ReMine's main Haldane calculation (the 1667 figure) deal with only selective substitutions. For more on the the cost situation with neutral mutations see Chapter 9 in his book (a brief chapter 9 summary is online).
Thats the calculation I was referring to with my analogy of two men travelling.
Your first analogy (ie: "Two people are at the same point. If one person stayed fixed and the other one moved then you can ascribe the entire distance between the two to the one who moved.") would best describe the scenaro that ReMine is referring to (since he is dealing with the scenario of the evolution of moden man from a 10 million year old extinxt ape creature population).
From : http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i1/dna.asp?vPrint=1
What if human and chimp DNA was even 96% homologous? What would that mean? Would it mean that humans could have ‘evolved’ from a common ancestor with chimps? Not at all! The amount of information in the 3 billion base pairs in the DNA in every human cell has been estimated to be equivalent to that in 1,000 books of encyclopaedia size.6If humans were ‘only’ 4% different this still amounts to 120 million base pairs, equivalent to approximately 12 million words, or 40 large books of information. This is surely an impossible barrier for mutations (random changes) to cross.7
Note this difference is the result of two lines diverging...like the combined distance between two men who moved away from each other in opposite directions.
You are correct, however this arcticle (by a different creationist) is not discussing the same scenario that ReMine likes to use, but rather is discussing the differences between modern humans and moden apes, thus (if they sharred a common ancestor) the resulting differences in this scenario would not be confined to one line (as in ReMine's) but would be the result of two lines diverging.
Now I don't take issue with Remine coming up with the figure of 1,667 selective substitutions and then applying this to the combined distance because in footnote 7 we see that he doubled the time estimate he used for the divergence. I marked the relevant part in red below. Others unfamiliar with some of the details would be mislead though into thinking that Remine was such a sport that he even gave the other side double the time. A doubling was required. The wording can be misleading.
This is from footnote 7:
Haldane’s Dilemma recognises the problem for evolutionists of getting genetic changes in higher organisms, especially those which have long generation times. Due to the cost of substitution (death of the unfit) of one gene for another in a population, it would take over 7x10 11 years of human–like generations to substitute the 120 million base pairs. Or in 10 million years (twice the time since the chimp/human common ancestor is alleged to have lived), only 1667 substitutions could occur, or 0.001% of the difference. There has simply been insufficient time for ape–like creatures to turn into humans. And this understates the problem by assuming perfect efficiency of natural selection and ignoring deleterious processes like inbreeding and genetic drift, as well as problems posed by pleiotropy (one gene controlling more than one characteristic) and polygeny (more than one gene controlling one characteristic)—most real genes. See W.J. ReMine, The Biotic Message (St. Paul Science, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1993), pp. 215–217. Return to text.
Though the footnote references ReMine's book, it was not written by ReMine. The above footnote (from a 1996 arcticle by Batten) was incorrect to apply all 120 million differences to one line and to use a selection substitution argument (since not all substitutions would be due to selection).
However ReMine was correct to place all of the 1667 selective substitutions into a single line (10 mya extinct ape to moden man).
However, like I've mentioned before, there are some mistakes with how other calculations are made. The Haldane model is talking about selective alleles being replaced. Alleles (genes) are never just one nucleotide base pair in length though.
Though alleles are never just one nucleotide base pair in length, the fact remains that a substituting allele can differ from the one it is substituting by only a single base pair.
The calculation above is misleading because its linking each of the theoretical 1,667 substitutions to individual base pair changes. Its trying to diminish the likely amount of base pair differences that could occur per substitution. Now I'm not saying that it should be 16,000 bp, but there's quite a bit of error by only going with one.
According to ReMine evolutionists generally believe that point mutations are what is usually substituted. The following is from ReMine's main Haldane page:
http://www1.minn.net/~science/
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According to evolutionists the substitutions are almost always a single nucleotide (called a point mutation). 3 3 Sometimes the 'thing' being substituted into the population might be larger than a nucleotide, such as: insertion, deletion, gene inversion, gene duplication, or the relative order of genes on a chromosome. Each of these would count as a substitution, and the argument puts a limit on the total number of substitutions.
Are the substitutions "genes"?
The thrust of my argument does not speak of a limit of "1,667
gene substitutions." Rather my argument focuses on typical substitutions, which – according to evolutionists – are almost always point mutations (a single nucleotide). Yet evolutionists traditionally discussed Haldane's Dilemma in terms of "
gene substitutions," which created the false impression that large blocks of new DNA are being replaced, rather than just a single mutation (typically one nucleotide). That habit further obscured the severity of Haldane's Dilemma from public view. In fact, a well-known evolutionary genetics professor from Cornell University expressed shocked resistance when I first explained this point to him: The 1,667 substitutions are typically single nucleotides,
not 1,667 whole genes. The substituting 'thing' is a mutation, not a gene. It's a simple concept when explained clearly, though it was habitually overlooked even by professionals at the time. The traditional focus on "gene substitutions" is one of many factors that garbled Haldane's Dilemma for so long.
1/24/2005 - by Walter ReMine
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I believe (from what I remember) that Spetner in his book "Not by Chance" also gives in more detail the reasons why evolutionists believe that substitutions are generally of a small nature (ie: point mutations).
Let's not forget that some of the genome sequence differences are also neutral mutations. Just how much I don't know. Neither does Remine. So using 120 million base pairs is also overestimating. Thats why I say no-one can be so sure of the figures being bandied about.
The genome sequence differences could also not be due to mutations at all (but could rather be due to original differences in created genomes). Once again the 120 million figure did not come from ReMine.
P.S. Unrelated: I just read all the research you posted in that thread on the Archangel Micheal. Very cool.
thanks !
