quote:
Originally posted by glorfindel:
Surely the genetic material from earlier evolution should still be in the horse now. Sometimes I've heard that recessive genes come out and a horse is born with three toes. Should not other genes exist, and allow us to breed it backwards?
Typically not. The changes involved in evolution are seldom masking something that could later be restored, they are almost always random changes to the "specifications" that happen to be beneficial but also destroy the old "specifications".
Sometimes we can approximate an ancient organism by cross-breeding between modern organisms that have lost different parts of the ancient "specifications". And who knows what we will be able to do in the future with ancient DNA.
Now, those few that argue that all possible variations were built into each "kind" at creation should be able to explain how to restore an ancient horse from a modern one ...
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