Evolution falsifies God/s?

It's nice to see a Young Earth Christian linking to a John Sanford "genetic meltdown" paper. Fortunately for you, there are a number of problems with his view. I say "fortunately" because, as a YEC, the last thing you need to do is to encourage the idea that humans could face genetic deterioration at current mutation rates.The standard YEC model requires the argument that past mutation rates since the Flood were far higher than they are today. This is necessary to explain the current diversity that can be directly observed on human genomes. Either Noah has to be pushed back more than 100,000 years in time to make the necessary number of generation transfers at the current mutation rate, or the past mutation rate has to be increased to be more than 20 times today's.As the first option destroys YEC, the second is your only choice.But there's hope! I can help you slightly on your way with this paper: A Resolution of the Mutation Load
Paradox in HumansThe authors are probably right in suggesting that the fitness effects of deleterious mutations should be determined by relative measurement rather than by comparison to a mutationless genome. Their model is good news for you, because not only does it show that purifying selection can cope with the current mutation rate, but that it should be able cope with hypothetical higher ones.Here's one reason Y you need a super-high mutation rate.The paper calculates the age of our most recent common "Y" chromosome ancestor (necessarily Noah in your model) at over 100,000 years assuming current mutation rates. It is just one of many observations we can make which mean that YECs require a massively increased past mutation rate from the flood to the present. The last thing you need is to argue that the current mutation rate would cause "meltdown". But John Sanford is no problem as his model is easily contradicted by observations made in the wild and the lab, as well as by points like the one made in the paper I linked to. Perhaps you should write to him and explain how he's hindering the cause.I hope all this helps you update your YEC genetics.Edited by bluegenes, : typo

Once again:Message 75

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faceman linking writes:

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Computational Evolution Experiments Reveal a Net Loss of Genetic Information Despite Selection

It's nice to see a Young Earth Christian linking to a John Sanford "genetic meltdown" paper. Fortunately for you, there are a number of problems with his view. I say "fortunately" because, as a YEC, the last thing you need to do is to encourage the idea that humans could face genetic deterioration at current mutation rates.

​

The standard YEC model requires the argument that past mutation rates since the Flood were far higher than they are today. This is necessary to explain the current diversity that can be directly observed on human genomes. Either Noah has to be pushed back more than 100,000 years in time to make the necessary number of generation transfers at the current mutation rate, or the past mutation rate has to be increased to be more than 20 times today's.

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As the first option destroys YEC, the second is your only choice.

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But there's hope! I can help you slightly on your way with this paper: A Resolution of the Mutation Load
Paradox in Humans

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The authors are probably right in suggesting that the fitness effects of deleterious mutations should be determined by relative measurement rather than by comparison to a mutationless genome. Their model is good news for you, because not only does it show that purifying selection can cope with the current mutation rate, but that it should be able cope with hypothetical higher ones.

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Here's one reason Y you need a super-high mutation rate.

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The paper calculates the age of our most recent common "Y" chromosome ancestor (necessarily Noah in your model) at over 100,000 years assuming current mutation rates. It is just one of many observations we can make which mean that YECs require a massively increased past mutation rate from the flood to the present. The last thing you need is to argue that the current mutation rate would cause "meltdown". But John Sanford is no problem as his model is easily contradicted by observations made in the wild and the lab, as well as by points like the one made in the paper I linked to. Perhaps you should write to him and explain how he's hindering the cause.

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I hope all this helps you update your YEC genetics.

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Why are you still arguing that humans would have gone extinct through genetic meltdown shortly after the flood?

It's kind of you to teach the world about genetics, but it might be a good idea if you actually learned something about the subject before attempting to do so. Interesting readingMore interesting readingNow that you know about duplication and neofunctionalization, you can retract the comment I quoted, can't you? You could also explain why you made it in the first place.Edited by bluegenes, : corrected link

Both. A higher average age of parents (particularly fathers) leads to an increased mutation rate, so there has been a rise in disorders in industrialised countries.

It doesn't. As a YEC, you need to be arguing that humans can survive for thousands of years on a rate more than 20 times the current rate, which is the one that John Sanford assumes in the paper you linked to earlier.
Computational Evolution Experiments Reveal a Net Loss of Genetic Information Despite SelectionSanford models a ~25% loss in fitness over 500 generations at his mutation rate. That translates into a ~100% loss of fitness in 100 generations at the mutation rate you require. In other words, you are unwittingly proposing a model in which we would have been extinct 2000 years ago. Not at your post flood mutation rate. The occurrence of severe detrimental mutations at 20 times the current rate would definitely be noticeable. The whole population would be sick! "Neutral" won't harm us. If detrimental mutations can lead to extinction then they would necessarily be subject to purifying selection before the extinction happened, wouldn't they?Another thing that would face negative selection is a dangerously high mutation rate, which is one of the reasons that we know your YEC model to be impossible from a genetic point of view.Anyway, what I've been trying to explain to you is that you should be arguing against Sanford, not for him, if you want to be an advanced level YEC. You are currently, clearly unwittingly, shooting yourself in the foot.Once again: A Resolution of the Mutation Load Paradox in Humans

He assumes most to be neutral, and counts just 10 per. generation transfer as being deleterious. If accumulation reduces fitness, then accumulations in individuals would be subject to purifying selection. Distribution will be unequal, so the mutation level can be controlled by selection.Think about it. In your 6,000 young earth years, fruit flies are 150,000 generations old, and thriving. They probably have at least 50 of your near neutral slightly deleterious mutations per individual per generation transfer. That would give them a "load" of 7,500,000. If that can't kill you, then clearly most mutations are effectively neutral, and/or purifying selection works well.The YEC hyper mutation rate necessary to explain the diversity we can see on the Y chromosome happening since Noah would mean more than 1000 mutations per. generation transfer on the whole genome. That means that the effect you describe should kick in far more rapidly than Sanford would expect. Also, consider the chances of an individual avoiding any serious/lethal deleterious mutations at that rate. It might be that women would have to bear more than 30 children to produce 2 who could survive to adulthood and maintain a stable population!As a YEC, you need to argue that purifying selection works very well, yet you insist on doing the opposite.Why?

Because fruitflies are sexual eukaryotes, like us. How do you measure the genome of the fruitfly as being "far simpler" than ours? That certainly can happen, especially in bottlenecks, if by "squeak by", you mean "go to fixation". A possible explanation. Alternatively, you might not have been aware of your mistake until I pointed it out, and you still might not understand it.Let's be honest.

No. The article is about relatively small population size in eukaryotes meaning greater vulnerability to mildly deleterious genetic drift leading to the positive selection of more complex relationships in proteins in order to compensate for the damage.Here's the article: Here's the paper it's based on.No YEC can possibly agree with the hypothesis being put forward. The complex protein relationships being discussed are an essential part of complex animals like ourselves. It's far more common for creationists to argue that these are irreducibly complex than to link to papers describing how they could evolve. You're shooting yourself in the foot again, as you have been throughout the thread.There's a difference between liking an uphill battle and voluntarily running into brick walls.

Certainly. You can read about rapid increases in fitness by several different routes over less than 2,000 generations here: Rapid thermal adaptation (pdf)Really? When would you expect extinction to set in then? What was it in the mutations described in this paper(pdf) that "sounded" a lot like genetic entropy to you?One thing it does describe is apparently near neutral potentiating mutations laying the ground for subsequent mutations that face positive selection. There's also a significant addition of genetic material by duplications which are advantageous on arrival. There's also the creation of a new hybrid gene.