I’m not sure what you mean here. Why do you think that the study showed that variation doesn’t all arise from mutation? And we knew about recent human population growth long before we were sequencing genomes.
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Nevermind. I’m just mixed up.
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Very much no. The study shows just how many new mutations have arisen during population growth, and gives some idea of how rapidly new mutations that happen to be deleterious were removed by selection.
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No. Population growth increases the number of mutations that happen in the population, which should be obvious. That’s where the additional variation comes from. Also, a rapidly expanding population decreases the amount of selection against deleterious mutations.
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That could be read in two ways, only one of which is correct. A rapidly expanding population can have a larger number of surviving deleterious mutations per generation, but the fraction of deleterious mutations that survive per generation will be lower. That’s usually described as selection being more effective. See this paper for details and simulations.
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Yes, saying that there will be “more variants” in the population does not mean that there will be more variation. Counting numbers of sites that have a single copy of a variant is not the same as measuring the chance that a random individual is heterozygous at that site.
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Alright, let me be clear here:
“Mutations have fostered the great variety of traits seen among modern humans, according to the researchers, who added, ‘They also may have created a new repository of advantageous genetic variants that adaptive evolution may act upon in future generations.’”
Are you suggesting that this empirical finding from the researchers of the study does NOT support this claim from Denis Venema:
“…there’s been this absolutely astronomical mutation rate that has produced all these new variants in an incredibly short period of time.”
Furthermore, the study observed that the older the genetic variant, the less likely it was to be deleterious. Now, are you suggesting that this empirical finding disconfirms this additional claim he made:
"Those types of mutation rates are just not possible. It would mutate us out of existence.”
Venema’s reasoning in that particular quote is so clouded as to make it difficult to answer:
What I am saying is that his reasoning is wrong in the first place. An astronomical mutation rate is not needed to produce the large quantity of variants we observe.
For other reasons, to explain other data points, one must posit an realistically high mutation rate to make sense of the data in an AIG model of human origins. Namely the divergence of alleles is too great to explain without a high mutation rate.
All this is explained in the links I gave you. Did you read them?
False. This claim of his is correct.
It does not support a claim made by anyone, anywhere, that there has been an astronomical mutation rate producing all of these new variants. The findings of that paper are entirely consistent with the known mutation rate for humans, which is not astronomically high.
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As a side note, I’d encourage us all to avoid this sort of pejorative language. I know Dennis: he’s a Bible-believing Christian. Disagree with his exegesis/theology and/or science, but unless he positions himself as a “critic of the biblical story,” charity calls for accepting his own faith claims.
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I feel like this is a semantic issue here in regards to the usage of the term “astronomical” versus “high” mutational rate. Nevertheless, forget about whether his claim needs to be true in order for two ancestors to exist. Just tell me whether the study confirms this claim (if you can) “there’s been this absolutely astronomical mutation rate that has produced all these new variants in an incredibly short period of time”
So you are saying that it would be wrong to make this conclusion (which was made in a creation website) from the study:
" Adam and Eve were originally created with perfect, error-free genomes—no harmful mutations present."
Isn’t he an outspoken critic of a historical Adam? That’s a view a lot of people think is biblical, though Venema disagrees.
Yes it would be wrong to make this conclusion from the study. It would also be wrong to suggest that it implies a higher mutation rate than we’ve understood.
Then say that, not that he’s a critic of the biblical story.
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Yeah, I think “biblical” unqualified and un contextualized just leads to misunderstandings and is a rhetorical attempt to claim the high ground.
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Oh ok, so you are saying this study, which suggested:
“Large-scale surveys of human genetic variation have reported signatures of recent explosive population growth 4,5,6, notable for an excess of rare genetic variants, suggesting that many mutations arose recently.”
…does NOT confirm this claim "there’s been this absolutely astronomical mutation rate that has produced all these new variants in an incredibly short period of time"
Correct.
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That is correct. The data here does not indicate a massive increase in mutation rates, or even any increase in mutation rates.
Note the quote itself calls this a signal of population growth, not increased mutation rates.
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Thank you so much for being patient with me. I was wondering if you can comment on another topic I created that I need confirmation or clarification on as well:
Possible experiment to test for a “Divine” intelligent designer - Peaceful Science
That is correct. More humans = more mutations. There is no evidence of a change in the underlying rate at which new mutations occur. You are laboring under a misunderstanding.
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22 posts were split to a new topic: Intuiting the Strength of Negative Selection