A barrier to macroevolution & objections to it

Faith wrote:

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The mutations that occur have NOT been SHOWN to bring about this ASSUMED result. WHERE IS YOUR EVIDENCE THAT THEY DO THIS, as opposed to your ASSUMPTION that they do simply because they occur?????

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Faith’s quest for observed evidence here is rational. There should be observed cases that we can point to for discussion.Now Faith, you and I have discussed a great example of this. Have you forgotten it? Remember the paper that WK posted that showed increased genetic diversity in speciating groups of salamanders in California? That seems like the kind of evidence you want. I wish I were an animal biologist with access to the literature on this, because my understanding is that this salamander paper is not unusual, but rather something that is see often. Plus, you have agreed that we have good examples of beneficial mutations.Other examples of increases in genetic diversity due to mutation from bottlenecked species are easy to come up with.1. A big one is bacteria. I know faith doesn’t like bacteria, but bacteria do like Faith, just as they like any other animal. Remember that bacteria don’t have sexual reproduction, so every single bacteria is in many ways an extreme bottleneck, down to one individual that then makes it’s own population (it’s own strain).
Thus the recovery from a bottleneck with increased genetic diversity is happening all over, whenever bacteria fail to die out. I doubt that any of us would go into a hospital and tell them that they don’t have to worry about bacteria, since all of the bacteria are bottlenecks that’ll die out if left alone.
The nylon digesting bacteria and indeed any of the billions of bacteria in your gut are good examples of flourishing bottlenecks.2. Island species. There are thousands of isolated islands on earth, with many species. Many of the species radiated from a few individuals who got there one way or the other, and then flourished and evolved into many species. There have been dozens of papers written documenting that they evolved from a common ancestor on that island, and all of those show a flourishing after a bottleneck. If new mutations didn’t supply new genetic diversity after a bottleneck, then most islands on earth would be barren of both plants and animals, even if one assumes creationism, since those island populations on smaller islands regularly are bottlenecked.3. This may be a special case of the island example, but consider invading foreign species. Examples are common without even much thought. Australia is a great source - cane toads have invaded from people bringing them, and have flourished, showing new mutations as well. When a few rabbits were introduced in Australia the took over the continent and denuded the landscape, and certainly didn’t die out of genetic degradation. Similarly, Cuba, like most islands, has a flourishing population of rats, which were introduced in the past few centuries. We could go on all day with examples of bottlenecked island populations that have flourished, many with new traits.4. humans. Whether one accepts the 60,000 year bottle neck or the creationist extreme bottleneck of a single person just 6,000 years ago, humans have undergone some bottlenecking, and now have all kinds of different alleles that far exceed what could be in one person. Eye color is a great example, as is nearly any other feature like skin color, nose shape, jaw shape, etc. What kind of nose did Adam have? A Roman nose? A ski-slope nose like my sister? A little whitey nose? One with a little ball in the end? A hook nose? A wide Polynesian nose? A “visible nostril” nose like a friend of mine? A long pointy nose? Etc?OK, Faith and others say Adam had a hypergenome with all those alleles and more, and they have since split up and degraded. But in another thread we saw that this idea is testable, and the evidence for it is far outweighed by the evidence against it. Here are some examples from that thread:

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Such a general degradation across genomes, including both human and animal life (not to mention other kingdoms), should be detectable.
The most obvious thing to test are direct samples of ancient vs current DNA. While DNA does generally decay quickly, we do have samples that have survived. Here are some:

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1. Neanderthal DNA. We have some Neanderthal DNA. While a number of dating methods put Neanderthal DNA to between 40,000 and 100,000 years ago (depending on the sample), creationists usually claim that Neanderthals are normal h. sapiens who died in or before the flood. If so, then they are at least 4,500 years old. Using the creationist number, they had only 20 to 1500 years of degradation, compared to 6000 for humans today. Thus their genomes should have only a tiny fraction of psuedogenes and junk DNA. To try some numbers, we need to know how degraded we are today. I don’t know what a creationist would say, but from the claims of people like Faith, I think they would say a high number, since they feel we have degraded a lot since the fall (otherwise it’s a pretty wimpy force of sin and death). So lets say we have only 40% of our good genome left. If that’s the case, then we’ve degraded 60% in 6000 years. If the degradation is linear (again, big guess), then that’s 1% loss every century. So a Neanderthal genome should have around 0 to 15% degradation.

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Such a huge difference would jump out to any geneticist looking at Neanderthal DNA. Since numerous studies have been done on Neanderthal DNA, It must not be there. The researcher couldn’t hide it since other people have seen Neanderthal DNA, and more importantly, they wouldn’t want to, since such a find would gain them instant fame. Even if someone were willing to hide data if it favored creationism, they still wouldn’t hid this since it can be interpreted other ways.

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2. DNA from other ancient animals. We have a huge amount of insects in amber from what creationists would consider pre-flood times. The same math from above applies here, as well as the same logic.

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3. Frequency of disease in the fossil record. Many diseases leave visible signs in bones. Diseases have been shown in fossils across the board, regardless of age. I don’t know that a quantified study of diseased fossil frequency has been done, but since a degradation from the fall until now should show a big difference, such a trend should stick out like a sore thumb, and I’m sure it would have been found if there.

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4. Spina bifida in Neolithic England. The barrows around Stonehenge and similar Neolithic religious monuments are dated to around 2,000 to 5,000 years ago. Thus they should have around half of the degradation we have. Note that creationists generally agree with those dates, since we have roman and other records showing that refer to them as past civilizations. The bodies in the barrows have a high proportion of Spina Bifida (a birth defect). If there has been degradation since the fall, then ancient birth defects should be much lower, not much higher.

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5. Human age at death over the millennia. We have human fossils all over the ancient time frame, and the age of a human fossil can be estimated from bone growth and bone changes. These fossils do not show that ancient people lived to anything near the ages in Genesis. Instead, they show a steady life expectancy, with variation from time to time due to things like food supply. Of course, one could argue that the bone changes that we use to determine age at death simply happened later, which could explain it, but would require that kids lived to, say, 50 years and were still kids, which seems difficult on the parents.

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6. Wooly mammoth frozen bodies. It has been shown that sperm frozen in animals who have been frozen whole is still potent even after a few years. This work has encouraged people to think about using frozen mammoth sperm or eggs to breed or clone a mammoth. The DNA of mammoths has been compared to modern elephants to find differences. If the degradation hypothesis is true, then the mammoths would show little degradation , and the elephants a lot as per the math above. Such a difference would again stand out like a sore thumb. No such difference has been found.

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7. Dendrochronology. Dendrochronolgy, as we know, is the method of counting tree rings to look at their growth in ancient times. Tree ring series go back 10,000 years in some places (I haven’t heard how creationists explain this - maybe a good new thread topic). (Also - what do creationists say about the flying sword mentioned in Genesis 3? Where did it go? Why can’t any skeptic just go and look at it?) Anyway, with better health, trees are known to grow more, giving wider rings. If there has been a general degradation, then it would be easy to see this in the tree ring series, which would show better health in the past, esp 6,000 years ago). They don’t show this however - they show the same amount of health (with variation) today, 100 years ago, 1000 years ago, 3,000 years ago, 6,000 years ago, 9,000 years ago, etc.

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Well, 7 is the holy number according to the numerology soothsayers of the Bible, so I’ll stop there. Just a little thought brings more of them to mind (such as how long kings lived in Chinese records, which go back 4,000 years). In all of these cases, it is possible to test the predictions of the degradation hypothesis, and the predictions don’t match the data. Maybe a good way to explain this is to say that God reached in and altered each piece of this evidence to deceive those he’s already decide to burn in hell, just as “Paul” says he would in 2thes2:11?

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That’s not even mentioning the huge amount of DNA that has been examined from Egyptian mummies that are thousands of years old, or from even more ancient people like the iceman. In all of those cases, the idea of a degradation has been directly tested and found incorrect. Also, thanks archer for pointing me here.Take care-
Equinox Edited by Equinox, : No reason given.

Oh, and as if we needed more examples, I just saw this on one of my old posts-Algae that has been severely bottlenecked by putting it in an aquarium has mutated and is not dying out, but rather has escaped and is taking over in the wild. Please use peek to see how to shorten linksHave a fun evening--EquinoxEdited by AdminJar, : No reason given.

I've list case after case that shows what you are looking for. Even like the Apo example where we can show the exact generation the mutation appeared. I can't imagine what more you'd want.
The ones I mentioned you have ignored, as usual, without reason.What about the algae example? There are clear increases in fitness that have arisen after a severe bottleneck.We can both agree that sometimes the genetic loss from a severe bottleneck is too severe to recover from, and that sometimes it is not. However, it's clear that if it survives for a little while, it very often flourishes, while if your degradation idea where right, then it would always die out over time, which we clearly don't see - think about those non-barren small isolated islands for an example.As for Adam's nose, I've responded and we can continue that discussion about the lack of evidence for some kind of degradation.

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Faith's requirement is wholly excessive.

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It's even more excessive than fallacycop pointed out, since even if a new allele is found (such as in the algae example), Faith can claim that it was hidden as a recessive allele or otherwise hidden in a hypergenome, waiting to come out. This was the way she responded to the salamander evidence. This is another example of making a claim and then shifting the burden of proof the other side, then even when evidenced in support of the other side comes up, just claim it doesn't convince you, and leave it at that.

faith wrote

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SO few examples, too, Equinox. Hardly the regular occurrence you'd have to be able to demonstrate if you can't show an increase in a particular case.

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My list had quite a few examples - easily hundreds in the case of the islands. Plus, I don't need to show a lot of examples, not even 1. I'm still waiting for proof not only that these don't apply, but a reason that there is some barrier to evolution. The burden of proof is still on you. Plust, these examples aren't rare - we find them often, when we bother to look. Over millions of years even rare examples would easily add up. Even a beneficial mutation every 1000 years is 65 thousand beneficial mutations since K-T.

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Apparently this bottlenecked algae thrived in a new environment?

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No, it thrived in it's original environment, so much that it took over from it's parent species from italy to israel.

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Also, how do you know what degradation should look like in the genome anyway? I've postulated the length of the DNA in relation to the functional DNA. Is that what you have in mind?

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sure. Such would be obvious. Or since you've been looking for hypergenomes, maybe more total DNA, most or more of which is functional. Either would be easy to see.

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"new" alleles are KNOWN to be mutations and actually do something useful

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OK, shifting goalposts again, first it was show that a group can recover from a bottleneck with increased genetic diversity, and salamanders and my many examples showed that, and now we have to show that the new alleles aren't mutations? What are they then? They couldn't have been alleles already there since we've shown increases in genetic diversity. Even without showing an increasein genetic diversity, your claim was that any bottleneck will result in degradation and extinction since the lost alleles can't be made up - that's been shown time and time again to be wrong. Another good example of a flourishing after a bottleneck is the zebra mussel here in michigan, or any other example of an invading species.You claim that the algae could have just been an allele present in the population beforehand - that of course makes no sense, since if that were the case, it would have made the new form and taken over years ago. It's clear that selection would have done that, and algae has been around for billions of years (or 6,000), either way giving it plenty of time to take over, since it only took a few decades to take over.

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But of course you don't HAVE millions of years. One beneficial mutation every 1000 years in what, an individual, a population, what? In either case, that rate couldn't possibly counter the selecting processes that are constantly acting

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one in 1000 years in an individual, so in a population of 10 million, that's 10,000 a year. The numbers work out easily. The reason we evolution supporters have so much leeway in the numbers is because evolution goes much faster than the net evolution we observe in the fossil record. This is because things evolve forward and back, depending on conditions. So a feature (say beak depth) could go 444545455454545466565455455665667676888887988978877676656565655 453344344543332332213223231111212111212111112121232343243323323 34334333333434334433, and when we look at it in hindsight we only see 454545 to 44343, which appears much slower than it really was.I've posted numbers on here before. We have tons of extra space in the numbers.

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Maybe not so easy to see in a degraded, fragmented and corrupted genome that has to be reconstructed from the pieces.

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It is. To a geneticist, degraded, non-fuctional gene can be distinguished from good gene. Your point is like saying a mechanic might not be able to tell the differnce between a brake pad and a camshaft. you or I might not be able to tell them apart, but we aren't geneticists.Reading over this whole thread it's clear that no barrier to macroevolution has been proven, or even suggested. Instead, an argument from incredulity has been used to first try to shift the burden of proof from the one making the claim, then, when the other side graciously displayed whole lists of evidence supporting that no barrier could occur, all that happened was this evidenece was ignored with little more than a lack of understanding. It's too bad that this same process has to be repeated over and over with each creationist.Have a fun weekend everyone--EquinoxEdited by Admin, : Add spaces to long number to keep it from forming a very long line.

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In bacteria. Period. In higher animals the trend to reduced diversity continues at a steady pace.

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No. Have you ignored all the examples we gave? What about the baker's dozen of beneficial mutations we discussed before - those weren't all in bacteria. The beautiful buttocks isn't a mutation? The Apo mutation isn't a mutation? The algae isn't a mutation? The increased salamander GENETIC DIVERSITY aren't from mutations? What are they from - in all those cases they can't be from hidden alleles as we've discussed. You seem to have selective amnesia of the good examples we give.

OK, since Faith has ignored my last two replies to her posts, I’ll summarize what appears to have happened on this thread.Though the thread is about finding and describing a proposed reason why macroevolution can’t occur, no such thing has even been proposed, much less given evidence for.Faith said that there can’t be an increase in genetic diversity after a bottleneck since the forces that eliminate alleles are somehow expected to win out over the creation of new alleles through mutation.Faith has agreed that mutations do occur, and that they do add alleles.For instance, Faith wrote:

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Listen, that mutation makes new alleles has been acknowledged all along.

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Now, since new alleles have been agreed to, and since Faith agreed that the Apo allele is a beneficial mutation, we have all agreed that mutations can and do produce beneficial mutations. In addition to that, we had listed over a dozen beneficial mutations, most of which are NOT in bacteria (such as beautiful buttocks, human tails, whale legs, Apo, etc).OK, so from that point it seems we all agree that beneficial mutations happen and add new alleles.Now, with that in mind, we looked at whether or not these new alleles are enough to increase genetic diversity. Many examples were given, including the salamander one. In the salamander case, Faith claimed that those were all hidden alleles, but as Q and the article itself pointed out, genetic diversity increases were seen, showing that the increase was from new alleles, as in the case of the Apo mutation (since, as we discussed, the idea that this was a hidden dominant allele makes no sense).In addition, the many instances of increases in genetic diversity were supplied, Faith said that not enough of them showed mutation. However, we’ve already all agreed that mutation happens, so I don’t see the point here. Mutation is unavoidable in many of them, like the algae example, where, like Apo, it’s silly to claim that the allele for it’s robustness was “hidden” for thousands of years, since if it were, it would have taken over the Med. Sea long ago.Plus, in the case of island populations, it can’t be hidden alleles, since the repeated and severe bottlenecks would, according to faith, degrade the gene pool until the species died out, but instead we see over and over how they form new species, filling every ecological niche on the island. The majority of the examples I gave in that list were never refuted. The whole topic of the many ways to show that the degradation hypothesis is testable and wrong seems to have been dropped.So now we have agreed on mutation making new alleles, and have shown that bottlenecked species very often flourish and make new species afterwards. We’ve also shown that we have many ways to test the idea that ancient creatures had supergenomes or were healthier, and all of that evidence shows that they didn’t.It seems like this thread, and the many pieces of evidence presented, have clearly shown that not only is it possible for macroevolution to occur, but more so that any proposed barrier has evidence against it wherever one would place this proposed barrier. On top of that, we’ve seen no evidence of a barrier, even though such evidence is easy to imagine (such as groups of animals that have no genetic nor phenotypic relationship with any other group - a separate “kind”).The 300 mark is getting closer, but in this case it looks like we’ve covered most of the discussion points anyway.Also in closing, Talkorigins has just happened to post a nice FAQ about macroevolution. It's here: Macroevolution: Its definition, Philosophy and HistoryTake care--EquinoxEdited by Equinox, : added faqEdited by Equinox, : No reason given.