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To: Paul Ross
In fact, neutral mutations incur a greater cost, since they will have a greater propensity to drift back and forth in frequency since they have no selective value. Every time the frequency goes down, it negates any previous payment made by reproductive excess to get it to that frequency; when it drifts back up, a new payment via excess reproduction is needed, hence net cost is increased. According to ReMine, Haldane showed that cost is minimized only when fixation moves steadily upward3.

Williams and ReMine stake much on this, the assertion that neutral mutations come with a higher "cost." They need it for instance to get rid of the objection that the functional portion of the human/chimp genome difference is likely small compared to the total. Thus, they really need a good argument here. I don't see one.

Some neutral mutations will "drift back and forth" in frequency as Williams asserts. Not all will. Many die out rather quickly. A few hit the jackpot. That's probabilities for you. The average person is average, but not everyone is average. Fallacy of composition, or something like that.

I'm not making it up. Scientists model this stuff all the time for better reasons than arguing with kooks like ReMine. Neutral or nearly-neutral effects are a large part of the genetic diversity of any sexual species.

Moving on:

For linkage to pay the cost of two for the price of one, the following must occur:

a) The neutral mutation must occur about the same time as the beneficial mutation it is linked to. If it occurs say 50% into the fixation cycle of the beneficial mutation, it can’t just magically appear on all the other chromosomes in the population. It has to begin its own payment cycle when it first appears. All those without the mutation, which would be the entire population plus all descendants without the mutation, must eventually be removed.

Every retrovirus in every genome makes a mockery of this. Some mutations are big. They live or die as a unit. Whether or not ReMine knows this, Williams appears blithely ignornat of it.

I may or may not do some more. You don't have to eat a whole omelet to know if it's got a bad egg.

839 posted on 12/08/2005 2:58:09 PM PST by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: VadeRetro
a) The neutral mutation must occur about the same time as the beneficial mutation it is linked to. If it occurs say 50% into the fixation cycle of the beneficial mutation, it can’t just magically appear on all the other chromosomes in the population. It has to begin its own payment cycle when it first appears. All those without the mutation, which would be the entire population plus all descendants without the mutation, must eventually be removed.

This needed to be in italics. It is Williams and it is silly.

840 posted on 12/08/2005 3:00:58 PM PST by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: VadeRetro
According to ReMine, Haldane showed that cost is minimized only when fixation moves steadily upward3.

Are you asserting that is not what Haldane concluded?

I'm not making it up. Scientists model this stuff all the time for better reasons than arguing with kooks like ReMine

Sure looks like you're making it up since you can't recognize a mathematical scientist's valid critiques without your lamely making defamatory and derogatory ad hominems.

862 posted on 12/10/2005 2:57:06 PM PST by Paul Ross (My idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple...It is this, 'We win and they lose.')
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