Allelic variants: Simple refutation of "Kinds" (and/or decreasing genetic diversity)

Microevolution doesn't get you evolution of kinds to the variety of life we have today in 4000 years. No way no how. That is YEC Prevailing Paradigm, not evolutionary theory. Anyway, you made the case that genetic diversity will not increase over time. The occurance of genetic variants demonstrates that you are incorrect. Mutations once fixed in a population will remain so and as mutations continue to occur the population will be increasingly diverse genetically. You are not seriously going to claim that humans and animals were polyploid in the past? You really don't know how absurd that is, do you?

If we can get all the kinds of dogs we have bred in the last few hundred years or so, we can certainly get an enormous variety of everything else in 4000 years. Genetic variants most often occur as a result of a reduction in genetic diversity, by the restriction of some allelic possibilities in favor of others, and sometimes the absolute elimination of some alleles from a population altogether, allowing the peculiarities of a new variant to emerge. This is how breeding occurs and it's how natural selection occurs, and every other process of population genetics except recombination and mutation. I'm talking about the processes by which populations SPLIT, not stasis in a population. It is this splitting that leads to variants. A population in stasis may show gradual variation over time, but very slight and very slowly compared to the selection processes that more rapidly change the frequencies of alleles by separating populations. I have no idea. I am simply trying to account for the facts. The facts are that all human beings descended from one pair, that the fall changed a few things and that we had to start all over at the flood from three pairs, Noah's three sons and their wives, and most animals from one pair. How this happened is what I'm trying to think about. If polyploidy can exist at all in animls then to my mind it is an option.

Given that the way we measure genetic diversity is by counting the number of genetic variants within a population, I still don't understand how you see a reduction in genetic diversity resulting in more variants.Think of it in terms of other kinds of diversity. Lets say that we were looking at the diversity of colors of paint in a hardware store, and our measure of that diversity was to look at all the cans of paint and count how many individual colors were represented there.Now, if on one day, we counted 20 different colors of paint, and then on another day we counted 18 different colors of paint, isn't it obvious that the hardware store sold out of two colors of paint in the intervening time? In other words, we lost two color variants and diversity went down by 2?Where am I going wrong with this? Using the paint analogy, can you outline a situation where the hardware store has more colors of paint, but less diversity in paint colors? Because that seems to me to be an inherent and direct contradiction in terms. I guess I don't know where you get this idea. The source of variation within a population is mutation, not anything else. Speciation tends to reduce the diversity within a population because a number of individuals no longer "count" as part of the population. Back to the analogy - it's as though the assistant manager cut off part of the store to open his own hardware store, and took half of all the paint cans with him. Odds are, the first store loses some of it's paint diversity because they only stock one or two cans of various unpopular colors, and if the assistant is taking cans at random, odds are he winds up with all the cans of ochre, let's say.But the source of new variants is different than the source of new species (or stores.) Variants are individuals. Those individuals may leave the original population (or store) and so their contribution to diversity is lost. But the origin of those individuals was not the new population - that's backwards - but mutations that occured before they were born.Variation precedes speciation, or "splitting off" as you call it. It cannot be caused by what it precedes. Sure. But it's important to remember that the source of new alleles is mutation, not splitting off. Splitting off changes the frequency of the alleles already in the population. New alleles, however, come from mutation (and obviously, start at a very low frequency.)

But they are all still the same species and can interbreed. Try breeding a housecat and a tiger. Besides, artificial selection is of course going to proceed much more rapidly than natural selection. Try releasing all of those breeds into the wild and see how they last. No. This is only true if the original environment favors the genetic variant over the wild type. Usually that is not what happens. In fact, often the genetic variant does not survive at all. But sometimes, the genetic variant allows the organism to exploit a new niche, with the wild type still able to exploit the old niche. Then there will be an increase in genetic diversity. Over enough time this is what happens. When a population splits into two new populations there will be an increase in genetic diversity of the species as a whole. How could it be otherwise? Well the problem is you confuse propositional truths with facts. Adam and his clone Eve are a propositional truth (They would have been both male, by the way. That is a problem right there.). There is absolutely no evidence, genetic, anthrolopological, historical, or geological, that they ever existed.

Hi Faith,I'm busy so I'm only visiting the forum very sporadically - if my responses are delayed it is not from a lack of interest. Hopefully you realize that for the purposes of this thread, I am accepting the facts you outlined above, and am more interested in seeing how the science you've come up meshes both with your Biblical context and naturalistic studies. I'm in no way trying to attack the basic, literal Biblical facts you present.In fact, if others participating in this thread aren't willing to do so within the same framework, I suggest they do so. We can also ask to switch to "great debate" format if need be. It's been over a year since I first read you making this same assertion - I still haven't seen any evidence of any kind from you to back up this assertion, only incredulity at the potential of mutations.Would you provide some evidence please, Biblical or scientific? There is one thing going for you with your polyploidy theory - it is generally accepted (at least for vertebrates if not for others) that genomes tend to revert to lower ploidy; in a simple sense think of diploidy as a "low energy state" for a genome, since it reduces a lot of energy-costly genetic redundancy. In other words, if there were hyperpolyploid Flood ancestors, it is likely that their "kind" ancestors would rapidly evolve towards diploidy.However, I have my own incredulity at the idea that we would no longer see any polyploid mammals if the scenario you present is true. There are many scientific problems with the polyploid mammal scenario - one big one is genetic sex-determination systems, which are disrupted by ploidy changes. That is, every time a kind/species evolved to lower ploidy, its sex-determination system would also need to evolve. (And as I mentioned before, a nonaploid mammal sperm would be so big you could see it with the naked eye... not sure how that would effect basic reproductive biology, and also makes me wonder why Biblical descriptions of sperm aren't more detailed...)There are also comparative genomic details that are known that strongly suggest that all mammals have always been diploid - a bit complicated, I'm afraid - not so easy to explain in a post here... What if God had a hand in mutations? Scientific evidence shows that mutation was involved in the diversification of dog species (see the Fondon article I cite in the OP); likewise, so does historical evidence - we have records of new mutations adding to varieties in domestic animals, such as the cat breed that has short, dachsund-like legs. On the other hand scientific evidence for polyploidy in dogs does not exist; keeping in mind that such ploidy-based evolution does leave a detectable genomic pattern.Overall, I think you should set aside the hyperpolyploid Flood ancestor hypothesis for now (I give as friendly advice). Though it is an intuitive and straightforward answer to the abundance of allelic variants, it would have left such a strong genetic signature that scientific analysis would detect some evidence for it. Indeed, all evidence points away from a polyploid mammal.I'm still not entirely sure why you discount mutation so surely. Perhaps the post-Flood world was a hypermutable environment that has since calmed down. I would find this a much more plausible explanation than the hyperpolyploid scenario. A few questions on Biblical details I'm unsure of:What was the period of the time between the Fall and the Flood?You mention that the Fall altered inheritance - was there reproduction (and thus inheritance) before the Fall?These are more interpretive:Would you ever consider that the "beginning of death" in the world actually meant the "beginning of reproduction" , or "realization of one's own mortality"?Could "the Fall" equal "Darwinian evolution"? That is - the introduction of inheritance and mutation, coupled with over-reproduction whereby less fit (more Fallen?) individuals suffer death sooner.The Creation, the Fall, and the Flood sound an awful lot like respective analogues to Abiogenesis, Evolution, and Common Ancestry to me (with different timescales based on scientific and literal Biblical inferences). I suggest, in order to come up with a plausible reconciliation of science and the Bible, you try switching from outright denial of mutation as a powerful force to trying to see how it could fit into your perspective. I gave one idea above - an exponentially decreasing mutation rate due to a Flood-related hypermutable environment. In other words, front-loading diploid "kinds" with genetic diversity.In a way, that scenario fits one prediction of the theory of evolution - when a wide array of open niches/environments are suddenly made available to organisms, speciation occurs far more rapidly as the organisms specialize to all the new niches. Over time, the speciation rate drops as the niches are filled. Sounds like it would fit the Flood scenario rather well.

Just to answer the last part of your post: Roughly 1500 years. The way the Fall would have "altered inheritance" (did I actually say that?) is that varieties capable of surviving best in the world now characterized by death would have begun to "evolve." Doesn't fit what the Bible says. It's not only "interpretive" it's made up. Another imposition of a fanciful scenario on the text. How clever of the merely human and even "primitive" writers of the Bible to have written such a complex and subtle allegory of evolution so long ago. Odd that that outlandish idea seems possible to you although it's far more outlandish than the idea of their writing under inspiration of the Creator God. I have no idea what this means. Perhaps it will seem useful to me if I ever figure it out.Also, I'm not sure mutation IS denied by the Bible. I simply can't fathom what mutation really IS.Sometimes it's just this random "mistake" and it is acknowledged that it usually does nothing good for the organism and often something lethal. Yet these "mistakes" -- of DNA replication -- are also credited with beneficial changes, in fact the very formation of useful alleles. How this can be a "mistake" in any sense at all is mind-boggling.My confusion is largely my own inability to understand the genetics involved, no doubt, but overall, mutation seems to be a stop-gap measure to support evolution at the moment but it doesn't hang together to my mind. Natural selective processes of evolution tend to reduce genetic diversity over time so we have mutation to keep everything from merely winding down to extinction. And this mutation sounds like some kind of magic. Inexplicable. That sounds more like Lamarckianism. I don't know. None of it makes sense yet.I'll answer the rest of your post later if I can.By the way, multiple loci for a particular trait is another of my ponderings, not just hyperpolyploidy.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Actually "mistakes" is pretty much a layman's term. A geneticist would likely say "base substitution", "variant" or perhaps "mutation." Some are benign, some are harmful, and some are actually useful. It is also possible to have a variant that is useful in the heterozygous state but harmful in the homozygous state. Sickle cell anemia is an example. In the heterozygous state it actually helps individuals resist the malaria parasite but in the homozygous state it can be very harmful and even lethal. In spite of the harmful possibilities sickle cell anemia survives in populations under heavy malaria pressure. No need to invoke Lamarkism at all. When there are open niches natural selection favors organisms that just happen to be equipped to exploit those niches - even a little. There will be continued selection pressure to exploit the open niches. Organisms lucky enough to inherit traits that help them exploit the open niches a little better than the other individuals will be more "fit" and more likely to successfully reproduce. Of course there is always the possiblilty that they will be unlucky and get munched by a predator before they get a chance to reproduce, so it is a matter of POTENTIAL fitness only. It is a "game" of probabilities but given enough time open niches will be filled by someone. Multiple loci make it more likely that genetic diversity will increase in subsequent generations for two reasons - more chances to mutate and less chance that a single mutation will be lethal. Thus potentially harmful mutations will be more likely to be carried in the population without expression. An example of multiple loci is height. A short allele thrown in is no biggie - the person is just a little shorter, that's all. It might even increase their chances of reproduction because there is some evidence that differences that make an individual stand out from the crowd a little can be sexually attractive in populations. Think about redheads and blondes in South America or Southern Europe, for example.Edited by deerbreh, : clarity

Faith-I created this thread to discuss science within your Biblical framework, and requested to have it moved out of the science forum for your benefit. I have tried to have a constructive discussion, and have been trying to improve your use of science in the YEC perspective, even providing models/hypotheses that meld science and the Bible together.For that, you've given me contradictions, flippant answers, bare assertions, incredulity, a rude attitude, and the ever-present promise that you'll "think about it later."So much for a good faith discussion. I've lost interest unless you give me a reason to stick around. You've been arguing for well over a year, in the strongest terms possible, that mutation does not play a role in evolution or increases in genetic diversity, despite myself and many others trying to explain the details to you.

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Now you admit that you don't understand mutation one bit, and have written it off as "magic."No more "later" - you've been promising "later" for over a year - learn about it or shut up about it.

As far as I know I've been arguing in good faith as far as I'm prepared to argue this at all right now. I tried to get off the thread at one point and got sucked back in. Sorry I did.

I'm not aware of contradictions or of a rude or flippant attitude toward you. Please document.{edit: It doesn't matter. I simply shouldn't have gone on posting to this thread because I could only do it in a rush, not having thought through the issues. I don't expect to be taken so seriously in that frame of mind but obviously nobody is going to let me get away with anything. I believe that I have given quite a bit of evidence of my various assertions at times in the past but I do lose track of old threads and arguments. Nevertheless this is an old argument by now and I shouldn't engage in it any more because I've already said all I have to say on it for now. Sorry if I got flippant or rude.}Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.