Yes you DO get loss of genetic diversity with evolution Part 4

And yet another one from Percy:

Hi Faith,
...what I was responding to was that any evolution can only result in reductions in variation. As everyone's been telling you, variation can increase or decrease.

I'd NEVER say "reduction in variation" unless I had a major lapse, I ALWAYS mean "reduction in genetic variability." And evolution DOES only result in reduction in genetic variability. What do you mean by "variation?" If you mean genetic variability or diversity, no it cannot and they have NO evidence that it EVER increases. If you mean variation of the phenotype yes of course you can have more or less of that but I wouldn't talk about it without a modifier to make it clear that's what I'm referring to -- or I hope I wouldn't.

The formula is that AS PHENOTYPIC VARIATION INCREASES, GENETIC VARIABILITY DECREASES.

OK, I can see that mutation appears to be the explanation for all change in the minds of evolutionists here...

The reason I mentioned mutation is that the sum total of all alleles in a population is the amount of variation,

This conversation has already gone off the rails in a most frustrating manner. By using the term "variation" the whole meaning of what I'm saying has become muddied. Is he talking about phenotypic variation, which could be said to be the sum total of all the alleles, or is he talking about genetic variability which could also be described the same way. Depends on what you have in mind and I can't tell in this case.

and only mutation can increase the number of alleles.

Absolutely true, that's why evolution needs mutation, it depends on genetic increase, without it there is no evolution beyond the Species. But Creationism does not need mutation, all the necessary genes and alleles for each Species were built in back at the Creation, all quite sufficient for the purposes of huge variation at the level of microevolution.

Natural selection can affect allele frequency, and indeed one way to define evolution is as changing allele frequency over time, but only mutation can increase the number of alleles and thereby increase the amount of variation.

Absolutely true, as I've been saying.

The reason people are bringing up mutations isn't because they think it is the source of all evolutionary change, because obviously it isn't the only source. They're bringing it up because it is the only way to increase variation.

How on earth have I failed to be clear that I know this already? Evolution NEEDS mutations, that's why they've imagined them into existence.

Mixing and remixing the same set of alleles can create unique combinations of alleles that didn't previously exist, but it doesn't change the pool of existing alleles at all.

Well duh.

Almost no reproduction is perfect. Even people have mutations. The average number of mutations per person is usually estimated at between 10 and a hundred. Ignoring mutation might make it easier to claim that variation can never increase, but the real world has spoken.

There is no evidence whatever that normal alleles are created by mutations, this is merely an article of faith to evolutionists. Mutations are mistakes, they only interfere with alleles, change their sequence, sometimes with no observable effect but often so that they don't function as they were meant to, create diseases, and ultimately kill off many of them, which then become junk DNA.

That thread at EvC was a disaster.

Probably my own fault. I wasn't prepared for the aggressive attack, out of practice I guess.