Mutation Rates

Bad Creationist Genetics: “Adam and Eve could not have lived 200,000 years ago!”
18th Aug. 2022 | Creation Myths
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-VXV0ZdV8Q

4:58 Here is where you go wrong.

"For everyone on this island we expect to see 105 to 210 mutations in the chromosome"

Actually, not for everyone but for all taken together

For each, you'd expect 15 to 30 mutations from his ancestor.

lidbass

‘Everyone’ means ‘all taken together’. He has already established this in the sentence just before your quote, and then makes it clear just after when he points out that there is one mutation for ‘all’ the Y chromosomes. Yes, I know that in certain contexts ‘everyone’ can mean ‘each separate individual’ but not here.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@lidbass "Everyone" = "every one" = "each separate individual" in English grammar.

I hope your clarification is correct, I am a grammar Nazi - and not exactly a fan of how scientists abuse language between themselves.

Creation Myths

@Hans-Georg Lundahl if I had meant “for each person”, I’d have said “for each person”.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Creation Myths Thank you for clarifying.

As a lang and lit person, I cannot predict what extra rules apply on English indefinite pronouns within your sociolect.

lidbass

@Hans-Georg Lundahl I am also a grammar Nazi, and an English teacher! From Swan, Practical English Usage. Oxford University Press:

In many cases, both each and every can be used without much difference of meaning:
You look more beautiful each/every time I see you.
But we prefer 'each' when we are thinking of people or things separately, one at a time. And 'every' is more common when we are thinking of people or things together, in a group. ('Every' is closer to 'all') Compare:
Each person went in turn to see the doctor.
He gave every patient the same medicine.

As I said in the video the context of everyone=all the people in the group has already been established in the previous sentences and then reinforced in the following sentence. Hope this clears it up for you.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@lidbass "He gave every patient the same medicine" is in fact thinking of the patients individually.

Proof : "Every patient GETS the same medicine" ...

While this is the same as "All patientS GET the same medicine" - it does not remain so when it comes to numbered things.

"Every man got five pounds for the work, that day"

Does not mean:

"All men got five pounds for the work that day"

For the latter, the sum total of what they got is five pounds and for the former, very clearly, you have to multiply five pounds by the number of men to know the total of their day's wage.

lidbass

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Yes, as I pointed out, 'every' can also mean 'each individual', and, AS YOU YOURSELF SAY, it can also mean 'all of the individuals'. It depends on the context. Once again, go back and listen to the relevant part of the video.

4:06 '..that works out to, across the entire population, 21 mutations per generation...' (Note the word 'entire')

4:26 '...that gets us a minimum 105 mutations... (Screen says '105 total mutations')

4:43 '...at 21 mutations per generation, again total for this population on the island...' (Note the word 'total')

4:48 '...we expect to see 210 mutations ... (Screen says '210 total mutations')

4:52 'So for everybody on this island...' (The sentence you don't like, but on screen it says '105-210 total mutations')

5:13 'One mutation. In all the Y chromosome lineages on the island.' (Note the word 'all'.)

Clearly, in the context, by 'everybody', he means all the men, not each individual man, leaving aside the fact that, as I quoted from Swan in my previous comment, 'every' is NORMALLY used to mean the group as a group, not as individuals. I have noting against pedantry per se, but I really do think that you are splitting hairs here.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@lidbass "and, AS YOU YOURSELF SAY"

No, what I said was, there are sentences where the logical meaning is the same for different grammatical ones. There are other sentences where the grammatical difference makes for a logical difference.

Time sign. 4:06 - 4:48, I may have looked at own work (like html of some post) and have missed the screen. The word "total" depends more and more on the screen.

5:13 - indeed, but I had already stopped the video and commented before hearing it. I commented next comment on it at 5:18 and actually was pleasantly surprised by what he was saying.

You see, there are different schools of YEC, and one of the things I have been less enthusing about when it comes to CMI is the idea of "genetic entropy" as proof of a young humanity.

Apart from the grammatical quibble, Creation Myths has already confirmed he meant "total" and the rest of this debate on this comment is simply underlining my grammar lesson!

"as I quoted from Swan in my previous comment, 'every' is NORMALLY used to mean the group as a group, not as individuals."

I think Swan was misanalysing the sentence "he gave everyone the same medicine." Sorry. It's so recent, author is from a culture that has lost part of its skills on these subject. Latinists did it better!

lidbass

@Hans-Georg Lundahl I may be losing my mind but at no point in our discussion have you ever said that the logical meaning is the same for different grammatical ones. Neither have you explicitly said that there are sentences where the grammatical difference makes for a logical difference, although that has been both your misunderstanding and my point.

Your grammar lesson is, frankly, wrong: a fact confirmed by Creation Myths. And by Swan. Since you apparently don't seem to know who he is, I feel obliged to inform you that he first wrote Practical English Usage in 1980. The book is aimed at foreign language students of English and was immediately considered to be a classic. It is an essential reference book for all English teachers and is currently on its fourth edition, having sold over two million copies. I myself have two copies of it. Swan graduated from Oxford with a bachelor's degree in modern foreign languages and also has a post-graduate degree. He has published a number of books on English grammar and in 2012 won the Award in English Language Teaching, conferred by the British Council and the Society of Writers. He is also an award-winning translator and poet on the side. However, I'm sure that he will be more than happy to be told that he has misanalysed a sentence. Shall you tell him or shall I?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@lidbass "I may be losing my mind but at no point in our discussion have you ever said that the logical meaning is the same for different grammatical ones."

I was explicitating what I meant. "All are good" and "each is good" is indeed equivalent, but only logically, not grammatically. A distinction I forgot to explicitate the first time over.

"Neither have you explicitly said that there are sentences where the grammatical difference makes for a logical difference,"

This is what I meant with the example "all got five pounds" (together) = logically different from "each / everyone got five pounds" (you need to multiply by the number of persons to know what all got together). How could this NOT be a grammatical difference (between "every"/"each" and "all) leading to a logical difference (on whether 5 pounds are sum total or just a quotient part).

"although that has been both your misunderstanding and my point."

My misunderstanding - or Creation Myth's misuse of English?

"Your grammar lesson is, frankly, wrong: a fact confirmed by Creation Myths."

No, he only confirmed having made an ungrammatical use of "every" ...

"And by Swan. Since you apparently don't seem to know who he is, I feel obliged to inform you that he first wrote Practical English Usage in 1980."

It so happens, 1980 is still too recent. I did look the book up.

"The book is aimed at foreign language students of English"

Thank God I missed it!

"and was immediately considered to be a classic."

You can't have something immediately "classic" - you can have something immediately "epic" - narrative of war or voyage involving intricate conclict written in verse and sufficiently long - or immediately "monumental" - like a stair in a public space that is sufficiently broad and ornate.

But you cannot have an immediate classic. At best an immediate candidate for a classic later on. This was what CSL correctly predicted for LotR when reviewing it, but he took care not to say anything like what Garth or I can safely say now a few generations later : it is (by now, but not already back then) a classic. The reason is, classics are defined by reception : what has been well received over more than one generation.

"It is an essential reference book for all English teachers"

I'm happy to not be one of those, then.

"and is currently on its fourth edition,"

That I did look up, and this is why I already said former comment it was too recent to be decent.

"having sold over two million copies. I myself have two copies of it."

Pious hope each possessor is one such of two copies, since that means all possessors amount to only a million ...?

"Swan graduated from Oxford with a bachelor's degree in modern foreign languages and also has a post-graduate degree. He has published a number of books on English grammar and in 2012 won the Award in English Language Teaching, conferred by the British Council and the Society of Writers. He is also an award-winning translator and poet on the side. However, I'm sure that he will be more than happy to be told that he has misanalysed a sentence. Shall you tell him or shall I?"

If he's a poet, he will probably be better suited than you to comprehend that over centuries, the main difference between "each" and "every" is one of metre, not one of meaning. Unless of course all his poetry is of modern verse. You know "free" (from metric constraints).

Give me his mail, I'll take the discussion.

5:18 1 mutation?

Perhaps Tristan da Cunha has less background radiation than Princeton? Lower down from cosmic, less close to Uranium in the ground and so on?

I am fairly happy, if this is the cas to have been sceptical about their use of "Darwin's accountant" ...

6:26 Are you just saying that, to have Noah and last common female ancestor of his three daughters in law 5000 years back, there would have to been a period when mutation rates were way higher than now?

Because, if so, you have just saved my dissent from other YECs on yet another point.

The 350 years after the Flood, C14 increased by a production rate 10 times higher than the present, ionising particles hastened the onset of an Ice Age ending c. 350 after the Flood, life spans lowered for those born later in this time (and continued to do that up to Abraham, even if production rate of C14 was only 6 times the present one), AND without this, we would not have enough mutations to account for human variations?

Lovely as a Christmas present!

Thank you!

UPDATE:

CORRECTION to "Bad Creationist Genetics: “Adam and Eve could not have lived 200,000 years ago!”"
22 Aug. 2022 | Creation Myths
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AxSbIGNG5E

4:56 Again, thank you.

A Young Earth Creationist Timeline needs some part of the history with speeded up mutation rates.

You recall why the idea of a still rising C14 level came out of favour and was replaced by Setterfield changed speed of light / changed halflives theory, over much if not all of the board?

Well, it is pretty testable that historic and carbon 14 data over 2000 - 3000 years fit a known halflife of 5730 and a round 100 pmC atmospheric level - contrary to earlier claims that level was still rising, hadn't reached equilibrium with decay yet.

Well, to save the old theory, I do need a time (I'm setting it to between Flood and Babel and somewhat less so between Babel and Abraham) when carbon 14 was produced faster than now.

The most plausible reason for this would be - more cosmic rays incoming (producing an up to ten times as fast renewal of C14).

And another result of exactly the same factor would be much faster mutation rates than now, which in turn would be great as explaining the lowered lifespans (up to 900 + pre-Flood, vs Abraham only got 175 years, and even that has been lowered since to 120 / 130 as very extreme maxima).

So, thank you!

Dan Hoff

C14 calibration curves. We have a pretty good idea what the C14 ratios were. You can't just add a post hoc rational and call it more plausible when we already have the data that speaks to that not being the case.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Dan Hoff It so happens, a calibration depends on two things:

1) a carbon date
2) a type of object that can be dated independently of carbon and so dated can give conflicting dates.

And the calibration curve I give is no exception, it's just that for carbon dated 3500 BC, I think Genesis 14 is a much better independent dating than tree rings are.

Making carbon dated 3500 BC = actual 1935 (margin within 11 years) BC. This would mean the carbon 14 level was somewhere in the 70's or 80's of pmC. You know, the value that gives an age of 1565 years if its what is found in a sample.

Dan Hoff

@Hans-Georg Lundahl the alternative here is that you are incorrectly interpreting Genesis as strictly historical when the observational evidence undercuts that notion entirely.

If you believe the calibration curve data is wrong and C14 ratios were higher in the past you have to explain that not just hand waive it away. Genesis says nothing about C14 directly so it's not like that is some alternative record, you're making an assumption based on your own interpretation of the text.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Dan Hoff "and C14 ratios were higher in the past"

I believe they were LOWER - but rising faster.

I explain the incoming greater amount of cosmic radiation as basically an act of God, with the main intent of accelerating precisely mutations and shorten telomeres to shorten lifespans.

Consequences were:

• the shortening of lifespans
• a sum of mutations beyond Biblical chronology if mutation rates are read as always the one now observed
• the rapid onset of the Ice Age after the Flood, lasting 350 years up to Younger Dryas
• AND the rapid production of C14 resulting in a rapid rise, so that C14 rose from 1.4 to 100 pmC between 2957 BC (Flood) and 1179 BC (fall of Troy).

That's my explanation, and the second point is the new confirmation that Creation Myths gave for it.

"Genesis says nothing about C14 directly"

Neither do tree rings. Neither do any objects serving for calibration.

Genesis 14 DOES mentioned the evacuation of En-Geddi, called therein Asason-Tamar, and that evacuation has been carbon dated to 3500 BC by Israeli archaeologists.

@Dan Hoff Genesis 14, verse 7 has:

and they smote all the country of the Amalecites, and the Amorrhean that dwelt in Asasonthamar.

II Chronicles 20:2 has:

and behold they are in Asasonthamar, which is Engaddi

The interpretation localising to En-Geddi is not doubtful and archaeology leaves very little alternative to that Chalcolithic population which evacuated in carbon dated "3500 BC" - the Neolithic one would place Abraham into the Neolithic and the Iron age one is closer to King David than to Abraham.

Credits to Osgood for making the equation Genesis 14 = Chalcolithic of Engaddi.

Dan Hoff

@Hans-Georg Lundahl there is a large difference in the content of Genesis 1-2 and Genesis 14. I don't think you're making a point here about Genesis being historical. Different parts of the old testament record things that would have been directly known to the author and things that the author would not have had direct knowledge of. No skeptic I'm aware of claims that the Bible contains no historically accurate accounts about the Israelites. The question is which accounts are historically accurate and which accounts are historically dubious or straight out myth? And when I have observational evidence that precludes a certain interpretation I can be confident that that interpretation is wrong.

@Hans-Georg Lundahl your explanation is entirely post hoc, lacks evidentiary support and relies on a miracle. Why should I take this seriously? This is clown car garbage.

"Neither do tree rings." I think this is incorrect. If you want to contest that trees provide an accurate record of atmospheric C14 you need to demonstrate that radiometric decay rates are variable or that tree ages are incorrectly determined (which is the AIG position, with no supporting evidence). Both of these are independently testable. You don't have an argument here.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Dan Hoff Let's see if you have an argument - I will be sifting through two comments of yours.

"Genesis 1-2 and Genesis 14."

I wasn't even mentioning Genesis 1-2 in the first place. The earliest chapter in Genesis that's relevant for my calibration is 6 - 9, the Flood with background.

"I don't think you're making a point here about Genesis being historical."

I didn't feel challenged about that, you seemed more interested in carbon calibration.

"Different parts of the old testament record things that would have been directly known to the author and things that the author would not have had direct knowledge of."

I don't think there are very many outside prophecy, unless by "author" you limit yourself to final author of a book.

"No skeptic I'm aware of claims that the Bible contains no historically accurate accounts about the Israelites. The question is which accounts are historically accurate and which accounts are historically dubious or straight out myth?"

The fact is, most pagan myth is historically at least moderately accurate.

"And when I have observational evidence that precludes a certain interpretation I can be confident that that interpretation is wrong."

We do not have any such thing against the historicity of even Genesis 1-2, much less the Biblical chronology I am defending.

What conflicts with Genesis' historicity is your .... tadam, drumroll ... interpretation of observational evidence. I'm offering an alternative interpretation of it and here taking into account how Creation Myths is correcting Carter / Jeanson on today's normal mutation rates.

"your explanation is entirely post hoc,"

If you meant "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" I don't see any kind of even hint at that fallacy.

If you meant "ad hoc" it is not a fallacy, and in fact it isn't, since the point Creation Myths just taught me is another evidence among by now four for the theory I propose.

"lacks evidentiary support"

No more than treering based calibrations for the 2nd to 4th millennia BC.

"and relies on a miracle. Why should I take this seriously? This is clown car garbage."

If its relying on a miracle is a no no for you, I don't see why you should be a privileged interlocutor for me - I can't cater to everyone's irrational prejudices!

"I think this is incorrect. If you want to contest that trees provide an accurate record of atmospheric C14 you need to demonstrate that radiometric decay rates are variable"

Variable decay rates do not even enter into my model, and I think I understand it better after using it for years than you do after a very brief glance.

"or that tree ages are incorrectly determined (which is the AIG position, with no supporting evidence)."

Let's rather say - when we go back far enough inadequately determined.

Having a splendidly accurate chronology based on documents for 16th C AD doesn't mean your documents from Ancient Egypt will be adequate for a splendidly accurate chronology of 16th C BC. Why? Because the documents become scarcer and less easy to doublecheck and compare and less easy to interpret. You know, time has swept away more of 16th C BC documents than of 16th C AD documents.

The same goes for tree rings. Less of the wood from back then is available, the pieces are more fragmentary and therefore the matchings are far less sure. An excellent test for both 14th C late pre-Columbian wood's carbon dates and tree rings will not prove that the same accuracy holds if you turn the centuries round into BC ones.

And I highly doubt you can have any kind of independent test for tree ring accuracy 2000 BC. It will be circular with carbon and with the kind of documentation we know that Egyptians sometimes inflated.

JPB

@Hans-Georg Lundahl I enjoyed reading this dialogue 👍🏼

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@JPB Thank you and you are welcome to it!

@JPB It is also available on my blog, here:

https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2022/08/mutation-rates.html

5:04 You'd love to?

Is it OK if it's about Geocentrism instead?

Well, I saw the space experiment in water droplets and somewhat hastily concluded that there was no way the opposed forces of gravity and inertia would keep Earth in orbit around the Sun for 4 billion plus years.

The last time I used this claim was on my blog New Blog on the Kid (active part of URL: nov9blogg9) with the article "Newtonianly speaking, Can Earth Still Orbit Sun After 4.5 Billion Years?" which is from Friday, 20 January 2017. Under it, in the comments, I was taken to task over air providing much more resistance to water droplets in proportion to their size than anything in space would do for earth, and the dialogue with my corrector ended with my trying to argue the impossibility from another viewpoint, the many body problem.

I have not used the water droplet analogy for the last five years.

I think you can google it, but I will try to leave a link in a "response" comment under this one.

[the response comment:]

New blog on the kid : Newtonianly speaking, Can Earth Still Orbit Sun After 4.5 Billion Years?
https://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2017/01/newtonianly-speaking-can-earth-still.html