You are mistaken. Dr. Robert Carter is the author of that article, not me.
Yeah, that’s true as far as it goes, but a more technically accurate way of putting it would be to say that the mutations damage the information in the genome. This is because the term ‘fitness’ can be defined by context in such a way that it is not really an objective look at the genome itself but rather a look at how the organism is surviving in a given environment. In certain special cases an organism with a highly mutated (damaged) genome can actually survive better than its more robust, non-mutated progenitors (reductive evolution). But generally speaking most mutations do have a deleterious effect on fitness.
“Although a few select studies have claimed that a substantial fraction of spontaneous mutations are beneficial under certain conditions (Shaw et al. 2002; Silander et al. 2007;
Dickinson 2008), evidence from diverse sources strongly suggests that the effect of most spontaneous mutations is to reduce fitness (Kibota and Lynch 1996; Keightley and Caballero 1997; Fry et al. 1999; Vassilieva et al. 2000; Wloch et al. 2001; Zeyl and de Visser 2001; Keightley and Lynch 2003;Trindade et al. 2010; Heilbron et al. 2014).”
Handwaving non-answers noted. Do you realize if your Ark scenario was true then according to Sanford all the populations with one breeding pair should have died out from “genetic entropy” thousands of years ago? You guys can never get your story straight.
Interesting, I’ll have to look into that. (Could you cite a source on that?)
These are the same sorts of considerations present and dealt with in the article:
EDIT:
(Oops, I should have noticed that Dr Carter already addressed the ‘mice’ question in this very article!)
What about other fast-reproducing organisms?
One might reply, “But mice have genomes about the size of the human genome and have much shorter generation times. Why do we not see evidence of GE in them?” Actually, we do. The common house mouse, Mus musculus , has much more genetic diversity than people do, including a huge range of chromosomal differences from one sub-population to the next. They are certainly experiencing GE. On the other hand, they seem to have a lower per-generation mutation rate. Couple that with a much shorter generation time and a much greater population size, and, like bacteria, there is ample opportunity to remove bad mutations from the population. Long-lived species with low population growth rates (e.g. humans) are the most threatened, but the others are not immune.
Dr Carter does not appear to agree with your assessment of mice mutation rates (and counts per generation) compared to humans, but in any case that’s not the only factor at work here.
EDIT:
After doing some searching, it appears the latest data would validate what Dr. Carter said about these rates:
Recent whole genome sequencing (WGS) studies have estimated that the human germline mutation rate per basepair per generation (∼1.2−10−8) 1,2 is substantially higher than in mice (3.5-5.4−10−9) 3,4, which has been attributed to more efficient purifying selection due to larger effective population sizes in mice compared to humans.5,6,7.
LOL! Do you realize that excuse with all its unsupported claim not only doesn’t explain anything it is exactly backwards? Shorter generation time means MORE genetic entropy and a more rapid decay of the population.
How does a larger population with short generation time allow for more opportunity to remove bad mutations from the population?
Please explain in your own words. Also please explain why all the species in pairs on the Ark didn’t die out from genetic entropy.
Then it is disingenuous to present and discuss the concept of genetic entropy in the terms of population genetics and evolution. As in mutations being beneficial or deleterious(which means they positively or negatively affect fitness, as in reproductive success), and the issue to be one of accumulating reproductively deleterious mutations.
Instead you mean with the term “genetic entropy” to be implying that most mutations are in some other sense degenerative. You should then, to avoid the very misleading bait-and-switch you are doing, completely abandon the terms fitness, beneficial, and deleterious, and speak exclusively in terms of that other thing you really mean.
The deception is all yours. Or Sanfords, or Carters. I don’t really care with whom this bait-and-switch originated, you seem to be just fine perpetuating it.
In most cases, these two senses overlap completely. In some special circumstances, they do not. I’ve done my best to explain this. No deception involved, we’re just having to deal with a word ‘fitness’ that is unfortunately sometimes misleading.
And when they don’t, you just keep using the vocabulary of fitness and deleterious mutations but speak instead about some other sense where individual molecular or phenotypic functions are “degraded”, and then start claiming that the term fitness is misleading. And then accuse biologists of doing this deliberately.
Read this fatuous nonsense from the creationist article on fitness you linked earlier:
We know that mutations happen, and we understand that most mutations are bad. So how does evolution work? One way evolutionists get around the problem is to ignore the discussion of mutations. They appeal to an increase in ‘fitness’ as a counter to any claim of genetic deterioration. If fitness has increased, they argue, then deterioration has not occurred.
Really? Who is it that says that when fitness has increased, then deterioration (presumably in any sense) has not occurred? Quote them, and make sure to explain that they are speaking of the same sense of deterioration as you are, not fitness in the reproductive success sense.
In some special circumstances, they do not. I’ve done my best to explain this. No deception involved, we’re just having to deal with a word ‘fitness’ that is unfortunately sometimes misleading.
I’ll keep in mind that you’ve said this. You are admitting here (implicitly) that you accept that fitness can increase and yet deterioration has occurred nonetheless. Have I misunderstood you?
I am entirely fine with saying that in some sense “deterioration” of some molecular or cellular system, or entity, can occur simultaneously with fitness increases. Something can “deteriorate”, and that deterioration can cause a fitness increase. Sure. It is trivial to think of examples.
So, that creationist article you linked and I quoted from, no reference is given to any of these supposed evolutionists who “ignore the discussion of mutations” and “appeal to an increase in fitness to counter any claim of genetic deterioration”. Is that because perhaps there are none making that deceptive sleight-of-hand you are ironically projecting on to them?
Let’s end on a high note here for now, shall we? The rest of what you’ve said is just going to devolve into a flamewar talking about who is deceiving whom.
Dan Graur has already addressed this topic, and the data looks pretty solid:
Most studies show that 5-10% of the human genome is under purifying selection which is the best evidence we have for the functional part of the human genome. Therefore, mutational load is not a problem for the human population. By extension, I don’t see how it would be a problem for most other species.
Yes, I agree it’s difficult. In fact Dr Carter and I have something in the works for publishing online which delves a bit into this difficulty of defining terms with reference to Genetic Entropy. There are no easy answers for that.
From what I have seen, this is an entirely subjective claim. “Damage” is whatever you want it to be. If we are going to approach this from a scientific view then we need something we can objectively measure.
Fitness is an objective measure of how alleles move through a population.
Most mutations are neutral. Only 10% or so of mutations can even affect fitness since 90% of the human genome lacks function and is accumulating mutations at a rate consistent with neutral drift.
