Faith, posted 01-24-2020 8:35 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 462 by Faith, posted 01-24-2020 12:42 PM PaulK has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 460 of 830 (870725)
01-24-2020 9:58 AM
Reply to: Message 458 by Faith
01-24-2020 8:35 AM


Re: what is "something brand new" if a new specie isn't enough?
Faith writes:
How very strange. I'm talking about classifying all reptiles together as a species and you throw in a sparrow, a bird, as if I'd included it which of course I had not.
This discussion is for the sake of trying to improve communication so don't throw birds into the reptile species please.
Birds are reptiles:
quote:
Archosauriformes (Greek for 'ruling lizards', and Latin for 'form') is a clade of diapsid reptiles that developed from archosauromorph ancestors some time in the Late Permian (roughly 250 million years ago). It was defined by Jacques Gauthier (1994) as the clade stemming from the last common ancestor of Proterosuchidae and Archosauria (the group that contains crocodiles, pterosaurs, dinosaurs, and birds);[4]
Archosauriformes - Wikipedia

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 458 by Faith, posted 01-24-2020 8:35 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 461 by Faith, posted 01-24-2020 12:40 PM Tangle has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 461 of 830 (870747)
01-24-2020 12:40 PM
Reply to: Message 460 by Tangle
01-24-2020 9:58 AM


Re: what is "something brand new" if a new specie isn't enough?
We're talking about what *I* said or so I thought. The establishment opinion is not relevant to what *I* said.
And besides that's a big fat disingenuous deceit anyay: You don't call birds reptiles and neither do I and neither does anyone else.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 460 by Tangle, posted 01-24-2020 9:58 AM Tangle has replied

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 462 of 830 (870748)
01-24-2020 12:42 PM
Reply to: Message 459 by PaulK
01-24-2020 8:45 AM


Re: what is "something brand new" if a new specie isn't enough?
If I don't use my own classifications I'll never be able to get across what I'm trying to get across so forget that idea. What I'm arguing is very different from the establishment point of view and needs to make use of very nonestablishment concepts. Sure that makes it hard to be understood but it can't be helped. So just defining a few things might help. If not then not.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 459 by PaulK, posted 01-24-2020 8:45 AM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
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Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 463 of 830 (870752)
01-24-2020 1:04 PM
Reply to: Message 461 by Faith
01-24-2020 12:40 PM


Re: what is "something brand new" if a new specie isn't enough?
Faith writes:
We're talking about what *I* said or so I thought. The establishment opinion is not relevant to what *I* said.
If you're using words like 'species' and 'reptile' you are using 'establishment' terms. If you wish to say something else you're going to have to define your terms.
And besides that's a big fat disingenuous deceit anyay: You don't call birds reptiles and neither do I and neither does anyone else.
Uh? I don't call snakes or tortoises or crocodiles reptiles either - I call them what they are. But if you ask me for examples of reptiles I'll say tortoise, snakes crocodiles and birds because that's what they are.
Your personal taxonomy is relevant only to you, but you've told that all reptiles are the same species - even without including birds, that's plain dumb. You reckon a snake a crocodile and a tortoise are the same species?

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 461 by Faith, posted 01-24-2020 12:40 PM Faith has not replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 464 of 830 (870753)
01-24-2020 1:05 PM
Reply to: Message 462 by Faith
01-24-2020 12:42 PM


Re: what is "something brand new" if a new specie isn't enough?
quote:
If I don't use my own classifications I'll never be able to get across what I'm trying to get across so forget that idea
So forget about communication. How is THAT going to help you get your point across? And since your classifications only demonstrate that you are ignorant and opinionated they don’t seem useful without confusing the terminology either.
quote:
What I'm arguing is very different from the establishment point of view and needs to make use of very nonestablishment concepts.
Which would be better served by introducing new terms rather than trying to hijack existing terminology. If you were trying to communicate. Obviously you aren’t.
quote:
Sure that makes it hard to be understood but it can't be helped.
It is entirely clear that your lack of understanding is the problem. It is entirely clear that by your own classifications you should consider humans to be the same Faith-species as chimps - unless you are going to argue that they are TOO similar (which would be absurd but much of what you say is absurd). It is entirely clear that your argument that evolution must stop is fallacious - but that you insist on trying to pass it off as a fact nonetheless.
Many things are quite clear - clear enough to say that you need to go back and have a real think about matters. For once.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 462 by Faith, posted 01-24-2020 12:42 PM Faith has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 465 of 830 (870754)
01-24-2020 1:33 PM
Reply to: Message 448 by dwise1
01-24-2020 3:07 AM


Re: My 2 sense worth
No WEASEL program that I know of deals with genetics in any manner, let alone genetic variability, nor do they make any assumptions whatsoever about genetic variability.
Rather, WEASEL tests cumulative selection both to illustrate how it works, to demonstrate its speed and power, and to compare its performance with the single-step selection that creationists (yourself included) constantly misrepresent as how evolution must work -- yet again, evolution uses cumulative selection as does life itself, not your puny single-step selection.
I really don't know what cumulative selection is or what you are accusing me of, but look, this is my argument, that selection, ANY selection, any kind of selection, has to reduce genetic variability. This is my own observation and I've been arguing it for years here. Selection means cutting out some parts of the popujlatoin which means at least reducing the presence of some genetic material in the new population as compared to what was in the old, and if the new population is very small some alleles will not be present at all in the new population. this is how you get a new phenotype, a new composite phenotype to characterize a new population. This is what evolution is. You get new characteristics, new phenotypes, new populations, by reducing or eliminating whatever genetic material underlies competing characteristics. This, again, is why I like to use breeding as the main example since it is very clear there that to get your breed you are eliminating all the genes for other breeds. The whole process of getting a new set of characteristics IS elimination of the other characteristics.
In the wild it may be reduction rather than complete elimkination that allows the new characteristics to emerge. Reduction rather than elimination is also what happens on the way to getting a pure breed. You get a pure breed only when the competing characteristics have been completely eliminated and you have fixed loci or homozygosity for all the salient characteristics of your chosen breed.
Selection does NOT do what the ToE claims it does.
But last I saw, you seemed to have switched to cumulative selection.
Don't know what this refers to.
In Message 262 you said, "Cumulative selection" is a crock."
Well I'm not going to check on it in the middle of writing a post but maybe I can afterward.
But then in Message 407 you changed your tune with "The trial and error that must happen is going to make tiny changes over huge swaths of time, ... ", which I pointed out in my reply (Message 417) describes cumulative selection:
DWise writes:
Which is contrary to the single-step selection nature of trial-and-error.
Rather, what you are now describing is cumulative selection which you pronounce as not existing! The accumulation of tiny changes over huge swaths of time, one little selection per generation.
Does this mean that now suddenly you accept cumulative selection?
I still have no idea what you are talking about. Sorry. It's apparently something you think is important but I'm working a comjpletely different argument here.
Apparently WEASEL and your program MONKEY are thought to reflect what selection can do, but all they do is reflect the changes in the phenotype and ignore the genetic substrate, as you yourself said. Neither takes into account that selection always ultimately involves reducing/eliminating genetic diversity, which ultimately means a point will be reached where further evolution is simply impossible in any evolving population.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 448 by dwise1, posted 01-24-2020 3:07 AM dwise1 has not replied

  
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