Yes you DO get loss of genetic diversity with evolution Part 7

So let's turn to Rahvin for a bit:

Hi Faith. Welcome back.
The problem behind your theory is that it's contradicted by real-world observations. Your predictions are invalidated, because observed evolution has not been reducing genetic capacity for variance.

What are you looking at? If you are looking at the phenotypic variations you may very well see lots of variance. That's microevolution, that's phenotypic microevolution. But if you look at the DNA you should start to see fewer alleles for the selected traits or even population-wide homozygosity for some traits.

The confusing thing is probably that in most cases you don't get any appreciable reduction in genetic diversity. That is, new gene frequencies from a population split just means that you get more of a different kind of allele for a given trait than the other population had, and less of the kind that dominated in the first population, it's mostly a reshuffling. But the fact is that you DO need to reduce or eliminate alleles that produce the "wrong" trait in order for a new trait to become characteristic of the new population, and over a number of selection events and population splits this will show up as a reduction in genetic diversity along with the production and establishment of the new phenotypic trait. IN THE NEW POPULATION. The old population, assuming it's appreciably larger, will no doubt retain the higher proportion of the "wrong" alleles that are lost to the new population because there they aren't "wrong."

It's down any specific line of variation of the phenotype that you are going to encounter this loss of genetic diversity, but since it is down any specific line of variation that you are seeing the production of new traits, that is, evolution, it ought to be clear that the process of production and maintenance of new phenotypic traits, or variation, or evolution, requires this loss of GENETIC diversity.

Even a population split in which the new population is appreciably smaller in number is going to show a lot of phenotypic change along with the genetic reduction, but ANY actual selection of a trait could completely eliminate some alleles and that is where you will REALLY see this formula in operation. Selection definitely reduces genetic variability. Selection is how evolution proceeds. Put two and two together.

Year after year, undergraduate students directly observe evolution in action as they show changes in allele frequency in fruit flies. Other students observe the case of drug resistance spontaneously forming in a population of bacteria.

Are you really looking at the DNA to see the changed allele frequencies or are you inferring them from the "evolution in action" that you are observing, which would of course be the usual microevolution. Drug resistance is the phenotype, what's going on in the DNA?

The process doesn't stop. Variation continues, unimpeded.

And so it may. VARIATION may continue and continue a long time. You are talking about PHENOTYPIC variation here. In some species you can get lots of new variations of the PHENOTYPES, but my claim is that you will eventually reach a point where you can't get any more because the process requires genetic reduction. REQUIRES it. If you are only looking at the phenotypes you aren't necessarily going to be aware of this. But also, since you are dealing with fruit flies and bacteria you may be getting a lot more phenotypic variation for more generations just because they are likely to be genetically more variable than higher animals. Bacteria have a lot less junk DNA for instance than higher animals, which suggests a lot more genetic variability. It's really not a valid comparison with dogs, cats, mice, and humans.

There is no reduction in the possibilities derived from mutation guided by natural selection. At no point to we reach an evolutionary "endpoint" where no more change is possible.

You have apparently not reached it in the laboratory with fruit flies and bacteria (though I suspect you have), but it is reached every day in the wild, with the elephant seals and the North American bison and the cheetah as the most extreme examples. Yes, they are examples of this process, they are not exceptions. Limiting the numbers of a population is what one does to produce a new phenotype, though it doesn't always happen to the extreme of a bottleneck which of course can threaten the survival of the whole species. But even in these cases they seem to be thriving. Nature does this to many degrees all the time, and nearly depleted genetic variability is the result in the case of a bottleneck or founder effect. Again, this is not merely an extreme, it also demonstrates the pattern I'm talking about.

It's based on the well-known observation that you get new species with reproductive isolation and altered gene frequencies. But what is generally overlooked is that altered gene frequencies NEVER means an increase in variability. It may not change the variability much at any given point, but it certainly does not increase it. For that you would need, yes, mutations, but for many reasons that doesn't happen except as an interference, and even if it did happen it wouldn't change anything outside the parameters of the Species, it would only alter the character of the built-in pattern of traits, it isn't going to produce new traits, new genes themselves.

Preserving a breed, preserving a species, requires reduction in genetic possibilities.

And that's just the examples that we directly observe. The fossil record and the other extant life we see today has variety beyond comprehension.

You are talking about PHENOTYPES, and yes you get phenotypic variety "beyond comprehension" -- especially back before the Flood, which is what the fossils are a record of -- but you get it within the Species and you get it only along with reduced genetic variability. Again, the reduction may be quite minimal in a genetically rich species, which is perhaps what you are looking at, and which must describe all species before the Flood, and even many still, but it is still a reduction.

The genetic and morphological evidence for common ancestry of virtually every living thing on the planet is overwhelming,

You are looking at similarities and ignoring the differences and not thinking about what would have to happen genetically in order to produce those differences. You are looking at patterns and imposing your belief that genetic inheritance is the explanation, you do not actually have evidence of that inheritance. Again, look at the differences between one species and another and genetic inheritance isn't going to be the explanation.

to the point that it's better established than the Theory of Gravity. Given that this is the case, and populations continue to diversify into distinct sub-groups before our very eyes,

Yes POPULATIONS continue to diversify, that's the PHENOTYPE. What I'm talking about is something that happens way down the road in most cases, or suddenly when populations are severely reduced. It isn't going to happen in populations that have a great deal of genetic variability and where population splits occur in great numbers -- you'll get some change and you'll get some reduction in genetic variability but it will be negligible in those cases -- it WILL occur, however, just minimally. Many population splits as in ring species, migrations of small numbers -- this is where what I'm talking about will become apparent.

Whenever you get SPECIATION for instance you should see the genetic reduction I'm talking about, certainly NOT the genetic variability that would be necessary if speciation were the springboard to macroevolution you think it is.

it would seem that your premise, that evolution should grind itself to a halt through some sort of genetic entropy, is falsified.

It is happening every day, you are just looking at the wrong end of the phenomena and you are looking where it is occurring least obviously. Conservationists see it every day and so do breeders, it's what they are both working against all the time, trying to prevent it from happening because it is so often accompanied (in this fallen world) by disease -- disease caused by mutations I dare suppose.

Yes you DO get loss of genetic diversity with evolution Part 5

Percy#5:
This is why there is no point in arguing any of this at EvC. Evolutionists apparently believe what Percy says here:

Every allele in existence today had its origin as a mutation to an already existing allele. Given that all alleles begin as mutations, how can you hope to prove mutations have no role in evolution? Alleles that have been around a while are really just old mutations, but we call them alleles. New mutations are alleles, too, but because they just happened we give them the special name of mutations.

Once things have been so twisted and misdefined where do you start to undo the mess?

Well, let's say this at least: You believe that mutations can create viable functioning alleles but all alleles do is provide interchangeable qualities for a given trait. The gene is for the trait of eye color, the allele makes it the specific color or contributes to the color; the gene is for the trait of ear shape, the allele determines the actual shape or contributes to it. But evolution needs a lot more than variation in traits, evolution needs whole new traits, whole new genes. It's easy enough to see that mutations change the existent sequences of genes, but what makes new genes?

and the next thing to say is: THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT MUTATIONS EVER DO ANYTHING BUT INTERFERE WITH A NORMAL FUNCTIONING ALLELE. And I guess I'll have to find some evidence for that somewhere, the Lord willing, and He'll have to help me because most of the stuff out there in Somewhere is corrupted by evolutionist insanity.

[Faith] If you increase the diversity you simply interfere with the development of a new phenotype.

[Percy] Do you understand that this is the same as saying that a new allele, one that isn't the same as any other allele in the newly isolated population or in the original population, hinders the emergence of a new phenotype? If so, you realize this makes no sense, right? You do understand that mutations make the newly isolated population even more different from the original population, right?

Oh brother. What a morass of confusion.

First there ARE no completely brand new unique alleles in the new population, because no such thing ever occurs, this is all a fantasy invention by evolutionists. Mutations do nothing but corrupt, mangle, deform and destroy. Whatever shows up as new in the new population has always been there but the new gene frequencies brought about by the population split have allowed this formerly less expressed or completely repressed allele --or combination of alleles -- to come to greater expression in the new population. THIS allele or combination isn't the thing doing the hindering, this what the new phenotype is based on. What HINDERS is alleles that COMPETE with this new phenotype, such as the alleles that were left behind in the old population and overshadowed it there, and are in much smaller numbers in the new population but if they came to dominate would overshadow it here too. You'd have a different trait or a reversion to the former trait picture rather than a new phenotype. Later on a NEW allele would ALSO interfere with this phenotype. If it's a breed you are trying to keep pure you don't want that to happen; if it's a "species" in the wild then it is simply now something other than that species.

Obviously I misspoke: It's not about the "development" of a phenotype but the maintenance of a phenotype. If you increase the diversity you interfere with the phenotype that is now established. If it is a domestic breed you do not want alien alleles interfering with it. This is all I'm saying.

And no, it is not MUTATIONS that "make the newly isolated population more different from the original population", it's the emergence of formerly suppressed alleles and combinations of alleles that bring about these differences, which is the result of the new gene frequencies. Hey, isn't this change in gene frequencies the very stuff of evolution according to generations of evolutionist teachers? You don't need brand new alleles, just the new frequencies.

[Faith] If mutations or gene flow or any other source of variation kept intruding on this process you would not get these clear established phenotypes.

[Percy] Why not, Faith? You said you were going to prove this. So go ahead and prove it.

Good grief this stuff is so OBVIOUS but there seem to be a dozen ways to twist the meaning of words to make them mean things I don't mean. It's SO simple -- GENE FLOW INTERFERES WITH THE PURE EXPRESSION OF THE VARIETY /BREED /SPECIES. Yikes! The way any species maintains its character or its integrity you might say is by being reproductively isolated from others, this is population genetics 1A. Gene flow interferes with that integrity. How hard can something so simple, and well known for that matter, be made anyway? If mutations DID create alleles, the same problem would keep happening, you could never GET an established identifiable breed or species, because they depend on a stable genetic substrate.

Let me quote Wikipedia on Zygosity again:

True breeding organisms are always homozygous for the traits that are to be held constant.

Are species true breeding organisms or not? (Here I'm using "species" the way evolutionists do)

What a travesty of communication this mess is. I may have botched my presentation enough to contribute to the confusion, but for sure my antagonists were frothing at the mouth to say anything at all against my argument whether they got my point or not -- and Percy obviously didn't -- and say something insulting on top of that.

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.

Yes you DO get loss of genetic diversity with evolution Part 3

We continue with Percy's third message:

Faith writes:
This is what must have happened with each of the finch types. A beak type got selected for its usefulness with a particular kind of function, and that got passed on and came to characterize a whole population because the alleles for the other beak types were eliminated from the reproductive pool. The same thing happened with other beak types as each found its peculiar adaptation and became isolated from the other types.

This isn't the way it works. For Darwin's 15 different tanager species there were not 15 different alleles for the shape of beaks, one for each species. Bird beaks are controlled by the expression of the Bmp4 gene. All the different beak shapes are the result of different timing and spatial controls on the expression of the Bmp4 gene. Expression of the Bmp4 gene is under the control of regulator genes with names like Shh and Fgf8.

In other words, beak shape is under the control of more than one gene and more than one type of gene, and bird gene pools of any species possess a great deal of variation. This is why beak expression is so plastic under the influence of changing environmental pressures.

How does this change the FORMULA I'm talking about? It doesn't matter what the specific mechanisms are, you still have to NOT have whatever "expression of the Bmp4 gene" would bring about the wrong kind of beak for the particular variety under discussion.

And I'm aware that some traits are controlled by more than one gene, in fact it has occurred to me that the original "super Genome" that is a necessary assumption of Creationism may have been characterized by more genes per trait among other differences from today's genome, on the idea that junk DNA is genes that were once alive but died down the centuries, probably most of them all at once in the Flood.

But the same principle I'm talking about has to apply no matter how many genes are involved. You still have to SUPPRESS the expression of whatever the underlying genetic formula is for any traits that would compete with the selected trait of the population under discussion. This is a reduction in genetic diversity, and it is NECESSARY in order to get a particular phenotype, and it has to STAY suppressed, OR be eliminated altogether, if that trait is to be preserved.

Yes you DO get loss of genetic diversity with evolution Part 2

Percy again:

Faith writes:
[I'm] constructing an argument to show that selection and isolation single out a particular trait by eliminating all its competition and ultimately make that trait characteristic of a new population that emerges from these processes.

This argument couldn't be more wrong. The alleles for a gene are not involved in a competition where only one is left standing.

Sigh. The main problem seems to be getting it said so that we all at least know what I'm saying. I often use the most extreme example of the point I'm trying to make to indicate the DIRECTION that ALL these processes move in, I'm not trying to hang EVERYTHING on the extreme. Sigh.

It's the PATTERN I'm trying to focus on. Getting a new phenotype, a new variation, a new "species" as evolutionists think of it, REQUIRES that alleles for OTHER (yes, "competing") phenotypes / variations / species be either greatly reduced in the population or eliminated altogether -- the fewer the better for the establishment of the character of the new variation / phenotype / species.

If that were the case then extinction would be an extremely common event because a species ability to survive across changing environmental landscapes is dependent upon variability. Great variability increases the likelihood that at least some subset of a population will survive an environmental change.

Yes, genetic variability IS important for the health of a species, but maintaining genetic variability means NOT EVOLVING. The way you get NEW TRAITS, that is, EVOLUTION, is by isolating the alleles for those traits in their own population and that means ELIMINATING alleles from that population that would bring about different traits. This is how domestic breeding does it and it is also how Nature does it, whether by Natural Selection or Genetic Drift, Bottleneck or a series of population splits over generations with migration and reproductive isolation etc etc etc etc. You won't get a population specifically characterized by green and red striped fur if that population includes individuals that carry alleles for purple and yellow splotched fur.

And such variation does not always threaten extinction although it may at the extremes. However, some animals seem to thrive even with extreme genetic depletion, the elephant seals, even the cheetah does OK considering, etc.

If it were really true that more beneficial alleles eliminate those that are less beneficial or even deleterious then alleles for genetic diseases would have disappeared long ago, and yet genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis persist.

The idea that the alleles must be "beneficial" comes from the Evolution Model. On the contrary, I think accidentally or randomly isolated alleles are probably the more typical foundation for new varieties, they need have no specially "beneficial" properties. They may or may not adapt to a particular niche later. Nature loves variety.

And the alleles that are eliminated still belong to former / other populations /varieties of the same species, it's not as if they died out completely except in some rare extreme cases, it's just that they no longer belong to the population of this new phenotype. The population under discussion may have red and green striped fur while another of the same species has the alleles for purple and yellow blotched fur that would wreck THIS particular variety and vice versa. You don't want Dachshund alleles in the Great Dane breed or vice versa, but alleles for both remain in the dog Species as a whole.

You need to find solutions consistent with both your religious views *and* reality.

Sigh.

Well, I may continue with this attempt to answer objections to my argument here, but just this much dealing with it, even sticking to one antagonist to keep confusion to a minimum, makes it quite clear why I have no interest in being back at EvC. I guess the best construction to put on the problem is that it's a paradigm clash. I'm always talking from my Creationist presuppositions, and although I keep trying to spell those out as I go, the contrary Evolutionist presuppositions are so rigidly held there's little hope of penetrating the fog.

Yes you DO get loss of genetic diversity with evolution Part 1

Getting anyone to accept my claim about reduced genetic diversity, obvious though it is, is the real battle here unfortunately. So let's go back to my last thread on the subject at EvC and see if it's possible to make any headway on it:

Here's Percy's opening gambit on the subject on that thread:

Genetic diversity can go in any direction after reproductive isolation. For example, consider a relatively homogeneous population that becomes divided in two when a river changes course. There are now two populations, both with pretty much the same alleles and allele frequency. Mutations experienced in one population will no longer be shared with the other and the populations will evolve along different paths. If this continues for a sufficient period then they could lose their mutually interfertile quality and become two species.

Let's take it step by step:

Genetic diversity can go in any direction after reproductive isolation.

Of course I am claiming that genetic diversity can NOT go in "any direction" after reproductive isolation. It CAN remain more or less stable for long periods, but otherwise it can ONLY decrease; it can NOT increase. This is of course based on the Creation Model I've spelled out in earlier blog posts, that denies the mutations which are needed by the Evolution Model. Mutations are the ONLY way it could increase.

But to get off the hypothetical and bring this down to a question of evidence and fact, I'm claiming that it DOESN'T increase, and that ought to be provable with the DNA sampling test I've suggested.

For example, consider a relatively homogeneous population that becomes divided in two when a river changes course. There are now two populations, both with pretty much the same alleles and allele frequency.

Of course if you posit a split into two populations that retain the same character as the original I wouldn't expect to see much change either. This is not a scenario that leads to evolution and all I'm talking about is how evolution -- or variation or the production of a new phenotype -- leads to reduced genetic diversity.

This situation would exist if the two new populations are appreciably different in size and/or have appreciably different gene frequencies -- which is in fact more likely to occur in a smaller population. That's when you get the beginnings of the phenomenon I'm talking about. The larger may change too to some degree because its gene frequencies will have changed also, but not to the extent of the smaller one.

But evolution always has to invoke (beneficial) mutations, those imaginary changes in the DNA that fuel the changes the theory requires.

Mutations experienced in one population will no longer be shared with the other and the populations will evolve along different paths. If this continues for a sufficient period then they could lose their mutually interfertile quality and become two species.

Of course there is no evidence that this happens at all. And the Creation Model has no need of them as there are plenty of built-in genes and alleles to bring out all kinds of variations in any Species.

1. Mutation is not needed, the original genetic endowment of each Species fuels all possible variations of that Species.
2. There is no evidence for it, it's purely an article of faith.
3. Where there is evidence of its existence, its effect is either neutral or deleterious, which the Creation Model explains as due to the Fall which brought death, disease and deformity to all living things.

If both populations thrive then diversity could increase in both.

There is no way that GENETIC diversity ever increases after reproductive isolation -- not just "diversity" as PHENOTYPIC diversity is something else, and as my formula has it, phenotypic diversity increases as genetic diversity decreases. I don't know how to prove this as making charts of combinations of genes and alleles quickly gets beyond me, but keeping the Creation Model in mind ought to make it intuitively obvious. One argument I've made is that it ought to be obvious that increases in genetic diversity would prevent ever establishing a domestic breed as its character would always be threatened by the input of new alleles.

As I quote in a post below, from the Wikipedia article on Zygosity:

True breeding organisms are always homozygous for the traits that are to be held constant.

Homozygosity for an entire population is of course the extreme of genetic depletion, also known as "fixed loci" in which there is only one allele in the entire population for the given gene. It's the same situation that Nature has brought about in the cheetah and the elephant seals and the North American bison. It's the FORMULA for getting a new phenotype. It's EVIDENCE that what i'm saying is correct, that you MUST have reduced genetic diversity IF you are to get EVOLUTION.

And again it pertains not just to domestic breeding but also to varieties in the wild -- the beaks of Darwin's finches couldn't be counted on to be stable even if they had been brought about by Natural Selection, they'd always be subject to change that would interfere with their relationship to their environmental niche. In other words an increase in genetic diversity ALWAYS interferes with EVOLUTION. You get evolution or the development of new phenotypes / varieties as you lose alleles for competing traits, which means a decrease in genetic diversity. For a finch population to be characterized by a beak that can crack nuts means it has to NOT have the alleles for beaks that can penetrate small narrow spaces. It could be that an all-purpose beak would work fine and dandy, but the theory says that you get these specialized beaks by natural selection so that they can adapt to their particular ecological niche and since that does appear to be the case they must have alleles FOR their particular adaptation and NOT have the alleles for the other adaptations.

I know I argued this to death on that thread to deaf ears and here I've barely gotten through this one post from Percy. Oh well, might as well keep at it for a while at least.

But if one or both populations suffer some disaster such as flood or famine or an invasive predator or disease that greatly reduces population size, then diversity would be reduced. It all depends upon what happens to the populations.

No, it doesn't ALL depend on that although such events would certainly have an impact. The point I want to keep in mind here is CHANGE IN GENE FREQUENCIES. Many things can bring this about; what brings it about isn't the important thing but simple population splits are usually quite enough for the purpose.

Speciation + Evolution = LOTS of Trait Diversity with LOSS of Genetic Diversity leading to end of ability to evolve

Another one from RAZD at EvC, Speciation + Evolution = More Diversity

The scene: sitting at computers all over the world ...

"Why don't creationists understand evolution -- it is so simple," the evolutionist wails:

1. Evolution - the change in hereditary traits in populations from generation to generation - is an observed and documented fact, a process that occurs constantly in the natural world around us, and

2. Speciation - the division of parent populations into reproductively isolated daughter populations - is also an observed and documented fact, a process that occurs frequently in the natural world around us.

These two simple processes are sufficient to explain the diversity of life we know, from the world around us, from history, from prehistory and archeology, from geology and physics and paleontology and the fossil record, and from chemistry and the genetic record.

Well, it sounds good on paper, I guess, as theory at least, but unfortunately it fails in reality. Yes, there is an "evolution" by which heritable traits change from generation to generation, but this has never been observed beyond what we call "micro" evolution, or evolution within the genetic limits that define each species, and in fact it can't occur beyond microevolution for the reasons I've given over and over here, which are the same reasons there is no evolution beyond speciation. And yes, speciation is also a documentable fact, but it always occurs with loss of genetic diversity, even to the extreme of fixed loci or total homozygosity for some traits in the population, which makes further evolution beyond speciation purely a pipe dream.

But RAZD just goes on asserting the theory, the pipe dream, as if it were reality, as they all do.

We can even see how evolution causes speciation with Ring Species:

1. the species forms a band made up of several varieties around some barrier to their survival ability,

2. each of the varieties has slightly different hereditary traits from their neighbors,

3. each reproduces with their neighbors in hybrid zones that show a mixing of the hereditary traits of the two neighbors, except that

4. when they meet on the other side of the barrier, the two ends do not mate.

Evolution results in different hereditary traits developing in each of the areas dominated by the different varieties, differences that do not hinder mating until they reach a certain threshold - the difference between the end varieties.

Yes, pretty much but as long as he sticks to the level of traits -- of the phenotypes, of the different observable characteristics between the populations -- he misses the reason what happens happens: The splitting of the populations changes the gene frequencies. When new traits emerge this is because alleles for competing traits have been reduced which can proceed after many population splits to the point that they are completely lost to the new population. After a series of splits the genetic diversity may be quite drastically reduced, and the main reason there is no interbreeding between the first and last populations is the genetic incompatibility that has developed by then.

Again, my prediction is that if you sampled the DNA of the first and last populations (better done in a laboratory where you can sample the first before it too undergoes change), you should find much greater genetic diversity in the first and much reduced diversity in the last, more heterozygosity in the first, more homozygosity in the last, particularly for the traits that are most characteristic of the populations.

Remove any one of the intermediate varieties, so that the band is broken, and you have two distinct species.

We now have more species than before, so life is more diverse. It is so simple:

Evolution + Speciation = Diversity

Way TOO simple, RAZD. Yes you do have more diversity of TRAITS, but you are simultaneously getting REDUCED diversity of GENETIC POSSIBILITIES. This is all just the usual evolutionist daydream based on surface facts completely ignoring what is going on genetically, which is the NECESSARY reduction of genetic diversity, which occurs with EACH splitting off of a portion of the population to form a new population. This is a trend that can keep producing new phenotypes for some time by losing more alleles, but can ultimately arrive at such genetic depletion that no further phenotypic change is possible, a condition like that of the cheetah. Not that this degree of depletion is inevitable, but reduction in that direction certainly is.

This little scenario depicts, I believe, the state of many debates between creationists - people that predominantly use faith to understand the world - and "evolutionists" - people that predominantly use science to understand the world.

What "this little scenario" actually depicts is evolutionist reliance on wishful thinking as they spell out what they THINK happens, because they haven't really faced the GENETIC PICTURE which is working against their all-too-sanguine expectation that change in traits can just go on and on without genetic cost. It really is a daydream, a fantasy. And it's quite the joke that they are constantly claiming to appeal to EVIDENCE and accusing creationists of relying only on faith.

(I skipped his caricature of the creationist response to the above because it is a distraction from what I'm trying to say here.)

Where does "large" change come from? - the change that makes giraffes so different from kangaroos? Simple:

Speciation - the division of parent populations into reproductively isolated daughter populations - is also an observed and documented fact, a process that occurs frequently in the natural world around us, and

Evolution- the change in hereditary traits in populations from generation to generation - is an observed and documented fact, a process that occurs constantly in the natural world around us.

SO simple as long as he just goes on daydreaming about the surface traits and imagining that there are no limits to change.

Speciation + Evolution = More Diversity
After speciation has occurred, the daughter populations no longer share genes through reproduction, and they are free to evolve completely different traits.

Yes, and this lack of sharing of genes means a LOSS OF GENETIC DIVERSITY. Yes, they ARE "free to evolve copletely different traits" but this is ALWAYS made possible by the loss of competing alleles for those traits, which is completely ignored by evolutionists. You can always get new traits BY LOSING competing alleles, but if the population splits that bring this about continue to occur, eventually a point will be reached where you can't get new traits any more because you'll be completely out of alleles. Speciation may not always mean genetic depletion but it certainly means genetic reduction from earlier populations particularly where the main new traits are emerging.

The likelyhood is high that one of them will become quite different, either to inhabit a new ecology that the other is not as well suited to (could have caused the original split), or to make use of the existing ecology in a different way, and this will lessen competition between the two species rather than drive one to extinction.

Lotta sheer conjecture there. It really isn't even necessary to posit environmental or situational reasons for trait changes or even the population splits themselves. Migration will bring about splits and the splits alone will bring about trait changes. The fewer individuals at the start of a new population the bigger the observable trait changes, the ecology is not likely to have much to do with it. It may be that both populations still have sufficient genetic variability even to undergo several further splits if necessary, but since he's completely ignored the whole question of what happens to the genes while focusing on the traits and fantasizing endless change he's going to miss the state of genetic depletion also when it does finally occur after more population splits.

Continued evolution of daughter populations along different ecological paths results in increased diversity - difference - between them over time. That is how the small amount of difference we seen below can become the amount of difference we see between other bird species.

Again, overrated influence from the environment but this is really a side issue, but anyway, the increased diversity is completely the result of the change in gene frequencies brought about by the population split. If the environment contributes an influence that further impacts the population numbers or reproductive isolation and therefore the gene frequencies, then it will contribute to the trait differences between the populations as well, but again, there is no need for this to happen in order for even great differences to come about as the change in gene frequencies alone will do it.

Continued evolution causes more change - in each population, from generation to generation to generation

Along with change in gene frequencies which can rapidly reduce and even eliminate some alleles as the changes continue, to the point that you run out of alleles for enough traits that further change is impossible, probably a very interesting new population with new traits but no more genetic variability.

That should be enough for starters. There is more to discuss about where change occurs, but this is long enough for now. This thread is about evolution after speciation.

A total pipe dream I'm afraid, as speciation is most likely to occur at the very outer edges of the genetic variability of the species, thus preventing further evolution.

Evidence for Reduced Genetic Diversity as Necessary Component of Evolution

You want some evidence for the claim that evolutionary processes always involve the reduction of genetic diversity? It's pretty simple, OUGHT to be obvious, and it's all about the reduction of heterozygosity to homozygosity or even less: This is from Wikipedia on Zygosity:

A cell is said to be homozygous for a particular gene when identical alleles of the gene are present on both homologous chromosomes.[2] The cell or organism in question is called a homozygote. True breeding organisms are always homozygous for the traits that are to be held constant.

In nature the same thing applies. Once you get a new variety, a subpopulation that is reproductively isolated from its parent population or other populations of the same species, even the result of a "speciation" event, and especially after it has inbred over some generations, its traits are going to be or become fixed. For a new trait to stick, or continue to characterize the new population, competing alleles for that trait must have been eliminated from that gene pool. THIS IS THE NECESSARY REDUCTION IN GENETIC DIVERSITY THAT ALLOWS A NEW TRAIT TO COME TO CHARACTERIZE A NEW BREED OR POPULATION IN THE WILD, THIS MUST OCCUR FOR A NEW TRAIT TO DEVELOP AND STICK IN A NEW POPULATION.

If they are "true breeding", they will be homozygous for their characteristic traits. This HAS to be true whether the population is the result of natural processes such as natural selection or genetic drift, migration and so on, or domestic breeding decisions.

HOMOZYGOSITY MEANS ONLY ONE ALLELE FOR THE GENE, ALL THE OTHER ALLELES HAVING BEEN ELIMINATED FROM THAT PARTICULAR GENE POOL. THAT'S THE SEVEREST CASE OF DECREASED GENETIC DIVERSITY (except for hemizygosity and nullizygosity, mentioned in the article below) AND IT'S NECESSARY TO GETTING A "TRUE BREED." AND WHAT IS A TRUE BREED BUT A NEW PHENOTYPE OR "SPECIES," A SPECIATION EVENT IN ITSELF, THE SUPPOSED STEP ON THE WAY TO OPEN-ENDED EVOLUTION FROM ONE SPECIES TO ANOTHER ACCORDING TO EVOLUTIONISTS.

Take dogs. If you want a Dachshund you have to eliminate all the alleles that specifically produce Great Danes or Golden Retrievers or Chihuahuas etc. If any of those alleles show up in the Dachshund breeding program you'll get a less perfect Dachshund. They make the breed less than what it is supposed to be.

It works the same way in nature, maybe through Natural Selection but probably more often through random events that simply happen to separate a population into two or more subpopulations. A particularly marked salamander emerges because the other markings are genetically decreased by comparison to those for the new marking. The markings of the last species to develop in a ring species of such salamanders should be genetically homozygous. Same with the genetics underlying the last species in the ring of green warblers and so on. You should find decreased genetic variability and probably a lot of homozygosity, just because this is what evolution DOES.

It's NECESSARY to evolution, and if evolutionists weren't always imagining nonexistent mutations into the mix it ought to be obvious even to THEM. The only mutations that are involved are those that contribute diseases to the mix and interfere with the health of the most genetically reduced populations, even to extinction in some cases.

In nature the introduction of disease elements may simply eliminate a new variety, Natural Selection in operation at its most severe, but if the new variety finds a niche it can adapt to it will survive just as a good domestic breed will.

The new variety necessarily comes through a reduction in genetic diversity. That's how evolution WORKS, really, though such an obvious necessity, that must lead to LESS ability to evolve, is simply ignored by believers in evolution who go on spinning evolution out of imaginary mutations.

To repeat the point: If circumstances are such that the populations remain reproductively separate, meaning without gene flow or the sharing of alleles between them, each will develop its own particular characteristics, and as long as there remains no gene flow or reproductive contact between the populations those characteristics will remain. For them to remain means that the alleles for different characteristics have been eliminated. That's what decreased genetic diversity MEANS. This may amount to actual speciation, but at least certainly at the extremes you do get speciation, where the new characteristics are preserved because there is a complete lack of interbreeding with former populations.

Evolutionists regard bottlenecks as events that interfere with the processes of evolution, but they shouldn't. The elephant seal and the cheetah which were produced by severe bottlenecks -- reduction of their former populations to just a few individuals -- that severely reduced their genetic diversity -- really ought to be considered to be examples of speciation, nature doing what domestic breeders do. Bottlenecks are really just one way new varieties or breeds are brought about in nature or in domestic breeding. ALL the processes of evolution tend in the same direction, genetic drift, migration, natural selection, just not as rapidly. Domestic breeding in the past could be described as the artificial creation of genetic bottlenecks for the purpose of developing desired traits for new breeds. You select the desired character and take pains to breed only with others that possess that character. Since a rigid adherence to this formula also usually brings disease problems into the breed, breeders today take care to avoid the most severe bottleneck methods with the most severely decreased genetic variability by mixing with more vigorous but less desirable animals as far as the target trait is concerned, but if it weren't for the threat of disease, these severe methods would be considered the most reliable way of producing the best breeds. SPECIATION.

Yet here we have RAZD at EvC carrying on as if the evolution processes just go on and on producing new phenotypes or varieties or breeds, even past speciation which he treats as the end point of microevolution and beginning of macroevolution, but afterward the same changes continue without a hitch in his scenario.

What separates (micro) evolution from the macro view of evolution (macroevolution) is the process of speciation, as evolution occurs within the breeding population, and nested hierarchies are formed by speciation events, and macroevolution is just a macro view of what occurs over several generations via evolution and speciation.

If we look at the continued effects of evolution over many generations, the accumulation of changes from generation to generation may become sufficient for individuals to develop traits that are observably different from the ancestral parent population. This lineal change within species is sometimes called phyletic change in species. This is also sometimes called arbitrary speciation in that the place to draw the line between linearly evolved geneological populations is subjective and because the definition of species in general is tentative and sometimes arbitrary.

See, he's simply ASSUMING the open-endedness of evolution, the phenotypic changes just go on and on, a neverending ACCUMULATION of changes. He has no evidence for this, though he has charts that give it an aura of authority that are simply meaningless reflections of his false belief. Actually, they are ILLUSTRATIONS of what he believes, they provide nothing in the way of evidence for any of it. And everything he says is also all assumption without evidence. Dawkins does the same thing with his ridiculous computer models of how evolution works, simply programming in his own bias, his assumption of open-ended changes. Sometimes you'll see an evolutionist acknowledging that reduced genetic diversity can sometimes be a problem but they keep that information off in a separate mental compartment, it's something that occurs only with bottlenecks, in extreme scenarios that interfere with evolution, not with evolutionary processes themselves.

Just for the record, here is the most pertinent part of the Wikipedia article on Zygosity:

Types
The words homozygous, heterozygous, and hemizygous are used to describe the genotype of a diploid organism at a single locus on the DNA. Homozygous describes a genotype consisting of two identical alleles at a given locus, heterozygous describes a genotype consisting of two different alleles at a locus, hemizygous describes a genotype consisting of only a single copy of a particular gene in an otherwise diploid organism, and nullizygous refers to an otherwise-diploid organism in which both copies of the gene are missing.

Homozygous
A cell is said to be homozygous for a particular gene when identical alleles of the gene are present on both homologous chromosomes.[2] The cell or organism in question is called a homozygote. True breeding organisms are always homozygous for the traits that are to be held constant.

An individual that is homozygous-dominant for a particular trait carries two copies of the allele that codes for the dominant trait. This allele, often called the "dominant allele", is normally represented by a capital letter (such as "P" for the dominant allele producing purple flowers in pea plants). When an organism is homozygous-dominant for a particular trait, the genotype is represented by a doubling of the symbol for that trait, such as "PP".

An individual that is homozygous-recessive for a particular trait carries two copies of the allele that codes for the recessive trait. This allele, often called the "recessive allele", is usually represented by the lowercase form of the letter used for the corresponding dominant trait (such as, with reference to the example above, "p" for the recessive allele producing white flowers in pea plants). The genotype of an organism that is homozygous-recessive for a particular trait is represented by a doubling of the appropriate letter, such as "pp".

Anonymous Comment insists on definitional word magic

Got an Anonymous Comment on an older blog post and thought I'd bring it up front:

Anonymous Poster quotes me:

"THIS IS NOT EVOLUTION, THIS IS NORMAL BUILT-IN VARIATION, OTHERWISE SOMETIMES IRRITATINGLY KNOWN AS "MICROEVOLUTION." MICROEVOLUTION SAYS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING FOR THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION!"

And answers me:

You can't just go around redefining the word "evolution". That normal variation is exactly what evolution is. That is ALL evolution is. There is variation, and some of the variants survive better than others, and that's natural selection. I'm sorry, but that's.. just the definition.

And I answer Anonymous there, and here with a few differences:

Dear Anonymous, thanks for your comment. I appreciate your being polite.

What you are saying illustrates another point I try to make here, which is that a great deal of the evolution side of this dispute is definitional, or to put it another way, it's "word magic" which asserts as fact something that is really contrary to reality: If you simply DEFINE evolution as normal variation then you blind yourself to what is really going on.

As I've argued over and over here, there is a NATURAL end point to normal variation that is the TRUE definition of it, beyond which no further evolution is possible. In reality. In fantasy it is assumed without warrant that the observed variations that are called "microevolution" simply continue indefinitely. They cannot. There is a natural end point which is the true boundary line that separates the Kinds, the end point brought about by the ACTUAL FACT that genetic variability must decrease as new phenotypic forms emerge.

Every time you get a new variant, it has emerged because some genetic variability has been lost in the process of bringing to phenotypic expression the particular genetic codes underlying the new variant. It can't happen any other way, as I've argued here in many posts. You have to lose competing genetic variations in order for a particular phenotypic variation to become established in a population. The more refined, or distinctive, a variant, the more specific the genetic code for it and therefore the greater the loss of genetic competitors. Eventually a point is reached where further variants are no longer possible at all, and evolution has come to an end for that line of variation. The very processes of evolution that bring about new variants naturally lead to a point beyond which evolution is impossible. That's the outer boundary of "microevolution." Microevolution is how Kinds vary within themselves. There is no macroevolution possible at all. Evolution defeats evolution, as I like to say.

There is also the ACTUAL FACT that there is no such thing as "beneficial" mutations capable of driving evolution, which is what is usually posited as the remedy for the situation I describe. If mutations did in fact occur as supposed, you could never have an identifiable variant at all, as mutations would constantly interfere with the specific coding for such a variant. The whole idea of beneficial mutations is just another huge piece of word magic, an assumption or belief for which there is no evidence, while there is very good reason to believe they can't happen, as I just said. In reality, known mutations only interfere with normal genetic processes and there is absolutely no evidence that they do anything at all beneficial. Evolutionism simply invents mutations to fuel the continuing changes required by the theory, nothing but invention, nothing but fantasy.

So, I recommend to you that you stop believing in definitional word magic and join creationists in recognizing reality.

Mutations can't save the cheetah because all they do is kill; most of them kill DNA itself over time

Here's another post from that EvC thread where the cheetah example came up that I discuss a couple posts below:

This is from creationist Slevesque, who started the thread:

What I was saying was: The % of functioning genome has been ever increasing in the past few years, as I'm sure you know. Right now, anyone can safely say that at least 30% of the genome is functional.

What I said concerning ENCODE was simply that it ''opened up the possibility'' that the entire genome had a function. I'm not saying it proved anything, and I certainly know the difference between functional and transcribed.

Therefore, all I'm saying is that when seeing how genetics has been unravelling the secrets of previously thought ''junk DNA'', and how more evidence comes to open the possibility that maybe the whole genome is functional, I think it is the idea that any part of the genome is junk that should be regarder with great skepticism, not the other way around.

I haven't followed the whole thread so I don't really know where this fits in, but just to answer what is written here, it seems to me this supposed discovery that some junk DNA is "functional" simply reflects the fact that some of it hasn't TOTALLY lost its function, it's just been crippled, not killed.

An accumulation of mutational disruptions of the code along the length of a gene over generations eventually has to render it less and less functional although it may retain SOME function, and this is most likely all that has been discovered.

Of course the whole genome was once completely and perfectly functional, but the processes of disease and death have been rendering it less and less functional down the generations.

I think slevesque is making a very common mistake that creationists, especially Intelligent Design creationists, often make, that is, not to recognize that dead DNA reflects the Biblical Fall. The whole genome is not NOW functional and it shouldn't be if the Fall is true. The Fall is still operating, at all levels of life, still accumulating death and disease from generation to generation.

It's testimony to the immense vitality of the original Creation that there's still a lot of life left in God's created world, but no matter how much life they discover remaining in the junk DNA it isn't going to be the original life that it was created to have, but something like haphazard spasms of its original life.

===
ALSO, the idea that deleterious mutations will be wiped out of the population by natural selection is no doubt true -- another notion that always comes up in these discussions, and on this thread as well -- as long as there are viable genes in the population at large that survive and get passed on. However, what is not being taken into account in this cheery scenario is that ALL death in a population contributes to the gradual reduction of genetic diversity over time, just as all the selection processes do, just as anything that isolates a portion of a population does.

ALSO, there is no reason for "neutral" mutations to be selected out so they continue in the population even though they represent a segment of dead DNA that means SOME function or other has been destroyed or crippled. As genes accumulate more mutational assaults down the generations, eventually they contribute to the DNA cemetery or junk DNA although the organisms go on apparently functioning, and there is simply no way to know what was lost. A whole population eventually comes to carry these cemeteries in their DNA although they apparently continue to function without them, though no doubt in an increasingly disease-prone condition.

Since we don't know what the original Creation was like we can't appreciate what has been lost, but it would certainly help if science weren't addicted to this idea of evolution and could get focused on the reality of gradual degeneration over time or the reality is going to rise up and bite them in the end (in both senses of the word). Reality is always a nice thing for science to keep in mind.

How the cheetah, living proof that evolution is not possible, becomes just another figment of the evolutionist imagination

Hey, I'm honored, mentioned by Iblis in a post at EvC, of course the usual nonsense argument and I'm not there to defend myself but that's OK. There is no defending yourself at EvC if you're a creationist. The thing about evolutionism is that it can morph in any direction it likes in order to answer you because it's all a fantasy. If you say something that seems to challenge the theory, amoeba-like it just extends a pseudopod to gobble up the challenge -- glurrrp -- and everybody's happy.

And this is a case in point.

Faith used to back her affected agrument by incredulity with specious appeals to "genetic meltdown". Her favorite example was the amazing cheetah.

Lessee, of course you must use all the most derogatory terms you can think of to poison the well against the argument for starters, such as "affected" and "specious," to be sure nobody could possibly think the argument had any merit. Oh and be sure to call it an "argument by incredulity" even though it is no such thing -- that's SUCH a no-no.

I also don't recall ever using the term "genetic meltdown" so it shouldn't be in quotes in reference to my argument.

Now he goes on in a way that is rather hard to follow, kind of a word salad approach that serves mostly to obscure and in any case doesn't get anywhere near the argument I was always trying to make by referring to the cheetah:

He's had it rough as the poster-child for reduction of genetic diversity. Due to depopulation, isolation and inbreeding his genetic variability is so low that skin grafts between unrelated animals do not result in immunological rejection! And so on, there are a lot of lovely fables in this area.

IS that a fable? I don't think I ever used that particular example but everything I've read about the cheetah does say that the genetic variability IS so low that individuals are almost like clones of one another. Is he trying to dispute that even after declaring it?

But contrary to popular belief, this is nothing new for the cheetah.

Contrary to popular belief? Whose belief? I never said it was "new?" What does its being new or old have to do with anything? The point is that the cheetah is a prime example of extremely reduced genetic variability. He seems to affirm this yet also try to deny it. This is a very confused piece of writing.

Well, now here comes the Evo Fairy Tale. Get some popcorn, pull up a chair:

It began thousands of years ago, toward the end of last ice age,

Yes, long long ago ...

in a fairly ordinary genetic bottleneck.

... in a land far far away ...

Did anyone ever suggest the bottleneck was not "ordinary?" The point about a bottleneck is that it eliminates a bunch of genes all at once, leaving a very few individuals to form a new population with the reduced genetic variability they share, whether it's an "ordinary" or extraordinary bottleneck, whatever that might be.

And as result of this process, the cheetah has become the least "feline" of all the big cats.

Well, it has a smallish head as felines go but otherwise it's plenty feline it seems to me. But apparently saying it's less "feline" is supposed to imply that it's an example of evolution. Sigh. Are we getting anywhere with this little dissertation? Doesn't it seem to be wandering around trying to obscure the issue?

So now we go from this completely subjective notion that it's less feline looking to this HUGE jump:

In another million years or so, he may look something like this [here we get a picture of -- a hyena? A doglike animal with some cheetah-like coloring and markings]

Oh brother. Because the cheetah just sort of looks less feline to this guy it's evolving and is going to look even less feline in a million years. Sigh.

The point about such drastically reduced genetic variability is that EVOLUTION HAS COME TO A STOP. That is the point of using the cheetah as an example. The cheetah is NOT EVOLVING. It's reached a genetic dead end. When you have no new genetic possibilities there is simply no direction in which the animal COULD evolve. It goes on producing individuals that hardly vary at all from each other, to the point that they are truly like clones. You CANNOT GET EVOLUTION FROM THAT POINT.

A bottleneck is what happens when for some reason you have just a few individuals inbreeding among themselves to form a new variation of a species. A bottleneck is simply the most drastic way animals get "selected" -- randomly in this case -- and isolated, these being the "mechanisms" or conditions that bring about new gene frequencies, which is supposedly the basis for evolution. And it IS, it is the basis for MICROevolution, or the variation that commonly occurs from generation to generation in any species. If part of a population gets isolated from the rest it develops characteristics to some extent different from the former population with its own reduced gene pool. But it WILL have a reduced gene pool, it WILL have reduced genetic variability compared to the previous population. A bottleneck will simply bring about a DRASTICALLY reduced genetic variability compared to the usual reduction because it involves so few individuals. This is what makes such examples the best for making the point about how evolution comes to an end by simply following out the normal processes that create new varieties, or microevolution. ALL reduced populations tend in the same direction of reduced genetic variability but the extremely reduced populations are where you see the tendency itself in action, where it's hardest to ignore it, the tendency, that is, toward the complete inability to evolve further somewhere down the road.

Of course fantasy can surmount any obstacle thrown up by reality, and here we have Iblis totally ignoring this point and assuming that the cheetah is going to go on evolving although it doesn't have the genetic means to go on evolving:

The misadventures of these fellows actually provides the key to your whole puzzle. You see, when the gene pool is large and conditions remain stable, the overwhelming majority of even the effective, non-neutral mutations are quickly lost in the shuffle. They are outnumbered and as they provide no selection advantage, there is no reason for them to be preserved.

If mutations are going on at the rate they assume, then there is no such thing as their not having an effect. A mutation is a change in a gene, it is a substitution of a new coding sequence for another. If it has no effect all that means is that it has no detectable effect, no effect that they know of. But the very fact that a coding part of the DNA has been changed means that SOMETHING HAS CHANGED in whatever that segment formerly coded for. It can't be a good thing that a formerly coding sequence no longer codes for whatever it used to code for. At the very least something has been killed, some part of the organism no longer functions, a very tiny hardly discernible part no doubt, something beneath the detection capacity of the instruments available, but how can the death of a coding portion of DNA ever be just "neutral?" And most mutations supposedly have this non-effect. But that means that most mutations are killing off genes coding bit by coding bit. This is no doubt how "junk DNA" gets formed and there's an awful awful lot of junk DNA in the genome of most creatures, certainly the human genome. But that's a whole nother subject.

When the gene pool is greatly reduced however, either due to large-scale changes in the environment in terms of selection factors or to the spreading out of outliers of a population into a new area or niche, this changes. The cow's primary source of genetic diversity is, other cows with somewhat different genes.

Exactly, this is how genetic diversity is maintained in most large populations of any animal. Individuals vary from each other, they have different genetic possibilities that can combine with those of other individuals to create the variation that shows up in the next generation.

The cheetah's, though, is mutation.

Uh huh. Mutation is the only thing left to the cheetah, and this is true. But consider the RATE situation now. How many of the expectable mutations provide any kind of change that could be useful to the animal? Actually, it's pretty much zip. You get all those "neutral" mutations and you get deleterious mutations. Those are known. The useful ones are purely imaginary.

Each new trait produced by mutation is valuable to a reduced species and likely to be preserved

Pure fantasy. There ARE no new "traits" known to be produced by mutation. All that is KNOWN to be produced are degenerative changes and "neutral" changes, that, as I point out above, aren't really neutral because they DESTROY genes.

resulting in large-scale morphological changes over a relatively short period of time. Still in the high thousands and millions though.

Man these guys love their theory. They NEVER have to come down to reality and actually PROVE anything, they're quite content to affirm the fairy tale of beneficial mutations that drive evolution even in the face of EVIDENCE that, as in the case of the cheetah, evolution is simply no longer possible.

And this is the main factor underlying Gould's "punctuated equilibrium". For ten million years, everything is fine. Then things change; and when they do, things change. Eerie. But not mysterious, simple statistics.

Eventually you'd think a brain would simply implode from the strain of having to invent all those fictions to support all the imaginary notions that support the imaginary theory.

But thanks for the mention, Iblis, gave me the opportunity to restate my favorite argument.

Evolution has been killed dead a zillion times but they keep following its ghost around pretending it's alive

Oh BROTHER. This would be funny if it weren't so pathetic. Now they are accusing ICANT and other creationists on the thread "Can I disprove Macro-evolution" of being off topic. Hoo boy, what will they think of next? But then it turns out it's not that they're off topic, it's that they haven't disproved Macroevolution, which is what the title of the thread supposedly demands of them, which of course the evos wouldn't recognize if it bit them, and they have teeth marks all over them but don't seem to notice. Case of genetic entropy perhaps -- nerve degeneration radiating out from the gluteus maximus?

The problem is that Dawn Bertot and JRTjr and ICANT are happily leading you and others down those oh so attractive rabbit holes.

The topic is NOT whether Macro-Evolution happened, it is an assertion that they can disprove Macro-evolution.

It is their assertion that it did not happen, and until they provide a model that better explains what is seen than the current model, they have failed.

Stop letting them change the subject and lead you guys astray.

It is up to them to provide convincing evidence that Macro-Evolution did not happen.

Nothing would qualify as convincing evidence for them, obviously. They are just wilfully blind to the good evidence that HAS been provided. There's nothing wrong with ICANT's evidence.

And the latest in this string of nonsense posts on that thread:

i know i would poste the latin name of that new mouse and the house mouse but he would still say they are still mice

Of course he would because that IS the evidence against Macroevolution and he has fulfilled the requirement of the title of the thread with a resounding Yes he CAN disprove Macroevolution and he did. Because you can't just redefine reality and call it science, folks, if mice are still mice no matter what new Latinized characteristics a particular strain of them may have you have not achieved Macroevolution. AND again, they will have reduced genetic diversity TOO, which is THE real-world actual-fact killer of evolution.

========
I guess this is a place to tack on a reaction to a later post by ICANT: This is a post where he and I disagree:

I also understand that there will be sub-species that will arise due to malfunctions in errors in DNA information resulting in mutations.

Sub-species arise from the simple shuffling of the genetic possibilities that God built into the DNA, a very abundant array of possible variations, far MORE abundant in past generations and extravagantly abundant in the pre-Flood world, losing diversity over time thanks to the Fall and the Flood.

The reason offspring are different from parents is not mutations, it's the shuffling of the alleles for the various characteristics in the parents' DNA and this is how new varieties get formed too, as limited populations become isolated from the greater population and their smaller gene pool is the source of their own characteristics.

I'm sure science is right that we do all have mutations, even our own unique mutations, but I can't think that is a good thing since there are thousands of genetic diseases in the human genome, no doubt caused by mutations, and I'm also convinced that "junk DNA" is -- mostly -- the result of mutations, basically a killing off of formerly functioning genes.

Evolutionsts ASSUME that all the DNA was the result of mutations but that's just an article of faith; there is no evidence that that is so. Mutations are errors in the DNA and must be a consequence of the Fall. Of course evolutionists aren't going to do the necessary tests to really pin it down and I don't know how many creationists are looking in this direction either.

Mutations are not necessary, and I personally doubt that they ever contribute anything positive to the development of varieties or sub-species.