Mutation Rates: A bigger problem for YECists

[steen]

Yes, but as I explained in other post, speciation has nothing to do with Evolution..

And just as there, your claim here is false.

 

[gluadys]

1. the correlation between C-values and "complexity" is

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?

I don't know the exact numbers, but the lowest estimate I have seen (from Answers in Genesis) is 200 different alleles for human hemoglobin.

Human hemoglobin comes in two varieties: alpha and beta. Each of these consists of not one gene but a cluster of gene families (I haven't found out yet how many in each.) Then each gene in the cluster can vary. The 200 or 250 or more hemoglobin alleles refer to all the variations of all the genes in each of the two hemoglobin families. And those numbers are conservative.

 

[steen]

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?

Well, a by now classic example is the nylon-digesting bacteria:
http://www.nmsr.org/nylon.htm

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

That's actually not true. Most mutations are neutral. Of the remainder, most are harmful, but by no means are no mutations beneficial. That simply is incorrect. Here are some examples:
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoMutations.html

 

[steen]

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

from the Scientific Theory of Evolution. This has been explained to you many times by now. Your exclamation is rather deceptive and disengenious.

I get it, there are no Evolutionists here.

AH, you are obviously NOT getting it.

This is really the Turing test forum, and that's why we get so many non-sequitur and repetitious posts from the Evolutionists.

Huh? Did you feel that you being snide in exposing your ignorance about Evolution is somehow increasing your credibility?

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?

ALL species are. Didn't you know?

 

[steen]

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.

Evidence?

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 how do you explain the nylon-digesting bacteria?
http://www.nmsr.org/nylon.htm

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.

This is a misrepresentation. Natural Selection began with the very first mutation.

YEC's on the other hand believe that the diversity existed from the beginning, and waits only for environmental pressures to work on it.

So you are claiming that no mutations have occurred since the beginning of life?

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".

Yes? But then, interestingly enough, genetic engineering and induction of mutations is a oft-used tool in plant breeding, and it has indeed lead to brand new species as well. So that kind of contradicts your claim.

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.

Evidence? How could hundreds of mutations in specific genes accumulate over that time?

 

[gluadys]

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".

Not necessarily. This figure is actually derived from the random assortment of maternal and paternal chromosomes during meiosis.

As you know, each of us receives 23 chromosomes from our father and a matching set of 23 chromosomes from our mother. 50% of our chromosomes come from each parent.

But it does not follow that 25% of our chromosomes come from each grandparent. The reason is random assortation of paternal and maternal chromosomes to the gametes.

When the paternal and maternal chromosomes line up in pairs during meiosis, one of each pair is distributed to the haploid gamete, and whether it is the paternal chromosome or the maternal chromosome in each pair is an independent chance.

It is entirely possible that a gamete receives only chromosomes derived from the paternal ancestor. Or it may have 5% maternal and 95% paternal. Or 43% maternal and 57% paternal.

Furthermore, of two gametes which each receive 5% maternal chromosomes, they will not likely receive the same package of maternal chromosomes. One could receive maternal chromosomes 2,10, 14 and 22, while the other receives maternal chromosomes 6, 8, 17 and 20. Ditto for other percentages.

Altogether there are 2^23 possible combinations of paternal and maternal chromosomes for each gamete. And when two gametes combine, the total possible chromosomal combinations from the paternal and maternal chromosomes of both parents comes, as you say to 10^2016. (It is actually greater than that still since through all of this we are ignoring the additional potentiality of variation induced by chromosomal cross-over, which is also part of the process of meiosis).


However, this does not necessarily translate into that many different children. Suppose that chromosome #8 is identical in all four grandparents. Then it doesn't matter which grandparent's chromosome a child inherits. Relative to that chromosome, s/he will not differ from his/her siblings who inherited a different grandparent's chromosome.

So the above figure of 10^2016 is a maximum, depending on whether or not there are differences in the chromosomes received from different parents/grandparents. The fewer differences there are in the chromosomes, the fewer differences are possible in the children, even though the chromosomes are randomly assorted.

The more homogeneous a population, the fewer differences will appear, even though the mathematical distribution of chromosomes remains the same.


Finally, none of this speaks to variation in the genes themselves. While chromosomal assortment will mix and match the possibilities of different genes, it does not deal with how the genes themselves develop the diversity to offer different options for each trait.

 

[gluadys]

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.

Just curious. If speciation is so easy and quick in nature, why did the descendants of Adam and Eve (or of Noah & family) not also speciate within a few generations?

 

[Poke]

Just curious. If speciation is so easy and quick in nature, why did the descendants of Adam and Eve (or of Noah & family) not also speciate within a few generations?

Maybe if colleges stuck closer to real science, you wouldn't have to ask such questions.

If people were treated like animals, there would probably be "officially" a number of existent human species, much like dogs and wolves are classified as separate species even though they can cross breed.

Most assumed speciation has occurred among kinds where it is more difficult to measure ability to cross breed, or where sexual reproduction is less important to reproduction. Some kinds of organisms, for other reasons, may just be more resistant to speciation.

 

[Apollo Rhetor]

However, this does not necessarily translate into that many different children. Suppose that chromosome #8 is identical in all four grandparents. Then it doesn't matter which grandparent's chromosome a child inherits. Relative to that chromosome, s/he will not differ from his/her siblings who inherited a different grandparent's chromosome.

So the above figure of 10^2016 is a maximum, depending on whether or not there are differences in the chromosomes received from different parents/grandparents. The fewer differences there are in the chromosomes, the fewer differences are possible in the children, even though the chromosomes are randomly assorted.

The calculation,a s far as I understood, took into account these factors. Of course, given any two specific parents, the exact values will vary, but 10^2016 is close to the average of today's human.

Actually, the article which I'm providing now (and is not the original source of the values I quoted) gives 10^2017. Not an important difference. Here it describes the important factors:

With humans, both the mother’s and father’s halves have 100,000 genes, the information equivalent to a thousand 500-page books (3 billion base pairs, as Teaching about Evolution correctly states on page 42). The ardent neo-Darwinist Francisco Ayala points out that humans today have an ‘average heterozygosity of 6.7 percent.’1 This means that for every thousand gene pairs coding for any trait, 67 of the pairs have different alleles, meaning 6,700 heterozygous loci overall. Thus, any single human could produce a vast number of different possible sperm or egg cells 26700 or 102017.

Obviously then, if YEC's are right, then the closer you move to the Adam & Eve, the higher this value would be.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/re1/chapter2.asp

 

[Apollo Rhetor]

So many posts to reply to!

I don't know the exact numbers, but the lowest estimate I have seen (from Answers in Genesis) is 200 different alleles for human hemoglobin.

Do you have a link to this article?

 

[steen]

Do you have a link to this article?

Here are some scientific, peer-reviewed sources:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3659/is_200308/ai_n9248989
ROBERT C. WILLIAMS. The Mind of Primitive Anthropologists: Hemoglobin and HLA, Patterns of Molecular Evolution. Human Biology, August 2003, v. 75, no. 4, pp. 577-584.
...Human HLA-A has 237 molecular alleles....

(PubMed's link to the abstract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14655878&dopt=Abstract )

And here is where HLA typing and similar tyopes are used for dating Homo sapiens:
http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v33/n3s/full/ng1113.html
...Two recent estimates of TMRCA from mtDNA have been made using different methods. From complete mtDNA sequences (excluding the D loop) in a sample of 53 individuals, 516 segregating sites were seen and a TMRCA was estimated at 171

50 kya70. From a sample of 179 individuals with 971 SNPs, the TMRCA was estimated at 200−281 kya using a generation time of 25 years, and 160−225 kya using a generation time of 20 years75. Corresponding estimates for the NRY-based TMRCA are 60−130 kya and 72−156 kya, with generation times of 25 and 30 years, respectively75.

It is important to stress that such estimates of TMRCAs do not imply that the human population contained only one woman at 230 kya (the time of the mtDNA-based TMRCA, assuming constant mutation rates) or only one man at 100 kya (the time of the NRY-based TMRCA). The only implication is that all human mitochondria existing today descend from that of a single woman living 230 kya, and all NRYs descend from that of a single man living 100 kya. In both cases, it is likely that there were many more human individuals alive at the TMRCA—whether they were of the same species as Homo sapiens is hard to determine, but descendants of other species are either absent or extremely rare...

 

[gluadys]

So many posts to reply to!



Do you have a link to this article?

Yep!

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/feedback/feedback_24January2003.asp

 

[Apollo Rhetor]

Thanks for your response.

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.

If I understand correctly, most cases of bacterial immunity is the result of a failure to create a certain enzyme, so the bacteria can no longer poisoned. This, while conferring an advantage, obviously is a loss of information. Much like a bank vault that is more secure because it has no doors - it provides a specific advantage, but through a loss (no longer possible to access the vault).

Some bacteria I believe do have changes that are directly beneficial though, and not the result of a mutation that causes a loss of information. Unfortuantely, I've only heard that such bacteria exist, and nothing more.

The nylon-eating bacteria seems to point to a source other than mutations as the cause of the new ability.

Mutations do occur. What Darwinism needs is changes of the kind that allow us to transition from 'simple' single celled life to what we see today. Mutations that confer immunity to bacteria are not the kinds of changes that are needed to support Darwinism. Changes in morphology are needed, changes that grant advantages in that respect. It's one thing to change details inside a building (knock out a wall to give new access to a room) - it's another thing entirely to describe the construction of a building from scratch.

Do you have an example of mutations producing the kinds of changes required to demonstrate Darwinism? A common one is the fruit fly with another set of wings. But all this mutation really does is replace existing code with something poorer (non functioning wings), and also causes the fruit fly to loose a morpohological trait that aids with in-flight balance.

As someone who doesn't believe in Darwinism, I need to be able to see processes that are of the kind that would explain the origin of life today from a simple life form. Mutations do not provide the raw stuff necessary.

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?

Based on your description, and some very quick reading (just got back from Church), lactose intolerence appears to be a mutation that prevents a shutdown in adults. ie, the destruction of a process that happens to lead to an advantage.

Of course, that begs the question of why God would want humans to be lactose intolerence in their adult years, if he original designed it that way I don't have an answer to that.

 

[gluadys]

The calculation,a s far as I understood, took into account these factors.

Work out the math for yourself. You will see it only tracks the various possibilities of paternal/maternal chromosome inheritance with no reference as to whether the two chromosomes are different or not.

Of course, given any two specific parents, the exact values will vary, but 10^2016 is close to the average of today's human.

No they won't. Not unless you are dealing with one of those rare individuals that have an extra chromosome.

As long as both parents have 23 pairs of chromosomes, the possible assortments of paternal & maternal chromosomes is mathematically the same.

Actually, the article which I'm providing now (and is not the original source of the values I quoted) gives 10^2017. Not an important difference. Here it describes the important factors:

AiG is discussing random assortment of chromosomes. It is not discussing diversity of genes in the same locus. Until you understand this difference, you will not grasp what the issue is.

Let's look a little more closely at the article to see if I can explain the critical points.

So there are two genes at a given position (locus, plural loci) coding for a particular characteristic. An organism can be heterozygous at a given locus, meaning it carries different forms (alleles) of this gene. For example, one allele can code for blue eyes, while the other one can code for brown eyes; or one can code for the A blood type and the other for the B type.​

When we speak of heterozygosity, we are noting that there is a difference between the pair of genes in an individual organism. Since no organism carries more than two copies of a gene, only two versions of a gene can exist in any one individual. OK?

Now when they speak of blood type they are correct to say that of the two genes, one can code for A and the other for B. What they don't mention is that there is a third blood type: type O. Now if one individual can have only two copies of a gene, and already has an A type and a B type--it cannot also have an O type. The only place the O type can exist is in a different organism.

All three types exist in the gene pool (the sum of all different types of a gene), but only two at a time can exist in each individual organism. Got it?

Ayala who is quoted in the article, is focusing on how much of the human genome shows heterozygosity. In how many places is it possible for the two genes an individual inherits to be different from each other.

This is a different matter entirely from how many different forms the genes may take. With blood type, the genes show 3 different types. Each individual gets either two genes of one type or one gene each of two types. But no individual gets all three types, because no individual has three of the same gene. Clear?

Now, when we are speaking of the diversity of genes, we are speaking of how many different types of genes exist in the whole population, not how many types exist in one individual. We know that no more than two can exist in one individual. But there can be many more than two types of the same gene in the population. There can be 3 or 11 or dozens or even hundreds of variants on the same gene in a population. But you also need a population size large enough to accommodate so much diversity in a single gene.

Obviously then, if YEC's are right, then the closer you move to the Adam & Eve, the higher this value would be.

No, it would be less, because as you reduce the population, you reduce the capacity for gene diversity.

AiG simply does not talk about gene diversity. It talks only about random assortment. But random assortment is not a source of gene diversity.

Let's look at the difference.

The article mentions two traits each with two expressions. Brown vs. blue eyes; A vs B blood type.

If both parents are heterozygous for both traits the possible combinations in the children are:

brown eyes + A blood type
brown eyes + B blood type
blue eyes + A blood type
blue eyes + B blood type

If we added a third characteristic (let's say thin lips vs full lips) the possible combinations double to eight. Each additional trait doubles the possible overall combinations with only two genetic variants each. So, yes, you can get a lot of unique individuals with only two variants per gene. But that uniqueness depends on combinations of different traits each regulated by different genes.

This is not the sort of difference we are looking at in evolution. In evolution we are looking at how many different types of each gene exist in the same locus in the total population and what percent of the total population shares the same variant. Changes in this percentage from one generation to another is the definition of evolution.

With hair colour for example, we have black, brown, blond and red hair (and many variations of each of these). Black and brown are much more common than blond (natural that is), and red, which depends on a double recessive, is the least common. When studying evolution, the scientist does not look for how many ways hair colour and blood-type can be combined. S/he looks for whether or not a hair colour is becoming more or less common. And at whether a new colour is appearing or an established one disappearing. That is what a scientist means by evolution. This has little to do with whether or not individuals are heterzygous, and nothing to do with how different traits/genes are combined to build different morphological profiles.

In random assortment, the focus is on how single individuals are endowed with combinations of different traits.

In evolution the focus is on how different variations of the same trait are distributed through the population, regardless of how they are combined with other traits. Is this clear?

Now, as we have already established, some genes exist in more than the two forms which can be found in a heterozygous individual. There are many which exist in more than the four forms which can be found in a pair of heterozygous individuals (assuming not only that both are heterozygous, but are also heterozygous for two different alleles i.e Jane is heterozygous for alleles A & B, and Jim is heterozygous for alleles C & D.)

As long as we have only two individuals, the maximum number of variants per gene is four. Even with mutation. Suppose Jane experiences a mutation in a germ-line cell that changes allele B to allele G. Fine, she can now pass on allele G to her offspring, but she no longer has allele B.

The only way to allow more alleles in the population is to increase the size of the population.

This is why, as we go back to Adam and Eve, there will be less rather than more genetic diversity. There is no way two individuals provide a physical basis for over 200 variants of hemoglobin. The most they can provide for is 4 variants. To get more, you need both a larger population and mutations to generate new alleles. And that takes time.

 

[Apollo Rhetor]

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.

Well, first of all, yes I believe there would be enough diversity with only 4 alleles at each locus to provide benefit. Do you have any reason to believe this wouldn't be sufficient?

I'd say that when farmers selectively breed, they have no idea what alleles they are selecting. They just see a particular stock or plant that fares better, so they favour it. The point of that example was to demonstrate selection occuring on already existing traits, which:
a. result in a loss of genetic diversity
b. has a limit to how far the selection can improve stock
c. works on already existing traits in a population

Having just read the article that Gluadys provided, I would be interested to know whether we have at most loci >4 alleles, or if at many there are four or less. I am vaguely aware that some mutations are more likely to occur than others. So is it possible that some loci would have more alleles in a population than others? Of course, if that were discovered, it wouldn't provide evidence against Darwinism (since Darwinists claim a bottleneck through one woman about 200,000 years ago) - but it would count as evidence favouring a YEC explanation more than a Darwinist one.

I don't fully understand the AiG answer in that link Gluadys provided - but it does seem to me that mutations as a source is a sufficient explanation for YEC's.

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.

As I said earlier, YEC's don't claim that the divergence of dog-like ancestors was the result of mutations. It was the result of selection on already existing traits. A few mutations may have entered the gene pool, but that's not really relevant for the discussion. The YEC model allows for mutations to provide changes. It's just not a sufficient process to provide the changes that Darwinists need. Even the best examples (such as fruit flies) are exceedingly lacking as evidences of a sufficient process.

Don't I have a right to be sceptical?

In trying to understand something, including an opposing viewpoint, it's always important to ask the tough questions rather than ignoring them.

In this case, I think your questions are good - I've debated Darwinism a great many times, and discovered that most (perhaps all) don't even understand the YEC model. Admittedly, most I've discussed with were atheists.

There are good answers to your questions. But I do think that the YEC model is lacking in some parts - primarily in cosmology, and probably even in the age of the earth. But I'm no scientist, so you're best to consult with the experts.

 

[steen]

The nylon-eating bacteria seems to point to a source other than mutations as the cause of the new ability.

Nope. the reference links provided goes into very specific details on exactly what frame-[bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]f mutation caused the new ability to digest Nylon, a compound that didn't even exist 100 years ago
http://www.nmsr.org/nylon.htm

 

[Apollo Rhetor]

AiG is discussing random assortment of chromosomes. It is not discussing diversity of genes in the same locus. Until you understand this difference, you will not grasp what the issue is.

I think I understand the point you're making. I had indeed read the article incorrectly, but not to the detriment of the point I was trying to make.

Thanks for the explanation, it was good. Basically the article itself talks about the number of possible combinations of egg or sperm. As in, in an individual human there are 10^2017 possible different sperm or egg makeups. That means that if we were to include in the calculations both the father and mother, it would be far greater than 10^2017 possible children - assuming that the father and mother possess at least one different allele at a locus (ie, the parents aren't twins).

As you mentioned, the article was only talking about the diversity of alleles within a single human.

The point I see you trying to present more clearly is that this article has little or nothing to say about the frequency of a given allele in the population, or about the numbers of alleles in a population at a given locus. Which I totally agree. I presented this article and value (10^2017) to refute objections about there not being enough diversity in two humans to account for the diversity today. It is true, at the very least, that if God created two of each kind that there would be far greater than 10^2017 possible different offspring. And, therefore, easily enough genetic material to provide great diversity and material for selection. ie, enough material to produce a diversity of species.

Regarding Adam & Eve you make a good point. Two things for me to say:
1. The calculation of 10^2017 is based on a human today with heterozygosity of 6.7%. Hypothetically, Adam & Eve could have had a far greater heterozygosity (if God pleased - but probably not 100%!). They also hypothetically could have possessed two different alleles from each other at any given heterozygos locus. That means if the average human today has 10^2017 possible children, then Adam and Eve together would have (hypothetically) a far greater number than that - not taking into account your good point about the diversity of alleles within a population over time. Of course, I talk here about hypothetically what Adam & Eve could have been like.
2. Regarding diversity being lower the closer you move to Adam & Eve, you are absolutely right when you look at it on a population level. Given that there are more alleles within the population at some (all?) given loci than there would have been between Adam & Eve, the capacity of our population for diversity may exceed that of Adam & Eve. However, I would question about the possibility of any two given male or females today vs Adam & Eve. But I take your point, and you may be correct.

I was basically trying to answer questions along the lines of "how could two people have the raw material necessary to produce today's diverse species?" This article quotation was a direct response to that question. As for the question about how the YEC can account for >4 alleles at a given locus in a population is something else. I wasn't using this as a reference to answer that.

 

[gluadys]

I think I understand the point you're making. I had indeed read the article incorrectly, but not to the detriment of the point I was trying to make.

The rest of your post still indicates a lot of confusion.

Thanks for the explanation, it was good. Basically the article itself talks about the number of possible combinations of egg or sperm.

More specifically, the possible assortments of grandparental chromosomes in a zygote.

As in, in an individual human there are 10^2017 possible different sperm or egg makeups.

No, in an individual there are 2^23 possible different sperm or egg makeups. That works out roughly to 8*10^6. The higher figure comes from combining the sperm and egg into a diploid cell again. So you are using all the possible combinations for a sperm multiplied by all the possible combinations for an egg to get all the possible combinations in a human zygote.

assuming that the father and mother possess at least one different allele at a locus (ie, the parents aren't twins).

Whether the parents are twins or even cousins has nothing to do with it. It is always possible for one or both parents to be homozygous, and even homozygous for the same allele. In fact, most of the time that is what you see. Remember Ayala's figure of 6.7% heterozygosity? That means that of all the genes in the human genome, 93.3% are homozygous throughout the population. There is no variation to permit a heterozygous inheritance. All the genes in all the population at those loci are identical. This is called "fixation". Natural selection moves alleles toward fixation.

As you mentioned, the article was only talking about the diversity of alleles within a single human.

And the limit of allelic diversity in a single human is 2.

The point I see you trying to present more clearly is that this article has little or nothing to say about the frequency of a given allele in the population, or about the numbers of alleles in a population at a given locus. Which I totally agree.

Right.

I presented this article and value (10^2017) to refute objections about there not being enough diversity in two humans to account for the diversity today.

But the kind of diversity you are presenting is not what a scientist means by diversity in a population when referring to evolution. The scientist is referring to allelic diversity, not combinatorial diversity.

It is true, at the very least, that if God created two of each kind that there would be far greater than 10^2017 possible different offspring.

It would depend on the species and the level of heterozygosity. A pea plant has only 7 pairs of chromosomes IIRC. Other plants and animals have more than 100. Few chromosomes and/or little heterozygosity would mean fewer different combinations of traits. And more of either would produce more combinations of traits. Though one must also remember that the possible combinations are less for genes on the same chromosome, as they will be inherited together.

And, therefore, easily enough genetic material to provide great diversity and material for selection. ie, enough material to produce a diversity of species.

No, selection does not affect combinations of traits. It affects the frequency of alleles for one trait. And the frequency of homozygous vs. heterozygous pairings.


One way speciation occurs is for a heterozygous condition to be less fit than either homozygous condition. As individuals who are heterozygous fail to reproduce, the population divides into two groups, one homozygous for one allele, one homozygous for the other.

OTOH the heterozygous condition may be the most favorable possibility. This is the case with sickle cell trait in malaria-prone areas. The homozygous condition for sickle-cell disease is clearly not favorable as it causes sickle-cell anemia. But the homozygous condition for the absence of sickle-cell disease leaves the individual more prone to malaria. So the favored condition is the heterozygous condition which provides some resistance to malaria without causing anemia.

Regarding Adam & Eve you make a good point. Two things for me to say:
1. The calculation of 10^2017 is based on a human today with heterozygosity of 6.7%. Hypothetically, Adam & Eve could have had a far greater heterozygosity (if God pleased - but probably not 100%!). They also hypothetically could have possessed two different alleles from each other at any given heterozygos locus. That means if the average human today has 10^2017 possible children, then Adam and Eve together would have (hypothetically) a far greater number than that - not taking into account your good point about the diversity of alleles within a population over time. Of course, I talk here about hypothetically what Adam & Eve could have been like.

Again, this is hypothetically true for combinations of traits, but does not speak to diversity of traits. And diversity of traits is the issue when it comes to evolution.

2. Regarding diversity being lower the closer you move to Adam & Eve, you are absolutely right when you look at it on a population level. Given that there are more alleles within the population at some (all?) given loci than there would have been between Adam & Eve, the capacity of our population for diversity may exceed that of Adam & Eve. However, I would question about the possibility of any two given male or females today vs Adam & Eve. But I take your point, and you may be correct.

Evolution is population focused. Individuals do not evolve. So what is true in terms of the Mendelian genetics of an individual or a mating pair is irrelevant to evolution. To study evolution one must study population genetics.

I was basically trying to answer questions along the lines of "how could two people have the raw material necessary to produce today's diverse species?"

I hope you understand now that that question has not been answered. It answers the question of why each individual in a population is unique. It does not show how one moves from individual uniqueness to diverse species. Nor to how a species acquires more diversity in various traits.

This article quotation was a direct response to that question. As for the question about how the YEC can account for >4 alleles at a given locus in a population is something else. I wasn't using this as a reference to answer that.

Indeed, you couldn't because these are different issues.

 

[shernren]

The point I see you trying to present more clearly is that this article has little or nothing to say about the frequency of a given allele in the population, or about the numbers of alleles in a population at a given locus. Which I totally agree. I presented this article and value (10^2017) to refute objections about there not being enough diversity in two humans to account for the diversity today. It is true, at the very least, that if God created two of each kind that there would be far greater than 10^2017 possible different offspring. And, therefore, easily enough genetic material to provide great diversity and material for selection. ie, enough material to produce a diversity of species.

Here's a simple, though unexact, example to demonstrate what gluadys and I are talking about.

Let's say my blood type is O and my wife's blood type is AB. That means genetically my blood is represented by the homozygotic combination OO, and my wife's is a heterozygotic combination AB.

Now if I have a child and his blood type is also AB that's grounds for divorce, because there's no way my genome and my wife's can recombine to produce AB. I wouldn't care a whit that there are 10^2017 possible combinations of my wife's genome and mine, not a single one of them has an AB blood type.

See the problem? We're not talking about the impossibility of overall having a lot of different genomes. We're talking about how it is impossible for only two individual's genomes to contain at the same spot the diversity we now see expressed in the population.

 

[Apollo Rhetor]

See the problem? We're not talking about the impossibility of overall having a lot of different genomes. We're talking about how it is impossible for only two individual's genomes to contain at the same spot the diversity we now see expressed in the population.

Haven't replied to gluadys yet, because her replies are usually long and I'm at work now

The current level/numbers of alleles in the population cannot be represented in two people alone, I did acknowledge that. Mutations can produce new alleles, which is also not a problem.

If you were OO and your wife was AB, you might have two children - one with AO and the other with BO. Now if those two children were to have a child themselves, you could end up with a child who was OO, AO, BO, or AB. Thus two human couples can produce all four combinations within two generations.

(bearing in mind that Adam & Eve, being created flawless, would have had no recessive mutations to cause troubles with siblings having children).

Of course, for natural selection to take place, these two would need to have many children, who have many children, so that certain alleles become more frequent. But we don't know what the pre-flood population distribution was like. Perhaps racism was uncommon, and diversity was seen mixed together. Perhaps people did congregate with morphologically similar humans, and thus selection played a part. The point is that two parents (animal or otherwise) contain within them a great diversity to form many subgroups given enough generations.