[Right Wing Professor]

So, concisetraveler, do you think a man of integrity on the one hand puts his name on a paper that claims the earth is a few thousand years old, and on the other hand co-authors a paper that discusses in detail movements of the earth's mantle over the last 150 million years, discussing Cenozoic and Mesozoic plate movements that are supposed to have happened tens or hundreds of millions of years ago? Both papers can't be true.

[AndrewC]

Guinea pigs are not primates. 20,000,000 plus 50,000,000 is 70,000,000 years not 50,000,000. Neither is it 100,000,000 years, but it is a long time for a segment of DNA to go with absolutely no mutations when right next door(less than 9 bases) there are multiple hits including on animals with a conserved gene.(and of course the noteworthy primate deletion).

[goodseedhomeschool (returned)]

Do not post to me please. I still do not appreciate being called a "loser".

[Ichneumon]

You may post to me any time, my mind is still open to learn new things.

[Ichneumon]

The poster affectionately known as Mr. LLLICHY wrote: Guinea pigs are not primates.

That's a repeat -- I don't recall that anyone has claimed that they are. That seems rather a gratuitous thing to announce twice.

gra·tu·i·tous    ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (gr-t-ts, -ty-)
adj.

1. Given or granted without return or recompense; unearned.
2. Given or received without cost or obligation; free.
3. Unnecessary or unwarranted; unjustified: gratuitous criticism.

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[From Latin grtutus. See g^wer-² in Indo-European Roots.]

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Your attention please: Cars are not waffles. Repeat, cars are not waffles. Further bulletins as events warrant.

[LLLICHY:] 20,000,000 plus 50,000,000 is 70,000,000 years not 50,000,000. Neither is it 100,000,000 years,

Finally, something I hope everyone can agree on. And cars *still* aren't waffles, in case anyone was concerned.

[LLLICHY:] but it is a long time for a segment of DNA to go with absolutely no mutations when right next door(less than 9 bases) there are multiple hits including on animals with a conserved gene.(and of course the noteworthy primate deletion).

"Long" in what sense, I wonder.

It is not a "long time" for an arbitrary segment (of unspecified shortness) of DNA to remain unaltered by a mutation which has become fixed in the population. Statistically, given the known rate of neutral mutation fixation, it's just about the right amount of time.

Furthermore, it looks as if someone is forgetting that the rate of fixation is not the same thing as the rate of mutation. That "segment" of DNA may well have undergone an uncorrected mutation once or more in the past in that lineage (in fact, it can be shown to be likely) only to have neutral drift wash it back out (which is much more likely than fixation for neutral mutations), resulting in no net change and someone gasping over the unremarkable fact that not *all* DNA in a pseudogene has managed to fix to a different basepair.

Oddly enough, not all U-238 atoms have decayed yet either, even though the one only 9 atoms over may have. *gasp*.