quote:
Beneficial mutations may be rare when compared to deleterious mutations, but they occur at a more than sufficient rate. Try this hypothetical example for the ancestor humans 10 million years ago. Assume a constant population size of one million, 10 random mutations per generation, and a generation time of 20 years. Further assume that only one out of a million mutations are beneficial. Plugging in the numbers you'll find that during that period of 10 million years there would have occurred 5 million beneficial mutations.
You may be aware, Percy, of recent research that shows that about 150 mutations occur per generation in human - your figure of 20 is very conservative.
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