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To: AndrewC
It is a new species apparently not due to any advantage of a particular mutation but quite possibly is just a close-ended reformation of a genome.

Whoa, let's make sure we get causes and effects straight, in terms of mutations. Nobody I know suggests that species arise because mutations are advantageous - the first thing mutations do is either kill you, or not - but that species are adaptive based on whether mutations are advantageous. If mutation were the cause, then it would be a new species by virtue of the fact that the mutation exists, not because it is somehow advantageous. If it is advantageous, that will then influence the relative success of the plant in a competitive environment, and help determine whether it survives and flourishes better than its competitors.

For speciation to occur, that only requires that mutations happen. For natural selection to occur, that requires that some mutations are more advantageous than others. Whether this plant has some advantage in its genes remains to be seen. And, of course, I know of no requirement of evolution via natural selection that says that only mutation can produce speciation, even if I decide not to quibble over whether or not "reformation of a genome" is just mutation writ large.

467 posted on 02/24/2003 3:27:35 PM PST by general_re (Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.)
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To: general_re
Whoa, let's make sure we get causes and effects straight, in terms of mutations.

Well, you seem to have misunderstood my point. I am not defining species. I am trying to use species as defined by others. I understand that mutations in and of themselves do not result in new species. What I am saying is that this particular species was not produced by a mutational chain of trolley cars involving RMNS. I rather suspect that this new species is nothing but a rearrangement of a genome of a particular group of related plants. The continual shuffling and reshuffling has produced a subgroup that does not successfully breed with another particular subset of this group(its parents). However, that does not preclude it from having success with all other subgroups of this group. That is the reason I pointed out that one of the parents of this new species is not itself a species. It is a hybrid that is fertile and breeds "true".

468 posted on 02/24/2003 4:11:44 PM PST by AndrewC
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To: general_re
Nobody I know suggests that species arise because mutations are advantageous -

Then how do you get from bacteria to humans? Whatever happened to natural selection? You throwing that away too? Your theory has been disproven and now you are just blathering that anything is possible so evolution must be true. Exactly how did we get from bacteria to humans then? Miracles??????????????

480 posted on 02/24/2003 6:59:20 PM PST by gore3000 (Evolution is whatever lie you want it to be.)
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