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Stupid Christian Article on Evolution

randman said:
Simple. If they remain isolated, the main group is irrelevant to the isolated population's genetic variability. If they do not continue in a process of isolation, they are not likely to evolve into a new species.
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"Not likely" might better be phrased as "less likely" and "new species" might be better as "different species than the original group" but otherwise this is unobjectionable. It is, however, a different statement than saying "Genetic variability decreases (even dramatically) when you split off one group from another."
 
Is is only true if enough members left so that certain alleles were removed from one of the groups. If all alleles present before the split are present after, there's no decrease in variation. So, not definitional.
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Ok, show me the papers proving your comment. Evos posit the population must be limited, forming a subgroup, so mutations are not washed out via breeding in a larger group, and of course, speciation itself causes a new subgroup.

So how much of a decrease does their need to be?

And how many examples, say for larger animals sexually reproducing, are there of speciation so we can test this and see if there are any examples without a loss of alleles?

You won't likely find any papers substantiating these things and comparing rates of loss of alleles with gains from mutations, especially envisioned over geologic history, which makes "likely" and degrees of likely very significant.
 
Resume said:
Are you published somewhere? Answers in Genesis doesn't count.
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All these things are already published. If funded, I might try to be part of a group to do some studies that evos themselves should do to see what the data says.
 
randman said:
Ok, show me the papers proving your comment.
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Here are a bunch of letters:

AABBCCDDEEFFGG

There are 7 different letters in this group.

If I split these letters into two groups like this:

ABCDEFG

and

ABCDEFG

Each group still has 7 different letters in it, showing that the mere act of creating a different group doesn't necessarily (or by definition) decrease the variety within that group.

I have no idea what paper would think it had to spell out that concept.
 
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Here are a bunch of letters:

AABBCCDDEEFFGG

There are 7 different letters in this group.

If I split these letters into two groups like this:

ABCDEFG

and

ABCDEFG

Each group still has 7 different letters in it, showing that the mere act of creating a different group doesn't necessarily (or by definition) decrease the variety within that group.
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Yes, it does. It decreases the number of how many times the letters occur.
 
randman said:
Yes, it does. It decreases the number of how many times the letters occur.
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That's right. That's what it does. Nothing else.

eta: I suppose I'll go ahead and spell it out.


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

How many varieties of letter are there in the above string?

1?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

How about now?

Still 1.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Now?

Yep still one.


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Less then 2 varieties of letters.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The variation is of yet unchanged.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

A lack of variation change is present.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I seem to have misplaced yet another A, but my variety level is maintained.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Something's eating my letters, but apparently it's not hungry for variation, cause I've still got all of it.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

1 variety of letter, hah, hah, hah.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

2! varieties of.... wait, never mind.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The variety of letter is bored with the lack of change.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

1 variety

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

1x1=the varieties of letters.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Captain, the sensors report no change in variety

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Are we almost done?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Apparently not.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

How about now?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

No?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Really?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The horse is dead.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Its relatives are filing a lawsuit regarding desecrating a corpse.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

They look angry.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Ohhh, the line is shorter than my thumb now, but there's still 1 variety.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Am I really going to do this 20 more times?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAB

Whoah, How'd that happen?
 
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randman said:
Yes, it does. It decreases the number of how many times the letters occur.
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Uh, no. Each letter still appears twice in that example.

If we take a group of ten animals and sepearate them in to two groups of five, where and how do genes disappear??
 
RecoveringYuppy said:
Uh, no. Each letter still appears twice in that example.

If we take a group of ten animals and sepearate them in to two groups of five, where and how do genes disappear??
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In that particular example, we were arguing about whether splitting a population into groups necessarily and by definition reduced the variety in either group, not whether overall variety changes, which is a separate issue. eta:To a greater or lesser extent, it probably usually does. But since you can't guarantee that it will cause any difference, you can't jump from isolating a group to any meaningful effects from a loss of variety, much less a loss of variety overall.

While I'm sure there could be an odd and special definition I'm not aware of, variation mean difference, so we want to know how many different types of things there are, not how many of the same thing.
 
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I think it is self-evident that splitting a population into 2 physically would in fact increase the genetic variability (across the 2 groups), especially if the 2 environments are different.

On what grounds could someone claim otherwise?
 
Look at it this way: There are 6,000 organisms in the starting population. 500 of them are in a subpopulation that becomes isolated.

From that alone, what evidence do you have that genetic variability NECESSARILY is reduced? Not probability--in randman's view it's an absolutely certain outcome.

devnull said:
I think it is self-evident that splitting a population into 2 physically would in fact increase the genetic variability (across the 2 groups), especially if the 2 environments are different.
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Random chance. It's entirely possible (though not likely) that both groups will give rise to the same mutations and, when re-introduced, have the same alleles. Isolation increases the change of divergence, but does not alone guarantee it.
 
Dinwar said:
Random chance. It's entirely possible (though not likely) that both groups will give rise to the same mutations and, when re-introduced, have the same alleles. Isolation increases the change of divergence, but does not alone guarantee it.
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Ahhh indeed. Not knowing the math behind this, I assumed the chances of identical mutations to be very low.

Actually, youd have to consider that not only identical mutations would need to occur, but in the same order. Seems unlikely to me.
 
quixotecoyote said:
In that particular example, we were arguing about whether splitting a population into groups necessarily and by definition reduced the variety in either group, not whether overall variety changes, which is a separate issue. eta:
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But randman's response to you doesn't acknowledge the "in either group" part. He just says the number of letters decreased, which isn't accurate. I wouldn't count on him implicity agreeing to your qualifications on his statement.
 
RecoveringYuppy said:
But randman's response to you doesn't acknowledge the "in either group" part. He just says the number of letters decreased, which isn't accurate. I wouldn't count on him implicity agreeing to your qualifications on his statement.
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I didn't say the number of letters decreased. I said the number of times they appear did, and that's demonstrably true. That's a decrease in genetic variability.
 
devnull said:
Ahhh indeed. Not knowing the math behind this, I assumed the chances of identical mutations to be very low.

Actually, youd have to consider that not only identical mutations would need to occur, but in the same order. Seems unlikely to me.
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You are correct that it's very unlikely, at least via Neo Darwinian means.

That's one reason many are looking into alternative means of evolution and Intelligent Design.
 
randman said:
I didn't say the number of letters decreased. I said the number of times they appear did, and that's demonstrably true. That's a decrease in genetic variability.
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Once again, your argument is hinging on nothing but semantics.
 
devnull said:
I think it is self-evident that splitting a population into 2 physically would in fact increase the genetic variability (across the 2 groups), especially if the 2 environments are different.

On what grounds could someone claim otherwise?
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It is self-evidence and every evolutionary biologist worth his salt says so. That part of what I am saying is not controversial among informed scientists.

The issue is they don't quantify that. They assume and assert because mutation can increase genetic variability (though it can also decrease it) that somehow mutations are the magic bullet here without verifying that is the case.

It's like if I bought things in business for $100 and sold them for $5 and insisted I was making a profit over and over again by showing I made or could make $5 gross on the sale.
 
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