Can Chromosome Counts Change?

Wow, I am amazed at the way you quote someone else without any understanding on your part."Chromosome duplication does not produce new traits. It creates bigger cells, and can produce bigger than normal plants, but does not produce new genetic traits, or the addition of new genes to the DNA. The DNA does not change. And for evolution to take place the DNA must change."1) Trait = a distinguishing feature of your personal (substitute genetic) nature. i.e. above.2) If you are naively thinking of a gene as a linear box then maybe I can understand why you would think "a new gene" had not been added. However, larger than normal plants could require the plant to improve the function of genes necessary for better photosynthesis, root system, etc. i.e. evolving into a new plant3) DNA changes all of the time. Certain blood types are more susceptible/less susceptible to certain diseases (sorry can't recall which ones). I think this would qualify as a DNA change that improves the chances of you living to reproductive age (which is a requirement I believe for natural selection), AND blood type changes happen all of the time.The flaw in your argument is that you are trying to "look" at DNA macroscopically. You are thinking of DNA as though you interchange the pieces like Legos. Just look at the mutations that are more prevalent in a specific ethnicity(not sure if this is the correct word) such as Tay-Sachs and Sickle Cell anemia.You might want to pick a gene, any gene, and go to PubMed (get the URL off of Google, etc) and just read about some of the work that is ongoing in functional genomics. It will make you appreciate the complexity of what you seem to suggest is a no/yes situation.Good Luck.------------------
Two most important senses in life: common and humor.

Ned,
"No, not like two copies of a book. A bit more like to coffee machines. You get twice as much of something. I'd have to do some digging to find a reference but there are cases where a duplicated gene makes a difference in the phenotype."An example is a study (sorry I do not have the reference) where it was found that 40% of incarcerated violent sexual offenders actually had two(it might have been more) y chromosomes. Although a little correlative, it seemed to indicate that more testosterone was being produced and thus served as a possible explanation (still leaves 60% though).

"If they mutate, they may produce different proteins. Thus you could say that the information is different. Where you and I may disagree is whether novel protein families could arise by mutations.Hmmmm, well technically you are right. It MIGHT not result in a novel protein (why family?), but that is not necessary for the protein change to have long-reaching phenotypic implications. Not to mention that many mutations can be "linked" to another area in the gene, and even other genes. So, I think that this would constitute "new" information if not a "novel" protein.

Hi Rrhain,
Please note what I said after that statement as well. However, I will wrack my brain to remember the reference. By the way, I hope you aren't implying that genotype always predisposes an organism to a specific phenotype?