Myth of evolution and new drug discovery

[liquidpele]

I’d like to add my expertise at this argument if you will. Here’ where we’re at:

1. I don’t know a single geneticist.
2. I think you have badly misunderstood what you have read.
3. There have been many misunderstandings.
4. 15 years have past.
5. A huge quantity of work has been published

Therefore, … I don’t know.

Is your expertise providing spin for political candidates?

 

[eucharisteo]

Is your expertise providing spin for political candidates?

No. But that sounds like a good career move though with skills like these and crowds on some of these threads. lol

 

[rossum]

I am familiar with this hypothesis. Perhaps you can unpack it, showing your interpretation. That is, give a possible ancestral history of the 1,000 - 10,000 or so pairs, i.e. the origins of this population.

See Ambrose (1998) Late Pleistocene human population bottlenecks, volcanic winter, and differentiation of modern humans.

There is a less technical treatment on Wikipedia: Toba Catastrophe.

rossum

 

[hecd2]

I can’t reply fully to your objection at this time because I was relying on memory and perhaps I have wrongly recalled text and author. So, I will have to do a little homework. But the view I had in mind does not involve a misunderstanding of Mitochondrial Eve. That is, it is not based on the common misunderstanding of that particular theory. Obviously, some folks have been easily mislead by the word “Eve”.

Fair enough, but then I don’t know what it is in the History and Geography of Human Genes (or indeed in the work of any other geneticist) that makes you think that Cavalli-Sforza and his co-authors remotely “support(s) the fact of a first pair of human parents”.

Setting aside your objection related to ME, the main point of evolution is common ancestry. And I was thinking of the issue more so according to monogenism and polygenism, which would both be true at different times and points on the evolutionary tree.

Although monogenism in the sense you use it within the ancestry of a species is not impossible in principle (caused, for example, by an extreme founder effect - a single breeding pair becoming isolated from the rest of a population), it is not common in the ancestry of tetrapods, and the genetic evidence is that no such thing occurred in the ancestry of humans.

So, perhaps you can give your perspective on the subject stated in the following manner. And I may risk saying this scenario is consistent with what Cavalli-Sforza has said.

If one traces their ancestry beginning with their parents, they will encounter an increasing number of sets of direct ancestors: 4, then 8 grandparents, and so on. The numbers increase exponentially. Yet if one goes back far enough in time, those numbers begin to decrease due to the decreasing size of the earth’s population. Eventually, one would arrive at a first pair of ancestors. Otherwise, their would be no common descent, no evolution.

It might be the case that at some point in the ancestry of humans that the population which leads to us passed through a bottleneck of two (or one!). But it is not an essential element of evolutionary theory and the evidence precludes the suggestion that it has happened since the divergence of chimpanzee and human lineages about 6 million years ago. Evolution is a process that generally occurs in populations and does not require extreme founder events in the way that you seem to think it does. There is no requirement for the human and pre-human population to decrease going back in time. Obviously there has been a great increase in the census human population in the last 10,000 - 20,000 years, but before that the genetic evidence points to an effective population of 100,000 within the human lineage over 15 million years decreasing to 10,000 over the last million years with one or a few bottlenecks of minimum ~1,000 lasting for no more than 100 generations.

And no, your suggestion that going back in time one would necessarily arrive at a first pair of ancestors is not something that is compatible with anything that Cavalli-Sforza wrote. You might be confusing population ancestry with gene ancestry, which does require the ancestry of any particular gene within a population to coalesce to a single ancestral gene in a single individual in the past (hence, for example, the necessary existence of a single ancestor for human mtDNA, which, since mtDNA is passed on exclusively through the female line, would be carried by the woman who is the ancestor of all humans today through the female line. A similar situation obtains for the non-recombining region of the Y chromosome). The history of different genes is very different depending on many factors including the strength of selection operating on them, and the degree of recombination that has occurred, and the coalescence dates vary from one gene to another for the human population (something that would not occur if humans had recently passed through a bottleneck of two individuals, in which case most human haplotypes would coalesce to the same date).

Common descent means that two species share a single ancestral population, not that any one species must have a single couple as founders. I don’t really understand why you think that evolutionary theory demands that the population of a species needs to decrease down to two in the past, but the fact is that it doesn’t.

(By the way, and for interest, the fact that you have two parents, four grand parents, eight great grand parents etc, means that in not very many generations you will have more ancestors than the size of the population - what this means in effect is that the same person stands as your ancestor in multiple lineages, eg as your great grandmother 32 times removed through many different lines of descent. You don’'t have to go very far back to get a common ancestor for all humans alive today. Rohde et al think, with some reasonable assumptions, that the human MRCA was as recent as 3500 BP, and not much further back we get a situation where everyone alive was either a common ancestor of us all or an ancestor of none of us - Rohde’s model predicts that that point occurred around 7000 BP, and that before it some 60% of the adult population who have children would be ancestors of us all, and 40% ancestors of none of us).

Alec
evolutionpages.com/Mitochondrial%20Eve.htm

 

[hecd2]

Therefore, … I don’t know.

Well that much is obvious.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[StAnastasia]

You don’'t have to go very far back to get a common ancestor for all humans alive today. Rohde et al think, with some reasonable assumptions, that the human MRCA was as recent as 3500 BP, and not much further back we get a situation where everyone alive was either a common ancestor of us all or an ancestor of none of us - Rohde’s model predicts that that point occurred around 7000 BP, and that before it some 60% of the adult population who have children would be ancestors of us all, and 40% ancestors of none of us). Alec

Alec, I googled your acronym MRCA and came up with “Midwest Roofing Contractors Association” and “Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority.” Shall I assume that you mean neither of these? I assume you mean “most recent common ancestor.”

StAnastasia

 

[hecd2]

Alec, I googled your acronym MRCA and came up with “Midwest Roofing Contractors Association” and “Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority.” Shall I assume that you mean neither of these? I assume you mean “most recent common ancestor.”

StAnastasia

Most Reasonable and Correct Assumption

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[itinerant1]

Fair enough, but then I don’t know what it is in the History and Geography of Human Genes (or indeed in the work of any other geneticist) that makes you think that Cavalli-Sforza and his co-authors remotely “support(s) the fact of a first pair of human parents”.

Although monogenism in the sense you use it within the ancestry of a species is not impossible in principle (caused, for example, by an extreme founder effect - a single breeding pair becoming isolated from the rest of a population), it is not common in the ancestry of tetrapods, and the genetic evidence is that no such thing occurred in the ancestry of humans.

It might be the case that at some point in the ancestry of humans that the population which leads to us passed through a bottleneck of two (or one!). But it is not an essential element of evolutionary theory and the evidence precludes the suggestion that it has happened since the divergence of chimpanzee and human lineages about 6 million years ago. Evolution is a process that generally occurs in populations and does not require extreme founder events in the way that you seem to think it does. There is no requirement for the human and pre-human population to decrease going back in time. Obviously there has been a great increase in the census human population in the last 10,000 - 20,000 years, but before that the genetic evidence points to an effective population of 100,000 within the human lineage over 15 million years decreasing to 10,000 over the last million years with one or a few bottlenecks of minimum ~1,000 lasting for no more than 100 generations.

And no, your suggestion that going back in time one would necessarily arrive at a first pair of ancestors is not something that is compatible with anything that Cavalli-Sforza wrote. You might be confusing population ancestry with gene ancestry, which does require the ancestry of any particular gene within a population to coalesce to a single ancestral gene in a single individual in the past (hence, for example, the necessary existence of a single ancestor for human mtDNA, which, since mtDNA is passed on exclusively through the female line, would be carried by the woman who is the ancestor of all humans today through the female line. A similar situation obtains for the non-recombining region of the Y chromosome). The history of different genes is very different depending on many factors including the strength of selection operating on them, and the degree of recombination that has occurred, and the coalescence dates vary from one gene to another for the human population (something that would not occur if humans had recently passed through a bottleneck of two individuals, in which case most human haplotypes would coalesce to the same date).

Common descent means that two species share a single ancestral population, not that any one species must have a single couple as founders. I don’t really understand why you think that evolutionary theory demands that the population of a species needs to decrease down to two in the past, but the fact is that it doesn’t.

(By the way, and for interest, the fact that you have two parents, four grand parents, eight great grand parents etc, means that in not very many generations you will have more ancestors than the size of the population - what this means in effect is that the same person stands as your ancestor in multiple lineages, eg as your great grandmother 32 times removed through many different lines of descent. You don’'t have to go very far back to get a common ancestor for all humans alive today. Rohde et al think, with some reasonable assumptions, that the human MRCA was as recent as 3500 BP, and not much further back we get a situation where everyone alive was either a common ancestor of us all or an ancestor of none of us - Rohde’s model predicts that that point occurred around 7000 BP, and that before it some 60% of the adult population who have children would be ancestors of us all, and 40% ancestors of none of us).

Alec
evolutionpages.com/Mitochondrial%20Eve.htm

I appreciate informed responses. I should have time later today to study the responses and follow the links. I have just raised some additional questions, too, in my own mind regarding populations and speciation.

 

[itinerant1]

Believe it or not, I am looking for the truth behind all this. The current idea behind species is two groups become isolated and can no longer interbreed. However, my only issue is the idea that some novel organ could gradually appear in a macro creature. A wing on its way to becoming a wing won’t allow the macro creature to fly. A light sensitive spot has quite a ways to go before it becomes an eyeball, and stereo vision requires some precise distance between the two eyeballs to allow for full function. The function of a gill is far enough removed from the function of a lung to make any connection between the two imaginative and highly doubtful.

Even the experts cannot produce a bona fide transitional fossil:

See the heading:
Are there any transitional fossils?

answersingenesis.org/creation/v14/i4/fossils.asp

I think the next thing I want to bring up is creationism. No, not the “God did it,” let’s close up the lab and go home idea, but the idea that the earth is not billions of years old. I’m not saying it’s 6,000 years old, I’m putting forth an idea.

Right now, and this may seem surprising to the few that think the Church is perfectly OK with evolution, the Church is saying that a self-starting evolution is impossible. The textbook idea that nature does something, entirely on its own, to bring about life, is not the correct answer. God is part of the equation, a direct, causal part.

What specifically would happen, in your view, if scientists declared: The code in DNA did not appear naturally. Like a computer, which cannot program itself, DNA cannot program itself either. The Law of Probability indicates that not only is the DNA code impossible to achieve but the self-correcting aspect finalizes the idea that it could not be achieved through purely natural means.

What would happen?

Peace,
Ed

The two examples I gave, involving the gull and Drosophila appear to me as rock-solid instances supporting speciation as a fact. That is, species are instrumental in generating new types. Contrary to some evolutionists, I think there are huge difficulties in explaining novel or transitional organs. But that merely reflects that state of scientific knowledge, which is progressing toward a better understanding of natural processes all the time.

I think speciation is an undeniable fact, the one truly solid ground for evolution theory, regardless of how poorly understood. There are even greater problems in explaining evolution at the level of higher taxa.

I can’t see the logic in accepting speciation but denying that nature can generate novel organs. What say you, Ed?

You harp on textbooks that deny God. And rightly so. But evolution theory in itself does not deny the existence and providence of God. That is the ideology grafted on to a scientific theory. You always fail to make the distinction and end up arguing against science, as well.

ID creationist are inconsistent when they object to Darwinian ideology. Granted that many Darwinians take their ideology for science, but Philip Johnson believes philosophical naturalism should be a part of science. He just wants his ideology to dominate. The solution is for scientists to observe methodological naturalism. But Behe disagrees, so its a no-win situation for IDers. But we had this discussion before, and you are still attacking what you see as problems with Darwinian science, rather than problems with Darwinian ideology, which is what you should be doing instead. Your current tact is an exercise in futility.

Don’t forget my original question about speciation and novel organs. I look forward to your reply.

 

[itinerant1]

I appreciate informed responses. I should have time later today to study the responses and follow the links. I have just raised some additional questions, too, in my own mind regarding populations and speciation.

Cancelled…wrong link

 

[edwest2]

The two examples I gave, involving the gull and Drosophila appear to me as rock-solid instances supporting speciation as a fact. That is, species are instrumental in generating new types. Contrary to some evolutionists, I think there are huge difficulties in explaining novel or transitional organs. But that merely reflects that state of scientific knowledge, which is progressing toward a better understanding of natural processes all the time.

I think speciation is an undeniable fact, the one truly solid ground for evolution theory, regardless of how poorly understood. There are even greater problems in explaining evolution at the level of higher taxa.

I can’t see the logic in accepting speciation but denying that nature can generate novel organs. What say you, Ed?

You harp on textbooks that deny God. And rightly so. But evolution theory in itself does not deny the existence and providence of God. That is the ideology grafted on to a scientific theory. You always fail to make the distinction and end up arguing against science, as well.

ID creationist are inconsistent when they object to Darwinian ideology. Granted that many Darwinians take their ideology for science, but Philip Johnson believes philosophical naturalism should be a part of science. He just wants his ideology to dominate. The solution is for scientists to observe methodological naturalism. But Behe disagrees, so its a no-win situation for IDers. But we had this discussion before, and you are still attacking what you see as problems with Darwinian science, rather than problems with Darwinian ideology, which is what you should be doing instead. Your current tact is an exercise in futility.

Don’t forget my original question about speciation and novel organs. I look forward to your reply.

It is unfortunate that one needs to pick a camp instead of dealing with all levels of information. Look at any evolutionary tree. Look where the root meets the ground. If you go back far enough, supposedly man looks more and more ape-like until he looks exactly ape-like, but if you go back back further, certain problems arise. At some point, man was a four-legged lemur-like creature, but before that, he was something amphibious and before that, some fish-like creature, and before that, a mass of cells. Finally, everything, it is said, came from the first organism.

My problem with what you call Darwinian science is simply this: all events, known, unknown and imagined, are or will be derived from a purely natural source. For one group of people, this is not only scientifically necessary but personally necessary. The final answer, they are certain, is that a natural answer is the only answer. My textbook quotes show that scientists believe this right now even though all the necessary data to reach such a conclusion is not in. What you call the one and only theory of evolution fits that description. To say it allows for something akin to divine providence falls outside of the Church’s definition: it explicitly denies to divine providence any truly causal role in the development of life. You can tack God onto the theory, but, for some, the data already shows that God would be a useless addition.

Scientists can place any limits they like on their research to gain knowledge, but when the ideology comes over here and posts: “According to science, your holy book is wrong, here, here and here.” wouldn’t you agree that that’s a problem? The Church has mentioned this as referring to things that science cannot demonstrate. And indeed, science cannot demonstrate these things.

A scientist standing next to Jesus Christ when He cleansed the lepers or raised Lazarus, what would he say? Look at Him and tell Him what just happened was impossible? It still actually happened. The same with miracles for sainthood today. Can’t explain it? Fine. But don’t deny something happened. Yet, here too, I have encountered those who dismiss such things out of hand.

The theory of evolution cannot explain increasing complexity. It cannot explain how an organism gains information that is specific and complex. Right now, scientists are engaged in genetic knock-out experiments, another form of trial and error. Let’s see, we’ll knock a sequence out of this mouse and see what happens.

Nature can generate novel organs? I invite you to view the following:

youtube.com/watch?v=aW2GkDkimkE&feature=PlayList&p=D032A1751CF3A36E&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=2

Peace,
Ed

 

[itinerant1]

Although monogenism in the sense you use it within the ancestry of a species is not impossible in principle (caused, for example, by an extreme founder effect - a single breeding pair becoming isolated from the rest of a population), it is not common in the ancestry of tetrapods, and the genetic evidence is that no such thing occurred in the ancestry of humans.

Yes, I retain this scenario as a possibilty, while being unconvinced that genetics conclusively rules out a monogenetic origin, of some type, for humans. But I will not argue that point in this post.

In regard to founder populations and speciation here is a very simplied, hypothetical scenario. Said population is characterized by genotype “F”. There are, of course differences among all individuals comprising the population. The variations increase and individual genotypes now include F1, F2, F3, and so on, until G occurs. G is reproductively isolated from all F members of the population. And these newly emerged G types survive and reproduce until their genotype becomes characteristic of the surviving population.

Is this a possibility? What are its difficulties, if any?

 

[redneck22]

The theory of evolution cannot explain increasing complexity.

Peace,
Ed

What is observed and can be scientifically demonstrated is loss of complexity, loss of function, exchange of existing information and inherent adaption via differential reproduction. This is known as “evolution in action”.

A historical story is then made up which is outside the bounds of empirical science to show how complexity, function and information can self generate from nothing.

A story that is untrue is fiction. When science is introduced to the story, it becomes science fiction.

.

 

[StAnastasia]

What is observed and can be scientifically demonstrated is loss of complexity, loss of function, exchange of existing information and inherent adaption via differential reproduction. This is known as “evolution in action”…

Can you show us credible evidence to substantiate this claim? I mentioned it to the biologists in my department, but they were unable to corroborate it; in fact they had not heard of your theory of “loss of complexity.”

 

[itinerant1]

It is unfortunate that one needs to pick a camp instead of dealing with all levels of information. Look at any evolutionary tree. Look where the root meets the ground. If you go back far enough, supposedly man looks more and more ape-like until he looks exactly ape-like, but if you go back back further, certain problems arise. At some point, man was a four-legged lemur-like creature, but before that, he was something amphibious and before that, some fish-like creature, and before that, a mass of cells. Finally, everything, it is said, came from the first organism.

Strictly speaking it is not correct to say man was a lemur, or anything else. Man can only be man. By means of evolution, man’s body has a pre-history in the natural processes of evolution.

My problem with what you call Darwinian science is simply this: all events, known, unknown and imagined, are or will be derived from a purely natural source. For one group of people, this is not only scientifically necessary but personally necessary. The final answer, they are certain, is that a natural answer is the only answer. My textbook quotes show that scientists believe this right now even though all the necessary data to reach such a conclusion is not in. What you call the one and only theory of evolution fits that description. To say it allows for something akin to divine providence falls outside of the Church’s definition: it explicitly denies to divine providence any truly causal role in the development of life. You can tack God onto the theory, but, for some, the data already shows that God would be a useless addition.

You have not accurately characterized what I said, and so your objections miss the point. First, Darwinism is not synonymous with evolution theory. I don’t think this idea ever registered with you.

Science is limited to giving natural explanations. The natural sciences treat of phenomenal reality. If a scientist makes statements or conclusions that are philosophical, then he is not speaking as a scientist. For instance, Ernst Mayr in “What Evolution Is” likes to deny purpose and final causes. He may think his science necessitates that conclusion, but that is where he, and other Darwininsts error. Final causes, as does causality in itself, remains outside the scope and competence of natural sciences. The only way Mayr and his ilk can justify their philosophical bias is to maintain that only science gives us knowledge of reality. But that is not a scientific statement or one that can be proven by science. It is a philosophical statement. One has to argue from philosophy. Hence, the extreme Darwinian conundrum.

Scientists, as scientists, cannot invoke higher causes as explanatory. Likewise, if they deny the reality of ultimate causes, they are not speaking as scientists, regardless of what they might think. True scientific knowledge has nothing to do with ultimates causes. It can neither affirm nor deny their reality.

Undoubtedly, many Darwinians bring along a lot of baggage with their science. It shows they are lacking something of the scientific spirit. Darwin, in *The Descent, *interpreted all natural phenomena, including the human mind, through a materialist perspective. 30 years before writing The Descent, Darwin converted to materialism. It was a crude and stupid materialism at that. In his Early Notebooks, Darwin referred to human thought as “secretion of brain.”

Scientists can place any limits they like on their research to gain knowledge, but when the ideology comes over here and posts: “According to science, your holy book is wrong, here, here and here.” wouldn’t you agree that that’s a problem?

It doesn’t bother me one bit. It just empirical evidence for the Catholic doctrine of Original Sin.

A scientist standing next to Jesus Christ when He cleansed the lepers or raised Lazarus, what would he say? Look at Him and tell Him what just happened was impossible? It still actually happened. The same with miracles for sainthood today. Can’t explain it? Fine. But don’t deny something happened. Yet, here too, I have encountered those who dismiss such things out of hand.

Study up on the subject. Try Miracles and Physics by Stanley L. Jaki.

The theory of evolution cannot explain increasing complexity. It cannot explain how an organism gains information that is specific and complex. Right now, scientists are engaged in genetic knock-out experiments, another form of trial and error. Let’s see, we’ll knock a sequence out of this mouse and see what happens.

Increasing complexity is not explained either by ID. ID theorists have advanced an unproven hypothesis that is not scientific, and it philosophically conflates ultimate and secondary causes. Creation doesn’t happen like ID creationists imagine.

Science can potentially explain increasing complexity on the phenomenal level because matter is very specific. Consult any chemistry text. Matter was created with everything it needs to fulfill the Creator’s purposes for the universe.

Nature can generate novel organs? I invite you to view the following:

youtube.com/watch?v=aW2GkDkimkE&feature=PlayList&p=D032A1751CF3A36E&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=2

You are avoiding my question. Do you think speciation occurs? Denton thinks it is undeniable. If my memory is correct, he categorizes speciation under micro-evolution.

 

[rossum]

The theory of evolution cannot explain increasing complexity. It cannot explain how an organism gains information that is specific and complex.

This is incorrect ed. Your source is not up to date with the latest creationist/ID thinking. Have a read of Dembski and Marks’ latest paper: “Conservation of Information in Search: Measuring the Cost of Success”. In that paper Dembski and Marks show that an evolutionary search process copies information from the environment into the genome, and hence increases the complexity of the genome and the organism that the genome codes for. The evolutionary process does not generate complexity/information for itself but copies it from the environment. That is Dr Dembski’s explanation of how evolution can increase the complexity of a genome.

As I said, you need to use sources that are more up to date with the latest thinking in ID. The Dembski/Marks paper is a recent one, only having been published in September this year so it is understandable that not everyone has had a chance to digest its implications yet.

rossum

 

[hecd2]

Yes, I retain this scenario as a possibilty, while being unconvinced that genetics conclusively rules out a monogenetic origin, of some type, for humans. But I will not argue that point in this post.

But that is, of course, the key point. The fact is that many studies across multiple loci in the mitochondria, the NRY, other regions of the Y chromosome, the X chromosome and the autosomes, considering average and highly polymorphic coding genes, linkage disequilibrium, microsatellites, introns, pseudogenes, heterozygosity and so on all incompatible with the idea of a bottleneck of two individuals in the ancestry of humans since the divergence of the human and chimpanzee lineages. Not only does the human genome lack the characteristics that such an event would be bound to leave, but humans share more allelic lineages at certain loci with near cousins than can arithmetically pass through a bottleneck of two individuals.

In regard to founder populations and speciation here is a very simplied, hypothetical scenario. Said population is characterized by genotype “F”. There are, of course differences among all individuals comprising the population. The variations increase and individual genotypes now include F1, F2, F3, and so on, until G occurs. G is reproductively isolated from all F members of the population. And these newly emerged G types survive and reproduce until their genotype becomes characteristic of the surviving population.

Is this a possibility? What are its difficulties, if any?

I’m really not sure what you mean by genotype here. If you mean the entire detailed genome of an organism, then no single genotype F can characterise an entire population, since a population always contains differences between individuals. There are as many genotypes (in this sense) in a population as there are members of that population (less identical twins). Furthermore, the variation in a stable population that is not reproductively isolated does not tend to change. Although, new variations do arise by mutation, that is offset by the variations which drift or are selected to extinction. Perhaps you mean haplotypes which are broadly similar tracts on the genome that statistically are inherited together?

Also I’m not sure what you mean by “G occurs” - how is G different from F1, F2 etc? Are you hypothesising that the emergence of G is itself the isolating and speciating cause? And again, I am not sure what you mean by the genotypes of G becoming “characteristic” of the surviving population? I am not being deliberately obtuse here - I really am not sure what you are driving at.

Let me try lay out how an extreme founder event can happen and what that means for what we would see in the genome. We start with a stable diploid population with effective population size, say, 10,000 (the census population size could be much larger and could be in the millions). Saving identical twins, each genome is unique to an individual, and it is made up of a unique combination of different alleles. The genetic diversity at each locus (ie, how many different forms of that gene, ie alleles, exist in the population) can vary from one in an extremely conserved gene to several hundred or a thousand different variants at a highly polymorphic locus. The degree of heterozygosity (ie the fraction of loci that have two different alleles) is characteristic of an effective population of 10,000 (which in the neutral case, for a mutation rate of ~10^-6 would be about 0.04). Now, two breeding individuals become isolated (say by being carried to an island where there are no other members of the same species) and form a new population. Because of random sampling the population will have allele frequencies which are uncharacteristic of the original population. The population will have reduced genetic diversity (no more than a maximum of four alleles can be present at any locus) and reduced heterozygosity. Both diversity and heterozygosity will continue to be reduced in succeeding generations because in small in-breeding populations, alleles drift more rapidly to extinction or fixation, and the march to homozygosity is rapid. The population might carry a number of high frequency deleterious alleles. Subsequent population expansion along with mutations will result in an overabundance of rare alleles. These signatures of the extreme population bottleneck (reduced diversity and heterozygosity and an overabundance of common deleterious alleles and rare alleles) will continue to be observable in the genome of the population for tens of thousands of generations after the bottleneck until heterozygosity, diversity and the abundance of rare alleles is restored by mutational variation and random mating. Finally, neutral and deleterious alleles will coalesce at or after the bottleneck and we would not observe ancient alleles or haplotypes which have coalescence dates long before the bottleneck.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[rossum]

These signatures of the extreme population bottleneck (reduced diversity and heterozygosity and an overabundance of common deleterious alleles and rare alleles) will continue to be observable in the genome of the population for tens of thousands of generations after the bottleneck until heterozygosity, diversity and the abundance of rare alleles is restored by mutational variation and random mating. Finally, neutral and deleterious alleles will coalesce at or after the bottleneck and we would not observe ancient alleles or haplotypes which have coalescence dates long before the bottleneck.

It is also worth pointing out that we find exactly such signatures in the genome of Cheetahs, which had a population bottleneck about 10,000 years ago.

rossum

 

[buffalo]

Can you show us credible evidence to substantiate this claim? I mentioned it to the biologists in my department, but they were unable to corroborate it; in fact they had not heard of your theory of “loss of complexity.”

Wow - these esteemed individuals have never heard of this? Either they have a priori rejected it and removed it from their mind or it was filtered out of their training.

This simply amazes me and speaks volumes about the science establishment.

 

[liquidpele]

Wow - these esteemed individuals have never heard of this? Either they have a priori rejected it and removed it from their mind or it was filtered out of their training.

This simply amazes me and speaks volumes about the science establishment.

The fact that you think that’s significant speaks volumes about you as well.