I've been having a conversation with an ID proponent via email. The usual cruft, but we've also been discussing Schneider's Ev program (she contacted me because of Ev). She asked a question that prompted me to run a different sort of model, and I thought the results were interesting.
Quote:
> So, Ev is evolving a new function. Yet, during
> ‘stasis’, at no given time the same configuration
> (sequence) for the gene (and, so, for the protein) is
> reached across the population (and, certainly, neither
> for the corresponding DNA binding sites). Rather, most
> organisms in the population have different sequences,
> which also keep changing in time for all organisms. In
> nature, basically all members of any given population
> have identical configurations for any given function
> (the corresponding genes, etc., are identical). This
> fact alone should invalidate the model, which simply
> predicts something that does not happen in nature.
> Just as expected from the evolutionist model for
> evolution, isn’t it?
Not all members have identical genes. There are a few different alleles. The reason this doesn't happen in the standard Ev model is because the mutation rate is orders of magnitude higher than it is in nature.
However, I ran a model with a large chromosome (2,048 bases) and few binding sites (8). This reduces the mutation rate per base. Here I am looking at generation 18,130 and I have a sequence logo of TTG_CC. Now let me step a bit ... the same creature remained the best for 37 generations. Now the new best creature has a sequence logo of TTG_Cc. That's an allele, wouldn't you say? More stepping ... that creature only lasted a few generation, but the new best one has TTG_CC. Same allele as the first one. ... Next creature, same allele. He lasts for a long time. ... Next creature, TTG_Cc. Two alleles so far. Let me step many generations ...
In about 2,000 generations I saw four alleles: TTG_CC, TTG_Cc, TTG_cC, and TtG_CC. Pretty cool, huh?
~~ Paul