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Author Topic:   Reduction of Alleles by Natural Selection (Faith and ZenMonkey Only)
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 3 of 87 (553238)
04-02-2010 7:58 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Blue Jay
04-01-2010 4:59 PM


Thank you for starting the thread. I think I'll let things simmer down before I come back to it.
The title doesn't express what I believe, though. I don't believe that TRAITS are reduced; in fact they're increased in the scenario I have in mind. The way I picture it, it's ALLELES that are decreased AS new traits emerge. {ABE 4/10 -- What I mean is that EXPRESSED traits increase; obviously genes and traits correspond in numbers, but the point is that new traits EMERGE, get EXPRESSED when the gene frequencies change, and specifically when you lose alleles for old traits}
ABE: Percy objected to this idea on the original thread and I answered him there but I'll bring it over here where you can answer what i said. I'm still not going to get to your post for a while.
It's what I've been trying to argue all along, Percy. When is it that a trait attributed to a new "mutation" shows up in a domestic breed? Isn't it when the breed is already highly inbred, which allows new (or formerly suppressed) alleles to get expressed? (Many of these new traits are unhealthy as breeders know and have to take into account in choosing mates for their breeds, but sometimes it's a new desirable trait or "mutation") All along I've pointed to domestic breeding as an example of this process where you get new breeds by eliminating the alleles for competing traits. If those alleles remain the selected traits can't get expressed -- or more accurately, there isn't any selection happening, new traits aren't emerging if the competing alleles remain. Selection OF a trait means you are isolating it from competing types and their alleles. I've simply extended this principle to natural selection and the related processes of genetic drift and bottleneck and migration which also isolate a population so that new traits can emerge -- as competing alleles are reduced or eliminated.
What I'm so arrogantly and cheekily doing is arguing against the common evolutionist assumption that change simply builds on change in a linear or additive fashion.
I'm SURE I'm not getting this said clearly. I'm sure I'm leaving out some essential part of the description and that without it the scientists here can't follow me. But it's not mutations.
ABE: Of course traits are the expression of alleles so you do remove traits when you remove alleles. So don't think I don't recognize that. I'm talking about what gets EXPRESSED. NEW traits means traits that are getting newly expressed, that change the look of a population. In order for them to come to characterize the population alleles for other traits at the same gene have to go.
OK I won't say it again now, but I hope it's clearer.
Edited by Faith, : add quote
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Replies to this message:
 Message 4 by Blue Jay, posted 04-02-2010 1:36 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 5 of 87 (553515)
04-03-2010 6:07 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Blue Jay
04-01-2010 4:59 PM


graphic attempts
As long as you are polite there shouldn't be a problem and so far so good, I appreciate it.
I can only address this statement by appealing to mutation, which is known to happen at extremely higher rates than natural selection happens. If mutation is disallowed, then this statement may very well be quite true.
However, if mutation is allowed, then it becomes a question of comparing the rate of selection-mediated diversity loss to the rate of mutation-mediated diversity gain.
Do you agree with that?
No I don't. This is what everybody keeps saying and while I have the picture in my mind of how you're all wrong I haven't been able to get it said in a satisfactory way. I also keep trying to come up with graphic ways of expressing it but that's also very difficult because you have to distinguish between the population itself as individuals making up the population, the different traits scattered among them, and the genes and alleles for those traits, AND whatever mutations have to be added into the mix. So I haven't been able to come up with a proper representation of what I have in mind. I can only throw out a very crude image, and here are a couple:
This one is just a more elaborate version of the one I posted earlier on the other thread, meant to represent the alleles for one gene in one population represented by 100 individuals -- far more alleles than one would normally expect to find I understand but I wanted to represent them in terms of great genetic diversity in order to make the point. According to evolutionists these would have originally been mutations and some of them may be new mutations. The point of the graphic is to show what happens over succeeding generations if one of them is strongly selected over all the others:
from great diversity to little via selection
Seems to me that if selection is working in a population it will gradually or rapidly displace alleles no matter how many you start with or how rapidly mutation introduces new ones (though the chances of getting more than one mutation at one locus isn't very high I would suppose even over many generations -- but even if you did the same process I'm trying to lay out should apply).
The other attempt at a graphic representation is meant to show what happens when a small portion of a population is isolated from the parent population as when it migrates away. ANYTHING that isolates a portion of the population fits for this example though. Then I also include a second migration and this time try to show how a mutation that appeared just before the migration is included and happens to spread in the new population, whether by genetic drift or natural selection or whatever.
Again I overdo the representation of great genetic diversity, so that I can show what happens when a small portion of that diversity is isolated and you end up with maybe a big population but always with less genetic diversity even if a mutation is included.
reproductive isolation
I guess I could do one and add more mutations in the first migrated population to show that if selection and isolation keep happening they too will get reduced to some pared down proportion.
In each new population you are getting a new phenotype though, which is also schematically indicated in the graphics, which is what evolution tends to focus on to the exclusion of the reduction of genetic diversity that brings it about.
I've left the rest of your post for my next one.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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 Message 1 by Blue Jay, posted 04-01-2010 4:59 PM Blue Jay has replied

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 Message 6 by Blue Jay, posted 04-03-2010 7:26 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 7 of 87 (553546)
04-03-2010 8:51 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by Blue Jay
04-03-2010 7:26 PM


Re: graphic attempts
I think you’re expressing yourself just fine: it’s perfectly coherent and it’s a great basic explanation of the process of natural selection.
Well, thank you, but it hits me as odd then that you didn't get it well enough to give the right title to the thread (actually I prefer reduction of genetic diversity myself) and Percy didn't get it well enough to respond to my first post and though others keep saying they get it, in fact insist on it quite noisily, I know they don't. It's very hard to take seriously any objections until I know what I'm trying to say is understood. THEN I could take the objections more seriously.
Sorry if I sound snappish here as it suddenly sounds to me. But it does seem that if I were getting it across you would have had a title that reflected it.
My only point of confusion is why you think this process will inevitably lead to complete allele depletion.
ABE: It doesn't necessarily even if you get speciation, I've tried to stick to saying genetic REDUCTION. Some cases of speciation do appear to involve depletion such that there's no place to go genetically from where they are. But I'm convinced that ALL cases of speciation (or true breeding in domestic contexts) MUST involve genetic REDUCTION to a recognizable extent -- well, it just seems obvious to me: If you have a well established breed, and it has, oh, golden fur with special brown markings you simply do not want an allele for black fur and blurry markings in the population. Right? What you call fixed is what you want, and you want it for all traits that characterize your breed if you can get them without bringing genetic problems along with them and that includes all the characteristics, the whole body type and all the rest. And what IS that but severely reduced genetic diversity??????
But why to genetic reduction or depletion? Because if you really do get what my graphic is saying and you agree with it, it ought to be clear that what this process does on the small scale of one gene under selection pressure it will also do over time with other genes, and if the trait for each holds it can only be because there are no competing alleles. You aren't going to get a fixed trait let alone speciation if there are.
Somebody pointed out a while back that I'm focused more on speciation than anything else and that's correct. I don't see how you can have evolution in any sense that supposedly leads to species evolving into other species without many speciation events along the way myself.
Perhaps this is what you need to explain to me.
Of course it doesn't appear that natural selection ever really goes to speciation -- or rarely anyway; that seems to depend on reduction of population numbers through migration or other such effect. Such a reduction in population could occur of course under really extreme natural selection in which a predator wipes out a large number.
Under the condition of isolation of a small portion of a population it can't be only one gene that is affected by the reduction in numbers, many genes must also have fewer alleles available in the new population just because there are fewer members to start with -- that way you're going to get a lot of change in the population in just a few generations it seems to me, change from what the species looked like in the parent population. Just from population reduction and reproductive isolation, not even natural selection. No longer the same markings on the salamander population in the ring series but a whole new characteristic set of markings for the new population and no doubt other changes not quite so obvious. All thanks to reduced genetic diversity.
I know you all think I'm an ignoramus, thanks a lot, but I see no other way you get phenotypic change that actually comes to characterize a population, or gets as far as speciation, without eliminating alleles.
And for this not to be recognized in domestic breeding boggles MY mind.
I think that’s going to be too big a question to try to tackle in one step, so let me ask a simpler question (and a follow up):
Do you agree that, if mutation is allowed, then new mutations can, at least in principle, produce new alleles?
I've been accepting it for the sake of discussion all along. Think I even stated it in the previous post.
If so, doesn’t basic reasoning tell us that the change in diversity can be determined by comparing the number of new alleles produced by mutations to the number of old alleles exterminated by natural selection?
But natural selection also exterminates any NEW alleles that occur for genes that are undergoing selection for some other allele. And anything that cuts a population down to smaller numbers is also going to eliminate a lot of those new mutations, leave them back in the old population.* Then the new population may hypothetically acquire some new mutations too and they will either be selected out or work their way through the population, and then such as in the case of a ring series of populations a new small migration will occur and lots of the mutations will again be left behind. Yes you'll be getting interesting new phenotypes as this occurs, but you're not ever going to get an increase in genetic diversity ALONG WITH the kinds of changes that bring out such new phenotypes or lead to speciation because they depend on reduced genetic diversity.
*Meanwhile back in the old population you may still have opportunities for further variation and selection and even possibly multiple directions for new lines out to speciation if you've still got plenty of genetic diversity there. Where the reduction in diversity comes in is where you are getting new phenotypes, new populations characterized by new phenotypes that is, and ultimately what is called speciation, which I believe has to be a dead end genetically speaking.
Keep in mind, we’re still just considering one gene here. I don’t want to get into a multiple-gene scenario until we’ve cleared up how to measure changes in diversity for one gene.
OK, well I got ahead of you then.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Replies to this message:
 Message 9 by Blue Jay, posted 04-03-2010 11:18 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 8 of 87 (553563)
04-03-2010 11:08 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by Blue Jay
04-02-2010 1:36 PM


finishing your earlier post
How do you envision new traits emerging? Not by mutation, I gather?
By the coming to the fore of previously unexpressed alleles, probably mostly recessive ones in some cases (these technical things I'd like to know more about), by new combinations of alleles getting an opportunity to be expressed and that sort of thing. I don't deny that there may be some mutations but I really haven't seen any evidence for them -- the whole idea that mutations are the source of alleles is strictly an assumption based on evolutionary theory, as Dr. A put it on another thread recently, and the actual evidence of what happens to the DNA to form what is called a mutation doesn't look very hopeful for anything evolution would need for all the claims made for it. But again, I'm not going to deny mutations, I don't know how much mutation may be involved. But I do generally focus on the reservoir of already-existing alleles as the source of the changes I have in mind. However, that's not a crucial thing either -- the source COULD be mutations and it seems to me no great difference in the scenerio I have in mind is made by that. It still takes selection and isolation to carve out a new phenotype from whatever the source material is. And every time I think through the processes involved I end up convinced that there IS an end to these processes of reduction that are the crucial element in defining a species. Even if every gene had new mutations and a new species was formed only from those new mutations, forming it would require at least the reduction of, and if you want your new species solidly fixed in its characteristics, then the actual loss of, all other alleles for all those genes.
I do think of the cheetah as a species created by one of the normal means by which species are brought about, though Wounded King slapped me around quite a bit for the thought.
Having traits and alleles show different diversity patterns seems contradictory to me.
Well, of course you always have an allele for a trait, roughly speaking anyway, but for a given trait to be expressed over time and become characteristic of a population requires that all the others not be expressed, and ultimately lost altogether from the population if the trait is to become fixed. That way while you are getting a new trait or phenotype you are also losing alleles in order to get it fixed.
Granted, there isn’t a one-to-one correlation between allelic diversity (you can have some traits that emerge without new alleles emerging, and you can have new alleles emerge without producing any new traits), but I would think that there should be a general trend of correlation between allelic and trait diversity, given that all traits ultimately trace back to alleles.
Yes, well I see my language can be confusing as certainly there should be an allele for a trait as I say above. But then in that same paragraph I'm trying to explain how the new trait comes to fixation when the genetic diversity is reduced. Perhaps there is a better way of saying it.
I’m also uncertain as to how trait diversity is increasing in your scenario.
The way the salamanders in the ring species get new traits from population to population. They all look different. Each population has its own characteristic phenotype. It's not exactly trait diversity that is increasing in a certain sense, it's that new traits that weren't getting expressed in the previous population are having an opportunity to get expressed in this new population, because the reduced numbers in the migration are mixing the genes in new proportions to allow this. New phenotypes do develop from bottlenecks. They also develop from less drastic population reductions. These are the extremes where genetic reduction on out to genetic depletion is easily demonstrated, but they should also indicate that there is a trend from earlier stages of the emergence of new traits from new gene frequencies through the progressive reduction of alleles if you are ever going to have a new species.
I would appreciate any explanation or clarification on this point. Take whatever time you need or want to do so.
Sorry I didn't get back to this sooner.
In the meantime, perhaps a bit of terminology would be beneficial, just to make sure we’re both clear on what we’re talking about:
gene: a region of the genome that encodes a certain product
allele: one of several sequence variants of a gene
Yes. I have a lot of questions about how the function of a gene which is made up of thousands of separate chemical codes can even be identified at all if you can get into that. Though it may not be terrificially relevant here.
character: a physical attribute of an organism
trait: one of several variants of a character
OK, though I tend to use them synonymously so you might have to clarify further if I create confusion by my use of them.
genotype: a suite of alleles in a single organism
phenotype: a suite of traits in a single organism
OK, but I also use phenotype as a trait which is the expression of a single allele and I'm sure I've seen it used that way. I use it when I'm afraid "trait" will be too ambiguous.
Also, are you familiar with the mechanisms of mutation and evolutionary genetics (e.g., crossing over, independent assortment, point mutations, insertions/deletions, etc.)? We might not need to talk about these, but, just in case...
Read up on mutations from time to time and have some notion how they are formed during the process of replication, but no, I don't feel I'm really up on how all this happens.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Replies to this message:
 Message 13 by Blue Jay, posted 04-03-2010 11:57 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 10 of 87 (553565)
04-03-2010 11:23 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by Blue Jay
04-03-2010 11:18 PM


Re: graphic attempts
Just saw this, have a quickdraw response:
selection doesn’t work on alleles, it works on traits
Many discussions of evolution claim so, but Dawkins insists it works on genes and goes to some lengths to explain this. Seems to me it's six of one and half a dozen of the other.
ABE: You want to make a distinction between dominance and recessiveness, OK, I do keep this in mind wherever it seems relevant.
Um, how does your "humoring" me on the title explain your using a title that doesn't reflect what I am trying to say?
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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 Message 19 by Blue Jay, posted 04-04-2010 12:02 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 12 of 87 (553567)
04-03-2010 11:33 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Blue Jay
04-03-2010 11:27 PM


OK, I just happened to be hanging out here but I have to leave now anyway.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 14 of 87 (553578)
04-04-2010 12:29 AM
Reply to: Message 13 by Blue Jay
04-03-2010 11:57 PM


Re: The crux
You have been arguing that natural selection should eliminate most of the genetic diversity in a population. You have a parent population with all kinds of allelic diversity in a model where allelic diversity is inexorably reducing over time. So, why shouldn’t this process also be working in the parent population? What is different about the parent population that allows it to maintain high levels of genetic diversity?
Its size. Its much greater numbers.
Of course if it isn't that large then it too may very well show the same processes in operation as any population that has been cut off from it. In fact you could hypothetically have half a dozen or more populations splitting up from an original large population and all going in different directions. The size of each population should determine how rapidly and conspicuously the selection processes operate in it. The smaller the population the more dramatic the phenotypic changes and the greater the reduction or depletion of genetic diversity.
In a very large well mixed population very little evolution happens as I understand it.
(But I've also said it may be that natural selection isn't nearly as effective at making all these changes as simple population reduction and isolation itself, however that comes about.)
Your response was to this statement by me:
New traits emerge by the coming to the fore of previously unexpressed alleles, probably mostly recessive ones in some cases (these technical things I'd like to know more about), by new combinations of alleles getting an opportunity to be expressed and that sort of thing.
This contradicts the main point of your argument, and is really the crux of the argument I’ve been trying to bring against you.
Of course I don't see any contradiction here. I'm still describing the same situation of a relatively small population which is allowing the expression of previously unexpressed alleles and new combinations. Its smaller size is bringing all this out by mixing a smaller collection of traits and their alleles, since others were left behind. The smaller the population the more dramatic and faster the effects; if the population is pretty good sized they will still operate but not as fast or dramatically.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 15 of 87 (553581)
04-04-2010 1:07 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Blue Jay
04-01-2010 4:59 PM


rest of post #1
For this one, we need to consider a timeline of events, including the following events:
1.Onset of selection pressure
2.Emergence of new alleles
3.Extermination of alleles selected against
And, the following considerations:
1.Other concurrent selection pressures
2.Genetic linkage between different alleles
3.Magnitude of each selection pressure
If we choose to pursue this complex model, I think we’ll quickly find that decreasing genetic diversity is not so inevitable as you have argued. I'll hold off on the specifics until you're ready to discuss it.
OK, may the timing be right. Sounds interesting.
Faith writes:
You may get a new trait but you'll always get it at the expense of all the other genetic possibilities, and when this occurs with many traits you eventually get speciation, fixed loci, and such limited ability for further variation evolution is for all intents and purposes at an end.
I explained a bit about genetic fixation in a few other places. Fixation is what you’re talking about: the elimination of all alleles for a certain gene except for one.
Yes, I think that's at least the end point of what I'm talking about and I've taken your point and have been using it.
I do not think that fixation is inevitable, and I’m certain will never occur at all positions in the genomes of all individuals within a single population.
Well, my context is what happens in speciation and along the path to it, not in all other conditions of life organisms may be found in, and there may be plenty of variation where the processes I'm describing are not happening. This series of events maybe doesn't even happen frequently, I don't really know, but it seems to me it MUST happen if you're ever going to get new variations that lead to speciation.
If no change in happening in a population I wouldn't expect even much in the way of a loss of genetic diversity to be apparent, if any.
But someone has suggested that speciation may not be all that important to evolution. So again it would be good if you could explain how that might be. I can't think of any other way you could get the kinds of changes the ToE predicts over time.
Selection pressures simply cannot be orchestrated such that any single organism can contain all the best alleles for all genes: so, naturally, we should expect that no single combination of alleles will be absolutely superior to all other possibilities in a population.
I don't see the relevance of this but I'll read on. I really don't take natural selection as seriously as the theory would have me do, because it seems to me that the simple division of a population that brings about a smaller population as in a migration of a small portion to a geographically isolated area, has much more effect in changing the character of a species and is much more likely to lead to ultimate speciation than natural selection is, and I gather from my reading that some population geneticists see it this way also. I don't tend to think in terms of better or worse alleles either, except for harmful mutations, it seems to me it's all simply interesting and creative possibilities for variation, and that natural selection only really operates when there is genuine pressure. How often that occurs I don't know, do scientists?
As an example, let me present Uta stansburiana, the rock-paper-scissors lizard I referred to earlier in your thread. This is an (admittedly unusual) example of a population that has reached a relatively stable balance between different genotypes. This sort of balancing act is what is going on in nearly all populations, all the time: the equilibrium oscillates between different character states, occasionally leading to the complete extinction of a certain trait, but also often leading to a complete rebound of a rare allele.
Yes, I can see that that could describe a very common situation in populations, but then I'd point out that this isn't evolution or change toward speciation, which is the process in which the reduction of genetic diversity occurs that I'm talking about, as it produces new phenotypes, sometimes some rather dramatic new types.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 16 of 87 (553593)
04-04-2010 2:40 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Blue Jay
04-01-2010 4:59 PM


Keep forgetting to ask: what is your science, Bluejay?

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


(1)
Message 21 of 87 (553649)
04-04-2010 1:54 PM
Reply to: Message 19 by Blue Jay
04-04-2010 12:02 PM


Re: The Title /
Seems to me it's six of one and half a dozen of the other.
So, why did you make such a big deal about the title, then?
Because what I'm trying to do is make a distinction between the observed level of phenotypic change, which LOOKS additive (although in actual fact it is also reduced), and the unobserved level of genotypic change which is reduced during the processes of population splitting that lead to speciation. Evolutionists look at the new phenotypes that emerge and call that evolution (which it is) and especially if it goes as far as speciation, without noticing the corresponding reduction in alleles that has to happen to bring out the new phenotypes.
If you describe this as reducing traits you obscure the whole point that to the eye the traits are proliferating and evolving and forming new species -- which is why they are always pointed to as evidence for evolution. And this IS evolution, it is the essence of evolution.
But the underlying genetic situation is not also proliferating, it is reducing.
Yes, again, literally the traits are reducing too. That is, there are FEWER traits possible in the new populations just as there are fewer alleles available, but since they are emerging to characterize the population they APPEAR to be increasing.
This is tricky to get said but it is of the essence of my argument. What LOOKS like evolution because you're getting new variations, lots of observable change, is entirely the effect of restricting the gene pool. NUMBERS of traits are also reduced in this restricted gene pool, while the EXPRESSION of traits in the overall collection of populations based on the entire gene pool for that species is increasing. And this is what evolutionists take account of in their descriptions of evolution while overlooking the actual literal reduction that's going on.
Time and time again I've read evolutionist accounts of evolution that describe only the surface changes. Dawkins goes on and on about this or that wonderful adaptation as if new adaptations and variations could just endlessly increase out to infinity without ever once considering the underlying genetic restriction that has to have taken place for that adaptation to emerge.
==================
The following was my first answer to this post and although it just repeats the same thing in somewhat different words I'm going to leave it here for now because it may add something to the concept I'm trying to get across:
Big deal out of the title? I'm trying to prove that as traits become expressed as the defining character of new populations the genetic diversity of that population is reduced.
Traits are "reduced" only in the sense that when their alleles are removed from the population they have disappeared as possible expressions for that population, but with respect to the traits exhibited in the former population they are new and different, they are not reduced, you are getting change, you are getting new phenotypes, you are getting evolution.
The effect is additive on the surface because if you add them to the traits of the former population you can count a lot of different types of salamanders for the total salamander gene pool, and between the two populations there are of course the corresponding underlying genetics for ALL the traits as well, but different alleles are getting expressed in the different context. In the new population "new" alleles are getting expressed with respect to the first population because some from the first have been suppressed or eliminated to allow the "new" ones to emerge and get expressed.
You really still don't quite get what I'm trying to get at. Not that I blame you but I have to keep bringing us back to it.
Obviously I'm trying to say something that evolutionists don't believe and don't address and really, don't even think about. Naturally you keep trying to take me back to what evolutionists think. If you can prove I'm wrong that's one thing, but if the discussion is going to make sense you really do have to get what I'm trying to say.
========================
Literally both alleles and traits are decreasing as new variations emerge.
Dynamically (just thought of that word as possibly descriptive here) while you are adding traits to traits as you get new breeds or variations, what is REALLY going on is this overall reduction and loss of diversity. Yes, literally also loss of trait diversity too in the new breed, but when we just look at the increase in overall variations for the total population we add it all together and call it an increase, which it is for the TOTAL population.
================================
ABE: Maybe I should say the EMERGENT or EXPRESSED TRAITS are increasing in these daughter populations while the alleles are being reduced AND the actual number of traits is reduced?
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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This message is a reply to:
 Message 19 by Blue Jay, posted 04-04-2010 12:02 PM Blue Jay has replied

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 Message 22 by Faith, posted 04-04-2010 2:33 PM Faith has not replied
 Message 24 by Blue Jay, posted 04-04-2010 10:57 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 22 of 87 (553650)
04-04-2010 2:33 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by Faith
04-04-2010 1:54 PM


Re: The Title /
Sorry to keep going on and on but I want to add something to my last post in a separate post.
Time and time again I've read evolutionist accounts of evolution that describe only the surface changes. Dawkins goes on and on about this or that wonderful adaptation as if new adaptations and variations could just endlessly increase out to infinity without ever once considering the underlying genetic restriction that has to have taken place for that adaptation to emerge.
This is because he thinks it was the addition of new alleles by mutation that created this adaptation.
This assumption is probably the core of the debate really and why you all want to tell me that mutations are what I'm overlooking.
So back before this new adaptation emerged, in the previous population of the species, put your mutations for this adaptation into the picture and then apply selection pressure so that it starts to spread in the population, Pink Sasquatch's longer flycatching tongue for her frog way back in the original thread perhaps, and then notice:
As the longer tongue comes to characterize the population, you are losing all the other kinds of tongues, the shorter tongues, AND the genetic substrate for them -- at least you are reducing their number (or more accurately, their proportion) in the total population.
The mutation is getting selected but exactly the same processes of reduction are occurring that I've been describing.
The shorter tongues may remain latent in the population -- I'm not sure how this works genetically -- dominant and recessive forms at least? -- but it's certainly what happens in those moths that turn from light to dark according to their background -- they never speciated or evolved into one or the other type, they continue to be able to go back and forth between the two types. And that could happen with the frog tongues too. In that case you aren't getting an established or fixed variation, and you aren't getting evolution if you mean going from one to another variation without end.
But if you do get a fixed variation, or speciation, a truly new frog type with this longer tongue that can't interbreed with its former family members, then you've not only lost all those shorter tongues forever in the new frog species but all the alleles for them. You've lost the genetic diversity needed to go on evolving.
And if natural selection works on traits, then of course you've lost the trait diversity too. Bluejay has made me aware that I need to take this into account. It IS true that the traits are ALSO being reduced as the new one becomes fixed. I was taking that for granted but it's just as true as that alleles are being reduced. Also, it's no doubt right to say that natural selection works on the traits as well as the genes. I've been focusing on the surface fact of an apparent increase in traits all added together for the total species, because that's where evolutionist descriptions focus, so I emphasize that it costs genetically for new traits to emerge. But the new trait is just as much the product of a reduced pool of traits as its allele is the product of the reduced pool of alleles.
I see that Bluejay wants to answer my claim that a large sized population isn't evolving according to this progression of processes I'm describing by bringing in mathematics. That isn't going to fly with a nonmathematical brain like mine, and I would simply like to point out that Darwin also confessed to being mathematically challenged so hold the derision please.
The size of the population IS relevant. Population geneticists write quite a bit about how genetic drift acts more slowly in large populations, and in fact everything that brings about new species acts more slowly if at all.
But I'll try to get what Bluejay is saying.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by Faith, posted 04-04-2010 1:54 PM Faith has not replied

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 Message 23 by Blue Jay, posted 04-04-2010 10:27 PM Faith has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 25 of 87 (553781)
04-05-2010 1:42 AM
Reply to: Message 24 by Blue Jay
04-04-2010 10:57 PM


Re: Faith and the Seals
Since mutations that actually contribute to the health of a species by making new viable alleles are an assumption imposed by the theory of evolution, it would be more convincing if you'd actually go and take DNA samples of at least 1000 of the seals to check their genetic diversity.
Do it also with each population of the salamanders of the ring populations in California and of the seagulls that ring the northern Atlantic and the chipmunks around the Sierra. Otherwise this is all hot-air theorizing as an argument.
More later.
By the way, I could have listed Founder Effect myself. It adds nothing to your argument, just gives you another label under which to say the same old thing.
But yes, that's the idea, so at least now I know you get it.
So I'll try again tomorrow.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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This message is a reply to:
 Message 24 by Blue Jay, posted 04-04-2010 10:57 PM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 26 by Blue Jay, posted 04-05-2010 10:32 AM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


(1)
Message 27 of 87 (554156)
04-06-2010 4:51 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by Blue Jay
04-05-2010 10:32 AM


evidence for mutations.
Bluejay you do AND you don't understand my argument as far as I can tell. Founder Effect is OK as a general category but it restricts it in ways I try not to. Never mind, I'm still listening to the You Tube lecture by the Yale biologist and trying to find out if there are new ways for me to think this through, including what you have to say here.
I did get icy, sorry, not sure what you said, maybe something on the other thread. Maybe just feeling you're with them and they're against me and of course ultimately you are too even if you're being nice. Sorry, I'll try to keep it down.
I'll probably be dead by the time you're a professor.
What's to stop a beneficial mutation from happening?
Well, if you assume evolution, nothing, but if like me you don't, you'd have to prove that they happen at all -- any that actually form useful alleles, that is. Honestly, I haven't seen it yet. Discussions of mutations still sound awfully hypothetical, EXCEPT for the ones they know about that cause diseases -- and there are thousands of those.
Yes, I'm sure even as I ask for direct proof of genetic diversity that it's just not practical. Sequencing a genome has to be laborious and expensive. But I don't see how else a creationist is going to be able to show that the evolutionist assumptions might be wrong if it's all dependent on interpretations of "correlative field data" that is interpreted through the lens of evolution.
You talk about the 60 mutations per individual -- how did you arrive at that? You actually looked at the genomes you say. I'd really like to understand what you saw but if it's in the form of those odd-looking DNA graphs or mathematical formulas no way. What do you think of those mutations? They're all mistakes in replication? How many are going to be disease-causing or removed by selection because of being defective? Etc.
I wish it were possible to actually SEE a genome, see a chromosome, see a gene.
The effects of a mutation on the organism have nothing to do with the mechanism that causes the mutation; so benefit or detriment cannot possibly have impacted the occurrence of the mutation.
True. I think I was assuming that most detriminental alleles would be selected out, and that speciation would be built from healthy ones, but obviously genetic diseases also proliferate. I didn't think there was anything controversial about my statement.
Perhaps we do need to get into mutations in some depth because I can't help but have the assumption at the back of my head all the time, much as I try to suspend it for purposes of this discussion, that mutations are predominantly deleterious and the actual evidence for any kind of mutation that could actually power evolution is pretty much nonexistent, that the idea of such mutations is entirely hypothetical and assumed, taken for granted but not actually ever demonstrated.
This would make sense of course for anyone absolutely convinced of the theory of evolution because of COURSE such mutations MUST occur in that case, so whenever you describe any case of the emergence of a new phenotype you AUTOMATICALLY assume it's the product of a mutation. I've been trying to go along with this because I don't think it makes much difference to the point I've been trying to make, but it apparently needs to be talked through.
In fact if there ISN'T any real proof of mutations beyond the bad ones my argument is more solid anyway, so it would be good to know for sure what the situation really is.
There is only data that is favorable to the possibility that the genetic diversity of a population can increase over time.
I've seen this claimed many times. I haven't seen it actually demonstrated to be true, or even demonstrated to be the possibility you are saying it is.
If it's all from purely hypothetical mutations I'm going to remain unconvinced. If it's all from observed mutations in the genome without a clear idea of what those mutations are actually doing, I'm going to be unconvinced too and maybe that's all there is to say about it anyway since this is pretty much what you aresaying here:
However, the only practical way to study mutations currently is to look for gross disfigurement in fruit flies or Arabidopsis plants and try to see if there is a genetic basis for the disfigurement. This is hardly conducive to assessing the rates of beneficial mutations, so it shouldn’t surprise anybody that we rely on correlative field data.
No, it doesn't, but isn't convincing to a creationist as the whole assumption rests on an acceptance of the theory of evolution.
If you INSIST on making mutations your argument against me, I don't see how you can do this if you can't REALLY prove they exist. Which is what I've been assuming all along anyway. So I've ALSO been trying to assume they exist for the sake of argument and trying to construct my argument around that assumption.
I have a feeling that's where it has to remain, that there isn't really any more to it, right?
I'm not sure I did your post justice. I also have in mind your previous post where you say something about studies done in the 50s that deal with the sort of observations I'm occupied with. Is there any way for me to see those, or any way for you to translate them into English so that I can grasp what they were all about? Never mind, I see you were just talking about the Founder Effect. But I have run across references to studies in population genetics that were done about that time that I've thought I should read up on. I have some sources of my own though.
In any case, I'm going back to the Yale lectures on You Tube next. If I've left anything out of my response to you, or misread anything, please put it in the next post.
Thanks.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by Blue Jay, posted 04-05-2010 10:32 AM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 28 by Blue Jay, posted 04-06-2010 7:21 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


(1)
Message 29 of 87 (554211)
04-06-2010 10:07 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by Blue Jay
04-06-2010 7:21 PM


Re: evidence for mutations.
-----
Faith writes:
You talk about the 60 mutations per individual -- how did you arrive at that?
Well, I didn’t: that figure was from a recently published study.
Oh right, I'd seen that, thought you were saying something else, some study YOU had done. OK.
In that study, the researchers actually sequenced the entire genomes of a husband and wife, and the genomes of their two children. They were able to identify places in the genome where the children’s sequence differed from both parents’ genomes. Each child’s genome contained about 70* places that differed from both parents’ genomes.
That’s 70* differences (mutations) in one generation.
*The news article says 60, but the actual study says 70 (I missed this on my first time through).
Faith writes:
What do you think of those mutations? They're all mistakes in replication? How many are going to be disease-causing or removed by selection because of being defective?
The paper stated that both children had two recessive genetic disorders, but does not actually state whether these were due to mutation: my feeling is that these were not related to the mutations identified. As far as I can tell (most of the paper is beyond my education), none of the mutations identified was detrimental: given that the samples were taken from living children, the mutations were obviously at least not fatal.
But it was also not clear what exactly they DID do, if anything, right? As you say next:
No data were presented on the phenotypic effects of the mutations, but, given that the children do not seem to have been adversely affected by any of these mutations, they would appear to be neutral or, at worst, very slightly deleterious, and some may even have been beneficial.
The thing here, for a creationist, is that what you know is only that there are 70 alleles whose codes have been changed with respect to the parents' genomes. (How big the changes are would be interesting to know too, it just occurred to me, that is, how many codons are affected at each locus and the effects of any differences in how many and that sort of thing.)
That is what a mutation is, of course, but from this study it doesn't appear that you know anything about them that would validate the assumption that all alleles originated with this kind of event, which IS the assumption of evolution, right? That is, you don't have any evidence that any of them code for anything in the normal range of the things that alleles code for in the making of traits.
One thing scientists apparently DO know is quite a bit about some of such changes that are responsible for genetic diseases, and I've seen references to thousands of these -- that is about all I see that is actually KNOWN about what they do. There are a few that apparently have negative effects of some sort that somehow also work out to a benefit in some area (malaria/sickle cell and another I keep forgetting). But that doesn't seem to me to be anything that could be considered a model for the kinds of changes evolution needs mutations to be.
No data were presented on the phenotypic effects of the mutations, but, given that the children do not seem to have been adversely affected by any of these mutations, they would appear to be neutral or, at worst, very slightly deleterious, and some may even have been beneficial.
Is it fair to suppose that the scientists doing this study would be planning to go on to study these same mutations to try to find out exactly what phenotypes they may be connectec with, what their genes do and how the mutations affect that gene's function? That's something I would want to know from such a study.
In fact I HAVE to know this in order to know how to think about mutations at all. Evolutionists ASSUME this is how all alleles are made, but I can't assume that and I doubt it seriously and I see no evidence in such a study for this assumption. To my mind these mistakes could very well just BE mistakes, perhaps not deleterious in all cases, perhaps occasionally mildly useful, but mistakes nevertheless, nothing that could produce alleles that code for normal traits in organisms -- traits of the sort studied by Mendel for instance at least, blue eyes, coat color -- anything in the usual phenotypic range that we can observe. Could just simply not the normal way the system is supposed to work. A pathology. It's not that I can't accept it if you can show it, I just do not see it here.
Faith writes:
Well, if you assume evolution, nothing [is to stop beneficial mutations from happening], but if like me you don't, you'd have to prove that they happen at all -- any that actually form useful alleles, that is. Honestly, I haven't seen it yet. Discussions of mutations still sound awfully hypothetical, EXCEPT for the ones they know about that cause diseases -- and there are thousands of those.
Well I see I'm getting repetitive as I elaborated the same point above.
There have been hundreds of scientific studies that have conclusively demonstrated that mutations happen. There is no way to realistically deny that mutations happen.
Um, I have to ask here what SORT of evidence is involved in these studies generally? Since sequencing the genome is a very rare study, you have to be talking about traits that appear in the phenotype, no? Or perhaps changes at individual genes whose function it has been possible to identify? Again, my doubt is that the known mutations have been shown to be anything along the lines of what I'm calling "normal" alleles. This seems to be assumed but never demonstrated. No?
Given that, we then have to decide what constitutes a beneficial mutation, and why this would represent a special case of a mutation that cannot happen.
Well, the creationist thought that comes to mind is that there's no reason to expect that it WOULD happen IF mutations are NOT the normal source of (normal) alleles after all, as of course creationists suspect. The idea that ANY mutation could be beneficial (in the sense of a normal allele as I'm talking about it though I may need a better word) is a logical assumption that follows upon the assumption that the theory of evolution is true.
But it MUST be demonstrated to a creationist, because we simply can't assume it. If you can really demonstrate it, we'd have to accept it. But this whole discussion so far is the usual hypothetical discussion. You see changes in the genes, yes, they are mutations by definition, yes, but what they DO is the crucial thing and that part is assumed except for the ones you can document that do ABNORMAL things to the phenotype, or that don't appear to do anything. You are arguing that there's no reason for them not to be beneficial only BECAUSE if evolution is true there is no reason for them not to be. For this reason you've GOT to show something real in the genome. You can't expect us to accept your field correlates or however you put that.
When we add to this the simple observation that the occurrence of mutations is not sensitive to the phenotypic effects that the mutation would have on the organism, I don’t see how there is anything that could stop a beneficial mutation from happening.
I don't know what you mean by "not sensitive to the phenotypic effects that the mutation would have on the organism." I've been struggling to get it, finally gave up.
In terms of the scientific method, the default conclusion is that beneficial mutations can and do happen.
For reasons said above, can't accept "default conclusion," need an actual allele for an actual phenotypic effect that's an interesting variation and not a deformity. If such exist, shouldn't you be able to come up with at least ONE?
The alternative is to propose that there is a special mechanism in place that prevents mutations from happening if those mutations would have a positive effect on phenotype.
Not if, as creationists believe, alleles are part of the original creation, built in from the beginning and not evolved. What we actually see of mutations so far, the actual evidence, is of changes that either do bad things or nothing much at all or at best make a mild sort of change that's hard to pin down (and I'm not even sure that this has been demonstrated really).
If the assumption is correct that beneficial mutations MUST happen you MUST be able to demonstrate one. There's really no reason why you can't if the assumption is true. Or, let me ask, what IS the reason you have for this inability to demonstrate it?
A mere assumption based on evolutionary theory doesn't do it for us.
Since there is no evidence for such a special mechanism, there is no reason to think that beneficial mutations are different from any other kind of mutation in terms of whether or not they can happen.
Again, there's no need for a special mechanism if what mutations really are is simply mistakes in the coding system, that is, a pathology of the reproductive system, that aren't desirable for the organism -- in a general sense at least if not always an obvious specific sense -- which is what the evidence so far seems to show. The odd thing in that case would BE the production of a beneficial mutation, and it COULD happen since it's all just chemicals strung together, but it would be the improbable event.
It can be extremely difficult to identify beneficial mutations, because benefit is highly context-specific. For instance, mutations have been identified that cause plants to grow taller than they otherwise would. This would be beneficial where competing plants were tall, because it would allow the plant to reach sunlight, but it would not really be useful for a plant that has little competition for sunlight.
Yes I get the context-specific thing, but any organism has a collection of alleles that appear to be context-specific, don't they? Normal occurring or "old" alleles. This is the stuff that selection works on. Clue me in on this example. How exactly do you know this is a "mutation" and not just a rare, perhaps recessive, allele that happened to show up? Has the gene actually been studied so its sequence is known (just the gene, not the whole genome)?
However, many kinds of detrimental effects can be easily identified because of the obvious deformities they cause. This is the only really sure reason why we know so many more detrimental mutations than beneficial mutations.
Yes. But the fact that this sort of effect IS easily identified, while beneficial effects are as good as nonexistent to the naked eye, appears to support the creationist interpretation more than the evolutionist interpretation.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by Blue Jay, posted 04-06-2010 7:21 PM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 30 by Blue Jay, posted 04-07-2010 10:43 AM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


(2)
Message 31 of 87 (554346)
04-07-2010 4:19 PM
Reply to: Message 30 by Blue Jay
04-07-2010 10:43 AM


Re: evidence for mutations.
First off, you are overusing the word assumption: an assumption is something that cannot be based on anything. Since the idea of beneficial mutations is based on the observation that mutations occur, it is not an assumption.
Wow, bluejay, let's not quibble at this level. I'm simply trying to be clear. Dr. A defined on some thread a while back how evolutionists believe in positive mutaitons as an "assumption." An assumption based on the theory. I bet there are lots of evolutionists who use the term that way. There's really nothing wrong with my use of it. As a matter of fact I'm sure you're wrong. We all get our assumptions from something we've observed. Nothing comes straight out of the blue.
A hypothetical scenario is not even remotely similar to an assumption. Please stop flinging the word assumption around.
OK I'll toe your line on this for the sake of peace though you are completely wrong. Shall I call it a hypothesis then? Same difference to me. I still say exactly what I said already only I substitute hypothesis for assumption.
Faith writes:
For reasons said above, can't accept "default conclusion," need an actual allele for an actual phenotypic effect that's an interesting variation and not a deformity.
Then you are asking for evolutionists to provide a level of proof that you would never ask of anybody else for any other claim!
If I could prove to you that humans can walk, would you then demand additional evidence that shows that humans can walk to a water hole to get water? You would not demand this, because you know that the destination has no relevance whatsoever for the mechanism of getting there. If I can walk, I can walk to water. Period.
Now YOU're getting testy and it seems to be as soon as I make a point against evollution.
You haven't proved anything similar to your example here, that humans can walk. Mutations that cause disease or do nothing or maybe sometimes do something in a trade-off with another diseae process are hardly to be compared with a positive function like walking.
Bluejay, this is typical evolutionist thinking and I can hardly blame you for it, but it ought to be a patently ridiculous comparison even to you.
Dawkins is always saying that since there are observable new species in nature we can anticipate the endless development of further new species given enough time. This is false if the whole process depends on reduced genetic diversity as I am trying to argue. And I'm willing to argue it even WITH mutation in the mix because mutation is going to get reduced same as built-in alleles would and you still aren't going to get a new species without reduced genetic diversity.
No this comparison is ridiculous. You are claiming something crucially important to the argument between evolution and creaitonism. Evolutionists talk about mutations all the time as if they were observed reality. You do this when you flatly state that there is a lot of increase in genetic diversity in the seal population. All you really know is that there are probably mutations there; what you do not know is whether these contribute in any way at all to the health of the species or its ability to further vary (in healthy ways). You ASSUME this part of it, and it's quite fair to describe it in such terms.
You want me to accept something as a reality that is a flat-out empty assertion. That is what evolutionists do, treat as reality something that cannot be demonstrated but is based only on the theory. You want me to accept evolution though my whole reason to be here is to argue against it. Wow. Talk about begging the question.
YOU believe the theory of evolution. I do not. And the actual observable empirical evidence for mutations supports creationism, not evolution. You MUST produce a mutation that created a normal alele to overthrow my contention. That's what true science would require of you. Many mutations have been observed in that study you linked. Those doing the study should be working to show that any one of those 70 mutations are of the sort needed to make the constant reification of a nonexistent healthy allele an actual physical reality.
That is why I had to get this clear, get you to show that there is no observed reality behind the kind of alleles that are needed for evolution. I wasn't entirely sure myself because the way evolutionists talk you'd think they could dangle this normal allele in front of my eyes. They can't. The ONLY actual observable empirical evidence that actually exists is of mutations that cause disease or do nothing as far as anyone knows.
My point is quite reasonable. You have thousands of such observed mutations -- in all that observation you OUGHT to have at least ONE that demonstrates what you are continually treating as if it were a fact based on the theory but isn't.
But, in the case of mutations, you’ve totally flip-flopped your position, and are demanding that, after we have proven the proverbial ability to walk, we still have to prove the proverbial ability to walk to water.
BS, bluejay, BS. Ability to walk isn't comparable to thousands of disease-causing or nothing-causing mutations.
Out of all that you can't produce ONE true allele, can you?
The functionality of the allele has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not the mutation that would create the allele can happen. So, if I can show you that a new allele can be produced (and I have done so), then I have shown you the ability to make a beneficial mutation. No assumptions are involved at all in this conclusion: every step of the process is supported by evidence. If a gene can change, it can change into something functional. Period.
Nonsense. You have to have positive evidence and you have none. Evolutionists apparently bamboozle generation after generation of students with this pure fantasy they treat as reality. Wake up bluejay.
Faith writes:
Again, there's no need for a special mechanism [to prevent beneficial mutations] if what mutations really are is simply mistakes in the coding system, that is, a pathology of the reproductive system, that aren't desirable for the organism -- in a general sense at least if not always an obvious specific sense -- which is what the evidence so far seems to show.
Once again, desirability has nothing to do with the mechanisms of allele production. What part of that is so hard to understand?
-----
Nothing at all. YOu have something that looks like an allele that you can show has been caused by a mistake in gene replication.
Is it really an allele? So far they all look like deformities, not alleles.
What part don't you understand of the fact that you have to PROVE that desirable alleles occur in reality or all you've proved is a pathological process that occurs that changes one healthy allele into something unhealthy or simply destroys its function altogether? You MUST prove desirability. And by all rights, given the numbers of mutations you know about you should have been able to come up with hundreds or thousands if the theory is right that mutations are the source of normal alleles.
No evidence is no evidence. Hypothesis can't substitute for evidence.
Faith writes:
...from this study it doesn't appear that you know anything about [the mutations] that would validate the assumption that all alleles originated with this kind of event, which IS the assumption of evolution, right?
Okay, now you’re moving the goalposts. Why do I have to demonstrate that all alleles emerged this way? If I demonstrate that one alleles emerged this way (which I have done), I am vindicated, because it then falls on you to show that other alleles are somehow different from that allele.
Yes, if you could produce one normally coding allele for something recognizable along Mendelian lines and not disease and not the half-baked disease-for-disease version, that would be vindication. Producing sick or dead alleles is not evidence.
Besides, you’re reading everything we do in science backwards from the way it actually happens. Scientists started with the observation that mutations produce new alleles, and extrapolated that backwards to hypothesize that all alleles emerged this way. Since no one has produced evidence for any other mechanism by which alleles are generated, mutation is currently the only demonstrated way to explain the origin of alleles.
Fine, it's a reasonable hypothesis but that doesn't give you the right to treat it as reality, and that's the way you ALL treat it. You talk about increased genetic diversity as if you could actually see it and demonstrate it when it's nothing but the product of your hypothesis. You talk about all normally occurring functioning alleles AS IF they were the product of mutations as if this were established reality.
In what science is it valid to treat a hypothesis as a reality before actual evidence has been produced to demonstrate it?
And again, by this time, after you have thousands of REAL disease-producing alleles and who knows how many you can't show any function for at all, you OUGHT to be able to produce a REAL desirable one. Really, bluejay, THAT would be how science really works. You can't go on building on a hypothesis forever that cannot be proved in reality. At some point you have to abandon it.
I believe the evidence that is actually in hand demonstrates that mutations are a pathological occurence. That's the reasonable interpretation of the actual evidence you have that you yourself have shown.
And I didn't know this with so much certainty before this post of yours either. Now I know beyond a doubt that evolutionists are reifying their hypotheses and calling them facts when they are no such thing.
Until somebody presents something better, this is what we have to work with to explain the genetic diversity of life. So, that’s what we use to construct our current model of life and its history. If you disagree with this model, the onus is on you to demonstrate that reality deviates from the model, not on us to provide better proof of what we have already demonstrated to be accurate.
Your own actual evidence has disproved your hypothesis by now. If you don't have an alternative, that's no justification for going on with one that has been so soundly disproved as this one with all those thousands of sick mutations.
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 30 by Blue Jay, posted 04-07-2010 10:43 AM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 32 by Blue Jay, posted 04-07-2010 11:05 PM Faith has replied

  
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