WSTREPS wrote: A genetic defect does not have to be tied to evolutionary adaption or weeded out by natural selection. Spontaneous mutation. Inheritable genetic aberrancy in reptiles is not uncommon and are often harmless or have lesser negative impacts to a degree that they do not preclude the trait from being passed on. Albinism for example. A population of soft-shelled turtles not far from my home. Has a well established group of reproductive albinistic member's. Most would think that albinism would be quickly weeded out. Particularly in a population of soft shell turtles subjected to extreme predation.
Alright, so you really don't understand evolution. Case in point, this:
In the case of the prairie rattlesnake's, if you know the life history and have seen enough snakes. Its extremely plausible that an animal or several animals were born with a congenital anomaly / birth defect ( screwed up tail ). Then passed the "bad" genes on. Creating a segment of the population that displays this abnormality. It would be an extreme outside guess to attribute this aberrancy to an evolutionally defense in response to human persecution.
Its clear, MonarchzMan has no room to be calling anyone else dense. He has clearly illustrated that by comparison he makes a neutron star appear porous.
A mutation will spontaneously pop up in an individual or, depending on where in the cellular replication process, multiple, related individuals. This in and of itself is not adaptive or maladaptive. It just is. If the gene is passed on, creating a segment in the population, this really happens two ways. 1) Genetic drift. We're dealing with a very small population and maladaptive genes can gain prominence very quickly because of the small population or 2) natural selection. But in both cases, the population is evolving. Now, I've not seen any evidence that this mutation is the result of drift in a small population, which means that it's likely the cause of natural selection. And given that rattlesnakes are actually targeted when they rattle, it is not an unreasonable suggestion that killing actually is affecting the evolution of these snakes.
And to your albino turtles, there obviously is some adaptive advantage to having some portion of the population being albino. It's just like Sickle-Cell Anemia. Even though Sickle-Cell Anemia is detrimental to those that have it, it persists because the heterozygotes are more resistant to malaria parasites, making it adaptive, and explaining why it persists.
So yea, you're categorically wrong in this. So yes, you are that dense. Please just don't try to argue evolution with an evolutionary biologist. You're embarrassing yourself.
Three birds with one stone. I did address all the above points in other post. Its all still there. I'm not going to repeat my myself when I can let MonarchzMan dazzle us with his expertise and rapier wit.
Seriously , At this point MonarchzMan has represented himself as well as a punch drunk fighter. The kind of guy who gets knocked out and when revived starts flailing away. Aimlessly punching into thin air thinking he is still in a fight, completely unaware that's he's been knocked out cold.
Says the guy who can't stick to one topic and has to go to completely unrelated tangent to completely unrelated tangent to try to prove a point he doesn't understand.
And no, you didn't address the
brand new paper that came out. I'm betting that because you think you did, you didn't actually read even the abstract of said paper.
Some snake stuff,
The threat of Den raiders, Bill Brown the granddaddy of Timber rattlesnake researcher's and the rent a mob clique of parroting bandwagon jumpers never miss a chance to tell everyone how poachers are decimating rattlesnake populations . Brown has made a career out of shouting the spectacular and eye-catching aspects of den exploitation, and his friends have followed right along.
But how is this den exploitation being done ? Anyone? I explained the true nature of a Timber rattlesnake den, the process of emergence etc. Den is really a poor choice of terminology when taking about Timber rattlesnakes , Wintering area is more appropriate.
Brown and friends spout out all kinds of numbers 60%, 90% decline decline decline ......... They say this with complete certainty. In published works Brown and friends have made some outrageous claims. Brown will never admit that the decline he thinks he sees may be nothing more than an artifact of his poor sampling abilities . In his own published work Brown and one of the head parrots, his comrade Martin have this to say.......
Martin admits that he cant actually count more than 15 percent of the snakes that are in the dens he studies , All his estimations are arrived at, in his won words "intuitively". That's is not very scientific. Brown claims to be a little better saying 25 percent can be counted. This again "intuitively". That's only for any single wintering area and there are certainly hundreds (most undiscovered) in the mountains of NY alone. The guessing game played by Brown and friends becomes even more convoluted when you consider the fact that they couldn't count all the snakes at any den the first time. They don't even have a baseline number for their wild guestimates.
There is little doubt that a researcher that has made a career out of rattlesnake funding along with conservation scientists who ignor all logic and think of themselves as natures elected priests . Will always conclude their intuitive findings as proof positive of decline.
Ernie Eison
Translation: I don't like it when people do their job because it may negatively affect my job. Consequently, I criticize scientists even though I have no experience whatsoever in science, and continue to attempt to disprove well documented scientific literature with nothing more than bad spelling and bad grammar.
There, that helps. You don't have to go one completely biased rants against someone who has spent decades working on these snakes. You absolutely have no credibility here.
And I must ask, do you get upset at a barber for cutting hair because it's his job and will advance his career?
Oh, and I looked the guy up. He's an emeritus professor. Do you understand what that means? If you did, you'd realize that your arguments are complete BS.