my understanding is that a recent method of studying mutations “the pedigree method” shows that the mutation rates in mitochondrial (female) and y chromosomes (male) are as much as 20 times higher than what the evolutionary model historically claims should be the case when based on ape to human evolution.
Would it be fair that this therefore indicates that we are talking thousands of years and not millions for the molecular clock calculations when the clock is reset using the above figures from recent studies of the pedigree method?
Why would the Darwinian evolutionary community refuse to acknowledge that the current measured mutation rates via the pedigree method are likely correct? I mean lets face it, this method is using currently observable data is it not?
I dont see how the phylogenetic mutation rate, which bases its calculation on the differences between humans and chimpanzees and then makes an assumption on how long those mutations must have taken theoretically (a figure that has already been increased from 3 - 6 million years and an argument is now being made that it should be increased further to 13 million years because 6 million simply isnt long enough), …how can this method be considered a realistic model over what is being measured by creation scientists using pedigree method?
What is revealing is that Adam launched a thread with the ID claim that mutation was too slow to allow for whale evolution. Now he is peddling Nathaniel Jeanson’s discredited hyperevolutionary claim that Y chromosome and mitochondrial mutation is much faster. Unlike scientists who actually study molecular clocks for an understanding of nature, I doubt he has any actual interest in the actual mutation rate, other than finding support for those six thousand years.
The problem lay with his mutation rate. It was wrong – horribly wrong.
The mutation rate he used was 0.197 mutations per generation. Assuming a generation time of 20 years and given that the mitochondrial genome is 16,569 nucleotides in length, this works out to a mutation rate of 5.94 x 10-7 mutations per nucleotide per year. Or to put it another way, a new mitochondrial mutation every 100 years.
So how does this compare with the widely accepted mutation rate for the mitochondrial genome in humans?
This was estimated fairly accurately back in 2009 by Soares et al. They found the mutation rate for the entire human mitochondrial genome to be 1.665 × 10−8 substitutions per nucleotide per year. In other words, a new mutation every 3624 years. This was found to agree well with archaeological including:
Corroborating archaeological dating for the settlement of the Canary Islands and Remote Oceania
Yielding an age of modern human expansion in the Americas at ∼15 kya, consistent with the archaeology.
Accurately predicting the timing of the first modern human settlement of Europe and resettlement after the Last Glacial Maximum.
Not only did it agree well with the archaeological evidence, but when they compared their mutation rate to a rate based on looking at just synonymous mutations, they found it to be accurate.
For further discussion concerning the merit of Jeanson’s book “Replacing Darwin” chapter concerning mitochondrial mutation, you would do well to read the @evograd review:
@glipsnort also has an applicable article here at BioLogos:
The data @glipsnort discusses rules out a recent single couple as our sole ancestors, and it holds up when we use mutation rates derived from the pedigree method.
It is also interesting that @adamjedgar is focused in on the Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA. What about the other 98% of our genome found in autosomal DNA?
Note that, over the long term, there is considerable variation in mutation rates (which mean that molecular clock calculations are generally not to be trusted).
One reason why short-term rates of mutation can seem higher than longer-term rates is that, with only A, G, C, and T to choose from, there is a significant level of mutating back. Another is that not all mutations actually get passed on to further generations. These aren’t enough to fix the problems with Jeanson, but they do highlight the fact that there are good reasons to be cautious about extrapolating a reported rate of genetic change to other situations.
No that is not what I am saying…what I am saying is that you set your time clock based on for example the geological record…then attempt to divide that using a steady mutation rate to give us a timeline.
Now if mathematical chance is the reality for mutation, why exactly should that rate be steady and predictable? Just because someone can win the lotto each week doesnt mean someone will win it. Given that the lotto is scheduled each week on a specific night, that artificially changes the outcome by the fact it’s scheduled. What if the scheduling of the lotto was also random? It could potentially be years before lotto nights, and sometimes no one might even play, and sometimes no one wins, and if the number of players is very small, it likely the timeline even for lotto may be extremely long or ridiculously short. It’s a double edged sword.
Given that illustration, how can one possibly claim the natural selection process is predictable?
The geological record model I have issue with…there are fossils in wrong layers from wrong times and even modern species below older species found around the world in recent times…I deeply suspicious of that kind of issue. For those who deny a worldwide flood it’s easy to explain away…but that is the wrong way to look at it for a Christian who believes in the Bible.
For a Christian, they read about a global flood in the Bible, find evidence that clearly supports a global flood that is opposed to secular scientific assumptions, and you expect one to follow the secular science assumption???
Also, why should the hypothesis of hominoid slowdown be taken as fact…honestly…it’s just a hypothesis, a theory. How can this possibly be used as an argument? Thus is the entire problem here…I have the Bible telling me specifically what happened, evolution in the absence of God says I have this theory that there is no God and various other theories and theories of theories of theories…and from all of these hypotheses based on those theories of theories of theories, I can string together a perfectly logical assumption and make this my reality!
You then only search for and select evidence which supports all of that theoretical assumption pool.
When someone comes to you with a valid well supported question…such as, where did the energy and matter come from that started the big bang, and what started it, secular science throws their hands up in the air and responds with, we don’t know yet. Meanwhile, construction continues on this high rise whopper without the foundation even being in place!
This is the same secular science TEism uses to forward that Darwinian evolution can coexist with Christianity. It’s the same model that cannot explain how it is that rape and homosexuality exist in contrast to the evolutionary timeline…it’s backwards on moral issues such as these. The answer to this is, evolution isnt about these things…that is simply a whitewash of paint in my view. The nature of the human mind most definately is linked to our development…if not why it is claimed early forms of us were also primative in language and that this developed over time? The truth is, human behaviour most certainly is evolutionary if I am to believe in that model of our existence.
But the rest of us don’t want to live in your made up reality, we want to live in the real reality that we can see with our own eyes and understand with our own brains.
There is no credible evidence for that claim. In other words, it is dishonest.
Tens of thousands of human remains. Not one found together with any of tens of thousands of fossils of dinosaurs and pterosaurs. The only reasonable explanation is that they lived over separate times.
The observed de novo mutation rate in humans isn’t that far off from the rate needed to produce the differences seen between chimps and humans. If memory serves, the estimates from phylogeny and direct measurements differ by about a factor of 2. Changes in mutation rate, population dynamics, and a host of other factors can have impacts on these models and on real populations, so I really don’t see how these observations are a problem for the consensus view. However, they are a serious problem for the YEC view, especially the genetic variation in the human population which is completely inconsistent with a recent sole couple as our only ancestors.
We shouldn’t assume that mutation rates should be the same through time. This assumption is used to simplify models, but it is known that mutation rates can change.
I’m not sure how you think natural selection impacts these models. Only about 5% of the human and chimp genome is strongly affected by natural selection.
I am deeply suspicious that you can actually cite real fossils that are in the wrong layers.
There are many Christians here who believe in the Bible, and they don’t believe in an actual recent global flood. I think you are confusing “Christians who believe in the Bible” with "Christians who believe @adamjedgar ".
Then show me the objective methods you use to date geologic formations. If you can’t demonstrate when these formations were created using objective evidence then how can you claim to have evidence for a recent global flood?
It isn’t. Anyone who tries to use constant mutation rates for a molecular clock needs to be very careful, and give error bars.
Could you give some specific examples? All previous claims of this type I have encountered are either completely wrong, or are trivial, in that they simply show that some modern groups have been around for a while. For instance (wrong), there are claims that faults do not exist, and hence the layers being rearranged is evidence that geologists are trying to fool you. On trivial cases, things like coelacanths, monoplacophorans, ginkgos, and murchisonellids, which are extremely similar to long-past forms simply show that those organisms found a niche which has changed little over a long period of time. They are a solid argument against Lamarckian evolution, but not against what anybody in the relevant fields since 1850 has thought.
By what mechanism, exactly, does the same global flood deposit dozens of sandy shell layers patchily on top of each other, each with different marine fossils in them, each of which contains animals that lived for 50+ years, each of which has index fossils found in it and no other layers?