Why Darwinism is wrong

jar, I only said unlimited travel WITHIN worlds, not between them.The expectation of 4N generations for a single mutation to be fixed by drift applies within a truly randomly mating population (i.e. the population on earth, OR the population on mars).Nonrandom mating may reduce the time required for fixation within local populations, simply because it reduces the effective population size of a mating group.Travel between earth and mars will increase the time, because mutations are being transferred along with travellers between the two planets.Mick

If you mean "why don't we see humans speciating", the answer is simply that we have too high a gene flow and too large a reproductive population. Both of these pop.gen. parameters are vastly higher than the historical values.If you mean "why don't we see humans evolving" then of course the answer is that we do. A new nearly-neutral allele is expected to spread throughout the entire global population of human beings in something considerably more than 32 billion generations (that is, if my recollection of the 4N equation is correct). Whether this has anything to do with speciation is anybody's guess. That's why speciation tends to occur in small isolated populations, where the time taken for alleles to fix is considerably lower.This is the main reason why we don't expect to see a new species of Homo any time soon.Of course we may want to consider an allele that has a selective benefit for the human population. that would spread much faster. I'm only talking here about a neutral allele - one that makes no difference whether you have it or not. Now imagine a selectively beneficial allele in a small isolated population, and the numbers start to get reasonable (kind of). You wouldn't. There was nothing special about the common ancestor of all living human beings. She was just lucky. She looked exactly the same as any other female Homo sapiens.

hi Jianyi,I don't understand about your theory of "Eves". How is this different to the theory of RMNS?Best wishes,Mick

Hi Jianyi,I'm sorry, I know you get fed up when people don't understand your theory. I'm not trying to pick faults or anything, but just to understand better.I couldn't understand whether these are parts of the RMNS theory, or parts of your own theory.

Thank Jianyi!Your post made a lot of sense. I may stop posting on this thread.Mick

Hi Jianyi,Your hypothesis does sound pretty similar to RMNS to me.First you have a gross mutation. So we agree on the importance of random mutation.Then carriers of the mutation have to reproduce. if they can't find partners who share the gross mutation (i.e their twins, or whatever) or if they can't reproduce asexually, can't have virgin births, then they go extinct and the gross mutation is lost from the gene pool . So we agree on natural selection. This is the strongest form of natural selection - reproduction or extinction.so your model is: random mutation + natural selection.Mick

This is a very bad description of hybridization in birds, which can hybridize readily and produce fertile or semi-fertile offspring.how does your theory account for the widespread hybridization we find in nature?CheersMick

Ned, thanks so much for the link! That has to be the funniest thing I've ever seen. In chapter one, when Darwin ("the amateur naturalist") is introduced, the images go all black and white, and sinister music appears in the background. It's just like America's most wanted, where the serial rapist appears. Brilliant!Thanks! I'm sending this link around my lab immediately.Mick