As long as the most likely possibility is that it's a pre-existing alleles, you can't just assert that it's a mutation instead.
Agreed. Now do you agree that as long as the most likely possibility is that it's mutation, you can't just assert that it's pre-existing alleles instead?
You may be able to reduce a bacteria culture down to one and get a beneficial mutation, but try that with a mammal. You know very well that mutations can't be counted on to rescue a severely genetically depleted mammal. Why not? You can count on it with bacteria after all.
If you can design an experiment to allow us to observe 10,000 generations of a mammal lineage then we can do that. I don't know what the quickest turnaround that is possible but in rats from birth it takes about 4 months which I make the experiment will take about 3,000 years. Can you suggest a practical way to do this?
Nobody said it's not reasonable. The question is what those alleles DO.
The question is about barriers - at this time you have not demonstrated that an essential allele to diversity *cannot* be produced through mutation. You have demonstrated no barrier and there is no reason to assume there is one.
A dog breeding link I posted back there somewhere says most alleles cause a gene not to function at all.
Of course - and nobody has suggested otherwise. Most mutations to the coding region of the DNA either cause no functional change or the functional change to be a bad thing. But not all - so alleles can form from mutation that are not detrimental. So whatever barrier exists - this isn't the place to be looking for it.
And again, the list of good alleles from mutations is so far minuscule, and two of those are in bacteria, which just doesn't work well as a model for mammals or other higher creatures.
The thread isn't about beneficial mutations it's about a barrier that prevents macroevolution. We know that new allele's
can be formed from mutation events, so you need to show where evidence of this barrier can be found.
I don't know. I guess it occurs. I don't have an issue with its occurring, I have an issue with its usefulness for furthering the survivability or thrivability of the species.
OK, let's try an thought experiment using the same random letters before:
ACG TCT GAA AAT GCCmutates to
ACG TCC GAA AAT CGG
Let us say that the latter mutation has a slight detrimental effect on the survivability of the organism that has it. Fortunately, because of the redundant complexity in organisms other genes are able to pick up the slack so the mutation isn't fatal and the organism is capable of reproducing - just not as well as some of his competitors.
Let's reverse things now. Let us now say that our population has some alleles. The best allele is
ACG TCC GAA AAT CGG. Since you are happy that the mutation can physically happen one way, it must be possible for it to happen the other way and have it mutate to
ACG TCT GAA AAT GCC. This allele is better than the first since it doesn't require help from redundant systems so everything works more efficiently increasing the fitness of the individual that has it.
Agreed?
Again, I haven't proposed a barrier to its mere occurrence, only doubted its usefulness for evolution.
Doubting the usefulness for evolution isn't what this thread is about. This thread is about a barrier to macroevolution, some thing that stops macroevolution. I have shown how a minor negative mutation could happen in reverse instead and be a positive mutation. I suggest that your time would be better arguing about new useful genes rather than alleles for existing genes since that is where any barrier to macroevolution should more logically be.
In bacteria. Period. In higher animals the trend to reduced diversity continues at a steady pace.
Do you think that endangered animals and selectively bred animals represent a fair sampling when exploring whether or not genetic diversity increases over time? What about looking at animals that are flourishing - animals whose diversity is increasing as agreed on by biologists. Surely looking at selective breeding and animals which require conservation intervention is looking at a source that is only going to tell you about reduction in genetic diversity (by definition!!), regardless of the bigger picture.
Maybe it would be possible to design a less cumbersome experiment.
Then go ahead - biologists are doing the best they can, but it doesn't meet your standards. Nobody else on the creationist side has so far developed an experiment that could produce the level of evidence you require so I kind of figure that if it is possible, its unlikely. Since that is the case, the evidence you are asking for is of much higher standards than in a capital crime case. It would be like refusing to convict someone even when you have lots of evidence on the grounds that the jury weren't there.
Meanwhile reality continues to reduce diversity in the higher animals even as they produce new phenotypes and even as they speciate.
Except, of course, in all the examples where this hasn't happened that have been provided for you. To explain those you have to resort to some kind of hypergenome that contains all possible alleles that degrades even though you have no evidence of how this works, and no evidence of any of these hypergenomes even existing. They are a hypothetical unobserved entity. Your own standards of evidence should mean we should discount them until we find evidence of them, surely?
There is no reason to think mutations can't be beneficial. Harmful mutations can happen in reverse, so a population that has the 'harmful' mutation exclusively and are still able to reproduce can have a mutation amongst them that puts it to the other state of affairs, which would be beneficial. New genes can form by duplication events and mutation acting on one gene whilst the other undergoes more mutation with no detriment occuring to the organism that has the duplication. So far, no barrier has been found or theorized that means these changes cannot be accumulative and lead to macroevolution.
Sure - genetic diversity can decrease. Genetic diversity on earth is decreasing as we speak, the liberal hippies have been saying it for decades! There are animals which are recognized to be flourishing, whose population size is increasing not decreasing. If you want to falsify the proposal that their diversity is increasing, you (or some scientist with the same intent) have a lot of work cut out for you. If you want to show diversity decreasing in these higher animals it should be as straightforward as showing it in conserved animals and animals that are selectively bred.
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