Is Earth old enough for DNA to evolve?

Thank you for considering my post. I have revised it to eliminate the reference and replace it with a general statement of my own. That should eliminate this issue and still allow the conversation to continue. Here is the revised post:Short question or statement: There is not enough time available in the acknowledged age of the earth for the human genome to have formed. The hypothesis is that the math doesn’t work for DNA to have developed because the earth isn’t old enough.Basis:1. The acknowledged age of the earth is about 4.5 billion years, with the simplest life forms arriving only 2 billion years ago.2. The human genome has approximately 3 billion base pairs of DNA arranged into 46 chromosomes.3. Evolutionary theory holds that the human genome developed through a series of DNA replication errors.4. The base pairs are the building blocks of DNA. If I follow evolutionary theory correctly, if there are 3 billion base pairs then it took 3 billion replication errors to arrive at the current DNA structure ( unless multiple simultaneous positive replication errors occurred).5. If there was a successful DNA replication error each generation then it would take 3 billion reproductive generations to arrive where we are today.Problems:a. 3 billion generations would take 60 billion years if each female reproduced at the age of 20.
b. It is stated that life on earth is only 2 billion years old.
c. It would take longer if any of the errors were not advantageous. Most replication errors are not advantageous.
d. This assumes that each and every mutation was the exact necessary mutation needed in the right order. Each block of the genome has to be built in the right order. ( You don’t need the lens of the eye before the optic nerve exists for example).
e. It also assumes that each generation got the opportunity to successfully reproduce and didn’t die first or something.
f. The replication error of a single base pair out of the 3 billion pairs can result in a genetically transmitted disease. We need 3 billion positive consecutive errors with no negative errors along the way, or it would take even longer.
g. There is no provision at all here for natural selection because that would exponentially add much more time.6. I am sure this has been studied and discussed — can you point me to literature or web sites where I can read about this issue? {Note: This message 1 is message 6 of the "Proposed New Topics" version of this topic - Adminnemooseus}Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Red note.

Yes of course the lengths are bogus, but it makes the point that there are a lot of generations needed and they add up to a long time. It is difficult to articulate the point I am trying to make and over simplifying it makes it easy to communicate the concept. I knew when I wrote this I would be pilloried but through that I will learn a lot. You mentioned the front end of the process but is it known how long it takes for a positive change to prevail in the human population today? It is probably a long time.

I appreciate your detailed reply. The attempt here was to really ask the question:
Has mathematical modeling been conducted of the amount of time it would take to generate the human genome?
Yes, my simplistic model is full of errors, which you correctly point out, but you do not really address the underlying question, which is has someone modeled this process over time.
Yes — a yeast cell may reproduce in 90 minutes but how long does it take for a positive change to end up in the human DNA on the the end of the chain where we are now, taking into account natural selection and the host of other factors? Five hundred years? This is why a model of this process would be interesting.
The point about Deleterious mutations was only that it would add more time to the process to overcome them.
As far as your comments about reading a textbook, I did know that there were other methods that increase the length of the genome, but I was writing a one paragraph model of a concept I wanted to discuss. Your criticism is a little harsh, and maybe a little bit knee jerk to my post. I am not trying to debunk evolution, I am asking a legitimate question about how long it took to generate the human DNA.

I don't have an argument so much as a question - the question being "what would a mathematical model of the time needed to generate the human genome look like"? The professionals seem to quickly revert to these examples about bacteria and yeast cells but not so much about how much time it would take for a mammal to develop an functioning vision system or something like that. It would be fascinating to read someone who has worked this issue back through as much as possible!

again - these things are difficult to articulate - especially knowing the level of people that are reading this. However, it was probably a child that said the king had no clothes on. I believe that asking the question how long did it take to generate the human genome is a legitimate one, and I am not really seeing a lot of answers to that so far. At the end of the day the math has to work. I trust that by the time this is done I would have posted a really different starting point but so far so good.

I think you are saying that it is not a consecutive process but that if there are a million people reproducing any number of them may have a positive mutation all at the same point in time. This would indeed be a flaw - that this would allow multiple positive mutations at the same point in time, and then that natural selection would help get those diverse separate mutated humans back together into the subsequent gene pool. I would agree.

You articulate this very clearly, but I wonder what this looks like down the road a ways when we become mammals and are much more complex. The facts made about all of this seem to revert quickly back to the simple creatures - how about an example of how this works in much more complex life forms and how long it takes a mutation to establish itself in the genome when it is more complex?

In all honesty - I was not entirely sure how to ask the question. The proposition that I posted got right to the heart of the matter though, and I will be curious to see the response. I would presume that a model that answers this question would be quite complex.

Very much so - this is fascinating and I appreciate the time you took to write this. In another life I would probably have taken this on as a field of study.

Thank you for this reply - I need to ponder what you mean by "bush" instead of "chain".

Much to think on here - thanks!

The last illustration is quite informative. Lots to ponder here to - like how the bush is shrinking.

This is also helpful - lots to think on here too.

I need to print this out and study it - there is a lot on there - I wonder if we are in the midst of another mass extinction?

Is there any idea why this would be? I dare not speculate.