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Scott, I would specifically like to see you address the errors I listed in the summary that I've pasted below.
Comments from others also welcome.
Mistakenly claiming that Haldane based his substitution estimate on the observation of peppered moths (Haldane did the opposite, see Haldane 1957, p521)
You sure like p.521. In my copy of Haldane's 1957 paper, on p.521. there is nothing at all about what he based his estimate on. You should notice that on the first page, p. 511, Haldane expends some time explaining the observations seen in peppered moths, and how he will attempt to estimate "the effect of natural selection in depressing the fitness of a species." I committed an error of omission, and should have included the fact that he considered some
Drosophila experiments and such as well. However, your claim that he "did the opposite" seems to have no basis in reality.
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Implying that a large population is a bad assumption for evolution (Haldane did the opposite; see Haldane 1960, p351)
You are recklessly misrepresenting me. I claimed no such thing. Quoting from my solid refutation of your original bombast, the times I mentioned population size or Haldane's use of it:
"premised on unrealistic assumptions (such a s a constant population size), made using observations of phenotypic variation in Peppered moths."
"Williams writes "entire population" for a reason - the connotation of "entire population" is that the population is extremely large, such as the human population of today. This is an unreasonable allusion."
I did, however, say that a
constant population size is an unrealistic assumption. But 'constant' does not mean 'large.'
Misrepresentation.
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Claiming that a wild-type allele can still persist in a population even after its mutant allele reaches 100% fixation in the same population!
I see you have trouble with what fixation means, or perhaps are unaware of what a dominat allele is. If 100% of a population has a DOMINANT allele, they can still be heterozygous - the individuals can still have a recessive allele for the same locus, and yet they all would exhibit the dominant phenotype.
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Because of his previous error, reaches the erroneous conclusion that a dominate[sic] allele does not need to be replaced, which implies it has no reproductive cost.
More misrepresentation. If the members of a population are homozygous for the wild type, then the replacement of one allele with a dominant mutant will incur your beloved cost. However, the impact of the cost - under realistic assumptions - is not what you continue to claim it is.
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Claiming that a beneficial mutation will spread through a population in a sexual species "as well" as it would in an asexual species, even given an environment free of deleterious mutations. I wonder if there is even one population geneticist in the world who would agree with him.
I really wish that you would put a lid on your shameless attempts at revisionism. That or learn some common colloquial english:
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary
"as well 1 : in addition : ALSO"
I wrote:
"If there were no deleterious mutations, then beneficial mutations would by necessity spread throughout a sexual species
as well, since those are the only mutations available."
IN RESPONSE TO YOUR HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIO:
"Let's assume an environment where there are no deleterious mutations, just beneficial ones."
I am unsure whether you are purposely trying to be inflammatory, if you simply ignore the context, or that your english really is that poor. Either way, you are not doing your credibility much good.
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Claims that Wu's study dos *not* assume human/simian ancestry in its determination of the substitution rate.
That is a fact. I already provided the source for their comparison's - OLD WORLD monkey genes. You previously stated:
"The authors of the genetics study are arriving at their estimate of 10 generations by
first assuming that man and ape share a common ancestor."
Old world monkeys are not apes. Please retract your erroneous claims and your attempt to rewrite your original error.
That or provide the exact quotations from their paper pointing out their assumption of human-ape ancestry - as per your ORIGINAL claim - and how it was pivotal in their mutation rate analyses.
Wu's group assumes evolution, of course. There is good reason to.
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Re-visits circular reasoning by asking why 620,000 substitutions from the Keightley study is not sufficient to account for simian/human shared ancestry, given the 500,000 he believes Remine set as a minimum.
ReMine did imply that 500,000 is a minimum. Surely, you are familiar with his clumsy prose about making a 'sapien out of a simian'?
Of course, here again we have your conundrum - you endearlingly refer the the E-W and K paper, which assumes not just evolution, but human-ape ancestry, and yet you call it 'circular reasoning' to invite you to discuss additional implications of their study! If you think it circular to look at one aspect, you should similarly dismiss the others. That is, if you are to try to appear unbiased and not employ double standards.
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The problem is, the Keightley study also arrives at its numbers by first assuming simian/human shared ancestry. Thus, it is circular to use their numbers when contrasting against any arbitrary guestimate of mutations that would separate simian/man.
Well, lets hope that you stop referring to their flawed circular reasoning in your repeated allusions to their deleterious mutation rate.
[This message has been edited by SLP2, 02-27-2002]
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