[Lucky Dog]

On average then there will be 10^4 mutations introduced into the population every generation.

Now you must take into account the number of mutations that are detrimental or benign versus beneficial and the probabilities of a change in environment natural selection pressure. Additionally, you must also account for how many generations it takes to have whatever sequential beneficial mutation appear and how many sequential mutations must exists for a new species to appear.

[PatrickHenry]

Additionally, you must also account for how many generations it takes to have whatever sequential beneficial mutation appear and how many sequential mutations must exists for a new species to appear.

Not all mutations are of equal weight. Some are really trivial. Others have a noticeable effect: One gene produces major changes in stickleback fish. So just counting mutations will accomplish little. And as I said before, all that is required for speciation is that the two populations no longer breed together. That can be due to a trivial factor. I don't think your attempt to model this stuff is on the right track.

[Coyoteman]

Now you must take into account the number of mutations that are detrimental or benign versus beneficial and the probabilities of a change in environment natural selection pressure. Additionally, you must also account for how many generations it takes to have whatever sequential beneficial mutation appear and how many sequential mutations must exists for a new species to appear.

Start back in the past. How far? Take you pick, but find a spot.

Figure out how many mutations it takes to get from there to here in your chosen species.

The rest is left as an exercise for the student. (Show your work.)

[js1138]

Now you must take into account the number of mutations that are detrimental or benign versus beneficial and the probabilities of a change in environment natural selection pressure.

I think you might be forgetting that most fatal and severely detrimental mutations will be eliminate prior to conception or prior to birth. The odds of a sperm cell conceiving are a billion to one. Egg cells have gone through fewer divisions and will have fewer mutations.

Just something to enter into your equations. Personally, I think your formulas are not very well thought out. The fact that you haven't mentioned this as a factor tells me you haven't studied the problem.

It is refressing to encounter a real argument, but I think as you study it, you will find others have been there before you.

[edsheppa]

That's all very complicated, but I just did a somewhat reasonable simulation.

- Fixed population of 500 individuals
- Genome size of 500 loci
- Every new gene has a relative fitness
- - 1% have 0.8
- - 10% have 0.9
- - 72% have 1.0
- - 10% have 1.1
- - 1% have 1.2
- Total relative fitness for an individual is the product of the fitness of the genes in its genome
- Pairs of individual are selected randomly for reproduction in proportion to relative fitness
- Genes at each locus are selected from one or the other parent with equal probability of 1/2
- Mutations are introduced at a rate of one in 10^6 which is at the conservative end of your range

I ran the simulation 5 times. It took an average of about 2000 generations to completely fix 10 new genes. That is 2% of the genome which seems to me a reasonable analog for the development of a new species.

I'm sure you'll disagree so I ran it three more times and waited for 25 new genes to fix. This took an average of about 6000 generations.