Inbreeding: How fertile are the offspring? (Part 19)

Inbreeding: How fertile are the offspring?
The Naturalistic Evolutionary Model:	An Intelligent Design - Young Earth/Cataclysm Model:
Prediction: Inbreeding in domestic and other plants & animals will demonstrate a high percentage of strong and fertile offspring.	Prediction: Inbreeding in domestic and other plants &animals will show limits to variation and lead to weak and less fertile offspring.
If speciation is to occur, extreme inbreeding, when repeated geographic isolation occurs, is required. Such inbreeding will allow for differentiation to persist and not be diluted and lost into the greater population. Inbreeding, however, leads to inherited genetic defects, which would overrule any potential inherited benefits to possible “positive mutations”. It is “the almost universal belief of breeders…(of) plants and animals…that close interbreeding diminishes vigor and fertility.” Darwin, The Origin of the Species p.86 Extreme inbreeding of dogs, for example, leads to defects inherited by all descendent members of that breed of dogs. When the inbred dogs return to crossbreed, then the defects are sublimated producing stronger offspring. This is an indication that there are limits to genetic variation. Zea Maiz, (American corn) has been bred for millennia. New varieties have been developed over the centuries through selection and hybridization. Breeding experiments, however, seem to have stayed within the limits of genetic variation. New organs were not developed, rather desirable traits inherent to genetic variability of size, color, flavor, resistance to disease or weather, etc. have been bred into seed stock, while undesirable traits have been bred out. Man seems to have encountered limits to genetic breeding. Genetic engineering may allow for further development. However, at this juncture, if left in the wild, hybridized corn seed quickly looses its specialized combination of desirable traits. Some suggest that corn is so inbred; it may not retain the ability to survive in the wild. By the second generation what was once hybridized corn seed quickly degenerates reverting to less productive, more wild and irregular stock. If evolutionary expectations were met, the differentiated sub-species might continue to evolve into something new as opposed to reverting to old form.

(Part 20 coming soon)