A paper worth considering:
Six different mouse populations with different chromosomal counts have emerged in just 500 years on the island of Madeira.
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One less number for Bill to fill in:
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What you don’t know is if they are changes or just differences between the species.
The paper does not take a rigorous look at how the changes may have occurred.
It’s not a problem given where we are trying to figure out how all these differences could have happened under the idea that all deer share a common ancestor. The problem is the hypothesis is not questioned given the challenge in explaining the differences.
The positive evidence for separate origins is different chromosome and gene patterns in each of the animals.
Separate origins explains the observed differences without having to invoke a model (population genetics) that cannot reconcile the differences.
Separate origins makes sense given the limitations of the mechanism of reproduction which we have observed in populations.
Yes, and if you see a tree stump, you don’t know whether it used to be a tree or just started that way. Nothing about the past can be inferred from the present, right?
Yes it does.
You once again forget about all the data, independent of the chromosome differences, that tell us deer are related. Are we supposed to ignore that or should we perhaps take it into consideration?
That’s not evidence. You have given no reason why that would be expected from the separate origins theory.
Wrong. Separate origins explains nothing. “That’s just how it happened to be created” is not an explanation. It doesn’t explain similarities, and it doesn’t explain differences.
Word salad again. But here’s a big question for you. Please don’t dodge it. Why do you reject common descent combined with divine guidance of evolution? Wouldn’t that answer your objections regarding mechanism yet also be compatible with the phylogenetic data?
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We have evidence that they are chromosomal fusions because we can find the cryptic centromeres and confirm the expected synteny. We also have evidence that these fusions occurred in ancestral populations that produced different species because the fusions are passed down in a tree-like pattern that such a process would create.
What challenges? We know that chromosomal fusions happen. They naturally occur. We have evidence that the differences are due to chromosomal fusions (i.e. cryptic centromeres and synteny). What we are challenging is your claim that the differences are not due to chromosomal fusions given all of the evidence demonstrating that they are.
The gene patterns are exactly what we would expect from chromosomal fusions, a known and observed natural process.
Why would separate origins have cryptic centromeres in the arms of the chromosomes? Why would separate origins produce an order of genes along those chromosomes that we would expect from chromosomal fusion? Why would the pattern of chromosomal fusions produce a tree?
There is no reason separate creation would necessarily produce any of these features, but these are the ONLY features common ancestry could produce. That is why common ancestry is the better explanation. We have a known and observed natural process that will necessarily produce the very evidence we see in those genomes.
What limitations? Mice on the island of Madeira produced 6 different populations of mice, all with different chromosome counts due to fusions, and they did so in just 500 years.
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So it makes sense that around 500 years ago, God directly created the mice populations on the island of Madeira?
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It makes sense that mice with very short reproduction times can generate sub populations with chromosome mutations. This is very different than what is possible with populations with slower reproduction rates as population growth is approximately exponential.
The key is are we observing mutations to a population or the wild type or standard chromosome count of a species population?
The deer we are studying are different species not only by different chromosome counts but by different gene arrangements.
A veritable mass of word salad favorites. But if something makes sense for mice over 500 years, have you computed how long it would take to see the same thing in deer? (Incidentally, your idea of mouse generation times is not reasonable for wild populations.)
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Then you agree that common ancestry of closely related species with divergent chromosome counts can happen in principle.
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What difference does the “reproduction time” make? All that says is that a generation lasts longer. It doesn’t say anything about whether mutations have a harder or easier time going to fixation.
All that says is that, if mice have shorter generations than deer, then in the same amount of absolute time (10 years, say) more mice will be born than deer will be born. That doesn’t say mutations have a harder time going to fixation in deer at all.
And if a putatively deleterious mutation can fix in sub-population of mice, due to a founder-event, then so can it in deer. Then it would just take more years for the deer population to grow to a certain absolute number of individuals (1 million, say) than it would for mice.
None of which are sensible definitions of a species, as that would make different individuals in the human population constitute different species.
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The evidence here shows no reasonable trend toward fixation in mice. A few sub populations is no more compelling evidence than 1 out of 1000 events of Robertsonian translocations in human populations.
All we see in mice is a few subpopulations due to very fast reproduction rates.
Can it happen in principle? Not with a any reasonable probability to make it a scientific claim especially one that has to reconcile all the differences in chromosome counts among deer.
This is absurd. The hurdle to fixation is getting to a significant frequency. And if a “sub population” is isolated for a while it tends to become a new species. Isolate a few populations of Mus musculus from each other for a few thousand years and you end up with several species where once there was one. That’s speciation, and that’s species with different chromosome counts. It might take a bit longer in deer (or it might not), but there’s a lot longer to play with too. Your objections are all based on ignoring both the phenomenon and the relative scales.
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It is not evidence or a trend. The thing is done. The chromosome variations went to fixation.
Rapid chromosomal evolution in island mice
The extent of their chromosomal differentiation indicates that populations of house mice were isolated in different valleys for long enough to allow fusions to accumulate. Because each successive fusion as it appears is associated with only a slight underdominance, its fixation can most parsimoniously be explained by population processes such as genetic drift, as inferred for other chromosomal races of house mice.
On that island, there were six chromosomal races characterized by a large diversity of metacentrics, the fixation of which may have been enhanced by geographic isolation.
Are you redefining fixation to include a small sub population?
Mice have been around for greater than 50 million years. Why are these sub population still niches at this point? Could it be that these mutations from 40 chromosomes are deleterious and affect efficient reproduction?
Not me. The biologists who authored the papers.
It is right there in the papers.
The mice populations are geographically isolated. Their respective valleys are their world.
They seem to be getting along just fine at this point. That does not negate common ancestry anyways.
Why are you so intent on dying on this hill, alone and forsaken by ID and YEC company, limbs severed off, and obtusely declaring it is but a flesh wound? The Madeira mice are a clear counterfactual to what was already a hopeless objection to common ancestry of chromosomal variants.
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I think you’re confusing Mus musculus with the more general term “mice”, which refers to just about any small rodent. Yet another sign of incompetence.
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How many different mouse or rodent species exist with the chromosome counts in the paper?
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How much gibberish will you spout in a vain attempt to avoid the actual case at hand? Chromosome counts are not a good source of data. It’s the differences in distribution of homologous segments (from which we infer the changes that caused them) that you should notice. Species with the same chromosome count may have quite different chromosomes, and species ithe different counts may have quite similar chromosomes, when you consider those homologous segments. The real question is how many chromosomal mutations would be needed to transform one karyotype into another. Then we need to look for evidence of those mutations. Surprise!: we find it, with the mice and with the deer.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Bill, patientia nostra?
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Why do they remain geographically isolated? Mice exist all over the world.
It’s the hill the current data supports. These sub populations remain subpopulations for a reason. Are you forgetting to factor in gene arrangements?
Just maybe you may die on another hill along with millions of friends 
You understand that people just laugh at you, right?
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