Haldane's Dilemma

In this round I am simply going to address the points PRO has contrived. For the sake of concision, I will refer to each of PRO's points as a certain numbered paragraph STARTING AFTER "Now let me address Con's points." So, paragraph 1 will refer to "According to Haldane, selection pressure may result..."RebuttalsParagraph 1: This is a mistake on Haldane's part. He also says that due to the change in the environment, "the species is less adapted to the new environment, and its reproductive capacity is lowered." However, it is evident that this would be different if the change was slow. Reproductive capacity would not drop as significantly, if at all.Paragraphs 2, 3: I never meant that all of them lost the ability, I was just giving a representation of how many children the average Haldanian animal would have. Plus, the mammal point is important in showing that human ancestors were able to sustain high reproductive rates as we are, of course mammals, but Haldane does not show this in his calculations. PRO may refute my point by bringing up the environmental change as a catalyst for reduced reproductive capacity. However, if the change is gradual, as is normal and supposedly unimportant, it would not be lowered. To be lowered would be to assume that it was higher at time A than time B, but since the environment is always changing slowly, this would mean that reproductive capacity never had a high point. It would constantly be dropping at a slow pace, so working backward would point toward ridiculously high rates. When in the past does it level out? In reality, reproductive capacity remains at a fairly constant level, and the only way this would change is a sudden change in the environment, which simply cannot be found in the last 10 million years.Paragraphs 4, 5, 6: I never said the reproductive rate would go down, but the substitution cost. This is because as the population gets larger, more variations occur and recombination adds even more variation and causes fixation faster. The gorilla argument makes no sense because no change is occurring in the genome of the gorillas. I would like to remind PRO that the cost of substitution is "the substitution of one allele by another, if carried out by natural selection based on juvenile deaths." A better analogy would involve a pop. of 100 black gorillas with a 1/50 chance of producing a pink one, and 50 pink ones must exist for fixation (where the gene would not disappear), and a 2:1 reproductive rate but 1:2 fertility/death rate (so pop. would remain constant, as is normal in nature). Obviously, with this low population, fixation would take a long time to occur. However, if the population was much higher, say, 95,000 (the current pop. of the western gorilla) fixation would happen really fast. Remember, time to reach fixation would not increase proportionally with the pop. because it only takes a certain number of organisms to carry a gene to make sure that gene does not disappear due to deaths or recombination.Paragraph 7: I would like PRO to refer me to where Haldane accounts for sexual recombination, as I have read his article and cannot seem to find it.Paragraphs 8, 9: The point here is EXTREMELY relevant. Haldane, and my opponent's calculations, only assume that one change is approaching fixation at a time. In other words, they assume that one gene change occurs, takes 300 years to successfully mix into the gene pool, and then another begins. This is almost never the case in nature. This scenario should help illustrate. Imagine a species that takes 100 years to fixate a gene. According to my opponent and Haldane, a single 'good' nucleotide would appear, fixate ONCE every 100 years. However, it is more likely that a 'good' nucleotide would appear, begin to fixate, and another would appear and begin to fixate 5 years later. And then 5 years later, another, and another, and so on. Here there would be 20 genes approaching fixation at any point! Of course, these numbers are GREATLY exaggerated, but the point remains valid. Multiple changes can occur at once.Paragraphs 10, 11: This is what soft selection is, and similar scenarios occur often in nature. This is why some non-beneficial changes stick and beneficial ones do not. Not EVERY change has to be positive for it to fixate. My point stands, as the gene would still be ABLE to fixate.Paragraphs 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18: I will Haldane used the number 300 to account for rates that were realistic to him. Instead of using constants and solving for a variable, he used a variable to make another variable look reasonable. That is bad math. Haldane is the one making a contradiction, by stating a sudden change occurred, then arguing for a 'moderate' selection level. My logic can be as flawed as possible, but it will not change the fact (that you brought to my attention) that Haldane's logic, which is the center of the debate, is wrong as well. Additionally, Haldane's logic that led him to the calculations are wrong. The number could be 300, it could be 1000, it could be 10. It does not matter. The number itself is meaningless. He stated that I=(substitution cost)/(number of generations). I already showed that the substitution cost is wrong on many levels, so if you reduce it appropriately, 300 would reduce significantly as well to allow for Haldane's assumed Intensity of Selection.Paragraphs 19, 20: Genetic drift would increase the number of total mutations, no matter good or bad, so the net nucleotide difference would be higher. Let's say 1000 changes occurred due to drift (I am making this number up; it could be anything). This would automatically bring 1667 up to 2667. It doesn't matter what the number is, genetic drift makes a difference and Haldane did not account for it.Paragraphs 21, 22, 23: I addressed these points in prior rebuttals.Paragraphs 24, 25: Again, more changes = more net difference, greater than 1667.Paragraphs 26, 27: Considering the average difference between humans is up to 30 million nucleotides (and this is just a count of single nucleotide polymorphisms), my point still stands. Actually, structural variations between individuals of the same species accounts for more diversity than single nucleotide variations. So, an argument from disbelief as made by PRO does not hold up in this case.Paragraph 28: No, they did not. SourcesThese include the ones I made in my prior argument that I forgot to include.http://www.blackwellpublishing.com... http://www.talkorigins.org... http://www.gate.net...http://www.iucnredlist.org... http://en.wikipedia.org...