Not surprising

Posted by GaDS on August 31, 1998 at 15:34:15:

In Reply to: Mutation and diversity posted by rpcman on August 31, 1998 at 13:31:35:

: : A basic difference between Creationism and Evolutionism is that Creationism believes there wasn't enough time for the world as we know it to happen without help and evolutionism believes that there was.

: I believe it is in Mark Ridley's textbook on evolution that he cites several mutation rate studies. If I remember correctly, based on mutation rates there has actually been far less evolution (and therefore diversity) than we would expect. Natural selection's elimination of the non-pseudogenes that don't help a population slows the rate of diversity, new species, etc. Fun stuff to explore when you get down to the actual nuts and bolts (ie. the math, genes, and observed mutations involved).

Thanks for the reference - I'll check it out. I am not surprised that rates of mutation exceed the observed rates of changes, as it is generally believed that most mutations are deleterious in some way or outright fatal. As I've indicated, living organisms are incredibly complicated and there are far more ways to mess up a functioning system than to improve it. Ask any programmer that has tried to add a line of code or patch to an existing program of any real complexity.

GaDS