Proving Dominant Traits

[Anatopism]

Your free to believe whatever you like but this stuff is not magical or even mysterious and there is a reason why nobody breeds spider X spider or Pin X pin etc. You are also making the assumption that everyone has always been honest, which most people realize has not been the case either.

Hiding behind the "we dont know" is a tad convenient, as with a lethal gene that dies early in development, the proof you demand would be impossible to get. Over the years when this argument comes up I usually find it a amusing that those who argue that Spider is dominant avoid doing that pairing in their own collections.

We now have a whole group of genes, that when paired result in severely damaged or dead combos (spider, woma, hg woma, sable, champ etc) and of these the spider is by far the MOST damaged in heterozygous form. So even though we know that the spider gene is clearly lethal in several combos, AND there is a complete lack of any evidence for a viable homozygous form. I guess I dont understand your relentless optimism on the subject.

You are also assuming that everyone involved in any spider project must be dishonest. Can I ask, what is the motivation to be dishonest in the case of a lethal homozygous spider at this point? Seriously... Do you think big time breeders will "take a hit" by stating that homo spider is lethal, and suddenly their $10,000 spiders that they've been selling left and right will suddenly only sell for around $150? Oh wait.. they already sell for that much. They already sell hetero spiders, and everybody still buys them, despite their potential flaws. They still remain popular base morphs and combos. Is there some business gain I'm missing, from "hiding the truth" about spiders?

The simple fact is that we don't KNOW. Evidence may point towards one direction, but until a project is done to specifically prove out that the homozygous spider is lethal or otherwise, we simply don't know. People aren't arguing that it isn't lethal, simply that we don't know for a fact. We have theories and evidence that suggest a conclusion, but do not prove a conclusion.


CORRELATION != CAUSATION, and until a proper "study" has been made, we don't know, we can only make educated guesses in the most probable direction. Take note of the following sentence really quickly: The former thought applies to 'both sides' of the debate. This is not an argument FOR homozygous spider being alive and healthy. It is an argument for proper procedure, and use of the scientific method.



As for why people aren't trying to prove homozygous spider, or any other perceived dominant morph:

To say that it's because people are afraid it is lethal, and that this contributes towards "proof" that people are being dishonest and therefore "proof" that spider is lethal...... well that's a fallacy and a half. My ONLY motivation for now wanting to get into a homozygous spider project is to provide evidence towards either conclusion - as I don't care whether homo spider is lethal or not, I just want people to stop saying they KNOW based off correlational data.

I feel another poll coming on, as I'd like to know how many people don't get into a homo spider project because of whether they think it's lethal and are afraid of wasting time. I wonder if people don't get into the project because it IS a waste of time, and by the time a homo spider would be proved out (or proved to be lethal) they could have produced several more spiders, and spider combos. The amount of resources and time needed to accurately record data on this topic, is limited to a very select number of breeders. The average hobbyist breeder doesn't have time, space, or resources to put into a project that has two basic outcomes:
1) a lethal homozygous spider, time wasted, other than to contribute to the "debate" on the topic.
2) a homozygous spider that can pass on spider to all of it's offspring. Neat... so now you can make sure every morph it's put to also has spider added... How many more spider combos could you have made in the process? Having a homozygous spider HANDED do you would maybe provide a benefit.. but going through the effort of producing one, is a considerable waste of time.