The equation above simply fails if we choose to ignore x.
Yes, that is my point. But although you say this now and say it again in your post you also try to take it back, as I will point out.
Evolution by this definition ought to be falsified by the fact that most changes in the frequency of alleles in a population do correspond to a reduction in genetic diversity (ignoring mutation's effect for the moment), which is hardly what would be expected if an evolutionary direction were in fact occurring via these processes.
I said before that we cannot look at the number of processes which lead to a reduction in genetic diversity and compare that to the number of processes that [increase] information and get any meaningful result.
Well but I dare say it WOULD be a meaningful result if I could demonstrate that evolution cannot happen. However, in a sense I'm not exactly trying to get a meaningful result, I'm simply trying to illuminate a confusion that people have about what evolution is. People really do think that these subtractive processes lead to evolution that in fact lead away from evolution because they reduce genetic diversity, and that you admit lead only to extinction.
We need to look at the magnitude of these effects. Every offspring is an increase in genetic diversity, natural selection does not select every (or more than every) offspring.
Yes, of course, you MUST turn to what you believe to be an increase in genetic diversity, because all the other processes lead to a decrease and it is painfully obvious that evolution can't happen unless there are other processes that increase.
At the very least the processes are misnamed, and evolution on the basis of them misconceived. It appears more and more that evolution has ONLY mutation to rely on, and the definition really ought to be changed to reflect this fact as the current definition doesn't describe Evolution but Devolution, to less and less genetic diversity with each change in the phenotypic picture of a population all the way out to drastic genetic depletion and the threat or actuality of extinction.
Actually evolution has fecundity, selection and variability as well as heredity to 'rely on'. There are plenty of others too. The current definition does not describe Devolution at all.
I beg to differ. The current definition does describe devolution because the mere change in frequency of alleles adds nothing genetically. [AbE: Without mutation] it either reshuffles or it subtracts, it adds nothing, and that is what I'm calling DEvolution. It is all I'm talking about. [AbE: MOST changes in the frequency of alleles are this type, either a reshuffling or a subtraction of diversity].
Fecundity does nothing but increase NUMBERS OF PHENOTYPES, it does not affect genetic diversity [AbE: it is mutation that increases diversity; fecundity merely spreads the result in the population and fecundity doesn't apply to all species either]. SELECTION, again, is one of the SUBTRACTIVE processes I'm talking about, it adds nothing, it merely chooses one allele over another, sometimes by the actual elimination of the one rejected. And what do you mean by "variability?" It is just another word for diversity it seems to me, and I've been showing that genetic diversity is reduced. Or are you talking about variability of phenotypes? If so, again, my whole point is that when these varying types are produced by the subtractive processes of selection they represent a genetic DEvolution that is merely masked by the greater PHENOtypic variation.
This is the TREND of all these processes that change the frequency of alleles. Yes, there are stable populations, and recombinations that do increase the number and frequency of alleles, but OVERALL, as a TREND, no, the direction is to reduced numbers of alleles, and reduced diversity, therefore reduced possibility of further change, reduced adaptability, the opposite of evolution.
You have stated your position a dozen times or more. Do you, at any time, plan to back it up?
I've been backing it up all along. It is a matter of thinking through the logic of it. You yourself and others acknowledge it from time to time, and you acknowledge it in this post as well, but then turn around and take it back. When you say that without mutation evolution is impossible you are acknowledging it. When you say at the end of your post, "If evolution is just mutation and selection and we remove mutation, then all we have is selection" you are agreeing with me that the trend of all the selective subtractive processes is a genetic reduction. You try to add fecundity as a counter to this but it adds nothing genetic; you try to add "variability" which seems to be just a way of begging the question'; you try to add "selection" even which is just the same subtractive process I'm talking about as it removes alleles in the process of selecting some for the production of new phenotypes.
At this stage you are making a bare assertion. The equivalent would be me saying "The overall trend of entropy is that it is actually decreasing, it is just in our local area that we witness this increasing".
I keep restating it so it won't get lost, but since you have acknowledged that it occurs I don't see how I haven't supported it.
Again, ONLY mutation counters this overall trend it seems to me, and if everyone will recognize that this trend of reduction in diveristy exists, THEN we can talk about whether mutation actually has what it takes to counter it to the degree necessary to produce evolution out of devolution.
But as long as people will agree for a moment only to disagree right after, get the point but take it back by claiming that it doesn't happen, that even "selection" and "variability" are arguments against it after one would think they'd recognized that they are actually confirmation of it instead, I have to keep restating it and trying to show it.
I think if one removes mutation from the picture just for the purpose of thinking this through it becomes obvious that all the other processes either merely shuffle or reduce alleles, but don't add anything.
If we ignore other possible avenues of change, I agree. If evolution is just mutation and selection and we remove mutation, then all we have is selection. If the alleles are being selected, but no new alleles exist then the allele frequencies or the population are going to be reduced to probable extinction.
And here you are acknowledging it again. Thank you very much, but you are also denying it in this post despite your acknowledgment. DBlevins in his last post was trying to argue that although genetic drift does reduce genetic diversity it is nevertheless an evolutionary process, apparently merely because it produces new phenotypes along with the reduction in diversity, and something similar has been going on throughout this thread. You will acknowledge it but try to claim that fedundity, selection and variability counter it, although they do no such thing.
But that is how evolution is thought of after all. It is the new phenotypes that convince people evolution is happening. The formula about the change in frequency of alleles is really about how such a change in frequency will produce new types. But since these new traits and types are frequently the product of a reduction in genetic diversity, at best the product of a rearrangement of alleles, this is an illusion. For evolution to be a possibility at all, something MUST be added as all these OTHER processes only subtract.
I've just wanted the fact to emerge that really ALL the evolutionary processes are (genetically) subtractive in this way EXCEPT mutation (and you add "epigenetics" which I don't get yet) although they are called evolutionary processes. Genetic drift, migration, selection, all of them, are subtractive, except mutation and possible one or two others yet to be considered. People keep treating natural selection in particular as an evolutionary process (usually in conjunction with mutation), but it too subtracts genetic potentials from a population in the process of producing the new phenotype(s) that are called evolution or speciation (or something on the way to either). Again, to try to summarize it the new phenotypes emerge as the result of a subtractive process, which appears to contradict the whole idea of evolution and does in fact ultimately lead in the opposite direction, to extinction.
THEN whether or not truly new allelic possibilities have been added at any point in the process, by mutation or anything else, and whether or not they do in fact make evolution possible despite the overall subtractive trend of the other "evolutionary processes" is the next subject. But it can't be discussed without reference to the effect of these subtractive processes if the whole picture is to be seen.
You repeat at the end that fecundity increases diversity but in itself it does not. You are assuming mutation, so that fecundity increases the numbers of mutations in a population, but the factor that does the increasing genetically speaking is mutation and mutation alone.
But I'm only repeating myself.
This message has been edited by Faith, 12-06-2005 11:41 AM
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