Biotic Message by Walter Remine

[Science For Creation]

... the mutation rate is reasonable for the difference between chimps and humans...

Quroboros,

You cited from the literature a figure of 175 new mutations per progeny (in addition to the mutations each progeny inherits from its parents), and you said three-fourths of these would be "detrimental and immediate death". You raised that as a solution to Haldane's Dilemma.

But your solution is not remotely possible, because each progeny would receive 131.25 (=175 x 3/4) new mutations that are "detrimental and immediate death" (in addition to the mutations it inherits from its parents).

How do you (and other evolutionists) intend to rectify that contradiction? According to evolutionists, how does the population avoid error catastrophe? (Also known as mutational meltdown, where harmful mutations accumulate in the population faster than they can be disposed of.)

 

[Riverwolf]

Quroboros,

You cited from the literature a figure of 175 new mutations per progeny (in addition to the mutations each progeny inherits from its parents), and you said three-fourths of these would be "detrimental and immediate death".

You missed a few words:

If 3 of 4 of those are detrimental and immediate death (if I understand some other numbers in that paper), that still leaves 17,500,000 neutral or beneficial mutations. So we could have had 1667 beneficial mutations up to 10,500 times... ???

According to evolutionists, how does the population avoid error catastrophe?

You also missed the amount of neutral or beneficial mutations, which clearly cancel out the "bad" ones, allowing life to continue.

 

[Science For Creation]

Quroboros,

You cited from the literature a figure of 175 new mutations per progeny (in addition to the mutations each progeny inherits from its parents), and you said three-fourths of these would be "detrimental and immediate death". You raised that as a solution to Haldane's Dilemma.

But your solution is not remotely possible, because each progeny would receive 131.25 (=175 x 3/4) new mutations that are "detrimental and immediate death" (in addition to the mutations it inherits from its parents).

How do you (and other evolutionists) intend to rectify that contradiction? According to evolutionists, how does the population avoid error catastrophe? (Also known as mutational meltdown, where harmful mutations accumulate in the population faster than they can be disposed of.)

I quoted my own post there, for the record. Two evolutionists here (Ouroboros and Riverwolf) have doubled down, by still insisting the above scenario is plausible, while I stated my objections: such a scenario is "not remotely possible."

I want to document something here. Regarding the above scenario, the evolutionists on this thread are implicitly testifying that they were (and likely remain) unaware of objections from evolutionary leaders.

 

[Riverwolf]

I quoted my own post there, for the record. Two evolutionists here (Ouroboros and Riverwolf) have doubled down, by still insisting the above scenario is plausible, while I stated my objections: such a scenario is "not remotely possible."

Not "plausible". Existent. As in, it's happened. With 99.99999999999999999999999999999% certainty. At best, you don't have a contradiction, you have a paradox.

I want to document something here. Regarding the above scenario, the evolutionists on this thread are implicitly testifying that they were (and likely remain) unaware of objections from evolutionary leaders.

'Course we are, or at least I am. We don't need such "leaders". Our own observations are sufficient.

 

[Simurgh]

Evolutionary leader? As in "take me to your leader" kind of leader? Damn, do we have one of those? And why didn't any of you tell me about her? Is that because I'm a cat, or because you all discriminate against goddesses?

 

[Science For Creation]

At this point, evolutionists here are claiming that a mutation rate of 131 "deleterious and immediate death" mutations per progeny (in humans) is plausible. Not one evolutionist here has expressed any implausibility to that.

More importantly, evolutionists here have acknowledged that they never heard from evolutionary leaders that such a high rate of harmful mutation is seriously implausible, because it causes a problem, known as error catastrophe or mutational meltdown, where genetic deterioration occurs generation after generation. This is a serious unsolved problem in evolutionary genetics, and evolutionary leaders have done an exceedingly poor job revealing it to the public -- as documented here, on this thread.

 

[Riverwolf]

At this point, evolutionist here are claiming that a mutation rate of 131 "deleterious and immediate death" mutations per progeny (in humans) is plausible. Not one evolutionist here has expressed any implausibility to that.

More importantly, evolutionists here have acknowledged that they never heard from evolutionary leaders that such a high rate of harmful mutation is seriously implausible, because it causes a problem, known as error catastrophe or mutational meltdown, where genetic deterioration occurs generation after generation. This is a serious unsolved problem in evolutionary genetics, and evolutionary leaders have done an exceedingly poor job revealing it to the public -- as documented here, on this thread.

It's not their job. They're not "leaders", at all; that's your own rhetoric. They're just geeks with an unhealthy fascination with the history of life that drove them to try making a living off that fascination, often unsuccessfully, I'd wager.

Like I said, my own observations are sufficient enough, which I've gone over.

Besides, you've obviously misunderstood one of the posts. That number of 131 is purely hypothetical; it's not in any way claimed to be a real number.

 

[Science For Creation]

Evolutionists here claimed that 131 "deleterious and immediate death" mutations per progeny (in humans) is plausible for the species to survive. Their assertion is not diminished by whether they thought it "hypothetical" or whether they thought it "happened. With 99.99999999999999999999999999999% certainty." When challenged, they doubled down and continued to claim it is plausible.

They are mistaken. This problem, known as error catastrophe or mutational meltdown, has been known to evolutionary geneticists for many decades. But they failed to communicate that to the general public, as documented here on this thread. They were negligent.

Error catastrophe remains an unsolved problem. And any solution to Haldane's Dilemma would first have to solve the problem of error catastrophe. Both problems must be solved simultaneously. Evolutionists have solved neither. It is a scandal.

 

[Riverwolf]

Evolutionists here claimed that 131 "deleterious and immediate death" mutations per progeny (in humans) is plausible for the species to survive. Their assertion is not diminished by whether they thought it "hypothetical" or whether they thought it "happened. With 99.99999999999999999999999999999% certainty." When challenged, they doubled down and continued to claim it is plausible.

They are mistaken. This problem, known as error catastrophe or mutational meltdown, has been known to evolutionary geneticists for many decades. But they failed to communicate that to the general public, as documented here on this thread. They were negligent.

Error catastrophe remains an unsolved problem. And any solution to Haldane's Dilemma would first have to solve the problem of error catastrophe. Both problems must be solved simultaneously. Evolutionists have solved neither. It is a scandal.

No, at best it's a paradox. We know that it happens. It's not "plausible"; it's a certainty. And even if there were some "scandal" involved, that wouldn't mean much of anything, really. Biological evolution happens; there is absolutely no reasonable doubt about that, at least for me, because I can directly observe it.

Besides, you keep ignoring the fact that the number 131 is derived from a hypothetical from earlier in this thread, and frankly, I'm starting to wonder if you're subconsciously ignoring it on purpose because it clashes with your preconceptions.

By the way, you can address us directly. You're not speaking to any audience but us.

 

[Simurgh]

Evolutionists here claimed that 131 "deleterious and immediate death" mutations per progeny (in humans) is plausible for the species to survive. Their assertion is not diminished by whether they thought it "hypothetical" or whether they thought it "happened. With 99.99999999999999999999999999999% certainty." When challenged, they doubled down and continued to claim it is plausible.

They are mistaken. This problem, known as error catastrophe or mutational meltdown, has been known to evolutionary geneticists for many decades. But they failed to communicate that to the general public, as documented here on this thread. They were negligent.

Error catastrophe remains an unsolved problem. And any solution to Haldane's Dilemma would first have to solve the problem of error catastrophe. Both problems must be solved simultaneously. Evolutionists have solved neither. It is a scandal.

WOAH, who are those evolutionists you are talking about anyhow? Do you think this is some esoteric tribe that hides in a cave and does evolutionary things? Seriously, people who accept evolution as a scientifically sound theory are not evolutionists, they are just science literate. So don’t make those of us who think rationally and go for facts rather than myths sound like those wild and wooly creationists with their 6000 year old dinosaurs.


You clearly have no clue about the dilemma Haldane described when talking about hemophilia and deleterious mutations. An earlier post, or five, mentioned that not all mutations are deadly or even harmful. Another thing you did not notice is that between neutral, positive and negative mutations, Haldane’s dilemma loses much of its dire predictions. There are also other factors that enter into the mutation fray and which determine when and if a mutation is actually expressed, I remember posting something to that effect myself.


Clearly, you either ignore everything that does not fit into your little universe of acceptable knowledge, or you just don’t get it. In any event, before you get bent out of shape over non-facts and misunderstood realities, educate yourself about the things you respond to. It is tedious to re-post and respond to the same information over and over again. That’s the scandal.


The general public you refer to seems to be just us. Now, that you have a problem with science and understanding just how evolution and mutation actually work is really not our problem. We are not kept in the dark--that sort of conspiracy theory crap is just another annoying creationist red herring.



And really, if one of those scientists that deal with DNA and mutations would start giving interviews on why Haldane's Dilemma is a nice theoretical issue that has been already addressed by various scientists and put into the context of current science, who do you think would actually care? You obviously don't, else you would know what you are talking about.

 

[Parsimony]

The young Earth creationism model (or at least any creationism model that says that living organisms have only been around for 6,000-10,000 years) requires mutations to become fixed at a significantly faster rate than the evolutionary model does. Just so you know.

 

[McBell]

The young Earth creationism model (or at least any creationism model that says that living organisms have only been around for 6,000-10,000 years) requires mutations to become fixed at a significantly faster rate than the evolutionary model does. Just so you know.

Not really.
i mean, when you flat out ignore any and all problems by claiming "Goddidit"....

 

[Parsimony]

Not really.
i mean, when you flat out ignore any and all problems by claiming "Goddidit"....

I get what you're saying, but I'll try to expound on my statement.

Take chimpanzees and bonobos. They have been known to interbreed in captivity and would therefore be considered the same kind in creationist circles. They have a genomic length similar to that of humans (3 billion base pairs) and are 99.6% similar in terms of nucleotides. This means that the two species differ genomically by about 12 million nucleotides. If one believes that there was a literal global flood about 4,000 years ago and that literally one species representative of each kind was taken aboard the ark, then the last common ancestor of chimps and bonobos existed 4,000 years ago in the YEC view.

This means that the 12 million nucleotide difference arose in only 4,000 years. We can be generous and say that the common ancestor was equi-distant between the bonobo and chimp genetically so that the bonobo and chimp each gained a 6 million nucleotide difference in 4,000 years. That's a nucleotide fixation rate of 1,500 per year. If you want to take the "kinds carried aboard the ark" thing less than literally, you could say that the chimp and bonobo were both carried aboard separately and the last common ancestor existed up to 6,000-10,000 years ago. This would decrease the nucleotide fixation rate to 600-1,000 per year.

The theory of evolution, on the other hand, posits that the last common ancestor of chimps and bonobos existed 1.5 million-2 million years ago. For evolution, this makes the average nucleotide fixation rate a mere 3-4 nucleotides per year. The creation model therefore requires nucleotide fixation rates 150-500 times higher than the evolutionary model does.

 

[McBell]

I get what you're saying, but I'll try to expound on my statement.

Take chimpanzees and bonobos. They have been known to interbreed in captivity and would therefore be considered the same kind in creationist circles. They have a genomic length similar to that of humans (3 billion base pairs) and are 99.6% similar in terms of nucleotides. This means that the two species differ genomically by about 12 million nucleotides. If one believes that there was a literal global flood about 4,000 years ago and that literally one species representative of each kind was taken aboard the ark, then the last common ancestor of chimps and bonobos existed 4,000 years ago in the YEC view.

This means that the 12 million nucleotide difference arose in only 4,000 years. We can be generous and say that the common ancestor was equi-distant between the bonobo and chimp genetically so that the bonobo and chimp each gained a 6 million nucleotide difference in 4,000 years. That's a nucleotide fixation rate of 1,500 per year. If you want to take the "kinds carried aboard the ark" thing less than literally, you could say that the chimp and bonobo were both carried aboard separately and the last common ancestor existed up to 6,000-10,000 years ago. This would decrease the nucleotide fixation rate to 600-1,000 per year.

The theory of evolution, on the other hand, posits that the last common ancestor of chimps and bonobos existed 1.5 million-2 million years ago. For evolution, this makes the average nucleotide fixation rate a mere 3-4 nucleotides per year. The creation model therefore requires nucleotide fixation rates 150-500 times higher than the evolutionary model does.

"how did all the various 'kinds' get on the planet?"

"God Did it"​

 

[Ouroboros]

I get what you're saying, but I'll try to expound on my statement.

Take chimpanzees and bonobos. They have been known to interbreed in captivity and would therefore be considered the same kind in creationist circles. They have a genomic length similar to that of humans (3 billion base pairs) and are 99.6% similar in terms of nucleotides. This means that the two species differ genomically by about 12 million nucleotides. If one believes that there was a literal global flood about 4,000 years ago and that literally one species representative of each kind was taken aboard the ark, then the last common ancestor of chimps and bonobos existed 4,000 years ago in the YEC view.

This means that the 12 million nucleotide difference arose in only 4,000 years. We can be generous and say that the common ancestor was equi-distant between the bonobo and chimp genetically so that the bonobo and chimp each gained a 6 million nucleotide difference in 4,000 years. That's a nucleotide fixation rate of 1,500 per year. If you want to take the "kinds carried aboard the ark" thing less than literally, you could say that the chimp and bonobo were both carried aboard separately and the last common ancestor existed up to 6,000-10,000 years ago. This would decrease the nucleotide fixation rate to 600-1,000 per year.

The theory of evolution, on the other hand, posits that the last common ancestor of chimps and bonobos existed 1.5 million-2 million years ago. For evolution, this makes the average nucleotide fixation rate a mere 3-4 nucleotides per year. The creation model therefore requires nucleotide fixation rates 150-500 times higher than the evolutionary model does.

Perfect. Absolutely perfect. :bow:

 

[Parsimony]

They could go that route if they wanted to, but then they'd have to abandon (or at least greatly modify) their whole baraminology thing.

To put my prior calculations in perspective, let's compare it with nucleotide fixation rates in HIV (which is one of the fastest evolving entities known). HIV has a genome 9,749 nucleotides in length. A study was once done on an HIV patient monitoring the genetic changes in the HIV population over the first seven years of their infection. Virus particles were taken from the patient at the beginning of the infection phase and many times throughout the seven year period. At the end of the study, it was found that the HIV population's nucleotide sequence had changed to be between 7.5% and 8% different from what it was at the beginning of the infection. This would be a difference of 731-780 nucleotides over the seven year period (which results in a fixation rate of 104-111 nucleotide changes per year).

What this means is that even a fast-adapting virus like HIV would evolve from 5 to 14 times more slowly than YECs expect chimpanzees and bonobos to have evolved. How is this remotely plausible, especially when HIV has a life cycle measured in hours or days and chimps/bonobos in years? HIV also has the higher mutation rate. Indeed, the YEC model requires 1.6-4.1 nucleotide fixations per day for the apes.

 

[Science For Creation]

ReMine's book, "The Biotic Message", does not espouse any young-earth position. So you ought start a separate thread for your speculations about young-earth issues. They are not relevant to ReMine's book.

Also, Haldane's Dilemma places a limit on the rate of beneficial substitutions, not neutral or harmful substitutions. The substitution rate can be vastly faster, if you allow the substitutions to be neutral or harmful.

For example, evolutionary geneticist Motoo Kimura cited "Haldane's Dilemma" (yes, he cited it by name) as the "main reason" why he proposed his, now famous, theory of neutral evolution. He correctly understood that the neutral substitution rate can be much faster (overall, on average) than the beneficial substitution rate. ReMine's peer-reviewed paper explains why that is correct.

Because of this, rapid genetic change -- if it be neutral or harmful -- is quite plausible. Your speculations about this matter are incorrect.

 

[Parsimony]

ReMine's book, "The Biotic Message", does not espouse any young-earth position. So you ought start a separate thread for your speculations about young-earth issues. They are not relevant to ReMine's book.

Also, Haldane's Dilemma places a limit on the rate of beneficial substitutions, not neutral or harmful substitutions. The substitution rate can be vastly faster, if you allow the substitutions to be neutral or harmful.

For example, evolutionary geneticist Motoo Kimura cited "Haldane's Dilemma" (yes, he cited it by name) as the "main reason" why he proposed his, now famous, theory of neutral evolution. He correctly understood that the neutral substitution rate can be much faster (overall, on average) than the beneficial substitution rate. ReMine's peer-reviewed paper explains why that is correct.

How can a neutral substitution reach fixation faster than a beneficial one when there are no selective pressures acting to increase the speed at which the neutral substitution will spread through the population?

Because of this, rapid genetic change -- if it be neutral or harmful -- is quite plausible. Your speculations about this matter are incorrect.

You consider the idea of a mammal evolving more than five times faster than a virus to be plausible? How?

 

[Science For Creation]

How can a neutral substitution reach fixation faster than a beneficial one ... ?

You misunderstand. A given beneficial substitution will "reach fixation" faster than a given neutral substitution. But that's not the issue in Haldane's Dilemma. The issue is the average substitution rate -- how many generations per substitution, averaged over time.

Neutral evolution is faster than beneficial evolution, and is a universally accepted result among evolutionary geneticists. See Motoo Kimura, for example. ReMine's peer-reviewed paper explains why.

You consider the idea of a mammal evolving more than five times faster than a virus to be plausible? How?

Virus genomes are tiny, and have little room for mutations that are neutral or harmful. Mammal genomes are large, and have lots of room for mutations that are neutral or harmful. This difference allows a mammal genome to 'carry' a much higher amount of mutation that is neutral or harmful, and achieve higher substitution rates (again, neutral or harmful).

Put another way. Motoo Kimura's derivation of the rate of neutral evolution assumes an "infinite sites" model of the genome. In effect, he assumed the genome is infinitely large, with an effectively infinite number of nucleotide sites that can be neutral. That assumption is suited to mammals, but not to a virus (which has a tiny genome). As a consequence, a tiny genome (such as a virus) cannot achieve as fast a substitution rate (neutral or harmful) as a mammal.

 

[Parsimony]

You misunderstand. A given beneficial substitution will "reach fixation" faster than a given neutral substitution. But that's not the issue in Haldane's Dilemma. The issue is the average substitution rate -- how many generations per substitution, averaged over time.

Neutral evolution is faster than beneficial evolution, and is a universally accepted result among evolutionary geneticists. See Motoo Kimura, for example. ReMine's peer-reviewed paper explains why.

I see. Even considering that, why should we think that the Haldane Limit poses any kind of problem for human-chimp ancestry? In order for there to be a problem, we would have to know that there are indeed more than 1,667 beneficial substitutions in the human genome that are absent in the chimpanzee genome and vice-versa. Or, more correctly, we would need to know that humans and/or chimps have more than 1,667 beneficial substitutions than their common ancestor had. Although we know the nucleotide similarity between chimpanzees and humans, we don't know how many of those nucleotides represent mutations which are beneficial/neutral/deleterious (especially since a single mutation can alter many nucleotides at once). We haven't done an exhaustive investigation of the function of all our alleles yet.

EDIT: Perhaps I spoke too soon. This source (which gets its information from this study) says that only about 238 beneficial genes have become fixed in our genome since the last common ancestor of humans and chimps. That's well below the Haldane Limit of 1,667 beneficial genes by more than 7-fold. I'd say Haldane's Limit is not a problem whatsoever here.

Virus genomes are tiny, and have little room for mutations that are neutral or harmful. Mammal genomes are large, and have lots of room for mutations that are neutral or harmful. This difference allows a mammal genome to 'carry' a much higher amount of mutation that is neutral or harmful, and achieve higher substitution rates (again, neutral or harmful).

Put another way. Motoo Kimura's derivation of the rate of neutral evolution assumes an "infinite sites" model of the genome. In effect, he assumed the genome is infinitely large, with an effectively infinite number of nucleotide sites that can be neutral. That assumption is suited to mammals, but not to a virus (which has a tiny genome). As a consequence, a tiny genome (such as a virus) cannot achieve as fast a substitution rate (neutral or harmful) as a mammal.

Let's do some more math.

According to "Analysis of Genetic Inheritance in a Family Quartet by Whole-Genome Sequencing", the genomic mutation rate in humans is ~1.1 x 10^-8 per site per generation. Multiply this by number of nucleotides in the human genome (~3 billion) and you get ~33 mutations per generation.

According to "Retrovirology", the genomic point mutation rate for HIV ranges between ~2.2-5.4 10^-5 per site per generation. Multiply this by the number of nucleotides in the HIV genome (9,749) and you get somewhere between ~0.2 and ~0.5 mutations per generation.

Seems that moderately-sized mammals do indeed acquire more mutations per generation than viruses do. However, the important difference becomes clear once you compare generation times between the two. Putting in human generation time (15-20 years), we can calculate an average of 1.65-2.2 mutations per year.

Now we look at the generation time for HIV. This website puts it at around 11 hours, this website says 10 hours, this one says 2.6 days. We will assume a "worst-case scenario" and use the 2.6 day number. Taking this number means there are about 140 generations of HIV per year, putting the mutation rate between 28 and 70 mutations per year.

So we see that, despite there being more mutations per generation for humans than HIV, HIV still has significantly more mutations per unit time than humans do (between 12 and 42 times higher). Since the generation time for HIV is also more than 2,000 times faster than for humans, mutations should reach fixation at a significantly more rapid pace for HIV as well.

Even if you take the 175 mutation figure mentioned earlier in the thread, HIV still mutates faster (8.75-11.7 mut/yr vs. 28-70 mut/yr).

I would also like to point out that the rate of substitution fixation in a population is equal to its mutation rate when genetic drift alone is at work (which works for neutral mutations). To quote my textbook:

Here we show a calculation establishing that when genetic drift is the only mechanism of evolution at work, the rate of evolutionary substitution is equal to the mutation rate (Kimura 1968).
Imagine a diploid population of size N. Within this population are 2N alleles of the locus of interest, where by "alleles" we mean copies of the gene, regardless of whether they are identical or not. Let v be the rate of selectively neutral mutations per allele per generation, and assume that each mutation creates an allele that has not previously existed in the population. Then every generation, there will be

2Nv

new alleles created by mutation. Because by assumption all new alleles are selectively neutral, genetic drift is the only force at work. Each new allele has the same chance of drifting to fixation as any other allele in the population. That chance, equal to the frequency of the new allele, is

1/2N

Therefore, each generation the number of new alleles that are created by mutation and are destined to drift to fixation is

2Nv x (1/2N) = v

The same argument applies to every generation. Therefore, the rate of evolution at the locus of interest is v substitutions per generation.