[TASMANIANRED]

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.

[King Prout]

*ten* digits on each extremity?

:)

[ahayes]

Problem: You're assuming that those with differing number of chromosomes than the average are going to be abnormal because information is missing or duplicated, as with Down's syndrome. This is a faulty assumption. Many of the cases of differing chromosome count shown above are due to combining two chromosomes or by splitting one into two. All of the information is still present, it's just organized in a different manner. These chromosomal addition or division events can initiate the dawn of a new species if the end result is offspring reproductively isolated from the parent population.