evolution calculations

During a debate with a friend, he raised the following question: "Is there any mathematical calculation which shows that evolution is possible?"A mathematical calculation should show, that if given X time in the presence of mutations evolution happens, and the mathematical calculation should also be consistent with fossil findings.Do such mathematical calculation which calculates all the mutations from reptiles to mammals exist?
Do such calculations which settles fossil evidence and mutations rate(mathematical), exist?

Weeellll, the entire field of Population Genetics is based upon the fact that we can make predictions of the spread of mutations based upon the rules of probability and statistics combined with our knowledge of mutation rates.

I'm not sure what you or your friend think such a calculation would provide in the way of support for the theory of evolution.As schraf stated, there are fields of study relying on such calculations. But the calculations don't "show that evolution is possible", the calculations/models take evidence we already have and put it into mathematical form. I think this statement shows a simplistic view of the concepts of mutation and evolution (at least the way it is worded). To start, perhaps you could explain specifically what you mean by "evolution happens".Mutation rates are different for different organisms under different conditions. Whether the mutations are neutral, beneficial, or detrimental depends on the specific environment the organism is in at the time. Additionally, different mutations have different degrees of impact on a trait or traits. Thus, it is not so easy to say (mutation rate) x (time) = (morphological change).Fossil findings and DNA evidence of evolution would be used to set up the calculations, so the calculations would necessarily be consistent with fossil findings, because that is what they are based upon. I don't know that anything needs to be "settled" by a calculation. A single mutation can have a drastic effect on morphology, while in other cases dozens of mutations might be necessary to accomplish a similar change. Again, it is not a simple case of (1 mutation) = (1 morphological change).I guess my question to your friend would be, "What would a mathematical model based on evidence show that the evidence itself would not?"

not that I know of. I have not had my noodle around all of it since the 80s so there might be some better articles in SSAR or Copeia or Herpetologica or Herpetological Reviews etc but I doubt it. Sure it is possible with population genetics but there are a lot of nonadaptive traits in reps that even the best in evo are not developeing Wright's ideas where isolation by distance is probably occurring more than in birds etc. I wanted to try to cobble up such an enumeration and I was going to work with the Rxn Diffusion equations of JD Murray to get some idea about pattern changes acorss this scale but they simply were using constants from Zebra's so no one was trying to figure out how numbers might DEPEND in the transition on contingency. So it goes that it is not done becuase there is not as far as I know any way to generalize the effective population number on this across the board. I do think that it MIGHT be posssible to constrain the notion of environment in these lineages but when I asked Richard Lewotin specifically about sea snakes as this figure would even be more restricted and he seemed the most sophisticated in use of coupled differential equations between the environment and organism he could not have me think of the tail which I needed to think BEFORE I had tried to number the norms of rxn in some way.

Thanks for the reply. i saw that research which determined that the mutation rate in humans is 175 neutral mutations, 3 deleterious, and a few beneficial.The research is described here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...
{Display form of URL shorthened, to restore page width to normal - Adminnemooseus}but, if the mutation rate is determined by comparing chimpanzee DNA with human DNA, what does it give us?
How such a research promotes TOE?This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 02-07-2005 23:54 AM

...too bad mutations are never beneficial to any species whatsoever.

I have proposed a thread for you to attempt to back that rather silly and unfounded statement up.When it is promoted you can give your reasons behind: It's title is "beneficial mutations".please this is not the thread to rebut this statment. Thanks.

By taking "calculations" to cover all different froms could we not consider:
1) Evolutionary algorithms which show that the process can produce design-like outcomes (designoid).
2) Models which show how mutations can spread or not and be fixed or not
3) The calculations that correlate mutations rates and the dates obtained by fossils for the separation of lineiages.I'm not sure what other kind of calculations that someone could be talking about. Has that been clarified yet?

On a side note, could a mathematical model, not based on evidence, but on the premises of the theory - random mutation and selective pressure - show us that, given those premises, evolution has to happen? In other words, if we could state the premises in a mathematical form, would it be possible to prove mathematically that evolution is the logical conclusion?{Thanks to NosyNed for proposing the same idea, but sans mathematics.}

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

If I provided a mathmatical model that proved cows can fly or that proved that birds could not, would it have value?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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but, if the mutation rate is determined by comparing chimpanzee DNA with human DNA, what does it give us?
How such a research promotes TOE?

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That work does assume evolution is true -- more specifically, common ancestry for humans and chimps is true. All large-scale study of genetics makes that assumption, since it's the only approach yet offered that makes sense of the data. You can also estimate the mutation rate without that assumption, however, by examing mutations that are occurring today and that are noticed because that cause disease: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...You get just about the same answer whichever method you use. Put another way, the rate we observing mutations occurring today predicts how genetically different humans and chimpanzees should be if they diverged from a common ancestor five or six million years ago, and predicts it correctly. This is one of the many, many parts of genetics that makes sense if evolution is true, and no sense if it isn't.

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On a side note, could a mathematical model, not based on evidence, but on the premises of the theory - random mutation and selective pressure - show us that, given those premises, evolution has to happen? In other words, if we could state the premises in a mathematical form, would it be possible to prove mathematically that evolution is the logical conclusion?

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Well, sure, but it's not clear why anyone would (or should) care. You can show that neutral evolution has to happen, and you can show for particular choices of fitness landscapes that adaptive evolution has to happen, but you can also show for other choices of fitness landscapes that, once adapted, organisms will never change.

No, not if it contradicts physical evidence. But a model that maps the concepts of random mutation and selective pressure into mathematical statements, and which yields a mathematical statement that can be mapped back to the concept of evolution, most certainly has value, in my opinion. Provided, of course, that the mapping can be done very strictly. I was thinking along the lines of proofs such as found in geometry.The proof would not conclusively prove that biological evolution is true, but that, given the premises of the principle, the logical conclusion is that evolution must happen.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

Curiosity perhaps?If organisms never change, the selective pressure must be zero. You are talking about a calculational model of evolution.What I am talking about is a logical model of the principle, a mathematical syllogism, or something like that. Maybe what I'm suggesting isn't even possible, I'm no mathematician.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

Doesn't the Hardy-Weinburg model do that?