Natural Selection's Limitations

NS = Natural Selection Pro has stuck to the same points throughout this debate and though I've addressed each of them, Pro hasn't actually rebutted my arguments. Pro asserts that I'm not defending NS, which is completely misguided, and I feel that Pro is either ignoring or failing to understand my points and has failed to address them. NS indeed acts like a filtering process to remove bad traits from the gene pool, which is hugely important to evolutions development of new species. As I pointed out, it also affects future mutation bias. This point has been left completely unaddressed by Pro.The diagrams Pro uses are quite a naive representation of NS if taken on face value. If the number of creatures of a species in real life were as limited as Pro's illustrations make out and we only observing a generation or two, then it wouldn't be surprising for the species to remain completely the same or even go exstinct. By having 1000 creatures, we can easily encounter beneficial mutations occuring, which Pro's illustrations pretend don't exist, even though I've shown they do and Pro has agreed to that. Pro's dog illustration assumes animals only sort of "blend" when they reproduce, taking 50% DNA of each parent, when this is known to be completely false. We could assume they take a lousy 49% DNA of each parent (completely dependent on the species and its evolution), and we'd still be left with a huge amount of genes to randomly mutate - and they'd mutate based on the parents genetic code for mutation. Assume there's an unfavourable 50,000 genes (also dependent on species - they'd have way more) and worse still, 0.5% control reproductive mutation (250 genes) there's about a 0.02% chance of each creature mutating genes that control further mutations. This would be insignificant without NS, but the most successful patterns will start to either dominate the population or branch off into a separate genus.I don't feel much need to defend my arguments again, because so few of them have been directly contended with any factual in-depth information, merely arguments from ignorance and baseless accusations. So I will summarise the points I have made and the contentions Pro has made. Mice demonstrated the ability to produce a change in trait, producing dark fur in a population full of mice with light fur Pro hasn't addressed this directly, despite me mentioning it heavily in round 2 & 3, providing sources in the former. Unlike Pro's basic interpretations of NS, new traits appear to have formed, most likely aided by mutation bias as a result of NS. Not only do the mice have the fur colour themselves, but have shown the ability to consistently reproduce mice with the same fur colour, showing that NS helps assure these changes do not happen. Pro's examples assume the light fur colour would just "disappear", yet where did the dark colour come from originally? E. Coli experiment observed the evolution of Cit+ E. Coli to metabolize citrate in the presence of oxygen Pro outright denied this as a new trait. I prediceted disagreement with what's considered a new trait. But the empirically tested fact is that the E. Coli species can't grow on citrate while oxygen is present. The trait eventually reached through NS took many years of evolution, and about 31,500 generations for it to happen, with many other less substantial variations occuring on the way. This shows what I highlighted previously, that certain mutations are rare, and mutation bias from previous NS plays a huge role in evolution. By comparison, the evolution of mice happened a lot faster, because a change in fur colour is a less rare mutation as it is more likely to be required. This shows mutation bias correlating with the most likely NS patterns. Mutations can't predict what is beneficial, so they play the odds from the historical data of NS. This created a whole new species. It's only a "pre-existing" trait if you consider it to have already developed that trait in the past. But unlike Pro's diagrams, the NS of a beetles colour or dogs fur length doesn't mean the traits that died out won't return, and when they do, they may be not be the same, and since it had to duplicate and rearrange for that to happen, it'd be luck for it to re-acquire a previous trait by change when a new one could do. There's no direct memory of previous traits without NS to build up the most benificial genetic code.Dog breeds that can rapidly change their most basic genes in just a couple of generations is not a good comparison to actual evolution of species. It is, however, a good example of basic mutations and how people who don't understand evolution tend to take examples on surface-level. But this comparison is no better than comparing the inheritance of human eye colour through generations. It's a good example of a lack of NS, as NS not really affecting these changes means they're free to happen often, with little chance to be a detrement, and little chance to be beneficial.Real evolutionary leaps happen under intense pressure. With the mice, they didn't change fur colour right away, because that would've been an immediate detrement. Only under the pressure of NS did the population eventually become lighter. Dog breeding does not rely on NS, it tends to rely largely on how cute people find the puppies. It'd take a lot of dog breeding, along with constant genetic analysis over hundreds of thousands of years, to breed a dog with an extra tail. We could plan ahead and know exactly what genetic changes needed to be made and purposely breed towards that, but it'd still take a very long time, especially due to a dogs lifespan and inability to procreate early in life. A dog with two heads in the wild is unlikely to survive and reproduce. NS ensures this doesn't happen, manifesting in mutation bias. I've never even heard of a dog being born with two heads in fact, so that seems completely irrelevant. Psychological & social behaviours count Pro never addressed the relevance of psychological & social behaviours being traits selected by NS. Polyworld evolution simulation Pro rejects, possibly out of lack of understanding, the comparison of NS in the real-world to the simulation of it on a computer, but didn't provide much reasoning for doing so. I maintain that Polyworld is a good example of the power of NS specifically. Without it, the creatures wouldn't actually make any progress, no matter how accurate the mutations are compared to real-life. ConclusionPro hasn't put forth many clear arguments of his own, mainly contended mine with little actual depth or detail to rebut. Pro wishes to excuse this by accusing me of not actually addressing NS, which is so wrong that I had to make it an acronym to reduce character count, and Pro didn't go into enough depth to back this claim either. Overall it seems to be coming down to semantics on whether NS "produces" the trait versus mutation, however Pro's resolution stated that it was fine to include mutations in the defense of NS. However mutations don't produce lasting traits in species, but rather individual creatures. It's only by applying NS that particular traits actually become a part of a species rather than just the one creature. One without the other wouldn't be effective, so it's easy to argue that only one does the job, but wrong. Since I have made the most thorough arguments, with points actually backed up by, rather than based on, the sources I've cited, which are scientific and real-life examples rather than oversimplified diagrams biased towards asserting creationist theories, and haven't had any of my points addressed thoroughly by my opponent, I urge people to recognise that I have quite clearly refuted the resolution, showing that NS, in combination with other natural mechanisms, is indeed capable of producing new traits in a species, and that it not only selects pre-existing traits, but encourages the mutations which produce traits in a creature.