Does Anyone own a Norwegian Lundehound?

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: TruePaige
Yet people still breed them. Why? The same reasons as the lungehound.

0) PROFIT!!!!one111!!!
1) To keep the species alive.
2) For their wonderful traits
3) Because it isn't a given they would be in pain, many of these animals live healthy lives.

I suppose it's similar to people, even if you might be predisposed to some disorders, many people would still be happy they were born. =)

I hope that answers your questions on my thoughts of the issues at hand!

Fixed to show why most breed dogs.

 

[Gibsons]

Originally posted by: alkemyst

Originally posted by: Gibsons
No Google, PubMed. I'd read the Ostrander article (I do this stuff for a living) when it was first published, so I knew what I was looking for. I just went to PubMed and searched "canine genome." Then I DL'd the PDFs of the articles and pulled the quotes. Nothing particularly difficult. Give it a try and see if you can find something that supports your point of view. I'm open to being proved wrong.

if anyone has hired you in the capacity as a biologist, they really fucked up.

You might be right. But I at least got my Ph.D. If you're curious, there's a gene being transcribed in some of your cells right now that I discovered, cloned, sequenced, named, and did the initial characterization of. It causes cancer in a very few unlucky individuals, but it's necessary for normal development of your immune system.

I had to discuss its evolutionary origins as well as some components of the current human immune system in my dissertation. So I'm more than familiar with evolution, particularly at the molecular level. Would you like to hear about the 3' alpha enhancer and its role in evolution following the duplication event of the IgH locus in the split from old world monkeys?

Your only saving grace is to possibly be assuming things that you did not post...however I'd have expected you to respond to my quests.

But what do you do for a living...

Thanks for asking. At the moment, I lecture and teach - microbiology, genetics, immunology, virology, bacteriology, and little biochem. Before that I consulted/tech support. Before that, bench research.

What's your area of expertise?

Edit: fixed quotes and what "quests" are you talking about?

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: Gibsons
What's your area of expertise?

Edit: fixed quotes and what "quests" are you talking about?

questions.

They have you spread out pretty thin doing all those courses as a lecturer.

I have have 7 years of zoology/bio/chem, didn't complete the degree though due to leaving college in my last semester.

You would think with all your background you'd know that breeding alone is not evolution.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Originally posted by: alkemyst

Originally posted by: Gibsons
What's your area of expertise?

Edit: fixed quotes and what "quests" are you talking about?

questions.

They have you spread out pretty thin doing all those courses as a lecturer.

I have have 7 years of zoology/bio/chem, didn't complete the degree though due to leaving college in my last semester.

You would think with all your background you'd know that breeding alone is not evolution.

Jazz hands

 

[Eli]

:laugh:

I cannot believe that someone is arguing that breeding is not [a form of] evolution. Seriously. What the hell do you think it is?

Of course it is evolution. His first reply is all you need. The only difference is who is doing the selecting. So it's evolution if nature does it and not if we do it?

That's nonsense. There is no way you would be arguing this if you really had 7 years of zoology/bio. The act of a human selectively breeding something is exactly the same as nature doing it. It's the same process, except we are deciding the traits we want to keep instead of nature.

This seriously isn't hard to understand..

Originally posted by: alkemyst

You would think with all your background you'd know that breeding alone is not evolution.

You got pwn3d.

 

[Gibsons]

Originally posted by: alkemyst

Originally posted by: Gibsons
What's your area of expertise?

Edit: fixed quotes and what "quests" are you talking about?

questions.

They have you spread out pretty thin doing all those courses as a lecturer.

I have have 7 years of zoology/bio/chem, didn't complete the degree though due to leaving college in my last semester.

You would think with all your background you'd know that breeding alone is not evolution.

My micro course hits a lot of subjects. We start with bacterial cell structure and biochem, move to bacterial genetics, then a brief intro to virology, then some immunology. We just finished TCA this week and will move to some synthesis next week. Kind of boring, the fun stuff comes later.

also, note my correction above, breeding with selection is evolution. But it's very difficult to have breeding without selection.

Read the quotes you provided very carefully, none of them contradict my position, none say that the emergence of dog breeds from their ancestors is not evolution. (I'm still surprised that anyone who's not a creationist would disagree.)

e.g. "..directional artificial selection contrast sharply with what we know of long-term evolutionary change under natural selection." I don't disagree with that at all. The evolution seen here is different from the evolution seen there.

View it from the perspective of the dog genome. It recombines rearranges, mutates, etc., like all genomes do. These alleles get selected for and against, like all genomes. It evolves, like all genomes do. Over the last few thousand years it's been subject to a very strong selection process due to a symbiotic relationship with another species. Thus positive survival value has been placed on alleles which would likely have little or even negative value in the absence of the symbiotic relationship. These alleles become more numerous in the population. How could this possibly be anything but evolution?

How many people have looked at this thread and said "I want one?" You want one because something (and it really doesn't matter much what it is) about that dogs phenotype appeals to you. If you actually get one and drive up demand for more, then more will be bred (or breed it yourself), it's safe to say that the alleles that give rise to that phenotype are successful.

Look at the relationship between aphids and ants. The aphids secrete a sugary goo, wastes tons of energy that could otherwise go to growing, reproducing, moving, whatever. You don't see animals wasting energy like that, they'll be soon replaced by something more efficient. But, the symbiotic relationship has selected this trait and it's actually of positive survival value.

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: Eli
:laugh:

I cannot believe that someone is arguing that breeding is not [a form of] evolution. Seriously. What the hell do you think it is?

Of course it is evolution. His first reply is all you need. The only difference is who is doing the selecting. So it's evolution if nature does it and not if we do it?

That's nonsense. There is no way you would be arguing this if you really had 7 years of zoology/bio. The act of a human selectively breeding something is exactly the same as nature doing it. It's the same process, except we are deciding the traits we want to keep instead of nature.

This seriously isn't hard to understand..

Originally posted by: alkemyst

You would think with all your background you'd know that breeding alone is not evolution.

You got pwn3d.

Dude you have proven you are hardly a bright guy...

Anyway, breeding is not evolution...it's reproduction. Evolution is the introduction of 'things' that weren't there before.

Now LIKE I SAID, breeding is a requirement to see these things in a sexual subject, but when two subjects breed it's not evolution.

The definitions for evolution do INCLUDE breeding like I have stated, but breeding is not the evolution part.

To Gibsons...what is the course you teach? The way you first wrote this was you were teaching separate subjects...sounds more like a survey course.

You last definition solidifies that you are not only talking breeding. Also with dogs it's more artificial selection and not all the traits shown are evolution in example. You are talking over the heads of most here though.

Getting a dog to have two dewclaws is about picking the right two dogs (or more if these traits are not shown in direct progeny) that show the genes....

Getting to the point where all dogs of that particular breed have these traits could be considered an evolution of the breed.

As far as aphids and ants, I wouldn't say that relationship would soon end. There is no reason for it too.

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: Gibsons

Originally posted by: zinfamous

Originally posted by: Gibsons

Originally posted by: alkemyst
Ahh Gibsons discovered Google/Wikipedia.

No Google, PubMed. I'd read the Ostrander article (I do this stuff for a living) when it was first published, so I knew what I was looking for. I just went to PubMed and searched "canine genome." Then I DL'd the PDFs of the articles and pulled the quotes. Nothing particularly difficult. Give it a try and see if you can find something that supports your point of view. I'm open to being proved wrong.

Here's a link to the Ostrander and Wayne paper (link I can't link the Science papers), it's quite clear that they think breeds are a result of evolution. Why do you think they're wrong and you're right?

While the dogs we have today would be something evolution based, the Lundehound is not an evolution of the domestic dog, but a breed of them.

"Not an evolution of the domestic dog?" I'm not sure what you mean. It is the result of evolution within the species. It's still a domestic dog, there's no reason to believe otherwise as far as I can tell. Are you suggesting that evolution doesn't occur unless there's speciation? Or that it can't happen within a species? I still don't understand exactly what your objection is.


Edit: I see up above I wrote "Breeding is selection and that's all that's needed. " Obviously wrong, ooops. Meant to say "breeding and selection...." My apologies if this is the source of confusion.

The point of their paper is to show that domesticated dogs are a valuable model for investigating specific trait selection. In fact, I can't but help assume that you cited this sentence: "Understanding the genetic relationships among breeds will also provide insight into the directed evolution of our closest animal companions," simply due to to the phrase, "directed evolution," and that you're using this an argument for dog breeding as an example of evolution.

Directed evolution is still evolution. That's my point. They also refer to "evolutionary history of dog breeds." What else could they mean by this?

Dog breeding is an example of selective trait pooling. It has become, especially in recent years (in large part to the work in your article and others), a valuable model for genetic drift in non-evolutionary environments. It's a way to understand evolution, but it isn't evolution.

Agree with the first part, not the second.

you like simple definitions, so here is one.

-evolution occurs through natural selection
-modern dog breeds exist through directed artificial selection.
-therefore, modern dog breeds do not occur as a process of evolution.

Hell, even in the face of directed artificial selection, this breed was selected against. If anything, the continued existence of this particular breed is a clear insult to evolutionary processes.

Directed artificial selection is still selection. To have evolution, the selection need not be "natural', that's your own arbitrary restraint. If you require that the selection be "natural" or in the wild, then it doesn't fit that definition (and I don't agree with that definition). Otherwise though, you have a pool of individuals and they are selected for breeding based on phenotype. This breed was selected by people determining which dogs did the breeding, in spite of their inbreeding problems. It's evolution, just not the "classic" or "natural" kind. It's a change in alleles over time based on a process of selection, i.e. evolution. I think our disagreement simply stems from the artificial nature of selection that gave rise to dog breeds - my argument is that we're still seeing changes in allele frequency based on selection (regardless of the source of selection) and that is evolution. Everything I know about genetics (and I teach genetics) supports this.

Do you agree with the statement "dogs evolved from wolves?" What about symbiotic bacteria in plants, is that a result of evolution? Viral genes in the human genome? Long term changes in human allele frequencies due to changes in our environment arising from technology, is that evolution?

Furthermore, the molecular genetic events causing different breeds are, individually, virtually indistinguishable from most of those that have led to natural speciation (there are no gross cytogenetic change within dog breeds, but then again, there are none between dogs and wolves). The methods used to map the relationships between breeds are virtually the same as that used to map species, (with the exception noted for the bifurcating tree model) the data is generated and interpreted in the same way.

simply put: evolution = speciation. For evolution to have occurred, speciation must have occurred. domesticated dogs did not evolve from wolves, though they are in the same family. wolves and dogs can still interbreed, so no speciation has occurred.

again, we're talking about models for evolutionary processes. I'm sorry, but I have enough experience in evolutionary genetics labs to be able to differentiate between models for a process and the actual occurrence of the process. This is something we address all the time. The process is pretty-well confirmed and there is little doubt, though a perfect natural example is difficult to come by.

I can guarantee that you won't get published without differentiating between natural selection and artificial selection, and the relevance of both when it comes to evolution. You may not see this distinction, but I can assure you that those in the field do.

 

[Gibsons]

Originally posted by: alkemyst

Originally posted by: Eli
:laugh:

I cannot believe that someone is arguing that breeding is not [a form of] evolution. Seriously. What the hell do you think it is?

Of course it is evolution. His first reply is all you need. The only difference is who is doing the selecting. So it's evolution if nature does it and not if we do it?

That's nonsense. There is no way you would be arguing this if you really had 7 years of zoology/bio. The act of a human selectively breeding something is exactly the same as nature doing it. It's the same process, except we are deciding the traits we want to keep instead of nature.

This seriously isn't hard to understand..

Originally posted by: alkemyst

You would think with all your background you'd know that breeding alone is not evolution.

You got pwn3d.

Dude you have proven you are hardly a bright guy...

Anyway, breeding is not evolution...it's reproduction. Evolution is the introduction of 'things' that weren't there before.

If you have reproduction based on nucleic acids, it's very difficult to imagine how you can have reproduction for multiple generations and not have evolution. Can you think of a scenario where it doesn't happen? I'm stumped, only thing I can come up with is if you have some means of preventing any change in genomes whatsoever. That's really really difficult, if not impossible, to do. At least, I can't come up with a way to do it, even cloning wouldn't work as there's no way to reproduce sequences with 100% fidelity - you'll select for sequences that clone better. If you know of a way, fill us in...

As for the introduction of 'things' that weren't there before: dogs that don't shed, herding instincts, water loving, thick coats, thin coats, weiner dogs, extra dewclaws, "cute" dogs, fast dogs, huge dogs, tiny dogs, aggressive dogs, smart dogs, pointing dogs, scent hunting dogs. All from ancestors that probably looked something like a basenji/shiba inu/chow/akita.

Now LIKE I SAID, breeding is a requirement to see these things in a sexual subject, but when two subjects breed it's not evolution.

The definitions for evolution do INCLUDE breeding like I have stated, but breeding is not the evolution part.

Make the breeding selective and it's evolution in every sense of the word.

I still don't understand what your concept of evolution and how the emergence of dozens of genetically distinct dogs from a small number of progenitors doesn't fit.

To Gibsons...what is the course you teach? The way you first wrote this was you were teaching separate subjects...sounds more like a survey course.

One course title is "General Microbiology." (It's actually a little longer than that, but whatever). As I said above covers alot of different subjects. Mostly juniors, but I get a few seniors, some sophomores after they've had genetics (genetics is a prereq). This semester I'm also teaching a course on infectious diseases, so we cover fungi, parasites, bacteria, viruses and even prions.

Most students are pre med or pre pharm, it's a big weed out course for pharm students. I get the occasional engineering or teaching student. The engineers are great, they're a little out of their element topic-wise, but so far they've all been excellent students and haven't had much trouble. It's also the prereq for immunology, Med micro, virology, infectious diseases and a few I'm forgetting. I'm fully qualified to teach all of those courses as well. I keep asking to teach immunology and tumor biology, but no luck yet. On Monday I'll give a lecture in mycology *yawn* for the infectious diseases class and probably amino acid synthesis for the micro class. Probably focusing on Phenylalanine since I like to use that as a pet problem when we get to genetics.

You last definition solidifies that you are not only talking breeding. Also with dogs it's more artificial selection and not all the traits shown are evolution in example. You are talking over the heads of most here though.

Can you point out anything I said that was wrong? If not, this debate is settled.

Getting a dog to have two dewclaws is about picking the right two dogs (or more if these traits are not shown in direct progeny) that show the genes....

Producing a trait that wasn't there before, right? so even by your wording above, it's evolution.

Getting to the point where all dogs of that particular breed have these traits could be considered an evolution of the breed.

Could you clarify what you mean about a breed being "an evolution of the breed." I don't know what this means.

As far as aphids and ants, I wouldn't say that relationship would soon end. There is no reason for it too.

I didn't suggest it would. I was pointing out an example in response to some of zinfamous objections.

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: Gibsons

Originally posted by: alkemyst

Originally posted by: Gibsons
No Google, PubMed. I'd read the Ostrander article (I do this stuff for a living) when it was first published, so I knew what I was looking for. I just went to PubMed and searched "canine genome." Then I DL'd the PDFs of the articles and pulled the quotes. Nothing particularly difficult. Give it a try and see if you can find something that supports your point of view. I'm open to being proved wrong.

if anyone has hired you in the capacity as a biologist, they really fucked up.

You might be right. But I at least got my Ph.D. If you're curious, there's a gene being transcribed in some of your cells right now that I discovered, cloned, sequenced, named, and did the initial characterization of. It causes cancer in a very few unlucky individuals, but it's necessary for normal development of your immune system.

I had to discuss its evolutionary origins as well as some components of the current human immune system in my dissertation. So I'm more than familiar with evolution, particularly at the molecular level. Would you like to hear about the 3' alpha enhancer and its role in evolution following the duplication event of the IgH locus in the split from old world monkeys?

Your only saving grace is to possibly be assuming things that you did not post...however I'd have expected you to respond to my quests.

But what do you do for a living...

Thanks for asking. At the moment, I lecture and teach - microbiology, genetics, immunology, virology, bacteriology, and little biochem. Before that I consulted/tech support. Before that, bench research.

What's your area of expertise?

Edit: fixed quotes and what "quests" are you talking about?

well, son fo a...

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: Gibsons

Originally posted by: alkemyst

Originally posted by: Eli
:laugh:

I cannot believe that someone is arguing that breeding is not [a form of] evolution. Seriously. What the hell do you think it is?

Of course it is evolution. His first reply is all you need. The only difference is who is doing the selecting. So it's evolution if nature does it and not if we do it?

That's nonsense. There is no way you would be arguing this if you really had 7 years of zoology/bio. The act of a human selectively breeding something is exactly the same as nature doing it. It's the same process, except we are deciding the traits we want to keep instead of nature.

This seriously isn't hard to understand..

Originally posted by: alkemyst

You would think with all your background you'd know that breeding alone is not evolution.

You got pwn3d.

Dude you have proven you are hardly a bright guy...

Anyway, breeding is not evolution...it's reproduction. Evolution is the introduction of 'things' that weren't there before.

If you have reproduction based on nucleic acids, it's very difficult to imagine how you can have reproduction for multiple generations and not have evolution. Can you think of a scenario where it doesn't happen? I'm stumped, only thing I can come up with is if you have some means of preventing any change in genomes whatsoever. That's really really difficult, if not impossible, to do. At least, I can't come up with a way to do it, even cloning wouldn't work as there's no way to reproduce sequences with 100% fidelity - you'll select for sequences that clone better. If you know of a way, fill us in...

As for the introduction of 'things' that weren't there before: dogs that don't shed, herding instincts, water loving, thick coats, thin coats, weiner dogs, extra dewclaws, "cute" dogs, fast dogs, huge dogs, tiny dogs, aggressive dogs, smart dogs, pointing dogs, scent hunting dogs. All from ancestors that probably looked something like a basenji/shiba inu/chow/akita.

Now LIKE I SAID, breeding is a requirement to see these things in a sexual subject, but when two subjects breed it's not evolution.

The definitions for evolution do INCLUDE breeding like I have stated, but breeding is not the evolution part.

Make the breeding selective and it's evolution in every sense of the word.

I still don't understand what your concept of evolution and how the emergence of dozens of genetically distinct dogs from a small number of progenitors doesn't fit.

To Gibsons...what is the course you teach? The way you first wrote this was you were teaching separate subjects...sounds more like a survey course.

One course title is "General Microbiology." (It's actually a little longer than that, but whatever). As I said above covers alot of different subjects. Mostly juniors, but I get a few seniors, some sophomores after they've had genetics (genetics is a prereq). This semester I'm also teaching a course on infectious diseases, so we cover fungi, parasites, bacteria, viruses and even prions.

Most students are pre med or pre pharm, it's a big weed out course for pharm students. I get the occasional engineering or teaching student. The engineers are great, they're a little out of their element topic-wise, but so far they've all been excellent students and haven't had much trouble. It's also the prereq for immunology, Med micro, virology, infectious diseases and a few I'm forgetting. I'm fully qualified to teach all of those courses as well. I keep asking to teach immunology and tumor biology, but no luck yet. On Monday I'll give a lecture in mycology *yawn* for the infectious diseases class and probably amino acid synthesis for the micro class. Probably focusing on Phenylalanine since I like to use that as a pet problem when we get to genetics.

You last definition solidifies that you are not only talking breeding. Also with dogs it's more artificial selection and not all the traits shown are evolution in example. You are talking over the heads of most here though.

Can you point out anything I said that was wrong? If not, this debate is settled.

Getting a dog to have two dewclaws is about picking the right two dogs (or more if these traits are not shown in direct progeny) that show the genes....

Producing a trait that wasn't there before, right? so even by your wording above, it's evolution.

Getting to the point where all dogs of that particular breed have these traits could be considered an evolution of the breed.

Could you clarify what you mean about a breed being "an evolution of the breed." I don't know what this means.

As far as aphids and ants, I wouldn't say that relationship would soon end. There is no reason for it too.

I didn't suggest it would. I was pointing out an example in response to some of zinfamous objections.

in response to the aphids: it's not a selection process that involves the individual creature, no? it was selected as a beneficial attribute for a symbiotic relationship, which you see in several examples. Sure, if this was seen as singly wasteful to the individual, it would not have survived, but there was strong selection pressure in keeping this symbiotic relationship. I don't see how this conflicts with anything I have stated.

Again, I'm coming from the perspective of evolution as a natural process with no clear goal (the anti-Dawkins, "selfish gene" BS). human-induced dog breeding may serve as an artificial model of evolutionary processes, (I don't think anyone would doubt this), but it certainly flies in the face of what what non-induced natural selection would have you believe about trait selection.

We introduce all types of deleterious genes into mice and other animals for all sorts of reasons, or we knock them out. Or overexpress them. We back cross these into other lines in order to provide new background models, and in this process, you can certainly see new genes, or traits, being introduced into strains that were not previously there. However, there is a reason, and a very good reason, that these purpose-bred animals are kept under tight regulations. Breeding into natural populations would more than likely be quite disastrous. Especially in knock-outs, you find all sorts of related background effects when you choose to remove certain genes. BRAC mice, for example, and hairlessness. I would certainly assume that the hairlessness trait, if introduced into natural populations (not to mention other issues with such mice), would not be evolutionarily favorable.

I fail to see an argument that supports how, under natural conditions, a breed with a cascade of deleterious traits such as this would not only have "evolved" under natural conditions, let alone survive selection pressures if introduced into a general population.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Originally posted by: tenthumbs
Looks like a mutt.

But they can fly!

 

[Gibsons]

Originally posted by: zinfamous

Originally posted by: Gibsons

Originally posted by: zinfamous

Originally posted by: Gibsons

Originally posted by: alkemyst
Ahh Gibsons discovered Google/Wikipedia.

No Google, PubMed. I'd read the Ostrander article (I do this stuff for a living) when it was first published, so I knew what I was looking for. I just went to PubMed and searched "canine genome." Then I DL'd the PDFs of the articles and pulled the quotes. Nothing particularly difficult. Give it a try and see if you can find something that supports your point of view. I'm open to being proved wrong.

Here's a link to the Ostrander and Wayne paper (link I can't link the Science papers), it's quite clear that they think breeds are a result of evolution. Why do you think they're wrong and you're right?

While the dogs we have today would be something evolution based, the Lundehound is not an evolution of the domestic dog, but a breed of them.

"Not an evolution of the domestic dog?" I'm not sure what you mean. It is the result of evolution within the species. It's still a domestic dog, there's no reason to believe otherwise as far as I can tell. Are you suggesting that evolution doesn't occur unless there's speciation? Or that it can't happen within a species? I still don't understand exactly what your objection is.


Edit: I see up above I wrote "Breeding is selection and that's all that's needed. " Obviously wrong, ooops. Meant to say "breeding and selection...." My apologies if this is the source of confusion.

The point of their paper is to show that domesticated dogs are a valuable model for investigating specific trait selection. In fact, I can't but help assume that you cited this sentence: "Understanding the genetic relationships among breeds will also provide insight into the directed evolution of our closest animal companions," simply due to to the phrase, "directed evolution," and that you're using this an argument for dog breeding as an example of evolution.

Directed evolution is still evolution. That's my point. They also refer to "evolutionary history of dog breeds." What else could they mean by this?

Dog breeding is an example of selective trait pooling. It has become, especially in recent years (in large part to the work in your article and others), a valuable model for genetic drift in non-evolutionary environments. It's a way to understand evolution, but it isn't evolution.

Agree with the first part, not the second.

you like simple definitions, so here is one.

-evolution occurs through natural selection
-modern dog breeds exist through directed artificial selection.
-therefore, modern dog breeds do not occur as a process of evolution.

Hell, even in the face of directed artificial selection, this breed was selected against. If anything, the continued existence of this particular breed is a clear insult to evolutionary processes.

Directed artificial selection is still selection. To have evolution, the selection need not be "natural', that's your own arbitrary restraint. If you require that the selection be "natural" or in the wild, then it doesn't fit that definition (and I don't agree with that definition). Otherwise though, you have a pool of individuals and they are selected for breeding based on phenotype. This breed was selected by people determining which dogs did the breeding, in spite of their inbreeding problems. It's evolution, just not the "classic" or "natural" kind. It's a change in alleles over time based on a process of selection, i.e. evolution. I think our disagreement simply stems from the artificial nature of selection that gave rise to dog breeds - my argument is that we're still seeing changes in allele frequency based on selection (regardless of the source of selection) and that is evolution. Everything I know about genetics (and I teach genetics) supports this.

Do you agree with the statement "dogs evolved from wolves?" What about symbiotic bacteria in plants, is that a result of evolution? Viral genes in the human genome? Long term changes in human allele frequencies due to changes in our environment arising from technology, is that evolution?

Furthermore, the molecular genetic events causing different breeds are, individually, virtually indistinguishable from most of those that have led to natural speciation (there are no gross cytogenetic change within dog breeds, but then again, there are none between dogs and wolves). The methods used to map the relationships between breeds are virtually the same as that used to map species, (with the exception noted for the bifurcating tree model) the data is generated and interpreted in the same way.

simply put: evolution = speciation.

Wrong.

I can guarantee that you won't get published without differentiating between natural selection and artificial selection, and the relevance of both when it comes to evolution. You may not see this distinction, but I can assure you that those in the field do.

I know what it takes to be published. I am published. Differentiating between natural selection and artificial selection is irrelevant since both lead to evolution.

 

[Gibsons]

Originally posted by: zinfamous


in response to the aphids: it's not a selection process that involves the individual creature, no? it was selected as a beneficial attribute for a symbiotic relationship, which you see in several examples. Sure, if this was seen as singly wasteful to the individual, it would not have survived, but there was strong selection pressure in keeping this symbiotic relationship. I don't see how this conflicts with anything I have stated.

This is a counterexample to your argument about assumed negative traits arising in dog breeds. I thought it was terribly obvious.

Again, I'm coming from the perspective of evolution as a natural process with no clear goal (the anti-Dawkins, "selfish gene" BS). human-induced dog breeding may serve as an artificial model of evolutionary processes, (I don't think anyone would doubt this), but it certainly flies in the face of what what non-induced natural selection would have you believe about trait selection.

Read my previous post about the evolution of the dog genome as a response to human selection.

We introduce all types of deleterious genes into mice and other animals for all sorts of reasons, or we knock them out.

done this myself. so what?

Or overexpress them. We back cross these into other lines in order to provide new background models, and in this process, you can certainly see new genes, or traits, being introduced into strains that were not previously there. However, there is a reason, and a very good reason, that these purpose-bred animals are kept under tight regulations. Breeding into natural populations would more than likely be quite disastrous.

Or more likely utterly inconsequential. so what?

Especially in knock-outs, you find all sorts of related background effects when you choose to remove certain genes. BRAC mice, for example, and hairlessness. I would certainly assume that the hairlessness trait, if introduced into natural populations (not to mention other issues with such mice), would not be evolutionarily favorable.

so what?

I fail to see an argument that supports how, under natural conditions, a breed with a cascade of deleterious traits such as this would not only have "evolved" under natural conditions, let alone survive selection pressures if introduced into a general population.

And most of the E. coli strains used in labs wouldn't compete at all in their old environment. So what?

Many of the dog breeds wouldn't compete well without humans, but they do have humans... so big deal. A symbiotic relationship with humans can be viewed as a natural condition. It's proven to be a very successful strategy for dogs. Evidence? There's a shitload of dogs. Look at the OP, this particular breed has been very very successful lately.

 

[Eli]

:laugh:

This thread is hilarious. Perhaps I'm not bright, but at least I'm not arguing that breeding isn't exactly the same thing as evolution. How can it not be?

What is the difference between me breeding and selecting for a dog with blue eyes or nature doing it? There is none. It's the same thing. We are apart of nature, right?

Natural and artificial selection are the same things; they are both selecting traits and evolving the prominent genes.

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: Gibsons

Originally posted by: zinfamous


in response to the aphids: it's not a selection process that involves the individual creature, no? it was selected as a beneficial attribute for a symbiotic relationship, which you see in several examples. Sure, if this was seen as singly wasteful to the individual, it would not have survived, but there was strong selection pressure in keeping this symbiotic relationship. I don't see how this conflicts with anything I have stated.

This is a counterexample to your argument about assumed negative traits arising in dog breeds. I thought it was terribly obvious.

Again, I'm coming from the perspective of evolution as a natural process with no clear goal (the anti-Dawkins, "selfish gene" BS). human-induced dog breeding may serve as an artificial model of evolutionary processes, (I don't think anyone would doubt this), but it certainly flies in the face of what what non-induced natural selection would have you believe about trait selection.

Read my previous post about the evolution of the dog genome as a response to human selection.

We introduce all types of deleterious genes into mice and other animals for all sorts of reasons, or we knock them out.

done this myself. so what?

Or overexpress them. We back cross these into other lines in order to provide new background models, and in this process, you can certainly see new genes, or traits, being introduced into strains that were not previously there. However, there is a reason, and a very good reason, that these purpose-bred animals are kept under tight regulations. Breeding into natural populations would more than likely be quite disastrous.

Or more likely utterly inconsequential. so what?

Especially in knock-outs, you find all sorts of related background effects when you choose to remove certain genes. BRAC mice, for example, and hairlessness. I would certainly assume that the hairlessness trait, if introduced into natural populations (not to mention other issues with such mice), would not be evolutionarily favorable.

so what?

I fail to see an argument that supports how, under natural conditions, a breed with a cascade of deleterious traits such as this would not only have "evolved" under natural conditions, let alone survive selection pressures if introduced into a general population.

And most of the E. coli strains used in labs wouldn't compete at all in their old environment. So what?

Many of the dog breeds wouldn't compete well without humans, but they do have humans... so big deal. A symbiotic relationship with humans can be viewed as a natural condition. It's proven to be a very successful strategy for dogs. Evidence? There's a shitload of dogs. Look at the OP, this particular breed has been very very successful lately.

transgenic/knock-out mice: I've also created several of these myself (well, not the constructs, mind you; the pro-nuclear or blast injections, embryo transfers, etc.), and I've been published designing morpholinos and creating knock-down fish. the point, that I'm bringing up here, is that we do this not to create "favorable" traits, but to explicitly "fuck-up" the animals' genome in order to better study it. You certainly wouldn't find such traits appearing naturally, as they just aren't favorable outside of research purposes. Again, we use this as a model for evolution. Of course we use concepts of evolution, of course this is a form of selection as found in evolution, but it's directed. We purposely select these traits. As far as research animals are concerned, we aren't exactly selecting traits that are very favorable to the model animal's need for survival, either. So, it pretty much runs counter to the order of evolution. Yes, it is true that evolution produces tons of mistakes to hit the right balance, but my argument here is that these induced "mistakes" are purpose driven, which runs counter to the natural appearance of genomic "mistakes"

I have mentioned this in relation to dog breeding. Sure, I contend that purpose-driven breeding has led to traits beneficial to individual breeds, the overall species, and the symbiotic human-dog relationship. I think your point is solid: dogs certainly thrive. We are indeed part of the natural order, and I'm also one to argue that our ability to shape and control the environment around us is not only essential to our own survival, but is also a force of natural order in itself. Of course, to accept this perspective, one also has to accept the inherent responsibilities that come with our adaptive nature: understanding nature is not simply driven to the purpose of shaping and controlling, but also living with and respecting the natural processes around us. A poor virus (or parasite) kills its host before it has the opportunity to spread. Likewise, were we to use our expansive adaptability solely for our benefit and at the detriment of other natural processes, then we would be a poor product of evolution. (Sure, our time here is quite small compared to other creatures of evolution; so that end, indeed, could well be our fate. But it's quite obvious that for our own survival to continue, many systems exist in our world that we must respect. Hell, we've tolerated parasites and viruses throughout our natural history. As you've said: the evidence is in our genome)

Anyhoo, this brings me to my original point many posts back, which has been lost in this semantic dilly-dallying. Despite the overall benefit from the human-driven program of dog breeding, examples of our mistakes will arise from to time time and it seems they go largely ignored. Artificial selection though it may be, this breed still bottlenecked. This was not a bottleneck due to careless deforestation or some other type of destructive habitat loss; this was a breed that came into being due to our own careful process of trait selection.
All the favorable environmental conditions existed for this breed to thrive...and it still bottlenecked. This is a clear case of ignoring the lessons we've learned and continue to learn over the years. Try though you might, lethality will creep up, unknown background effects working in tandem, could indeed lead to a situation of 6 individuals.

I've maintained plenty of WT lines (flies, fish, mice) to know what happens when certain lines (in this case represented by individual breeds), after generations of inbreeding, simply can't take anymore. The population hits a plateau, lethal genes accumulate, and the line never really recovers without significant outbreeding. I've had lines that plummet into uselessness. Hell, in my previous position working in a core facility, one of our services was re-derivation. We made good money recovering failing lines for investigators. Of course, this "recovery" is considered successful in the research sense. Good enough to transfer a specific trait to a different background if need-be, but probably not what the dog-breeding industry would consider successful.

Eh, maybe I approach this issue from too rigid a perspective. I'm used to selecting unfavorable traits; but for research--for human medical-based purposes. People are funded to do this. Yes, research is itself an industry. But it's not an industry driven by either sport, or....show....perhaps that's my main criticism; though I'll never be convinced that the effort to bring this breed back from 6 individuals is worth it for simple show purposes. Sure, I can appreciate the efficacy for strictly medical research purposes, but you and I know that's not where the money comes from. The arguments that I've been hearing for rescuing such breeds is for aesthetic purposes, and "favorable traits," meaning weird and quirky. I doubt that the larger dog-breeding world can appreciate the relevance of this dog in terms of medical research, so I suppose you can label me the "crusty, bitter scientist."

No, the continued survival of this particular breed won't spell doom and gloom for either species (human or dog), or for the world, so take it how you want. I honestly think that rescuing condors from such a pathetic bottleneck was a waste (Our reasons were, more than anything, to assuage ourselves of guilt.) And frankly, for those that accept the argument that our own expansive abilities to adapt are essentially a natural force....then yeah, the loss of condor habitat was really a natural process, no? So I imagine more people would have to agree with me here.

So....there ya go.

 

[Eli]

I am curious about all this wording about how we have kept this dog alive even though evolution obviously selected against it.

Should we just stand by and watch things go extinct? Even if it's caused by us? It just doesn't work like that. We have a hand in nature, and we can't take it out. The idea of anything going extinct is negative and sad to us.

We're either all in or all out.

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: Eli
I am curious about all this wording about how we have kept this dog alive even though evolution obviously selected against it.

Should we just stand by and watch things go extinct? Even if it's caused by us? It just doesn't work like that. We have a hand in nature, and we can't take it out. The idea of anything going extinct is negative and sad to us.

We're either all in or all out.

yeah, that's pretty much what I'm talking about. It's hard to remove our own empathy from such situations, whether or not it's a good idea.

Again, this is a situation in which humans:

1: created this breed
2: bred it into its own near-extinction
3: through great effort, "rescued" the breed

All that I've been saying in my comments is that in light of some pretty clear evidence that this was a breed not meant for genetic success, was it really a good idea to expend the effort to bring them back?

And if so, are the reasons to do so, valid reasons?

I also said that the dog seems really cool, and I wouldn't mind owning one....

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: zinfamous

Originally posted by: Eli
I am curious about all this wording about how we have kept this dog alive even though evolution obviously selected against it.

Should we just stand by and watch things go extinct? Even if it's caused by us? It just doesn't work like that. We have a hand in nature, and we can't take it out. The idea of anything going extinct is negative and sad to us.

We're either all in or all out.

yeah, that's pretty much what I'm talking about. It's hard to remove our own empathy from such situations, whether or not it's a good idea.

Again, this is a situation in which humans:

1: created this breed
2: bred it into its own near-extinction
3: through great effort, "rescued" the breed

All that I've been saying in my comments is that in light of some pretty clear evidence that this was a breed not meant for genetic success, was it really a good idea to expend the effort to bring them back?

And if so, are the reasons to do so, valid reasons?

I also said that the dog seems really cool, and I wouldn't mind owning one....

I guess it's a pretty large grey area.

For example, if the Mosquito went extinct.. I think the whole world over would celebrate. Should we try and exterminate them? What about other organisms that evolved around the life of the mosquito?

It's pretty complicated, and the reasons for something being valid or not is pretty much just a matter of opinion. Everybody prioritizes differently.

Hmm...