http://www.jdharper.com/wordpress/2008/04/06/nature-is-fascinating/ Stuff worth writing about Tue, 14 Sep 2010 17:33:15 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.jdharper.com/wordpress/2008/04/06/nature-is-fascinating/#comment-14253 Jim Sat, 12 Apr 2008 13:35:21 +0000 http://www.jdharper.com/wordpress/?p=432#comment-14253 I agree. We could actually do this with people too. Spray everyone with pest(people)icide. 1-2% actually survive because they have some genetic make up that is in the population that was previously unknown (nobody ever sprayed us before). Lets also say that this trait is correlated with black hair. These "purified" form of humans go on to have babies with similar genetic code. Depending on whether it is a dominant or regressive trait, the population has a greater or lesser % of people with the pesticide / black hair trait. Keep spraying them repeatedly until the everyone has black hair and is immune to the pesticide. Since the pesticide is organic based and is no longer deleterious someone tries eating it and whoo hoo, it tastes good! With respect to pesticides there is a positive change, but with respect to hair color it has reduced variation in the population. All you really have done is to change the environment such that it stomps out some genotypes in comparison to other genotypes. I agree. We could actually do this with people too. Spray everyone with pest(people)icide. 1-2% actually survive because they have some genetic make up that is in the population that was previously unknown (nobody ever sprayed us before). Lets also say that this trait is correlated with black hair. These “purified” form of humans go on to have babies with similar genetic code. Depending on whether it is a dominant or regressive trait, the population has a greater or lesser % of people with the pesticide / black hair trait. Keep spraying them repeatedly until the everyone has black hair and is immune to the pesticide. Since the pesticide is organic based and is no longer deleterious someone tries eating it and whoo hoo, it tastes good! With respect to pesticides there is a positive change, but with respect to hair color it has reduced variation in the population. All you really have done is to change the environment such that it stomps out some genotypes in comparison to other genotypes.

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