Bravus: I’ll have a go at the ‘detrimental mutations’ argument. …

Comment on Are LSU professors breaking the 8th commandment? by Sean Pitman M.D..

Bravus: I’ll have a go at the ‘detrimental mutations’ argument. It is basically an argument that works well if someone’s presupposition is recent creationism: that humans were created perfect about 6000 years ago and have been subject to the effects of sin since, and that therefore the human genome is degenerating. It takes the notion that more mutations are harmful than beneficial (the vast majority of mutations have no practical effect either way) and suggests that this imbalance means that defects accumulate over time.

There are about 200 mutations per person per generation. Of these it is currently thought that well over 5 will be functionally detectable by natural selection. Of these five, the odds are very strong that all of them will be functionally detrimental to one degree or another (with a ratio of 1000:1 in this direction). That is, I’m afraid, a far higher rate of detrimental mutations than natural selection can keep up with over time. Nature has a limit to what can be eliminated per generation and this limitation has to do with the reproductive rate of the creature in question.

It’s well worth reading Sean Pitman’s page on the issues around mutations – I don’t agree with the guy, but he’s definitely done his reading and thought things through. It’s here: http://www.detectingdesign.com/dnamutationrates.html

The misunderstanding is very simple: this model ignores natural selection.

It is your understanding of this problem that is far too simplistic and ill-informed. The problem isn’t nearly as simple as you imagine since natural selection is very much taken into account. What you don’t seem to recognize is that natural selection, being a mindless force of nature, is limited to how much bad karma it can deal with per generation – and that this limitation is based on the reproductive rate…

It looks only at half the equation – mutations – without recognising that within a population the individuals with fewer detrimental mutations and/or more beneficial ones will increase their probability of survival and breeding, so that detrimental mutations will tend to be bred out of a population and beneficial ones will spread through it.

The big question is, how does natural selection eliminate the detrimental mutations at least as fast as they build up? If you had read my entire article on this question, you’d see that the detrimental mutations build up far faster than slowly reproducing creatures, like humans, can get rid of them through the powers of natural selection. We simply don’t reproduce fast enough for natural selection to keep up – – not by a long shot. That’s the problem.

http://www.detectingdesign.com/dnamutationrates.html#Detrimental

Given more modern understandings of the functional genome size, the likely detrimental mutation rate is well over 5 per person per generation (with about 200 or so additional mutations being functionally neutral). In order to keep up with such a detrimental mutation rate, natural selection would only be able to be successful if the average woman gave birth to over 150 offspring. There is also some resent suggestion that the true rate of slightly detrimental mutations is more like 30 per person per generation. In order to deal with this kind of band karma, the average woman would have to give birth to trillions of offspring.

Your off-handed statement of blind faith that natural selection must be able to solve this problem indicates your lack of exposure or experience with the statistical nature of this particular problem. You are, again, shooting from the hip without having any idea what you’re talking about… i.e., no data or references to back up your bold assertions.

Now, let me remind you again that I’m only suggesting that you are simply ill-informed. You need to actual go and read up on some of this stuff before you comment like you know what you’re talking about. On these issues at least, you clearly do not.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

Sean Pitman M.D. Also Commented

Are LSU professors breaking the 8th commandment?

David Kendall, BMus, MA says:

Hi Shane,

I am not sure you can make a strong connection between the statement in the excerpt and common ancestry. DNA research does point to varying degrees of relatedness among species. This does not have to conflict with a recent six day creation, though some may make the argument that it must.

What it argues for, and what Grismer clearly believes, is the idea that all life is related through process of common descent by innumerable tiny modifications from a common ancestor life form – a process that required hundreds of millions of years of time.

This notion strikes directly at the concept of the relatedness of all life because of its source in a common Designer of all the basic “kinds” of life on this planet, produced during a literal 6-day creation week in recent history.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Are LSU professors breaking the 8th commandment?

Ron Nielsn: @Sean Pitman M.D.: Sean, I am not a geologist, and I haven’t read much about this, but your argument doesn’t make logical sense. Where does the sediment that is “washed off” go, except down slope, and as long as the uplift is equal or greater than the erosion rate, there is always going to be sediment at the top  

Your argument assumes that all rock is sedimentary rock – it isn’t. Only a thin layer of sedimentary rock covers the underlying granitic or metamorphic rock. So, the obvious question is, how has the very thin layer of sedimentary rock avoided being completely washed off of the underlying non-sedimentary rock if it has in fact been exposed, as an erosional surface, for tens of millions of years?

You do see how the argument for continued mountain uplift does not solve this problem? – right?

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Are LSU professors breaking the 8th commandment?

BobRyan: Thus evolutionists who quickly admit that molecule-to-human-mind evolutionism (storytelling) requires “a massive DECREASE in entropy” as the net result over billions of years (at the local isolated system level of course )– are leaving themselves with no place to go.

Not true. A local decrease in thermodynamic entropy is possible using the Sun’s energy to produce the local effect (at the expense of an increase in the Earth-Sun thermodynamic entropy of course).

Recall that in the case of the dropping ball, and the iron rusting and the water evaporating — the definion for “universe” that was needed to observe those examples demonstrating entropy was simply “an isolated and localized system and it’s immediate surroundings” EVEN if that system is standing out in broad daylight (or in complete darkness). No need to “reach for the sun” before you can see the increase in entropy as iron oxidizes. Speaking of “oxidation demonstrating entropy” – our biology courses admit to that oxidation process as well.  

You forget that the reverse of all these processes you use as examples of increases in local entropy can be reversed as well, by using energy derived from the Sun. The ball can be driven uphill, as can the water in the rivers that run downhill. Therefore, local reductions in entropy can be achieved by using the increase in entropy of the Earth-Sun system…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


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