I understand that the sun gives low entropy energy to earth, and pockets of entropy can decrease as long as the whole system increases. However, my room exists on earth, so I still think it is an adequate analogy.
More seriously, I would like to see a mathematical treatment of the probability of biologically detrimental mutations vs. beneficial or neutral mutations.
Most mutations are neutral. Nachman and Crowell estimate around 3 deleterious mutations out of 175 per generation in humans (2000). Of those that have significant effect, most are harmful, but the fraction which are beneficial is higher than usually though. An experiment with E. coli found that about 1 in 150 newly arising mutations and 1 in 10 functional mutations are beneficial (Perfeito et al. 2007).
The harmful mutations do not survive long, and the beneficial mutations survive much longer, so when you consider only surviving mutations, most are beneficial.
First, I want to thank you for having this discussion with me. I’ve been wanting to discuss these ideas with someone for some time.
As to the referenced article, a couple of points stand out to me:
The first paper cited by Nachman and Crowell compares pseudogenes between humans and chimpanzees assuming that one evolved from the other over a known period of time. Rejecting the assumption that humans did not evolve from chimps would render this sort of evaluation inaccurate.
The last sentence of the first point, that harmful mutations do not survive long, is not supported by any literature on the page, and I believe it to be wishful thinking. There are many examples of human genetic diseases that do not decrease the reproductive capacity of those carrying them, which to me would imply, again without literature support, that those mutations would accumulate over time in a population.
I would also disagree with the 5th point, where any beneficial mutation disproves young earth creationism. Young earth creationists must believe in a much higher rate of so-called micro evolution, since all the variation we see on earth must have taken place in the last 6 thousand years or less.
If a mutation doesn’t decrease the reproductive capacity of the carrier, then it’s not harmful. If it’s harmful, then it will affect the reproductive capacity. That’s just how it’s defined in this context.
I understand that the sun gives low entropy energy to earth, and pockets of entropy can decrease as long as the whole system increases. However, my room exists on earth, so I still think it is an adequate analogy.
More seriously, I would like to see a mathematical treatment of the probability of biologically detrimental mutations vs. beneficial or neutral mutations.
That treatment has been done. From the same page:
https://talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB101.html
First, I want to thank you for having this discussion with me. I’ve been wanting to discuss these ideas with someone for some time.
As to the referenced article, a couple of points stand out to me: