Mutation research has shown, that the range of mutation cannot be extended infinitely but is exhausted after a certain time so that the same mutations occur again and again (rule of the recurrent variation; see article about Mutation. Besides that the artificially caused mutations often are identical with the naturally (spontaneously) occurring ones. This is why mutation research is hardly of significance any more. Obviously the range of mutation cannot be extended infinitely.
Crossings, often interspecific crossings, can produce new combinations of features and with these new varieties. Here existing genetic capacity is used and combined – there is no generation of new capacity.
Selection, too, does not lead to new varieties over and over again, but to the limits of variability. The number of eggs laid by hens, the milk production of cows or the concentration of sugar in sugar beets cannot be increased infinitely. And obviously these kinds of increases do not lead to new structures in the sense of macroevolution. Extreme varieties and one-sided specialization can be shaped by artificial selection, but when the capacity of selection (the initially existing genetic variety) is exhausted, no further changes are possible this way. Continued artificial selection leads to a reduction of variability and to specializations. At last specializations and one-sided adaption lead to evolutionary dead ends. |