TOE and the Reasons for Doubt

Oh, thank goodness! Haldane's Dilemma has been solved!So far we've had only a succession of hopefuls suggesting a variety of solutions that have never stood up under scrutiny. The latest of these was, of course, Robert Williams, who suggested that the 1,667 mutation limit imposed by Haldane's Dilemma was sufficient for the evolution of man from a common ancestor with the ape 10 million years ago!But now we can consign all that rubbish to the bin, once and for all, because Izanaqi can show us how the equation was corrected and the dilemma solved!Izanaqi?

If a sentence can make a lot of difference, Briterican, look at the difference a whole paragraph can make!

---

"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

Darwin blamed an incomplete fossil record. Eldredge (above) categorically denies this. One of them is wrong.

---

"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

I can't believe you're going to try and defend this. 1667 mutations represents 0.00002% of the human genome. That's all you believe separates us from the common ancestor? Desperate stuff.Remember too that mutations are random. You don't get to choose the spectacular ones. They are what they are. Do you actually understand Haldane's Dilemma? It is a calculation of the time (in generations) required for a mutant to replace non-mutants in a given population. If the remaining members (non-mutants) of the population do not have a large decrease in fitness, therefore, it will take even longer. Just plain old wrong:"[for three mutants]...since the cost of selection is proportional to the negative logarithm of the initial frequency, the mean cost...would be the same as that of selection for the three mutants in series..." HALDANE

---

"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

I think I'll leave this one to your colleages. I can feel them squirming. Under what circumstances would a mutant replace a population of non-mutants if the latter did not suffer a survival disadvantage? The only one I can think of is if the mutant was more fertile than the non-mutants. Think about it. Your mathematician has simply changed a negative survival coefficient for the non-mutants into a positive one for the mutant. For substitution to occur there has to be a reproductive differential. If the non-mutants are not dying out, where does that differential come from?You are also missing the point, but that's because you are not looking at Haldane's Dilemma from the viewpoint of a Creationist. Haldane (an evolutionist) was primarily concerned with the number of deaths required for substitution. No doubt that is problematic for evolution, but of far more interest to Creationists is how long it all takes. 3oo generations is an enormous amount of time for a single mutation to be fixed. It only allows human evoluition 1667 mutations in 10,000,000 years. We couldn't care less how many critters die out in the process (call us callous). It is TIME that is important from our perspective. Notice that your mathematician may have shown that the same result can be achieved without the enormous loss of life, but he can't make it happen any faster. Multiple simultaneous mutations were addressed by Haldane himself, as per my quote. They do not accelerate the process.Edited by Kaichos Man, : qualify

---

"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

No, Haldane was well aware that mutations could be linked, but dismissed this scenario because of its extreme rarity. The problem is a mathematical one. Think of it this way:You have a population of organisms. There are two mutants, A and B. Their mutations are beneficial, so they proceed to spread them through the population.PHASE ONE: Non mutants being replaced by mutants A and B.Eventually the mutants "join up", so to speak, and you wind up with mutant AB. Now the process has to start all over again:PHASE TWO: Mutants A and B being replaced by mutant AB.Making the problem worse is "Clonal Interference", the idea that the beneficial mutations will compete with each other for dominance. For example, if mutation A is slightly stronger than mutation B, Then mutant A will replace not only non-mutants but also mutant B.

---

"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

Percy,How do you post a picture?

G'day Calypsis. That day may be closer than we think. This is a shot of some of the organic material retrieved from a T-rex skeleton in the States by Mary Schweitzer:Red blood cells, blood vessels...not in bad nick for a 65 million year old, is she?Edited by Kaichos Man, : make it pretty

---

"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

G'day Percy. Been bending my brian on Haldane's original paper to try and gain an understanding of this. It all comes down to the "negative logarithm of the frequency".As I understand it, Haldane established a substitution rate that the population could withstand without being threatened with extinction. It is this rate that determines the number of deaths and, to a large extent the speed of the substitution. The number of mutations and their relationship to each other don't come into it.You can't double the negative logarithm for two mutations, otherwise your organism will become extinct. But you can halve it to accommodate each of two mutations. So what happens if you do?Pretty much what I suggested with my example of mutants A and B, but with an important difference. You would have a two-phase process (Mutants A and B replacing non-mutants, and then Mutant AB replacing Mutants A and B), But Haldane did concede that while the cost in lives remained the same, "It might happen faster".The reason for this, I believe (Haldane wasn't specific) is that the substitution of Mutant AB doesn't have to wait until all the non-mutants have been substituted for A or B; as soon as there is an organism with both mutations the process can get underway.I have to concede therefore, that there is probably a time saving associated with multiple mutations. However, the fact that beneficial mutations are so rare, and the fact that in order for this to work the mutations would all have to be relevant to the same form of selection means that multiple mutations could play at best only a minor role in alleviating Haldane's Dilemma.

Dr Adequate,Have you ever wondered why every far-flung culture on earth, many of which have been separated by unbridgable time and distance with no opportunity to communicate with each other, all have "the dragon" as part of their folklore?And why were these dragons always large, dangerous reptilian creatures, do you think?Hmm. Large, dangerous reptiles...that sounds familiar...

---

"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

Pterodactyl. Condensation.

That's right, Percy. And around three of those mutations are deleterious. So for every one of your "beneficial" mutations you will get 20,000 deleterious ones. It's not going to get you very far!

All terms are made up at some time, by somebody. In this case, it's a term coined by a respected Cornell University researcher to describe the process of genomes being inexorably strafed into nonsense by mutations. The same observed, documented process upon which Motoo Kimura based his Neutral Theory of Evolution.Don't like the term? Make up your own. Genetic Erosion? Genetic Atrophy? Genetic Scrambling? Three billion generations to achieve a back-muation? My word, you evolutionists are so easily pleased! You are suggesting that some ancestor of D. Melanogaster had two legs growing out of its head. Reference, please.

But it doesn't, Percy. Motoo Kimura showed that the vast majority of mutations are neutral, though his compatriot Ohno later revised that to Nearly Neutral. That means that apart from the odd lethal mutation, the copying errors simply accrue, gradually lowering the fitness of the organism until natural selection comes along and eliminates the most mutated. Out go those with 100 mutations, leaving those with 95. And as for these mythical "beneficial" mutations, you'll notice evolutionists are happy to include in their number back mutations (repairs to formerly deleterious mutations) and deleterious mutations causing an increase in fitness (e.g. flightless beetles). Beggars can't be choosers, as they say.

---

"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

...the problem [of Haldane's dilemma] was never solved, by Wallace [soft selection] or anyone else. It merely faded away, because people got interested in other things. They must have assumed that the true resolution lay somewhere in the welter of suggestions made by one or more of the distinguished population geneticists who had participated in the discussion."George C. Williams, respected evolutionist.

---

"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin