John P. Turnbull asked about intrabaraminic genetic variation and
whether this falls prey to the Haldane dilemma. While I am not
well-acquainted with the Haldane dilemma (a short tutorial would
be nice), I can say that most genetic sequence variation is not
baraminologically informative. I have appended to my message an
alignment of mammalian myoglobin sequences. The sequences come
from a possum (D_virg), a platypus (O_anat), a cow (B_taur), and
a whale (E_gibb). The sequences were aligned using Felsenstein's
pileup program in his PHYLIP package. You can see quite plainly
that even over this diverse selection of mammals that the myoglobin
sequences are extremely similar. This is the rule rather than
the exception. What baraminologists should be interested in are
what I call baraminic markers (molecular synapomorphies), specific
genetic characteristics that are unique to a particular baramin.
Todd Wood
tcw3r@virginia.edu