Why cannot we see evolution happening today?

[georg....@gmail.com]

Evolutionists say it happens too slowly. But consider this. The Evolutionist model indicates that there were about 10,000 hominids descended from primates who were the ancestors to human beings. They say this started about 5MY ago. It took that long because the mutation rate is in the range of 1-2.5 mutations per nucleotide per generation of about 20 years. So progress was slow.

However is that really true today? There are 7 billion people today. That means evolution is happening in this population 700,000 times faster than before. Lets round that off to 1 Million. Or we could posit 7000 hominids to make the calculations easier.

It is one million times faster now. So 5MY divided by 1M is 5. 5 years?

Now I know that this is not realistic, but certainly we should see SOMETHING happening. What has changed in the last 5 years?

[RonO]

We are observing evolution in the current human population. Malarial
resistance is increasing in areas of the world that have malaria. Some
of the variants are stop gap compromise solutions like sickle cell
anemia. In certain regions 75% of the people carry the sickle cell
allele even though the homozygotes would usually die of the anemia, but
we have modern medicine today. The heterozygotes are resistant to malaria.

https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Malaria_Resistance_and_Sickle_Cell_Trait

In Northern Europe and where dairy agriculture has taken hold various
mutations that allow the lactase gene to be expressed as adults is at a
very high frequency. Normally humans like other mammals do not produce
lactase when they are no longer nursing off their mothers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactase_persistence

Since agriculture was invented there has been selection for gene
duplications of starch digesting enzymes that hunter gatherers did not
evolve and still do not have, but it is common where agriculture is the
basis of the diet.

http://biologos.org/blogs/dennis-venema-letters-to-the-duchess/evolution-basics-natural-selection-and-the-human-lineage-part-2

So even in humans we can see evolution in action.

Speciation has been observed and we can create new species (in terms of
inability to interbreed with the parent species using the same method
nature uses but in the lab).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyploid

Polyploid speciation is only one way new species can form, but it is a
pretty easy one to demonstrate and understand. The common ancestor of
all vertebrates was a polyploid species. So we owe our existence to
polyploid speciation.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7198/pdf/nature06967.pdf

This should be enough for anyone with an open mind and an ability to
reason. It demonstrates that evolution happens.

Ron Okimoto

[Bill Rogers]

On Sunday, August 14, 2016 at 4:17:00 PM UTC-4, georg....@gmail.com wrote:
> Evolutionists say it happens too slowly. But consider this. The Evolutionist model indicates that there were about 10,000 hominids descended from primates who were the ancestors to human beings. They say this started about 5MY ago. It took that long because the mutation rate is in the range of 1-2.5 mutations per nucleotide per generation of about 20 years. So progress was slow.

Where did you get that number? That would imply that every nucleotide position in the genome mutated in everyone at each generation. Something is wrong with your units.

Commonly cited estimates for the human mutation rate are hundreds of millions of times lower, on the order of 2 x 10^-8 per base pair per generation.

>
> However is that really true today? There are 7 billion people today. That means evolution is happening in this population 700,000 times faster than before. Lets round that off to 1 Million. Or we could posit 7000 hominids to make the calculations easier.

It's not clear what you are asking for. The rate of fixation of neutral mutants is independent of population size; someone else explained that to you in a previous thread. But maybe you are looking for something else? Loss of cutaneous melanin in migrants to high latitudes? Balanced selection of sickle trait in populations recently (in geologic terms) exposed to P. falciparum malaria?

[RonO]

I just ignored all the nonsense babble and demonstrated that evolution
is still going on.

It could be interesting where he got his numbers from.

Ron Okimoto

[georg....@gmail.com]

I am not relying on any particular mutation rate. The way evolutionary biologists get the rate is

1) Count the differences between Chimps and Humans (~35 million)
2) Estimate the divergence (5MY)
3) Estimate generation length (20 years)
4) Count the number of bases in human genome (6.4E09)

Looking up at what I posted, it looks like my E-08 is missing. My apologies. The rates in the latest papers are from 1 - 2.5 E-08 per nucleotide per generation.

The divergence rate (Rate of accumulation of nucleotide substitutions] per generation) is

2 X mutation rate * t)/ generation and comes out to about 1.3-09.

But I am not using any particular rate. The 5MY time frame is what evolutionary biologists say it took 10,000 primates to evolve into modern humans.

Take the existing population and divide by 10,000 and one should see the same number of random mutations in 5+ years as the 10,000 population size received in 5MY to accommodate the 35 million differences between Chimp and Human Genome.

So if the mutation rate today is the same as what they see as the average, then we should be seeing the same rate of changes in the human genome. Sure other factors like selection would come into play, but we can see the genome now before any speciation takes place.

The examples I have been given such as the Milano variation on the ABCA1 gene, persistent lactose tolerance and the like are just minor tweaks to a single nucleotide site. That's not very exciting and not much genetic activity when we should actually see the same quantity of mutations in 5 years with a population of 7 billion as did a population of 10 thousand.

[jillery]

On Sun, 14 Aug 2016 13:16:41 -0700 (PDT), georg....@gmail.com
wrote:

Of course, rate is events per unit, by definition, so the rate of
evolution doesn't go up as population increases.

You might be good with dead languages, but you're really bad at this
logic stuff.
--
This space is intentionally not blank.

[georg....@gmail.com]

I am not proposing that the rate goes up. The rate stays the same. But the higher the population, the more total mutations in that population. So at the same rate, 1.1E-08 mutations per nucleotide per generation it took a population of 10,000 to mutate the 35 million difference between Chimps and Humans. Or 1/2 of that based on your estimate of the most recent ancestor of humans.

It then took 10,000 hominids 5MY at that rate to change the 35 million differences. But 7 billion people will have 7 billion / 10,000 more mutations in that population each generation. So in 5 years a 10 billion population generates as many mutations as did 10,000 in 5MY.

[georg....@gmail.com]

I have not recently researched any of those except for persistent lactose tolerance. The LCT gene is shown to be epigenetically controlled. Methylation cuts off the lactase enzyme production after a few years in many populations. In some others it persists into adulthood, and then in others in old age it is lost again... all due to epigenetics.

I debated this on another forum for weeks. I found that there was really no proof that this was a mutation at all. Basically what I found was that there was an assumption that humans mutated the variation because Chimps and other mammals do not have it. So it is an assumption re-enforced by evolutionary doctrine.

But these are very simple things compared to changing a Chimp into a Human. The fact that what is claimed is so far and few between should give the evolutionist pause for thought.

[RonO]

You should likely try to understand neutral evolution. There are
citations in the wiki.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_theory_of_molecular_evolution

The rate of fixation of mutations in the population is essentially the
mutation rate. This is independent of population size. The fixation
rate is what is important because that is what is the difference between
two species. Fixation is when everyone in the population has the same
genetic variant except for the guys that have new mutations at that
position in the genome. It may seem weird that fixation rate is
independent of population size, but the more people you have the more
mutations and the more genetic variation you can carry in the population.

You do have to double this rate when comparing two extant taxa because
both lineages are evolving.

Beats me where you are getting the past population statistics.

The mutation rate likely hasn't changed much in the past couple million
years, and these mutations are still happening in the population as
expected. We aren't slowing down in the rate of mutation, and we have
no evidence that we are slowing down in the rate of fixation.

You are mixing up mutation rate with change in allele frequency in your
last paragraph. The mutation rate hasn't changed. Certain mutations
can be selected for resulting in an increase in their allele frequencies
when they do something beneficial and they can rapidly increase in the
population. This obviously happens due to selection. Basic population
genetics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_selection_model

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_genetics

No mystery these things just work. The mutation rate does not have to
be higher to get this done.

Ron Okimoto

[georg....@gmail.com]

You misunderstand my argument. I did not state anywhere that the mutation rate had changed. I do not believe it has. The fact is that the larger the population, the more total mutations there are in that population.

With a population of 10,000 and a generation of 20 years, and a rate of 1E-08 mutations per nucleotide per generation, and 6e09 base pairs in the genome:

That is
(1E-08 X 6e09 X 10,000) / 20 = 33000 mutations

But raise the population to 7 billion, and one gets 7 billion/ 10,000 more mutations.

So in 5 years one gets as many mutations in the human population as one gets in 5 million years with a population of 10,000.

Same rate, higher population.

[Bill Rogers]

Yes, the larger the population, the more mutations. But the larger the population, the harder it is (the longer it takes) for a neutral mutation to get fixed in the population. The two effects of population size cancel each other out, and so the rate at which new mutations get fixed in the population is independent of population size.

"For a diploid population of size N and neutral mutation rate μ , the initial frequency of a novel mutation is simply 1/(2N), and the number of new mutations per generation is 2 N μ {\displaystyle 2N\mu } 2N\mu . Since the fixation rate is the rate of novel neutral mutation multiplied by their probability of fixation, the overall fixation rate is 2 N μ × 1 2 N = μ Thus, the rate of fixation for a mutation not subject to selection is simply the rate of introduction of such mutations.[5][6]"

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixation_(population_genetics)

[georg....@gmail.com]

Yes, I read that earlier. It also says in that article:

Thus, in growing populations it is more likely that the beneficial allele will be passed on to more individuals in the next generation. This continues until the allele flourishes in the population, and is eventually fixed. However, in a shrinking population it is more likely that the allele may not be passed on, simply because the parents produce no offspring. This would cause even a beneficial mutation to be lost.[7]

[RonO]

You are just wrong. You should read the neutral theory material. The
fixation rate is what you want and it doesn't change with population size.

> With a population of 10,000 and a generation of 20 years, and a rate of 1E-08 mutations per nucleotide per generation, and 6e09 base pairs in the genome:
>
> That is
> (1E-08 X 6e09 X 10,000) / 20 = 33000 mutations
>
> But raise the population to 7 billion, and one gets 7 billion/ 10,000 more mutations.
>
> So in 5 years one gets as many mutations in the human population as one gets in 5 million years with a population of 10,000.

The mutation rate does not change, and population size does not affect
fixation rates. It is the fixation rate between chimps and humans that
you want to deal with. It has not changed, and does not change with
population size.

> Same rate, higher population.
>

This does not matter. The fixation rate stays the same.

Ron Okimoto

[Bill Rogers]

Yes, population size itself has no effect, but changes in population size over time do, a bit.

[RonO]

This is just wrong. Where did you get this information. There are
multiple mutations known in the promoter region of the gene that keeps
the gene active so that it does not shut down. There are different
mutations in different herding communities.

This is one paper that you can download for free and there have been
other more recent papers.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3048992/

> I debated this on another forum for weeks. I found that there was really no proof that this was a mutation at all. Basically what I found was that there was an assumption that humans mutated the variation because Chimps and other mammals do not have it. So it is an assumption re-enforced by evolutionary doctrine.

Well you were likely wrong for weeks.

This is a paper that is free to download and they did in vitro studies
confirming that the mutation is in a gene regulatory sequence and
changing the sequence changes how it regulates the gene.

http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/content/14/24/3945.long

This just means that they were able to study the function of this
sequence in the lab and determine that it did regulate the lactase gene
and that changing the sequence did alter the expression of the gene.
This is as far from an epigenetic change as you can get.

> But these are very simple things compared to changing a Chimp into a Human. The fact that what is claimed is so far and few between should give the evolutionist pause for thought.
>

Beats me what you are talking about. Give an example.

Ron Okimoto

[georg....@gmail.com]

One thing that does affect fixation is when the population is reduced and even more when there is a bottleneck. Bottlenecks are a documented part of evolutionary biology. However the current population is expanding. That means that the fixation rate should be higher now than in some previous time periods.

[georg....@gmail.com]

Fixation can happen in 20 generations. That is not the rate limiting step in Evolutionary Biology.

[georg....@gmail.com]

Lactase nonpersistence is directed by DNA-variation-dependent epigenetic aging
VOLUME 23 NUMBER 6 JUNE 2016 nature structural & molecular biology

The inability to digest lactose, due to lactase nonpersistence, is a common trait in adult mammals, except in certain human populations that exhibit lactase persistence. It is not known how the lactase gene is dramatically downregulated with age in most individuals but remains active in some individuals. We performed a comprehensive epigenetic study of human and mouse small intestines, by using chromosome-wide DNA-modification profiling and targeted bisulfite sequencing. Epigenetically controlled regulatory elements accounted for the differences in lactase mRNA levels among individuals, intestinal cell types
and species. We confirmed the importance of these regulatory elements in modulating lactase mRNA levels by using CRISPR–
Cas9-induced deletions. Genetic factors contribute to epigenetic changes occurring with age at the regulatory elements,
because lactase-persistence and lactase-nonpersistence DNA haplotypes demonstrated markedly different epigenetic aging.
Thus, genetic factors enable a gradual accumulation of epigenetic changes with age, thereby influencing phenotypic outcome.

DISCUSSION
This study reveals that epigenetic factors are involved in the regulation of the human and mouse lactase genes and, by corollary, the regulation of lactase nonpersistence and related lactose intolerance. DNA-modification studies, in combination with chromatin maps and our functional studies of mutant mice and cell lines, revealed a complex regulation of the lactase gene. Indeed, we found that epigenetic modifications targeting several different regulatory elements account for species- and tissue-specific effects as well as the interindividual variation of LCT expression. A key finding is that different LCT–MCM6 haplotypes exhibit differential epigenetic ‘aging’. This result suggests that the epigenetic ‘clock’19 may be individualized by the genetic landscape. Our findings demonstrate that the lactase-nonpersistence haplotypes containing the C(−13910) allele accumulate modified cytosines that silence the regulatory elements in MCM6 and LCT, whereas the lactase-persistence haplotype containing the T(−13910) allele displays age-related modification changes that maintain LCT activity. Because infant LCT mRNA levels are high irrespective of DNA haplotype, DNA variation may not be directly involved in LCT transcription. Instead, genetic variation may mediate the accumulation or loss of epigenetic
modifications at specific enhancers and promoters, which, in turn, directly orchestrate gene activity.

Thanks for your links, but I was looking for PROOF that this is a mutation.

Also consider this article:

Adult Lactose Tolerance Is Not an Advantageous Evolutionary Trait
DOI: 10.1542/peds.2004-1088 Pediatrics 2004;114;1372

To the Editor.—
I read with great interest the recent article from Fomon1 in
which he refers to the well-known hypothesis that views the
variable frequencies of lactase persistence in different human populations
and, consequently, the possibility for some adults to feed
on milk (lactose tolerance) as an advantageous evolutionary trait
that has been genetically determined and brought about through
centuries of natural selection. This notion stands as a common
statement in current medical literature, and most authors have
accepted its validity since the 1970s.2,3
Because adult mammals are lactose-intolerant, this hypothesis
is, moreover, based on the low percentage of lactose malabsorption
and high enterocyte lactase activity (0–30%) among populations
originating in northwestern Europe and in some ethnic
groups around the Mediterranean and Near East, in Africa, and on
the Indian subcontinent. These people share the longest known
tradition of dairying, since humans first domesticated livestock
and practiced milk-based pastoralism (6000–9000 years ago), making
milk abundant for adults. Accordingly, lactose tolerance is
supposed to be due to a genetic mutation for lactase persistence,
allowing carriers to have milk as a nutritional resource, especially
useful in times of food shortage. For the majority of the world’s
populations, however, the absence of genetic challenge has meant
that no evolution has occurred.

Mutation, in combination with natural selection, is most frequently
the mechanism utilized to explain these changes in genetic
frequency, assuming that the ancestral state was that of nonpersistence
(the normal mammalian state) and that the relevant mutation
probably originated before the geographical expansion of
modern humans. Mathematical models trying to explain this genetic
polymorphism require high selection coefficients and a reasonable
starting gene frequency.4 Such outstanding genetic
change during so short an evolutionary span, as claimed, implies
an increase in the survival and fertility rates of the lactase-persistence
gene carriers to displace the noncarriers in so few (200 –300)
generations.
Evidence does not support such a hypothesis; the rate of recurrent
mutation needed to explain these changes in the genetic
frequencies would be very high, 100 to 1000 the usual ( 10 5 or
10 6 per generation for most loci in most organisms). At these
usual rates, mutation without selection would bring about only
slow changes in the gene frequency in 250 generations. In addition,
individual fitness (the contribution of offspring to the next
generation) does not exhibit any difference between lactose-tolerant
and lactose-intolerant people; no differences in viability or
fertility rates in the prereproductive or reproductive periods have
been noticed up to now. Moreover, fitness is greater by far in
lactose-intolerant populations, and figures show, curiously, that
an increase in lactose-tolerance rates is, in general, paralleled by a
decrease in demographic values, and vice versa. There are additional
unexplained facts concerning the lactase-persistence polymorphism
that the evolutionary hypothesis has been unable to
explain, but expounding on them would make this letter too
protracted.
However, what is more important is that the rationale of evolutionary
analysis tells us that restricting milk to the nursing
period of mammals is more efficient (greater fitness) than to share
it with older individuals. As Fomon points out, the evolutionary
forces are focused on the survival of the mother-offspring unit;
postreproductive individuals (“the genetic dustbin”5) do not directly
contribute to evolutionary changes.
In short, evidence does not support the evolutionary hypothesis
of lactase persistence in human adults as a consequence of
selection. A founder effect could be a more suitable explanation to
justify this trait, and this mechanism does not need the cooperation
of natural selection.

Juan Brines, MD
Department of Pediatrics, Obstetrics, and Gynecology
Universidad de Valencia
46022 Valencia, Spain

[Bill Rogers]

Now I'm not sure whether you are talking about fixation of neutral alleles or beneficial ones. The effects of changing population size are important for beneficial alleles not neutral ones.

So I'm still not sure what your question is

1. Are you asking whether some beneficial alleles have become fixed in recent history?

2. Are you asking whether some beneficial alleles have increased in frequency in the past five years?

3. Are you asking whether the frequency of any neutral mutations has increased in recent history?

[Bill Rogers]

Fixation can happen in a single generation if a lethal selective pressure is applied suddenly.

You still don't seem to be focusing on the difference between fixation of neutral alleles and fixation of beneficial ones. The math in the two situations is completely different.

[Bill Rogers]

Look carefully at the material you just posted. What the authors found is that mutations "mediate the accumulation or loss of epigenetic modification at specific enhancers and promotes which, in turn, directly orchestrate gene activity."

Look at the title of the article, in particular the phrase "DNA variation dependent".

What they are saying is that a *mutation* controls the methylation of gene regulatory regions (enhancers and promoters) that control the expression of lactase. A mutation is at the root of it, according to the paper you've posted here.

Yes, this guy thinks selection of a mutant could not have done the trick. I don't buy his argument. For one he claims that lactase persistence is not of enough benefit to be selected to the degree it appears to have been over a few hundred generations. He bases that on the claim that there is no difference in reproductive success between lactose tolerant and lactose intolerant individuals today. It's hardly surprising that the selective pressure operating on pastoralists expanding into new environments thousands of years ago are not so evident today. And, as you noticed in another context, selection in an expanding population can lead to fixation faster than in a stable one.

His alternative explanation is that there was a bottleneck with a founder effect. Small populations, with, by chance, a high frequency of lactose tolerance, migrated to new environments where they coincidentally became herders and depended on milk as a major food source for adults. That's entirely testable, since the bottleneck effect would be visible in lots of neutral alleles. But he needs more than an unreviewed letter to the editor to try to make that case.

[jillery]

On Sun, 14 Aug 2016 19:18:03 -0700 (PDT), georg....@gmail.com

>This study reveals that epigenetic factors are involved in the regulation of the human and mouse lactase genes and, by corollary, the regulation of lactase nonpersistence and related lactose intolerance. DNA-modification studies, in combination with chromatin maps and our functional studies of mutant mice and cell lines, revealed a complex regulation of the lactase gene. Indeed, we found that epigenetic modifications targeting several different regulatory elements account for species- and tissue-specific effects as well as the interindividual variation of LCT expression. A key finding is that different LCT–MCM6 haplotypes exhibit differential epigenetic ‘aging’. This result suggests that the epigenetic ‘clock’19 may be individualized by the genetic landscape. Our findings demonstrate that the lactase-nonpersistence haplotypes containing the C(?13910) allele accumulate modified cytosines that silence the regulatory elements in MCM6 and LCT, whereas the lactase-persistence hap
lotype
>containing the T(?13910) allele displays age-related modification changes that maintain LCT activity. Because infant LCT mRNA levels are high irrespective of DNA haplotype, DNA variation may not be directly involved in LCT transcription. Instead, genetic variation may mediate the accumulation or loss of epigenetic

>modifications at specific enhancers and promoters, which, in turn, directly orchestrate gene activity.
>
>Thanks for your links, but I was looking for PROOF that this is a mutation.

Since you say you're looking for proof, as contrasted to scientific
facts, it would help if you would describe what would qualify as proof
to you. Just sayin'.

Also, IIUC you assume that epigenetic suppression of gene expression
is never a case of genetic mutation. If so, on what basis do you make
that assumption?

[Öö Tiib]

Huh? Everybody keeps telling you that fixation of particular mutation goes *slower*
with bigger population. Also why you bang that irrelevancy? If there even was
some little gap or inaccuracy in it (there are none) then what it possibly helps?
It does change nothing.

Think: Genome of Chimpanzee is sequenced, genome of Human is sequenced,
differences are quantitatively measured, mutation rate is measured, duration
of generation is measured. Plenty of data now what remains is to calculate the
distance in time. Depending on some interpretations of data and factors we
may calculate that common ancestor did live about 7 millions of years ago or 5
or 4 or 13. How does such little differences matter? It is only maximally 1.8
times difference from average (around 7) and so each of those numbers is
accurate already for all practical purposes. We can find ways to make that
more accurate and we can find more other confirming evidences and fossils
of middle-step individuals. There are still none problems with that
explanation that all data indicates that such ancestor did exist relatively
recently, couple millions years ago.

However if the claim is that Chimpanzee and Human were synthesized
separately whatsoever then we got nothing. Where or when or why
that happened? Nothing. Why to synthesize two so close cousin species of
apes? Mom-mom. Nothing. Same like with that Noah's first rainbow, nothing,
no answers no evidences no calculations. Just bare and bald assertions.

[RonO]

What do you not get about this article? The epigenetic changes that
they are talking about are the normal regulatory function of the system
that modifies the DNA. We already knew that the DNA was modified and
the modifications affect expression of genes. The first works on DNA
methylation came to that conclusion. It is what the system normally does.

The DNA mutations found in the lactase persistence populations
circumvent the normal regulatory process. What do you not get?

This seems to be a comment letter to some minor journal. Did the guy
ever publish and demonstrate that the known DNA mutations did not alter
the gene expression of the lactase gene? Isn't that what he should have
done?

You likely got this letter from some bogus creationist source and you
will not be able to verify that this guys conclusions amounted to
anything. This letter is from 2004 and was published before the work
was done demonstrating that the DNA mutations altered the expression of
the gene. Check out my reference that you snipped out of this post. It
was published Dec 2005. A year after this guy wrote this letter. So
what are this guys conclusions worth?

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

Fixation is what you are talking about. Mutation rate doesn't matter to
what you are trying to claim in the way that you are using it. Beats me
what 20 generations has to do with you using the incorrect concept for
your argument. When you are talking about the differences between
species you are talking about the fixed differences. The unfixed new
mutations are a factor within populations.

Ron Okimoto

[georg....@gmail.com]

Fixation can happen in 20 generations. That is not the rate limiting step in theory of Evolutionary Biology. The random mutations are the rate limiting step.

In addition, we can sequence the genome easily now as is being done in studies all the time and for medical treatment. Therefore the 5MY worth of mutations that supposedly transformed a primate into a modern human are being packed into 5-10 years with the current population.

This should be not just visible, but obvious, if it was happening.

[Greg Guarino]

It's hard to tell, but I think he may be also confusing the number of
mutations that occur in a population with the number that become fixed
in a population.

[Greg Guarino]

[georg....@gmail.com]

No, I am not. We can and are sequencing the genome. We should be seeing a large number of mutations that could lead to changes right in front of our eyes considering 5MY years of mutations from a 10,000 population have already occurred in the last 10 years or so with our population of Billions.

[Greg Guarino]

On 8/15/2016 9:20 AM, georg....@gmail.com wrote:

Now I'm convinced that you are confusing the number of mutations that
"occur" in a population with the number that become fixed.

If memory serves, and the real biologists here can correct me on this,
of the 35 million or so genetic differences between humans and chimps,
perhaps a couple (or a few) thousand are "interesting" ones; ones that
produce the phenotypic differences we see. The rest are neutral.

Neutral mutations, at least in a steady population, become fixed at rate
equal to the number of new mutations in a new birth, irrespective of
population. (That's because the population number appears twice in the
equations and cancels out; the increased number of "candidate" mutations
carries with it an proportionately increased number of non-mutant
"competitors").

The population does affect how long the process takes (longer for
fixation in a larger population), but not how many new mutations
eventually become fixed.

In humans, there are about 60 new mutations in each birth. Thus 60
mutations should become fixed in the population every generation. If we
assume 200,000 generations, that's 12 million in the lineage that led to
humans. But there would be a similar number in the line that led to
chimps. That adds up to 24 million, which is not that far off. If you
figure 300,000 generations instead, the math works out nearly perfectly.

The above is very slightly complicated by the fact that the human
population has greatly increased in the last few thousand years
"Extinctions" - lineages that fail to reproduce - are what ultimately
creates fixation, so the closer a population comes to 100% reproduction,
the slower the rate of fixation becomes - (I think). Likewise a
declining population speeds up the process.

Now the real knowledgeable people can correct me. Gently, I hope. :)

[Greg Guarino]

Not a scholarly source, but interesting nonetheless:

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/08/science/sci-evolution8

[Greg Guarino]

On 8/15/2016 10:00 AM, georg....@gmail.com wrote:

With the human population, we should actually see every non-fatal point
mutation, several times over in fact. But can you see why that does not
(remotely) account for the possible configurations that might cause
interesting, beneficial changes?

[Bill Rogers]

It depends on what sort of mutations you are talking about. Imagine the incubation period for clinical AIDS was 30 years, and that it had spread throughout the entire human population before people started dying and before people were aware that it was a thing. The mortality would be high enough that the relatively tiny fraction of humans bearing a deletion in the CCR5 (which deletion confers resistance to HIV infection) would be the only humans surviving. In a generation or two, that very rare allele would go to fixation.

On the other hand, any neutral mutation that occurs has a very low probability of ever getting to fixation, and it will take it a great many generations to do so, if it does. That's because of the huge population of humans around now. But then, there are lots of mutations because there are so many individuals. The big number cancels out, and mutations get fixed in the population at the rate of something like 60 per generation.

In between those two cases you have mutations that might provide a modest benefit. Those take many generations to go to fixation. If you want to see rapid evolutionary change you need to have rapid changes in selection pressures. Infectious disease can do that. Rapid climate change can do that (mostly to other animals since we have technological ways of mitigating the effects of climate change on reproduction for ourselves). The sudden appearance of an empty ecological niche can do it. Otherwise natural selection is a stabilizing force that generally retards change. The theory of evolution does not predict that some Homo superioris will spontaneously emerge from Homo sapiens and take over the world. We've pretty much got the "social primate niche" locked up.

[J. J. Lodder]

<georg....@gmail.com> wrote:

> Evolutionists say it happens too slowly. But consider this. The
> Evolutionist model indicates that there were about 10,000 hominids
> descended from primates who were the ancestors to human beings. They say
> this started about 5MY ago. It took that long because the mutation rate is
> in the range of 1-2.5 mutations per nucleotide per generation of about 20
> years. So progress was slow.
>

> However is that really true today? There are 7 billion people today. That
> means evolution is happening in this population 700,000 times faster than
> before. Lets round that off to 1 Million. Or we could posit 7000 hominids
> to make the calculations easier.
>

> It is one million times faster now. So 5MY divided by 1M is 5. 5 years?
>
> Now I know that this is not realistic, but certainly we should see
> SOMETHING happening. What has changed in the last 5 years?

You are right, but your expectations are wrong.
What -is- happening as a result of the much larger population
is that the variation in the genome is increasing.
That isn't bad, given that it was far to low
as a result of past bottlenecks,

Jan

[Rolf]

<georg....@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:c3de39eb-edfd-4bc3...@googlegroups.com...

> Evolutionists say it happens too slowly. But consider this. The
> Evolutionist model indicates that there were about 10,000 hominids
> descended from primates who were the ancestors to human beings. They say
> this started about 5MY ago. It took that long because the mutation rate is
> in the range of 1-2.5 mutations per nucleotide per generation of about 20
> years. So progress was slow.
>
> However is that really true today? There are 7 billion people today. That
> means evolution is happening in this population 700,000 times faster than
> before. Lets round that off to 1 Million. Or we could posit 7000 hominids
> to make the calculations easier.
>
> It is one million times faster now. So 5MY divided by 1M is 5. 5 years?
>
> Now I know that this is not realistic, but certainly we should see
> SOMETHING happening. What has changed in the last 5 years?
>

I don't find that a realistic or relevant question. I suggest taking a
course in genetics at

https://www.coursera.org/

There are things to be learned from them, and it's free! But you have to do
the work yourself. That's how to learn things - make an effort!

SOMETHING is happening all the time. What mutations took place to day? New
descendants within species populations are born every day. The genetics of
tomorrow will be different from what it was yesterday. But how often do
populations split and become genetically isolated from each other?

While the fact of mutations is clear, we don't know the where or when of
potentially evolutionary steps taken.
Genomes are in a flux, but there are reasons why populations don't evolve
just to satisfy peoples desire to see evolution happen in full sight.

We know things are happening, but how could we see them?

[georg....@gmail.com]

I just did an interesting study by taking the populations per century from Wiki starting from 1400 to 2000. Based on the population in the 1400 decade, for that 100 year period, the mutations were 80% of what a population of 10,000 would give in 5MY. 1500 was 100% and it went on up from there exponentially. I have seen research that shows fixation in 20 generations. That is 400 years. Certainly there were the kinds of changes and pressures since 1400 that would stress populations. In each century since 1400 there should have been enough mutations to turn a monkey into a human being. There is also enough time to fix the mutations. I am not saying I expect evolutionists would suggest we would see another major species. But we should see something significant if evolutionary biology is correct.

[georg....@gmail.com]

What kind of variation? Number of SNPs? In the 15th century there would have been as many mutations with that population as for 10,000 hominids in 5 million years. If you look at what evolutionary biologists say happened, they have a primate looking more and more human every million years or so until modern humans develop. But none of that happened since 1400 (when I was able to get population statistics from Wiki) even though the population steadily increased until today. Plenty of time for fixation to occur. Humans today look exactly the same as they did in the 1400s.

Green humans who can photosynthesize their own food from sunlight would be pretty cool :) There have been lots of populations with little food.

[georg....@gmail.com]

Now that DNA sequencing is faster and less expensive there are lots of studies for medical reasons that compare family genetics. You can bet if there was evidence for evolution it would be all over the popular press in no time.

[Vincent Maycock]

On Mon, 15 Aug 2016 13:43:08 -0700 (PDT), georg....@gmail.com
wrote:

Why do you accept paternity and forensic use of DNA, but not the
phylogenetic use of it?

> You can bet if there was evidence for evolution it would be all over the popular press in no time.

I don't think that would particularly newsworthy, since evolution is
already so well-established. The time to "shock" or surprise people
with evidence for evolution is long gone -- and has been for150 years.

[jillery]

On Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:14:30 -0400, Vincent Maycock <vam...@aol.com>
wrote:

Almost all those who reject evolution do so for religious reasons.

Of course, I shouldn't have to say the above doesn't mean that all
those who are religious reject evolution.

[Mark Isaak]

On 8/14/16 1:16 PM, georg....@gmail.com wrote:
> Evolutionists say it happens too slowly.

As others have already pointed out, it is not too slow to see.

> But consider this. The Evolutionist model indicates that there
> were about 10,000 hominids descended from primates who were the
> ancestors to human beings. They say this started about 5MY ago.
> It took that long because the mutation rate is in the range of
> 1-2.5 mutations per nucleotide per generation of about 20 years.
> So progress was slow.
>
> However is that really true today? There are 7 billion people
> today. That means evolution is happening in this population

> 700,000 times faster than before. [...]

You seem to be assuming that, all else being equal, a population of ten
billion must evolve a billion times faster than a population of ten.
Sorry, evolution rates do not work that way, any more than it makes
sense to claim that a 1000 gram chunk of iron must be 1000 times harder
than a 1-gram chunk.

True, there are fewer mutations in the smaller population, but that fact
is more than offset by the fact that there are fewer individuals in the
population which need to die for the mutant's offspring to come to
predominate.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good
intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack
understanding." - Albert Camus, _The Plague_

[georg....@gmail.com]

I have been reading peer reviewed papers on the subject of mutation rates for humans. The mutation rate, generation length, time since speciation, population size and number of base pairs all work together.

What I found fascinating was a paper that was analyzing the deleterious effects of mutations on the population and long term effects of accumulated negative mutations. They made a case for a lower mutation rate based upon the actual measured mutation rates from trios (parents and child). These rates are lower than that when comparing Chimps and Humans.

The interesting thing was that when they pitched the lower mutation rate they then immediately quoted studies on the age of human primate diversion and said that new studies supported a different population size and/or a different time since speciation.

The reason is that these figures are all related. Decrease the mutation rate necessitates an increase in the population size of the Human Chimp Common Ancestor (HCCA). Increase the mutation rate and there is a need to push back the 5MY time since speciation to 10MY.

So, yes, evolutionists who come up with these numbers tune them to work with their theory. And yes, the higher the population size, keeping the mutation rate and time since speciation the same gives a means that the species appears sooner.

[georg....@gmail.com]

I do accept that the epigenome expresses genes to produce phenotypes. But that begs the question as to the origin of the genes.

[georg....@gmail.com]

On Monday, August 15, 2016 at 2:16:53 PM UTC-7, Vincent Maycock wrote:

Sure it would. Ever hear of Lucy? She is a household name.

[rsNorman]

Mark Isaak <eci...@curioustax.onomy.net> Wrote in message:

> On 8/14/16 1:16 PM, georg....@gmail.com wrote:
>> Evolutionists say it happens too slowly.
>
> As others have already pointed out, it is not too slow to see.
>
>> But consider this. The Evolutionist model indicates that there
>> were about 10,000 hominids descended from primates who were the
>> ancestors to human beings. They say this started about 5MY ago.
>> It took that long because the mutation rate is in the range of
>> 1-2.5 mutations per nucleotide per generation of about 20 years.
>> So progress was slow.
>>
>> However is that really true today? There are 7 billion people
>> today. That means evolution is happening in this population
>> 700,000 times faster than before. [...]
>
> You seem to be assuming that, all else being equal, a population of ten
> billion must evolve a billion times faster than a population of ten.
> Sorry, evolution rates do not work that way, any more than it makes
> sense to claim that a 1000 gram chunk of iron must be 1000 times harder
> than a 1-gram chunk.
>

If one ship can cross the ocean in seven days, how long will it
take seven ships to cross?

>
>


--


----Android NewsGroup Reader----
http://usenet.sinaapp.com/

[Vincent Maycock]

On Mon, 15 Aug 2016 16:16:57 -0700 (PDT), georg....@gmail.com

Yes, but I think you kind of have to be a science geek to know what
"Lucy" was.

>She is a household name.

You're more optimistic about progress in science education than I am.
But regarding your original idea, do you know why homologies,
vestigial organs, biogeographical distribution, and the formulation of
natural selection as an explanatory concept aren't even in the science
section of the news magazines?

Well, because these evidences for evolution aren't considered
newsworthy, having been first noticed by Darwin more than 150 years
ago.

So the original evidences for evolution aren't in the press, and the
newer evidences for evolution (like pseudogenes, molecular nested
hierarchies, and junk DNA) are in the press -- but I wouldn't say
they're "all over the press."

Just the science sections of news magazines!

[georg....@gmail.com]

The last time I saw that it was six. My response was and is, how much wood, would a woodchuck chuck?

[rsNorman]

georg....@gmail.com Wrote in message:

> On Monday, August 15, 2016 at 4:56:52 PM UTC-7, rsNorman wrote:
>> Mark Isaak <eci...@curioustax.onomy.net> Wrote in message:
>> > On 8/14/16 1:16 PM, georg....@gmail.com wrote:
>> >> Evolutionists say it happens too slowly.
>> >
>> > As others have already pointed out, it is not too slow to see.
>> >
>> >> But consider this. The Evolutionist model indicates that there
>> >> were about 10,000 hominids descended from primates who were the
>> >> ancestors to human beings. They say this started about 5MY ago.
>> >> It took that long because the mutation rate is in the range of
>> >> 1-2.5 mutations per nucleotide per generation of about 20 years.
>> >> So progress was slow.
>> >>
>> >> However is that really true today? There are 7 billion people
>> >> today. That means evolution is happening in this population
>> >> 700,000 times faster than before. [...]
>> >
>> > You seem to be assuming that, all else being equal, a population of ten
>> > billion must evolve a billion times faster than a population of ten.
>> > Sorry, evolution rates do not work that way, any more than it makes
>> > sense to claim that a 1000 gram chunk of iron must be 1000 times harder
>> > than a 1-gram chunk.
>> >
>>
>> If one ship can cross the ocean in seven days, how long will it
>> take seven ships to cross?
>>
>> >
>

> The last time I saw that it was six. My response was and is, how much wood, would a woodchuck chuck?
>
>

In the years since (possibly a rather small number) you apparently
have not learned what it means. Why should the rate of evolution
be inversely proportional to population size?

Evolution is not merely how many mutations occur in a population.

[Wm. Esque]

Mutations almost invariable cause defects which are detrimental to
offspring which inherits the defect.
>
> Ron Okimoto
>

[georg....@gmail.com]

Inversely proportional to population size? Hardly. That is the opposite of what Evolutionary Biologists teach.

And while the theory of evolution is not merely mutations, mutations are the rate limiting step.

[jillery]

On Mon, 15 Aug 2016 22:31:26 -0400, "Wm. Esque" <"Wm.
Esque"@gmail.com> wrote:


>Mutations almost invariable cause defects which are detrimental to
>offspring which inherits the defect.

Actually, most mutations have no effect at all. Try to remember that.

[RonO]

The vast majority of mutations do not do anything that we can detect and
some mutations are selected for and do something useful.

So what?

This does not change the fact that he is using the wrong concept. He is
talking about fixation of mutations and not the mutation rate.

Ron Okimoto

>>
>> Ron Okimoto
>>
>

[Bill Rogers]

You've said several times that mutations are the "rate limiting step" in evolution. Why do you say that? Based on the human genome size, the human population size, and the mutation rate, it is likely that every possible non-lethal mutation is represented several times over in each generation. What makes you think mutation is the rate limiting step?

[Bill Rogers]

Ah, maybe I get it. You also keep saying that fixation can happen within 20 generations - maybe that's what makes you think that it's mutation that must be the limiting step. But that 20 generations is completely meaningless.

1. A mutation that provides complete protection against an otherwise lethal, sudden change in the environment (e.g. world-wide Ebola, or being spread on an antibiotic laced Petri dish) can go to fixation in a single generation.

2. A mutation that provides a modest reproductive advantage can go to fixation in anywhere from 10's to 1000's of generations, depending on the strength of the advantage.

3. A completely neutral mutation, if it ever makes it to fixation, will take a number of generations on the same order of magnitude as the population size.

So you cannot really hang your hat on "20 generations."

Here's another way to think about it. Given a relatively stable environment and a population that's been around for a few hundred generations, any mutation that *could* give enough of a benefit that it would go to fixation in 10's or 100's of generations has already done so. You're not going to see rapid evolutionary change in the absence of big changes in selection pressure. And the examples that have been given to you before reflect that - emergence of sickle trait after P. falciparum entered the human population around 10,000 years ago, development of lactose tolerance in pastoralists over a similar time frame. But any mutation that would have a strong enough beneficial effect to go to fixation in a handful of generations has already done so.

[georg....@gmail.com]

I used the 20 generations because I have read papers recently where there was complete fixation in some animals in that period of time and I wanted to use a supportable figure.

What was the selective pressure that caused the Human Chimp Ancestor to become Human?

[rsNorman]

Oops, "inversely" slipped out incorrectly. My bad.

The point still holds. Technically evolution is any change in the
genetic structure of a population. But any macroevolutionary
change requires multiple changes all pretty much completely fixed
in the entire species. With a very large human population we
generate lots of mutations but then it is hard for one produced
in central Asia to combine with another in New Zealand, say.

[georg....@gmail.com]

China has 1.3 billion. So in 20-30 years they have had as many mutations as it took to take the Chimp/Human Ancestor to fully modern human.

As for selective pressure, they have a wide variety of climate and availability of food in that one country.

The same is true for India. Either country (and they are not the only ones) should have had some indication of changes, if Evolutionary Theory is correct.

[Öö Tiib]

On Tuesday, 16 August 2016 16:36:50 UTC+3, georg....@gmail.com wrote:
>
> What was the selective pressure that caused the Human Chimp Ancestor
> to become Human?

What pressure you mean? For example difference of hands and legs?
Likely some descendants of human and chimpanzee common ancestor did
climb trees more so pressure was towards long strong hands and others
did run on two feet more so pressure was towards long strong legs.

[rsNorman]

My guess is that you are using the teaching model of
brother-sister mating in a completely inbred line to get fixation
in 20 generations. It does not represent natural populations.


Why must there be "the" single factor resulting in the chimp /
human split? A change in climate and habitat, posture, brain
structure and behavior, tool use and fire - - there are lots of
factors.

[georg....@gmail.com]

I don't understand your point. I am responding to someone who said that likely there is not selective pressure today, so that even though there are so many mutations per year, they don't give a selective advantage.

So my question was, what was the selective pressure which took these mutations and created a human being from a primate?

Is your example of climbing trees and running your example of the selective pressure that caused primates to evolve to humans?

[Greg Guarino]

On 8/16/2016 9:59 AM, georg....@gmail.com wrote:
> China has 1.3 billion. So in 20-30 years they have had as many
> mutations as it took to take the Chimp/Human Ancestor to fully modern
> human.

What an odd argument. The total number of *effective* genetic changes -
the ones that actually produce the phenotypic differences - between that
ancestor and modern humans is expected to be in the thousands. *One*
year's births in *Iceland* would exceed that by a healthy multiple. But
what of it?

[Bill Rogers]

On Tuesday, August 16, 2016 at 10:21:50 AM UTC-4, georg....@gmail.com wrote:
> On Tuesday, August 16, 2016 at 7:11:50 AM UTC-7, Öö Tiib wrote:
> > On Tuesday, 16 August 2016 16:36:50 UTC+3, georg....@gmail.com wrote:
> > >
> > > What was the selective pressure that caused the Human Chimp Ancestor
> > > to become Human?
> >
> > What pressure you mean? For example difference of hands and legs?
> > Likely some descendants of human and chimpanzee common ancestor did
> > climb trees more so pressure was towards long strong hands and others
> > did run on two feet more so pressure was towards long strong legs.
>
> I don't understand your point. I am responding to someone who said that likely there is not selective pressure today, so that even though there are so many mutations per year, they don't give a selective advantage.
>
> So my question was, what was the selective pressure which took these mutations and created a human being from a primate?

How about a relatively open niche for grassland, cooperative, language using, tool making hunters? Or climate change...

http://humanorigins.si.edu/research/climate-and-human-evolution/climate-effects-human-evolution

Here's a review of genes under positive selection in humans and related primates

http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/content/13/suppl_2/R245.full

>
> Is your example of climbing trees and running your example of the selective pressure that caused primates to evolve to humans?

As for evolution not being observable today, have a look at

http://www.livescience.com/16358-human-evolution-natural-selection.html

[Öö Tiib]

On Tuesday, 16 August 2016 17:21:50 UTC+3, georg....@gmail.com wrote:
> On Tuesday, August 16, 2016 at 7:11:50 AM UTC-7, Öö Tiib wrote:
> > On Tuesday, 16 August 2016 16:36:50 UTC+3, georg....@gmail.com wrote:
> > >
> > > What was the selective pressure that caused the Human Chimp Ancestor
> > > to become Human?
> >
> > What pressure you mean? For example difference of hands and legs?
> > Likely some descendants of human and chimpanzee common ancestor did
> > climb trees more so pressure was towards long strong hands and others
> > did run on two feet more so pressure was towards long strong legs.
>
> I don't understand your point. I am responding to someone who said
> that likely there is not selective pressure today, so that even though
> there are so many mutations per year, they don't give a selective advantage.

Also you can't answer the questions?
In current society there is pressure not to have defects and not to do
stupid things that remove your life or fertility very early. Then
you must have desire to be nice few times during whole life to opposite
sex. That is a joke not some sort of pressure.

>
> So my question was, what was the selective pressure which took these
> mutations and created a human being from a primate?

That is what can't be answered. Human being *is* ape like chimpanzee.
Chimpanzee evolved from their common ancestor like human did. That
happened during millions of years. There were *lot* of factors and
there are *number* of differences in result. What differences you
meant? I did choose the example of kind of habitat affecting legs
and hands.

>
> Is your example of climbing trees and running your example of the
> selective pressure that caused primates to evolve to humans?

It was example of different habitat that can cause difference in
selective pressure to legs and hands. Now lets say you run on ground.
When some predator is chasing you and your brother running and you have
longer and stronger legs than your brother then that improves your chances
to have offspring some day in the future compared to your brother. That
is the example of selective pressure in action. However if you and your
brother climb trees then long strong legs give no such advantage.
Is it that hard to understand?

[georg....@gmail.com]

I used the term selective pressure as a mass noun, not a count noun. All of those things have changed in the last century in China and India. Different tools to be sure.

How could the use of tools provide selective pressure. I presume you mean the need to use tool, not their use? What came first, the chicken or the egg?

[georg....@gmail.com]

You can outrun a Chimp who can go 25 mph for 100 yards? I believe some humans in good shape can run 28. Is that really a strong selective pressure?

[John Stockwell]

Gene duplication + mutation.

[eridanus]

I am nos sure if it is correct or not, but recently I listened in a video speaking about severe climate changes. He was talking about Africa and how
it was passing from very wet conditions to very dry conditions. He mentioned
this case of very wet condition changing to dry in a few hundred years.
Many species living in humid forest were forced to go from a small patch
of forest to another at some distance. They were forced to change diet, from
eating fruit most of the year, to eating food only after the time of some
rains. Most of those chimps perished and got extinct as they forest become
extinct in most places with the drier climate. Those chimps that were able
to walk on two feet a little easier, had some advantage. Those that were
able to tolerate the digestion of some herbs and some grains of herbs, had
some advantage over those that not. The differences among those animals
could be minimal and the advantage was also minimal. But think of an
advantage to survive as small as 1/10^4 per year. Apparently any animal
with this advantage is is not discernible. But in 1,000 years, what
happened? I am not sure. Let's calculate the average individual have a
probability of survival close to 1 (one) but if you add a little advantage
of 0.0001 to some individuals it results 1+0.0001 What do mean this little
advantage? 1.0001^1000 = 1.10 In a thousand years, the little group with
this advantage had increased is size 10% In 5,000 years, the advantage of
the individuals with some advantage mutation would be 1.0001^5,000=1.648
What would be the time needed for the whole group to have inherited the
favorable mutation? I am not sure. Just imagine a time for this to happen.
The mutants are now almost 100% dominant. Just close to 1.99%
then, 2/log(1.0001)=46,054 years We can verify this, 1.0001^46054=99.99
Other mutations can be a little better, like 5/1000 or 1/1000. Just
considered a mutation that presents an advantage to survive of 1/2000
How is going to work in 1,000 years? 1.0005^1000=1.648 It means the
original population with this mutation would had increased 64.8% in a
thousand years. But for a sort of chimpy animal to go forward and become
something close to a primitive hominid it was needed to change rather more
than a couple of favorable mutations. Some changes were needed to digest
the harder and drier food, to tolerate the dry heat, to darken the skin
to protect against UV rays, to loose some excess of hair that made difficult
to refresh the skin, to invent some sweaty glands in place of hair follicles,
etc. Depending on the combination of changes, the hominid was taking some
form or other; the changes were better for some way of life or other. In
different places, hominids were evolving in different ways. Most of them
eventually become extinct, for the circumstances were different as time
passed in different places.

The details of the genetic changes are difficult to determine. We only
have an idea of them as a rational hypothesis.
eri

[eridanus]

In a single generation for only a small group of individuals. It is rational
to assume en epidemic of Ebola would no strike the whole population of the
planet at once and everywhere. It is needed for the epidemic of Ebola to
attack 100% of a population for a small number of survivors to get immunized
against the Ebola. Thus the survivors among the population attacked would
get immunized, but not the rest that was not attacked.

Eri

[rsNorman]

You persist in comparing millions of years to a few centuries.
Totally different. Others have attempted the seemingly futile
task of explaining actual biological evolution to you. I will
leave that
to them.

Walking upright allowed a complete change in habitat and also
freed the hands to start to use tools more effectively which
increased foraging and hunting capabilities. All sorts of
changes, individually advantageous, interacted synergistically.


You think of "selective pressure" negatively; a problem that must
be solved. What about opening new possibilities that make living
easier?

[eridanus]

those mutations you are mentioning has not any meaning to survival. They are
already alive. You need some catastrophe killing must people rather fast
to see any changes in a thousand years or so. The changes must be compatible
with the genome the people have now. If it is compatible you would not
see any outside difference. But think about some drastic change, like a
new glacial age arriving fast and plunging the surface temperature of the
sea. The actual partners of rainfall would totally change, and most people
would began to die than survive with each generation. The population would
collapse (in numbers) not only for hunger, but also because of warfare. The
scarcity of food would transform the humans we know into aggressive and
very dangerous predators. Cannibals very probably.
It is here with a great change of the environment, that some rare mutations
would become favorable for survival. Just imagine the life is so difficult
that only those with high doses of adrenaline and propensity to be aggressive
would survive. The opposite people, with lazy adrenal glands would no be
so fast to change from becoming tame as sheep to become sort of an
aggressive and fast predator.
To have a gene favoring to be tall would not be an advantage because the scarcity of food makes it unfavorable. It is a hypothesis.
We need to think about this see, how some rare mutations can become
dominant. My hypothesis is that some mutation are sort of dormant, because
in the present circumstances of abundance of food, present scarce
opportunities for the mutations to congregate and reinforce. Just imagine,
not a single mutation, but half. Have a mutation of aggression, and high
levels of adrenaline can be half effective, for the police system is
constantly prosecuting those individuals with high adrenaline and tendency
to aggression. But as the population is shrinking with famine, those that
survive are increasingly aggressive. The breeding of couple with mutations
favoring aggression would increase the power of this mutation. Eventually
the people too slow to react to aggression would get exterminated. The average
IQ of humanity would drop close 70, probably. The intelligence would be contained within the repertoire of aggression.
I am not mentioning the hastening of the extermination of humanity using
atomic bombs. But surely this would help a lot to exterminate humanity in combination with some fast coming glacial age.
If you survive this this hecatomb you would be able to witness the evolution
working.
eri

[Bill Rogers]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_running_hypothesis

Endurance running may well be a strong selective advantage.

[Öö Tiib]

You and your brother don't need to compete with chimp it climbs trees and
eats fruit. Lion however goes 50 mph. You *will* be in good shape when 28
mph or 25 mph are the decisive difference who will be *selected* for
lunch since lion is fast but still lazy.

[georg....@gmail.com]

I would think that the human brain would be the strongest. A lot of changes in very specific areas.

[Bob Casanova]

On Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:42:03 -0700, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<eci...@curioustax.onomy.net>:

>On 8/14/16 1:16 PM, georg....@gmail.com wrote:
>> Evolutionists say it happens too slowly.
>
>As others have already pointed out, it is not too slow to see.
>
>> But consider this. The Evolutionist model indicates that there
>> were about 10,000 hominids descended from primates who were the
>> ancestors to human beings. They say this started about 5MY ago.
>> It took that long because the mutation rate is in the range of
>> 1-2.5 mutations per nucleotide per generation of about 20 years.
>> So progress was slow.
>>
>> However is that really true today? There are 7 billion people
>> today. That means evolution is happening in this population
>> 700,000 times faster than before. [...]
>
>You seem to be assuming that, all else being equal, a population of ten
>billion must evolve a billion times faster than a population of ten.
>Sorry, evolution rates do not work that way, any more than it makes
>sense to claim that a 1000 gram chunk of iron must be 1000 times harder
>than a 1-gram chunk.
>

>True, there are fewer mutations in the smaller population, but that fact
>is more than offset by the fact that there are fewer individuals in the
>population which need to die for the mutant's offspring to come to
>predominate.

I believe that a population of 1,000,000 split into a few
thousand isolated groups, as contrasted with a population of
6 billion, almost all in contact repeatedly, may also have
something to do with it.
--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov

[Bob Casanova]

On Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:51:30 -0400, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>:

>On Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:14:30 -0400, Vincent Maycock <vam...@aol.com>

>wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 15 Aug 2016 13:43:08 -0700 (PDT), georg....@gmail.com
>>wrote:
>>
>>>On Monday, August 15, 2016 at 1:11:53 PM UTC-7, Rolf wrote:
>>>> <georg....@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>>> news:c3de39eb-edfd-4bc3...@googlegroups.com...

>>>> > Evolutionists say it happens too slowly. But consider this. The

>>>> > Evolutionist model indicates that there were about 10,000 hominids
>>>> > descended from primates who were the ancestors to human beings. They say
>>>> > this started about 5MY ago. It took that long because the mutation rate is
>>>> > in the range of 1-2.5 mutations per nucleotide per generation of about 20
>>>> > years. So progress was slow.
>>>> >
>>>> > However is that really true today? There are 7 billion people today. That
>>>> > means evolution is happening in this population 700,000 times faster than

>Almost all those who reject evolution do so for religious reasons.
>
>Of course, I shouldn't have to say the above doesn't mean that all
>those who are religious reject evolution.

Of course not, but it's interesting that the fact that there
are many religious scientists (my favorite example is
Jesuits) who accept the science is consistently ignored by
Eddie, Ray, et. al. I should know, since I've asked about
that fact *many* times in response to idiocies about a
"philosophic atheist agenda" (or similar) being the reason
for acceptance of evolutionary science, to be greeted by a
deafening silence and/or a hasty redirect - the equivalent
of Tommy Smothers' "Well...well...OH YEAH!? Mom always liked
you best!!".

[Bob Casanova]

On Mon, 15 Aug 2016 19:55:28 -0400 (EDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by rsNorman
<r_s_n...@comcast.net>:

>Mark Isaak <eci...@curioustax.onomy.net> Wrote in message:

>> On 8/14/16 1:16 PM, georg....@gmail.com wrote:

>>> Evolutionists say it happens too slowly.
>>

>> As others have already pointed out, it is not too slow to see.
>>

>>> But consider this. The Evolutionist model indicates that there
>>> were about 10,000 hominids descended from primates who were the
>>> ancestors to human beings. They say this started about 5MY ago.
>>> It took that long because the mutation rate is in the range of
>>> 1-2.5 mutations per nucleotide per generation of about 20 years.
>>> So progress was slow.
>>>
>>> However is that really true today? There are 7 billion people
>>> today. That means evolution is happening in this population

>>> 700,000 times faster than before. [...]
>>
>> You seem to be assuming that, all else being equal, a population of ten
>> billion must evolve a billion times faster than a population of ten.
>> Sorry, evolution rates do not work that way, any more than it makes
>> sense to claim that a 1000 gram chunk of iron must be 1000 times harder
>> than a 1-gram chunk.
>>
>

>If one ship can cross the ocean in seven days, how long will it
> take seven ships to cross?

49, obviously. Or maybe one.

But more importantly, if a chicken and a half can lay an egg
and a half in a day and a half, how long will it take for a
grasshopper with a wooden leg to kick all the seeds out of a
dill pickle? And where will the survivors be buried?

[Glenn]

"rsNorman" <r_s_n...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:nov7eh$vc9$1...@dont-email.me...

Which ones do you *know* were causal?

[Glenn]

"rsNorman" <r_s_n...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:noveli$phv$1...@dont-email.me...

You think using tools were designed and constructed while standing up? Would you make an arrowhead or start a fire while standing?

[rsNorman]

"Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid> Wrote in message:

Which do you know are not?

[rsNorman]

"Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid> Wrote in message:
>

No, I do not. No, I would not.

Had you any intelligence at all you would understand the
importance of bipedal locomotion to hand structure and function.
Note the use of the subjunctive mood to indicate a condition
contrary to fact.

[Glenn]

"rsNorman" <r_s_n...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:np07q5$jg8$1...@dont-email.me...

You're babbling.

[Glenn]

"rsNorman" <r_s_n...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:np04s5$bnn$1...@dont-email.me...

Why do I need to know that?

[jillery]

On Tue, 16 Aug 2016 11:26:51 -0700, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>

And to beat that dead horse beyond resurrection:

<http://theclergyletterproject.org/>

Yet another fact that anti-evolutionists love to ignore/deny.
--
This space is intentionally not blank.

[Mark Isaak]

On 8/15/16 1:34 PM, georg....@gmail.com wrote:
> [...]
> I have seen research that shows fixation in 20 generations.

And I have seen research that shows a meteor hitting a cow. That does
not mean every meteor has a cow underneath it.

You need to stop using that "20 generation" number. Yes, fixation can
happen in 20 generations. Or 2 generations, or 2,000,000 generations.
The particular value you are using has no relationship to anything you
are interested in.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good
intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack
understanding." - Albert Camus, _The Plague_

[Mark Isaak]

On 8/15/16 7:32 PM, georg....@gmail.com wrote:
> [...]

> And while the theory of evolution is not merely mutations,
> mutations are the rate limiting step.

I read a paper over a decade ago which reviewed literature on how
selection affects and is affected by mutation rates. (Sorry, I no
longer remember the reference, except that it was in one of the "Annual
Review of" collections.) One thing I remember from that paper is that
mutation rates have come to be close to optimum for beneficial natural
selection to occur in an organism's typical environment. If mutations
really were rate-limiting such that more mutations would help, then we
would see more mutations.

I'm curious if you have any idea how many mutations typically occur in a
human, just in the one generation?

[georg....@gmail.com]

That depends on ones presuppositions. If one compares Chimp and Human DNA one gets a higher number than if one compares the DNA of trios (ie parents and offspring).

Recent studies show that there are 35 million single nucleotide differences between Chimps and Humans, and that does not account for other variations.

Studies from direct observation have shown lower numbers. In fact one study looked at the difference between 13 generations and only found 4 mutations. Another found 35-40 as an average in two sets of trios.

However most have settled on about 1E-08 mutations per nucleotide per generation. A generation can be from 20-30 years depending on who does the study.

So take the mutation rate times the number of base pairs (3E09) times 2 because humans are diploid. A rate of 1.1E-08 X 3E09 X 2 gives 66 per generation. To calculate that in years, it will be necessary to divide that number by the generation number (Hue 2009)

When you speak of "in a human, in a generation" I believe you are speaking of two different things. A human is not a generation. I have found that in discussions like these some use the terms interchangeably. I do not think that is correct and have not seen it expressed that way in peer reviewed papers.

[georg....@gmail.com]

My calculation was not about fixation, someone brought that up as a rebuttal to my point that in 5 years there are enough mutations to turn a Chimp into a Human, according to Evolutionary Biologists.

Fixation is dependent on a number of factors. However, many have thrown it out as some sort of mitigating factor in answer to my OP without actually demonstrating that with calculations. They do exist. Would you like to furnish them for this example?

I provided the 20 generations because I have peer reviewed papers that show that some traits have become fixed in 20 generations. Some have said it could happen faster.

I do not know where you get a figure for 2,000,000 generations which is 40 million years. The current estimate for the divergence of the Common Human Chimp Ancestor and Humans is 5 Million years. So you number is quite impossible in the context of this OP, and frankly I know you just made it up.

[John Harshman]

On 8/17/16 6:30 AM, georg....@gmail.com wrote:
> On Tuesday, August 16, 2016 at 7:21:48 PM UTC-7, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 8/15/16 7:32 PM, georg....@gmail.com wrote:
>>> [...]
>>> And while the theory of evolution is not merely mutations,
>>> mutations are the rate limiting step.
>>
>> I read a paper over a decade ago which reviewed literature on how
>> selection affects and is affected by mutation rates. (Sorry, I no
>> longer remember the reference, except that it was in one of the "Annual
>> Review of" collections.) One thing I remember from that paper is that
>> mutation rates have come to be close to optimum for beneficial natural
>> selection to occur in an organism's typical environment. If mutations
>> really were rate-limiting such that more mutations would help, then we
>> would see more mutations.
>>
>> I'm curious if you have any idea how many mutations typically occur in a
>> human, just in the one generation?
>>
>> --
>> Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
>> "The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good
>> intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack
>> understanding." - Albert Camus, _The Plague_
>
> That depends on ones presuppositions. If one compares Chimp and Human DNA one gets a higher number than if one compares the DNA of trios (ie parents and offspring).

> Recent studies show that there are 35 million single nucleotide differences between Chimps and Humans, and that does not account for other variations.

> Studies from direct observation have shown lower numbers. In fact one study looked at the difference between 13 generations and only found 4 mutations. Another found 35-40 as an average in two sets of trios.

What study found only 4 mutations in 13 generations?

> However most have settled on about 1E-08 mutations per nucleotide per generation. A generation can be from 20-30 years depending on who does the study.
>
> So take the mutation rate times the number of base pairs (3E09) times 2 because humans are diploid. A rate of 1.1E-08 X 3E09 X 2 gives 66 per generation. To calculate that in years, it will be necessary to divide that number by the generation number (Hue 2009)
>
> When you speak of "in a human, in a generation" I believe you are speaking of two different things. A human is not a generation. I have found that in discussions like these some use the terms interchangeably. I do not think that is correct and have not seen it expressed that way in peer reviewed papers.

No, they're the same. A human is a generation. The lengths of a
generation, in a population, is the average age of a parent at the birth
of a child, and the number of mutations in a generation is the number of
new differences between an human's genome and that of whichever parent
contributed that piece of his genome. What peer-reviewed paper have you
read that says otherwise?

Most importantly, how do you get a higher number by comparing human and
chimp than by comparing the DNA of trios?

[Bill Rogers]

On Wednesday, August 17, 2016 at 9:41:46 AM UTC-4, georg....@gmail.com wrote:
> On Tuesday, August 16, 2016 at 7:06:48 PM UTC-7, Mark Isaak wrote:
> > On 8/15/16 1:34 PM, georg....@gmail.com wrote:
> > > [...]
> > > I have seen research that shows fixation in 20 generations.
> >
> > And I have seen research that shows a meteor hitting a cow. That does
> > not mean every meteor has a cow underneath it.
> >
> > You need to stop using that "20 generation" number. Yes, fixation can
> > happen in 20 generations. Or 2 generations, or 2,000,000 generations.
> > The particular value you are using has no relationship to anything you
> > are interested in.
> >
> > --
> > Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
> > "The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good
> > intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack
> > understanding." - Albert Camus, _The Plague_
>
> My calculation was not about fixation, someone brought that up as a rebuttal to my point that in 5 years there are enough mutations to turn a Chimp into a Human, according to Evolutionary Biologists.
>
> Fixation is dependent on a number of factors. However, many have thrown it out as some sort of mitigating factor in answer to my OP without actually demonstrating that with calculations. They do exist. Would you like to furnish them for this example?
>
> I provided the 20 generations because I have peer reviewed papers that show that some traits have become fixed in 20 generations. Some have said it could happen faster.

How fast a mutation goes to fixation depends on the strength of selection, if it's not a neutral mutation, and the size of the population. Mark is quite right. Without your specifying any other details, a mutation could in principle become fixed in a single generation, in 20, or in 20 million generation. It depends on the strength of selection, in any, and the size of the population.

>
> I do not know where you get a figure for 2,000,000 generations which is 40 million years. The current estimate for the divergence of the Common Human Chimp Ancestor and Humans is 5 Million years. So you number is quite impossible in the context of this OP, and frankly I know you just made it up.

In a population of 2,000,000 individuals it will take on the order of 2,000,000 generations for a neutral mutation to go to fixation (if it is lucky enough to do so). People have given you things to read about neutral mutations and genetic drift. Mark is not making this stuff up at all.

[Bill Rogers]

On Wednesday, August 17, 2016 at 9:41:46 AM UTC-4, georg....@gmail.com wrote:

> On Tuesday, August 16, 2016 at 7:06:48 PM UTC-7, Mark Isaak wrote:
> > On 8/15/16 1:34 PM, georg....@gmail.com wrote:
> > > [...]
> > > I have seen research that shows fixation in 20 generations.
> >
> > And I have seen research that shows a meteor hitting a cow. That does
> > not mean every meteor has a cow underneath it.
> >
> > You need to stop using that "20 generation" number. Yes, fixation can
> > happen in 20 generations. Or 2 generations, or 2,000,000 generations.
> > The particular value you are using has no relationship to anything you
> > are interested in.
> >
> > --
> > Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
> > "The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good
> > intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack
> > understanding." - Albert Camus, _The Plague_
>
> My calculation was not about fixation, someone brought that up as a rebuttal to my point that in 5 years there are enough mutations to turn a Chimp into a Human, according to Evolutionary Biologists.

It's still hard for me to get what you are trying to say. In the whole human population there are certainly a huge number of mutations in each generation, maybe indeed as many as there are point mutations different between a chimp and a human. But all those mutations are not combined inside any one individual, they are spread out through the whole human population. So I'm not sure what you think we should be seeing that we aren't - new superior species of Homo evolving every few years? humans giving birth to chimps?

As others have pointed out, you seem to be mixing up beneficial and neutral mutations, genetic drift and selection, and the rate at which new mutations appear in some individual in a population versus the rate at which new, neutral mutations become fixed in the population. You keep saying you've seen things in peer reviewed journals, and no doubt you have, but you don't seem to know which of multiple possible scenarios they apply to.

[rsNorman]

Bill Rogers <broger...@gmail.com> Wrote in message:

I cannot imagine any situation even approaching something found
in nature that would result in fixation in 20 generations, let
alone a single generation. Those are products of extreme
situations that could be done in a laboratory situation but never
in the real world of nature.

Again George refers to the total number of isolated mutations in a
very large population widely distributed in the world. In order
to fix a mutation in the entire human population nowadays it
would require rather extensive migration of individuals between
isolated populations. It will happen naturally but it would take
a very long time, a lot of generations.

As to "visible" modern human evolution, the most potent active
selection is sexual -- to be specific assortative mating of like
with like. This strongly selects for visual appearance. It
quickly eliminates heterozygous for the particular characters and
between the two homozygous of different appearance, the one in
smaller number generally also tends to disappear. Hence
fixation.

This results in different ethnic groups tending to look distinct.
That difference quickly disappears once you allow mating between
groups. However the original question referred to the large
number of mutations found in large populations as in China and
India. The Asian continent contains a multitude of ethnic groups
each with some differences in appearance. What was formerly
referred to a human "races" relates to just such differences in
appearance between groups geographically isolated. That is most
definitely recent human evolution.

[Bob Casanova]

On Tue, 16 Aug 2016 19:48:53 -0400, the following appeared

Yep; forgot that one. Thanks for the reminder.

Although I'm reasonably certain Eddie and Ray will continue
to ignore it while continuing to post their idiocies about
"atheist agendas". Seems the adage often attributed to
Lenin, an attribution challenged here...

http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/32926/did-lenin-say-a-lie-told-often-enough-becomes-the-truth

....is alive and well.

[eridanus]

I read this in "A Brave New World". Twenty thousand repetitions make for a
truth, a dogma, something inrefutable.
eri

[Bill Rogers]

Correct. When I gave him examples I talked about bacteria suddenly finding themselves on an antibiotic laced Petri dish, or, more speculatively, for a nearly universally lethal infectious disease with a long asymptomatic but contagious period, more extreme than, but rather like HIV, for which a mutant allele provides protection.

[eridanus]

it was more or less his, textually, there is page that says,

"But every one belongs to every one else," he concluded, citing the
hypnopaedic proverb.

The students nodded, emphatically agreeing with a statement which
upwards of sixty-two thousand repetitions in the dark had made them
accept, not merely as true, but as axiomatic, self-evident, utterly in-
disputable.

[Mark Isaak]

On 8/17/16 6:30 AM, georg....@gmail.com wrote:

> On Tuesday, August 16, 2016 at 7:21:48 PM UTC-7, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 8/15/16 7:32 PM, georg....@gmail.com wrote:
>>> [...]
>>> And while the theory of evolution is not merely mutations,
>>> mutations are the rate limiting step.
>>
>> I read a paper over a decade ago which reviewed literature on how
>> selection affects and is affected by mutation rates. (Sorry, I no
>> longer remember the reference, except that it was in one of the "Annual
>> Review of" collections.) One thing I remember from that paper is that
>> mutation rates have come to be close to optimum for beneficial natural
>> selection to occur in an organism's typical environment. If mutations
>> really were rate-limiting such that more mutations would help, then we
>> would see more mutations.
>>
>> I'm curious if you have any idea how many mutations typically occur in a
>> human, just in the one generation?
>>

> That depends on ones presuppositions. If one compares Chimp and
> Human DNA one gets a higher number than if one compares the DNA
> of trios (ie parents and offspring).

I have no idea what that sentence is supposed to mean.

> Recent studies show that there are 35 million single nucleotide
> differences between Chimps and Humans, and that does not account
> for other variations.

Yes. Almost all of them are neutral or nearly neutral. And from that
number and known mutation rates, you can calculate the approximate time
of divergence between humans and chimps.

> Studies from direct observation have shown lower numbers. In
> fact one study looked at the difference between 13 generations
> and only found 4 mutations.

If they found only 4 mutations, either they were examining a very small
subset of the genome, or they were looking for a very particular kind of
mutation.

> Another found 35-40 as an average in two sets of trios.

Again, I don't understand what you mean by comparing trios.

> However most have settled on about 1E-08 mutations per
> nucleotide per generation. A generation can be from 20-30
> years depending on who does the study.
>
> So take the mutation rate times the number of base pairs (3E09)
> times 2 because humans are diploid. A rate of 1.1E-08 X 3E09 X 2
> gives 66 per generation.

Yes, that is correct, at least to the general ballpark. I have seen a
calculation of 80 per generation, but our two answers are the same
within errors of measurement.

> To calculate that in years, [...]

I was not interested in years. I was asking about how many mutations
you yourself would expect to have which neither of your parents had.
The answer you gave was the answer to that.

[John Harshman]

I believe he's saying that the distance between humans and chimps,
divided by the assumed number of generations, gives a higher estimate of
mutation rate than does parent-child sequencing. But I don't think
that's actually true.

[georg....@gmail.com]

Human Y Chromosome Base-Substitution Mutation Rate Measured by Direct Sequencing in a Deep-Rooting

Pedigree - Current Biology 19, 1453–1457, September 15, 2009 ª2009 Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY

license. DOI 10.1016/j.cub.2009.07.032 - Xue 2009

Summary
Understanding the key process of human mutation is important
for many aspects of medical genetics and human evolution.
In the past, estimates of mutation rates have generally
been inferred from phenotypic observations or comparisons
of homologous sequences among closely related species
[1–3]. Here,we apply newsequencing technology to measure
directly one mutation rate, that of base substitutions on the
human Y chromosome.

[I knew it was low but it is 4 in vivo an 8 in vitro]

The Y chromosomes of two individuals
separated by 13 generations were flow sorted and
sequenced by Illumina (Solexa) paired-end sequencing to
an average depth of 113 or 203, respectively [4]. Candidate
mutations were further examined by capillary sequencing
in cell-line and blood DNA from the donors and additional
family members. Twelve mutations were confirmed in
w10.15 Mb; eight of these had occurred in vitro and four
in vivo.


The latter could be placed in different positions on
the pedigree and led to a mutation-rate measurement of
3.0 3 1028 mutations/nucleotide/generation (95% CI: 8.9 3
1029–7.0 3 1028), consistent with estimates of 2.3 3 1028–
6.3 3 1028 mutations/nucleotide/generation for the same
Y-chromosomal region from published human-chimpanzee
comparisons [5] depending on the generation and split ti

[georg....@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, August 17, 2016 at 6:51:47 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:

Variation in genome-wide mutation rates within and between human families
Nat Genet. ; 43(7): 712–714. doi:10.1038/ng.862.

By estimating the false negative rates in discovery and validation of DNMs and quantifying the proportion of the genome that we were able to scrutinize reliably for DNMs (Supplementary Note), we estimated the germline DNM rate in each trio to be 1.17 × 10−8 (95% CI: 0.88 × 10−8 - 1.62 × 10−8) and 0.97 × 10−8 (95% CI: 0.67 × 10−8 - 1.34 × 10−8) for the CEU and YRI trios respectively. The sex-averaged germline mutation rate estimates we derived agree very closely with three other recent studies focusing on sex-averaged mutation rates in the most recent generation 4,7,13. Averaging across these four studies gives a more precise sex-averaged mutation rate of 1.18×10−8 (±0.15×10−8),

which is less than half of the < --------------------------------
frequently-cited sex-averaged mutation rate derived from human-chimpanzee sequence divergence of 2.5×10−8 14. These apparently discordant, estimates can be largely reconciled if the age of the human-chimpanzee divergence is pushed back to 7 million years, as suggested by some interpretations of recent fossil finds


16, and by considering more recent (and slightly lower), robust genome-wide estimates of sequence divergence 17. These considerations suggest a plausible range for the divergence-derived mutation rate of 1.12×10−8 to 2.05×10−8, which encompasses the averaged contemporary mutation rate above. Moreover, by considering that the distribution of mutation rates in the population could contain a long tail of relatively rare individuals with considerably higher mutation rates (perhaps as a result of genetic or environmental factors), it can be appreciated that the mean rate across many generations could be considerably greater than the modal rate within a generation.

[jillery]

My impression is that several posters to T.O. have repeated themselves
far more often than that. So they can take some comfort in knowing
they have met Aldous Huxley's standards for creating dogma.