Mutation Rates: A bigger problem for YECists

[Mallon]

I don't believe that fish turned into amphibians

But...

(Tiktaalik)

or that amphibians turned to reptiles

But...

(Hylonomus)

 

[Robinsegg]

But...

(Tiktaalik)

But...

(Hylonomus)

. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking at.
Rachel

 

[Mallon]

. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking at.

Tiktaalik, a fossil exhibiting both sarcopterygian fish and amphibian characteristics, and Hylonomus, an early reptile exhibiting many amphibian skeletal characteristics.

 

[Robinsegg]

Tiktaalik, a fossil exhibiting both sarcopterygian fish and amphibian characteristics, and Hylonomus, an early reptile exhibiting many amphibian skeletal characteristics.

If you say so. I just see a bunch of rock that kinda looks like it might have a skull in the first. The second is a line drawing that's interesting, but doesn't really mean much to me. You see, I'm neither an archaeologist nor a biologist. There's a lot I don't know (including why some things look the way they do), but I know that God made whatever's there.
Rachel

 

[Mallon]

If you say so. I just see a bunch of rock that kinda looks like it might have a skull in the first. The second is a line drawing that's interesting, but doesn't really mean much to me. You see, I'm neither an archaeologist nor a biologist. There's a lot I don't know (including why some things look the way they do), but I know that God made whatever's there.
Rachel

The more you know, the more you grow. Having a paleo background, I can appreciate the difference of, say, a cleithrum. But I can't disagree with you that God is the creator of all.

 

[Poke]

First thing, I must claim ignorance on a point. The big issue here is information.

If we have blueprints for a building with 4 rooms, and a building with blueprints for 5 rooms, we wouldn't say that the latter has 20% more information than the former. This analogy probably isn't an apt fit though. I personally don't understand how mutations work on chromosomes as a whole. From an evolutionary perspective though, if a single mutation could eliminate an entire chromosome, then that is one step.

No, you're not ignorant. Yes, one mutation is (necessarily) all it takes to change the chromosome count. And, the number of chromosomes are unrelated to the content of the genes (aside from the genes that control the chromosome count). And, even if you were ignorant, that beats making arguments you know are false, to take advantage of those who are ignorant.

 

[shernren]

[switch-and-bait]

If one mutation is all it takes to change the chromosome count, doesn't that mean that sometimes a speciation event can be caused by a single mutation?

Could you please cite sources for your calculations on how long it would take for this diversity to appear?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate_of_mutation

Typical rate of mutation for eukaryotes is (taking the maximum) 10^-4 per nucleotide per generation. Giving creationists the benefit of the doubt let's set the generation time at 10 years per generation. Taking 4,500 years since the Flood, that's 450 generations, and multiplied by 10^-4, we should expect that for each animal population there can be at most 4.5% divergence between the Flood and now for each animal population. And this is not intraspecies divergence, but the maximum divergence between the two most different species in the same creationist kind.

My canid example was very flawed, but there should be better examples of this out there. Take, say, elephants. Does anybody have any data on whether the Asiatic elephant diverges from the African elephants by more than 1.8%? (using a creationist value of 25 years per generation). Or what about horses? What is the genetic divergence between a horse, a donkey, and a zebra?

 

[Poke]

[switch-and-bait]

If one mutation is all it takes to change the chromosome count, doesn't that mean that sometimes a speciation event can be caused by a single mutation?

Yes, but as I explained in other post, speciation has nothing to do with Evolution. Do you think one mutation can turn a chimp into a human? See, you agree with me.

 

[Apollo Rhetor]

And trust me, what evolutionists say is weirder than any proposed creationist problem with evolution (fact is stranger than fiction, huh? ).

I'm sure that Darwinists could come up with some quite large problems Though I assure you, it's not just YEC's that have an issue with Darwinism. I used to consider myself a YEC, but I am open to the idea that the days in Genesis are symbolic of ages.

Nooo. It is the combination of two facts:

1. the correlation between C-values and "complexity" is very, very small
2. whatever correlation there is seems to indicate that C-values are larger for simpler organisms than complex organisms.

The mean C-value for mammals is 3.5pg with a maximum of 8.4. Guess what's the average for lungfishes? A whopping 90.4pg.

That's quite interesting, and reminds me of a similar problem with homology. For example, we have two creatures which are homologically(?) similar - say an insect. What we find are numerous cases where a genetic sequence coding for a particular trait of that insect is completely different to any of it's homologous cousins, but is the same as that in completely different creatures (eg, a mouse, sea urchin, and insect sharing genetic sequences that the insect doesn't share with other insects).

What is predicted by Darwinism is not at all what is observed.

So, define information, and why do "less complex" organisms seem to have a lot "more information" than us?

This isn't something that's an issue with YEC - only with Darwinism.

YEC's believe God created original kinds. Just like any creator He is free to create using whatever 'blueprint' does the job. So for a simple appearing creature He may use quite a complex design, but for a more complex appearing creature a simple design.

This is much the same as the problem in homology. Similarities in appearance, or even in function, are found to have different genetic sequences. This looks more like the mark of an intelligent Creator who created with diverse 'blueprints' for similar appearing creatures, but also reused code for dissimilar creatures.

As for information, I'm not sure I could confidently come up with an adequate definition yet. What we are looking for is a process by which new genetic traits can be created. It's one thing to duplicate, chop and change data (such as a copy of a book which duplicates page 77, and leaves page 78 out as a result). It's another thing to produce meaningful code that adds diversity (eg, an alternative ending to a book that actually has meaning to the reader).

And yet there's a 7.56% (OTOH) difference between wolf and jackal mtDNA. Mitochondrial DNA produces mitochondria which practically drive a cell's energy production. How do you accumulate that level of change in 4,500 years? (This isn't a trick question.)

The rate of mutation on mtDNA was decided through evolutionary assumptions. Scientists calculated the time from when they thought a certain ancestor had existed until now - and then calculated what the rate of mutation on mtDNA would be. When the rate of mutation was actually measured, it turned out to be quite a lot quicker:
http://www.mhrc.net/mitochondria.htm

So even though I don't know how you calculated the 7.56%, I doubt this is a problem for YEC's.

The Flood practically erased the genetic variability at Creation. Let's take the survivors of the Flood as the starting point of all modern genetic biodiversity. After all, you don't believe that any land-breathing animals off the Ark survived, so they couldn't have contributed anything to the gene pool.

Not really true. Taking two human couples alive today, they have the raw genetic material to produce 1 in 10^2016 different children. Though the gene pool would be smaller than it was preceding the flood, it is by no means "exhausted".

Each animal has at most two variant alleles of the same genes. Each pair has two animals. So you have 4 variants at the same genes max for unclean animals and 14 variants max for clean animals. But there are genes observed today with what, 110 variant alleles? (Ask gluadys for exact numbers.) If mutation with selection "doesn't produce new information", where did these other variants come from?

Yes, I have been made aware of this situation, and I have two responses:
1. Genetic mutations could have provided some of those variants. I doubt, however, that it would explain the existence of the extra 106 alleles beyond what you would expect YEC's to predict
2. Mutations have failed as a reasonable explanation for most of the diversity we see. Mutations have produced harmful changes, have duplicated existing data (eg, to the detriment of fruit flies with another set of wings), but have not been shown to provide the sort of 'information' needed to explain a simple organism evolving into what we have today. I personally would not be surprised if there was another mechanism that explained the orgin of genetic diversity.

So in summary, mutations can provide new alleles, but it does not provide the kind of new diversity that Darwinism needs to explain its theory of evolution.

What I would like to see is a scientific culture where dissenting views are permitted, so that new ideas may be explored and considered. There is quite an irrational negative reaction to criticisms of Darwinism. I think YEC has flaws, but I also think that Darwinism is quite bankrupt. We know that evolution takes place, and that natural selection works on aiding speciation.

What we lack is a sufficient method by which to explain new genetic diversity. Mutations, as a mechanism for creating diversity, are significantly lacking in examples of the kind needed to demonstrate the production of the raw material of life.

 

[Apollo Rhetor]

Actually, we see more and more species with more and more genetic diversity. Your claim is not borne out in what can be directly observed in nature.

I often fail to quote my sources, so don't take this as an attack. Could you please provide example(s) of an increase in genetic diversity?

Though as a proviso, I know mutations can produce new diversity, but it's of the harmful kind or the kind that does nothing.

 

[shernren]

Yes, I have been made aware of this situation, and I have two responses:
1. Genetic mutations could have provided some of those variants. I doubt, however, that it would explain the existence of the extra 106 alleles beyond what you would expect YEC's to predict
2. Mutations have failed as a reasonable explanation for most of the diversity we see. Mutations have produced harmful changes, have duplicated existing data (eg, to the detriment of fruit flies with another set of wings), but have not been shown to provide the sort of 'information' needed to explain a simple organism evolving into what we have today. I personally would not be surprised if there was another mechanism that explained the orgin of genetic diversity.

So in summary, mutations can provide new alleles, but it does not provide the kind of new diversity that Darwinism needs to explain its theory of evolution.

What I would like to see is a scientific culture where dissenting views are permitted, so that new ideas may be explored and considered. There is quite an irrational negative reaction to criticisms of Darwinism. I think YEC has flaws, but I also think that Darwinism is quite bankrupt. We know that evolution takes place, and that natural selection works on aiding speciation.

What we lack is a sufficient method by which to explain new genetic diversity. Mutations, as a mechanism for creating diversity, are significantly lacking in examples of the kind needed to demonstrate the production of the raw material of life.

Wait a minute. Before anything else: are you saying that

in an evolutionary scenario
given 4.5 billion years
random mutations are insufficient to create life's diversity

but

in a YECist scenario
given 4.5 thousand years
random mutations are sufficient to recreate life's diversity
from two/fourteen representatives per (taxonomic) family?

I think this is a complete logical disconnect, isn't it? How do you justify the two completely different assessments of what mutations are actually capable of doing?

 

[sfs]

Darwinism requires an extra mechanism - the introduction of new information that provides the basis for selection and speciation. YEC's claim that genetic diversity was present at the point where God created the initial kinds. So what we see today is a regression: more speciation and a loss of genetic diversity. This fits the available data:
* We don't observe mutations of the kind that are necessary for Darwinism to explain the origin of life

Evolution doesn't explain the origin of life. It does explain the origin of the diversity of life, and all the kinds of mutation needed for that (basically just duplications and point mutations) are indeed observed.

* We observe a loss of diversity in the gene pool

You may have observed it, but geneticists haven't. Where did you get this idea from?

* We observe rapid speciation under environmental pressures as the result of already existing genetic traits

True. We also observe the accumulation of new genetic traits in populations that previously didn't have them. Some of those traits produce novel, and quite useful, functional changes. All of this is observed.

Besides being wrong on essential points, your claims simply leave out the great swathes of evidence that genetic diversity has accumulated by mutation over long periods of time. Everything we know about diversity points in that direction, and we know a quite a lot about diversity by this time.

For example, some mutations are more likely to happen than others: among the four bases in DNA (A, C, G and T) A<->G and C<->T mutations are more common than A<->T and C<->G ones. If mutations are really the source of genetic diversity, we would expect to find more variants where some people have an A and some people have a G than A/T combinations. We do. Similarly, the pair of bases C, followed by G, mutates very easily, and we find even more of those among genetic diversity. Why should this be if genetic diversity were stuck in by hand during the creation? (You might also note that the same effect -- more common mutations being found more often -- also shows up if you compare human and chimpanzee DNA. In other words, it looks exactly like the differences between the two species are also the result of mutations accumulating over many years.)

Another example: New mutations are rare in the population, and rare mutations tend to be new. In fact, there is a simple result from population genetics that says that, in an ideal population, the probability that a variant is the new (mutated) version is exactly equal to its frequency in the population. That is, if you take all the variants that occur at 10% in the population, 90% of them will be the mutated form and 10% the original form. We can check this prediction by using a closely related species to determine what the original version was at each site. If you do that for humans (using chimpanzees as the closely related species), you get a nearly perfect linear relationship between frequency and probability of being original. Again, exactly as predicted by the hypothesis that diversity is the result of mutation. What prediction does direct creation make for this relationship? (Note: the relationship is only near-perfect for African populations. Non-African populations have gone through population bottlenecks that have distorted the curve somewhat, although it is still clearly visible.)

There are other features of genetic diversity that are simply incompatible with a recent intense bottleneck in population size, as predicted by the Flood model. Among other things, the distribution of different frequencies would have a very peculiar shape after such a recent bottleneck -- nothing like what we observe -- and genetic variants would travel together in huge chunks of chromosomes, since recombination hasn't had time to scramble up the chromosomes that travelled on the ark.

Genetics provides just about as much support for YEC as astronomy does for a flat earth.

 

[sfs]

What I would like to see is a scientific culture where dissenting views are permitted, so that new ideas may be explored and considered. There is quite an irrational negative reaction to criticisms of Darwinism.

How much do you actually know about scientific culture? That is, do you do science, or do you know many scientists personally? Because dissenting views are not only permitted, they are heavily rewarded in science. But only, and this is a big caveat, if they can explain the data. Any theory that challenges Darwinism (whatever exactly you mean by that -- do you mean evolutionary biology, common descent, natural selection?) and that can explain the data is fair game. YEC is an utter failure in this department, and is (scientifically speaking), not worth wasting a second's thought on.

 

[Poke]

Evolution doesn't explain the origin of life.

Ev Ev Evolution doesn't explain the origin of life?!?!?! Where'd that come from?

I get it, there are no Evolutionists here. This is really the Turing test forum, and that's why we get so many non-sequitur and repetitious posts from the Evolutionists.

Besides being wrong on essential points, your claims simply leave out the great swathes of evidence that genetic diversity has accumulated by mutation over long periods of time.

Yeah, you've head of genetic diseases and defects. But, do you have a point? How about you share with us the one species that is the best example of genetic diversity that has accumulated by mutation over long periods of time? Don't worry, I won't hold my breath.

New mutations are rare in the population, and rare mutations tend to be new. In fact, there is a simple result from population genetics that says that, in an ideal population, the probability that a variant is the new (mutated) version is exactly equal to its frequency in the population.

So, rare mutations are less common? Wow, I guess a guy needs to be a rocket scientist to keep up with the proofs of Evolution.

Tell me, where can I find one of these "ideal" populations?

 

[Apollo Rhetor]

Wait a minute. Before anything else: are you saying that

in an evolutionary scenario
given 4.5 billion years
random mutations are insufficient to create life's diversity

but

in a YECist scenario
given 4.5 thousand years
random mutations are sufficient to recreate life's diversity
from two/fourteen representatives per (taxonomic) family?

I think this is a complete logical disconnect, isn't it? How do you justify the two completely different assessments of what mutations are actually capable of doing?

There's really two things going on here that I should say to explain this apparent contradiction. The second point is the more important:
1. Mutations do occur, and can produce changes. They have not been demonstrated to produce the kinds of changes required by Darwinism.
2. YEC's believe that all genetic diversity (and possible mechanisms to produce more diversity) were present at the creation. Natural selection can produce a new species in a matter of a few years. All it takes is selection of existing genetic traits in a population to cause it to speciate further. Because all this diversity exists at the very beginning, it would take very little time at all for speciation to take place.

So, in other words: the Darwinist must wait 4.5 billion years for mutations to provide the genetic diversity for natural selection to work on. YEC's on the other hand believe that the diversity existed from the beginning, and waits only for environmental pressures to work on it.

Farmers for example do selective breeding to get superior stock. Not only with animals, but also with plants. They are not waiting for any new genetic diversity to enter into the gene pool - they are working with what's already there. Practically, this means there is a limit to the benefit of selective breeding - because you are reducing diversity and getting a more specialised "product".

It would take, from the initial creation 6,000 years ago, but a handful of generations for speciation to take place. In a few hundred years Adam and Eve would have observed a great array of species having derived from a handful of ancestors.

 

[Apollo Rhetor]

True. We also observe the accumulation of new genetic traits in populations that previously didn't have them. Some of those traits produce novel, and quite useful, functional changes. All of this is observed.

It's a bit hard to deal with your posts unless you present the specifics. What's the best example you can think of, of a "novel, and quite useful, functional change"?

 

[sfs]

Ev Ev Evolution doesn't explain the origin of life?!?!?! Where'd that come from?

From reality. Evolution is a process of change within living creatures, a process that is studied by biologists. Evolution can't happen until life already exists.

The process by which life started is an interdisciplinary area, but is mostly the province of chemists. So the two fields (evolution and origins of life) are about different things, and are studied by different people using different methods.

Yeah, you've head of genetic diseases and defects.

Yes, I have. Were you trying to make a point here? Because your response seems to have nothing to do with what I wrote. There is overwhelming evidence from within genetics that genetic diversity arises from mutations. I sketched some of that evidence in my post, and you ignored almost all of it. (In the one place you did respond to it, you missed the point.) You may not know or understand the evidence, but it's there, and it's the reason that geneticists overwhelmingly reject YEC.

But, do you have a point? How about you share with us the one species that is the best example of genetic diversity that has accumulated by mutation over long periods of time? Don't worry, I won't hold my breath.

Look, I don't know you at all. Is there some reason you're coming on with all this hostility here? If you just want to give the impression that you're a jerk, you're succeeding. If you want to engage the evidence, however, you're taking a vey strange route.

"The one species" that is the best example? Many species provide good examples. Humans are probably the best studied, so they may be the best example. All of the features that I mentioned in my previous post can be observed in humans (along with quite a few others). Why don't you try dealing with the evidence instead of ignoring it? If you don't understand my claim, ask questions about it. If you disagree with what I wrote, argue against it.

So, rare mutations are less common? Wow, I guess a guy needs to be a rocket scientist to keep up with the proofs of Evolution.

Um, huh? What does that have to do with what I wrote? Rare mutations (that is, mutations that have few copies in the population) are recent, not less common. (In fact, they are more common: there are many more rare variants than common variants.) Simple question: what is the prediction of creationism for this? What relationship should there be between the frequency of a variant and how likely it is to be the same base as found in other species?

Tell me, where can I find one of these "ideal" populations?

The same place you can find ideal gases and ideal conductors. You won't. But you can find many populations for which the model of an ideal population is a good approximation. Humans are not bad in this regard, although they are not the best around.

 

[sfs]

It's a bit hard to deal with your posts unless you present the specifics. What's the best example you can think of, of a "novel, and quite useful, functional change"?

The best example of directly observed useful functional change is the development of antibiotic resistance in cultured bacteria, since in that case you can know for certain that it is a new mutation you're dealing with. The ability to cope with a lethel antibiotic is obviously useful to the bacteria.

In the wild, you have to rely on indirect evidence that the mutation is new, since you don't know the DNA sequence for every member of the species. The indirect evidence can be quite strong, however -- it shows not that the useful variant is a new mutation, but that it started as a single copy, that is, that all the individuals who have it are descended from a single individual, which is what you would expect from a new mutation.

A nice example of this type is lactose tolerance in humans. Most human adults are unable to digest lactose, but in northern Europe (and in people descended from northern Europe) the ability to digest it is quite common. All of those people share a nearly identical, long stretch of DNA on chromosome 2, indicating they all inherit it from a single copy a few thousand years ago. Since the unique variants in that stretch are all things that happen quite routinely by mutation, why wouldn't you conclude that it was a mutation that produced the new trait?

 

[shernren]

Farmers for example do selective breeding to get superior stock. Not only with animals, but also with plants. They are not waiting for any new genetic diversity to enter into the gene pool - they are working with what's already there. Practically, this means there is a limit to the benefit of selective breeding - because you are reducing diversity and getting a more specialised "product".

Okay, I get what you are trying to say. But may I ask: has any farmer ever successfully performed selective breeding for any trait... starting with exactly two animals? A gene pool with two animals has at most 4 allele variants per gene. Mutation is still needed to come up with the other, say, 106 to meet up to our currently observed 110. And that is at one single genetic locus, not in terms of how many possible combinations of genes there can be.

Creationists say that mutations can't account for human-chimp divergence in 5 million years, even though the starting population is at least in the thousands for the ancestor (and each ancestor with a fully formed genome) ... and then they say that mutations can get diverge a dog-like ancestor into both wolves and jackals within 4,500 years.

Don't I have a right to be sceptical?

 

[gluadys]

As for what mechanism in the YEC view can account for these changes: Creationists see the kind beginning with great diversity. From there speciation occurred. Imagine a factory that can produce a toy with four different parts - legs, arms, body and head. For each of these it has two variations. So you have at each position two choices, effectively giving 16 combinations. This is roughly how YEC's see the original created kinds - they contained the raw material to see all the diversity we see today. From those original kinds the creatures have speciated.

Diversity means more than the various ways a few different traits can be combined. It also refers to how much variation exists for each trait on its own.

In your example above, each of the four traits exists in only two variants (which is the maximum one could have in two individuals). And, indeed, by mixing and matching two variants over four traits, you can get an impressive number of non-identical individuals.

However, another form of diversity is to have more than two variants for one or more traits. Instead of just two body choices, have three. Instead of just two head choices have five.

It is this kind of diversity evolutionists are speaking of when they refer to changing the distribution of alleles. Not the mixing and matching of different genes, but how many variances there are in the same gene. Alleles are the variances that can exist in the same chromosomal locus.

So the mechanism a YEC would claim to explain these quick changes would be - an initially large gene pool that was decreased through speciation and loss of information (natural selection). We have more species today than at the beginning, but overall a less diverse gene pool.

It is important to remember that an initially large gene pool requires an initially large population. For no individual member of a species carries more than two options out of the gene pool for each trait. So if there are say 6 options for a particular gene in the gene pool, there must be a minimum population of three; if there are 50 options for a particular trait, there must be a minimum population of 25, etc.

Furthermore, for all those options to survive the size of the population can never become less than that minimum.

This poses a problem for the concept of kinds. Since all the species within a kind have the same ancestor, the population of the kind must be, both initially and subsequently, no less than all the variants of a particular trait, not just in one of its descendant species, but in all of them. In the cat family for example, the gene pool of the original cat family ancestor must accomodate the stripes of the tiger, the spots of the leopard, the plain brown of the lion, and all the variants of the domestic cat. Hence the population of the original cat ancestor must be sufficiently large to allow for this much diversity in the gene pool, and it may never decrease below the minimum necessary to accomodate this diversity.

The alternative is to allow for less diversity in the original gene pool and increase the diversity through mutation.