There is every reason to believe the ratio would be either the same or worse. Why?
“Even the simplest of living organisms are highly complex. Mutations—indiscriminate
alterations of such complexity—are much more likely to be harmful than beneficial.”
Gerrish, P., et al., Genomic mutation rates that neutralize adaptive evolution and natural selection,
J. R. Soc. Interface, 29 May 2013; DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2013.0329.
The onus would be on you to prove that somehow, against all evidence and logic, the majority of effectively neutral mutations are somehow beneficials. I don’t think any serious scientist thinks that is the case.
All the science shows that mutations (including these effectively neutral ones) are much more likely to be harmful. The above quote was a general statement applying to all mutations, and certainly was not excluding ‘effectively neutral’ ones. I challenge you to find any strong evidence that effectively neutral mutations are mostly beneficial (or even 50/50)
Then please cite the science. Remember, we are talking about effectively neutral mutations, not detrimental mutations that do affect fitness in a detectable manner and can be seen by natural selection.
I disagree. My reading of the paper shows that the author is comparing beneficial and deleterious mutations, not effectively neutral mutations. I don’t see anywhere in the paper where he deals with neutral mutations. The major push of the paper is the balancing act between deleterious mutations, beneficial mutations, and natural selection. Can you find where in the paper the author addresses neutral mutations?
I appreciate your time. It looks like the premise you’ve chosen to dispute is “most effectively neutral mutations are damaging.” @Rumraket I wonder if you’d agree and join him in disputing this?
I know you’ve been asked this, but I must confess to skimming and am repeating a question. How do you explain the viability of rapidly generating organisms like bacteria? Why hasn’t GE forced them into extinction long ago?
I should hope so, since that premise is without any foundation. Assuming that evolution theory is correct, then in any long-lasting lineage effectively neutral mutations should be balanced between slightly deleterious and slightly beneficial, except in cases where the population size has decreased or increased. In those cases, one or the other will be more common until equilibrium is again restored.
There’s a nice example in humans and similar species. We know one class of slightly deleterious mutations are those that change one codon for another that codes for the same amino acid. Different codons typically have very slightly different fitnesses because of different tRNA abundances and the like. In bacteria, we can clearly see this codon bias operating, meaning that there actual codons tend to be the slightly fitter one (and there are a host of very slightly deleterious mutations waiting to happen). In humans, on the other hand, there is no trace of this effect, and no preference for better codons – because the slightly deleterious mutations occurred long ago in our distant ancestors, so that now there are just as many opportunities for bases to mutate back to the better codon as there are opportunities for slightly deleterious mutations.
I don’t think the science of population genetics would back up this statement. I have never seen any scientific paper talking about the distribution of fitness effects that would suggest that beneficial and deleterious mutations are split 50/50. It’s completely obvious that that would never be the case. Why?
“Even the simplest of living organisms are highly complex. Mutations—indiscriminate
alterations of such complexity—are much more likely to be harmful than beneficial.”
Gerrish, P., et al., Genomic mutation rates that neutralize adaptive evolution and natural selection,
J. R. Soc. Interface, 29 May 2013; DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2013.0329.
Not true. Humans have done very well for 2 million years without God’s help. From stone tools to landing on the moon to smart phone, mankind has done amazing things. And I am optimistic that mankind will continue to do even more amazing things without the help nor involvement of any God.
The science of population genetics is what I do for a living.
It’s an obvious consequence of selection coefficients that are too small to be acted on by natural selection, and much too small to be measured directly. What kind of paper could you write about it?
That paper does not address the kind of very slightly beneficial and deleterious mutations you’re talking about. Not at all.
Take a step back and think about what you’re saying. You’re claiming that the fitness distribution for effectively neutral mutations is somehow completely different from the distribution for non-neutral mutations. Yet, mutations are supposed to be indiscriminate (random). If they are truly random, then the universe does not care and cannot know whether the mutation will be ‘effectively neutral’ or not. The distribution must be the same regardless precisely because the mutations are random. You said ‘assuming evolution is true’, but that’s the whole point. I’m not assuming that.
That paper is paywalled. Since you clearly have access to it, could you tell us how they support that conclusion?
Before you worry about it, could you not at least show that it exists? I would think that a laboratory study with a fairly small population and a short generation time should be adequate.
Among those questions were my postings on the behavior of smallpox and measles which anyone can see are completely contrary to Sanford’s genetic entropy. A Trust Building Exercise on Genetic Entropy
Anyone who wants to demonstrate that GE is true ought to compare “ancient” DNA with modern. There are all kinds of flora and fauna that have been preserved for many thousands of years, so there should be some kind of evidence of “devolution”.
I think it might be more interesting and helpful if @Rumraket explained the reasoning there, since I believe, unless I am mistaken, that he would agree with that statement.
I think it would be much more helpful, though perhaps not as interesting, if you would just answer direct questions rather than deflecting them onto someone else. Could you please tell me how Eyre-Walker and Keightley support the conclusion that no mutation is truly neutral?
Absolutely. That’s because one set is effectively neutral and the other is subject to natural selection. Suppose there’s a position in our genome that has four possible bases. Two are almost identically good for the organism, two are bad. Suppose it starts out with a bad base there. Millions of years and lots of generations go by. At some point a mutation to one of the good bases occurs and is fixed by natural selection. Thereafter, any mutation at that site to one of the two bad bases will be weeded out by purifying selection and will be rapidly eliminated. So the site will be in one of the two good states. But which one? The difference between them is too small for selection to have an effect, so there is no preference for which occurs. The site can mutate back and forth between them freely.
In order for very slightly deleterious mutations to dominate in sites like this, there has to be some mechanism to get the sequence into the preferred state to start with. What is that mechanism?
The distribution of mutations is random. What’s not random is the state of the genome. That’s determined by the history of natural selection operating on the organism, and that’s what determines whether the next mutation to occur will be beneficial or not.
Well, great. In a creationist model, it could easily be the case that genetic entropy is a real thing, and we’re all doomed. In an evolutionary model, genetic entropy isn’t a thing. So how is this an argument against evolution?
Your order of causation is backwards. Natural selection only steps in once a mutation has already occurred and once it has had some effect. The fitness distribution comes ontologically prior to that. The fitness distribution is the distribution of effects caused by random mutations and is the ‘raw material’ that selection has to work with in the first place. You cannot claim that selection has an effect on the fitness distribution. Fundamentally that’s just not how it works.
No. Whether the mutation is beneficial or not has to do with exactly what change was made, and these effects can be estimated according to a curve in terms of how often they are beneficial, deleterious, etc.It is not itself a result of selection.
Because the evidence shows that genetic entropy is a real thing. This is why Dan Graur said “If ENCODE is right, evolution is wrong.” Because he knows that there are far too many damaging mutations, so he has to try and downplay the genome as if it were mostly junk. But as Rumraket knows, even that won’t save you, because just because code is allegedly non-functional doesn’t mean you can make random changes to it without causing effects. The law of unintended consequences.