Comments on Sanford and Carter respond to PS participants

[CrisprCAS9]

For the sake of the moderators, and as requested, I’m replying to you here from the other thread.

@thoughtful

I see you saying we do know DFE (more mutations are neutral and deleterious)

I don’t think I’ve read @Rumraket as saying we know specifically what the DFE for neutral mutations is. Just that more mutations (of all sorts) are deleterious than beneficial. This is clearly true, but doesn’t imply anything about the detailed DFE for neutrality.

@thoughtful

I see him and others saying we can’t know DFE (therefore GE is wrong and you’re wrong)

For neutrality. Not for non-neutral mutations.

@thoughtful

and natural selection also wont see those same mutations (so they will accumulate)

Neutrality just means drift is the dominant force, not that they are invisible to selection. Neutral mutations will accumulate, the question is the DFE for those mutations. Which we don’t know.

@thoughtful

But he also agrees natural selection is relaxed somehow and would normally see those mutations.

Humans, especially our ancestors, have had fairly low effective population sizes compared to, for instance, mice. This means that a greater percentage of mutations will be effectively neutral, as detailed by Keightley. As our effective population size increases, selection becomes more efficient and is able to remove what had previously accumulated as neutral mutations.

@thoughtful

To me, it seems like you contradict each other and sometimes yourselves.

I don’t think he and I disagree on anything of note.