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To: TASMANIANRED
You are using freaks, statistical outliers to support your position.

No, he is not, he is using examples to point out the very obvious flaws in *your* claim.

And members of the same species with different numbers of chromosomes is *not* a matter of "freaks or statistical outliers". It's far more common than you're aware, and you used your false presumptions about the stability of chromosome counts to lead you to your false conclusion.

Miniature Siberian swine, for example, have chromosome counts (in different individuals) of 36, 37, and 38. Among 41 tested individuals of the neotropical water rat Nectomys, chromosome counts of 52, 53, 56 and 57 were found. In the tufted deer (Elaphodus cephalophus), chromosome counts of 46, 47, and 48 were found. In the Lemur fulvus collaris, chromosome counts of 48, 50, 51, and 52 were found. In the owl monkey (Aotus), chromosome counts of 46, 49, 50, 52, 53, and 54 were found. In the Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx), 8 of 62 individuals in one herd were found to have two fewer chromosomes due to a fusion of chromosomes #17 and #19 -- this was traced back to an event two generations earlier, since the ancestries of the individuals were known. In the Black Rat, chromosome counts of 38, 40, and 42 were found. In 50 tested rainbow trout, chromosome counts of 59, 60, 61, 62 and 63 were found. In the okapi, chromosome counts of 44, 45, and 46 have been found. In the common house mouse Mus domesticus), a wide range of chromosome counts between 44 to 80 have been found.

152 posted on 03/05/2006 4:58:40 PM PST by Ichneumon
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To: Ichneumon
You are making the error that due to differences of chromosome number found in members of the same species that all of those variations are normal.

Members with different chromosome counts may indeed be "freaks" but humans have yet to define the freakishness.

There are a whole universe of chromosomal differences in humans from Downs syndrome to syndactaly.

Most of them are incompatible with life. Many of them are functionally but minimally so.

We humans because we are so in tuned to what "normal" a Downs individual is instantly identifiable as different.

If a more advanced species that communicated through telepathy were to view a Mensa candidate and person with Downs they may not be able to distinguish the quaint grunts of speech as being anything more than cute.

They may judge the individuals to be the same based on front face, 2 ears, 1 nose, upright posture and 10 digits on each extremity.

Same thing with the species that you have identified as having different chromosome counts. Eating cheese and going eek may not make a normal mouse.
184 posted on 03/05/2006 6:04:50 PM PST by TASMANIANRED (The Internet is the samizdat of liberty..".Liberty is the right and hope of all humanity"GW Bush)
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