There's plenty of time for evolution
(Submitted on 25 Oct 2010)
Objections to Darwinian evolution are often based on the time required to carry out the necessary mutations. Seemingly, exponential numbers of mutations are needed. We show that such estimates ignore the effects of natural selection, and that the numbers of necessary mutations are thereby reduced to about $K\log{L}$, rather than $K^L$, where $L$ is the length of the genomic "word", and $K$ is the number of possible "letters" that can occupy any position in the word. The required theory makes contact with the theory of radix-exchange sorting in theoretical computer science, and the asymptotic analysis of certain sums that occur there.
Subjects: Probability (math.PR); Other Quantitative Biology (q-bio.OT); Populations and Evolution (q-bio.PE)
MSC classes: 60C05
Cite as: arXiv:1010.5178v1 [math.PR]
Submission history
From: Herbert S. Wilf [view email]
[v1] Mon, 25 Oct 2010 16:17:27 GMT (5kb)
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Douglas levanta uma questão séria:
The paper’s title amounts to an assertion that Darwinism is plausible. Leaving aside the question of whether it really is plausible, what are we to make of the fact that an esteemed science journal considers such an elementary assertion to be worthy of publication? If the experts responsible for approving the paper really considered the plausibility of Darwin’s theory to be an open question when the paper was received for review (just three months ago), then reasonable caution ought to dictate that they still do. After all, we’re talking about a 2½-page document that cites a mere two pieces of prior work, neither of which deals directly with the main subject. Surely no one would take such a slim contribution to be the final word on this hotly debated subject.
I suspect instead that all of the people involved (authors, editors, and reviewers) have been faithful Darwinists for some time. If so, then the paper was never really meant to be scrutinized the way most scientific papers are. That would explain how Wilf and Ewens manage to pass their paper off as refuting “an evolutionary model often used to ‘discredit’ Darwin” without actually citing any cases where that model was used. Needless to say, a gaping omission like that would be unacceptable under normal circumstances.
Repare que no ArXiv não há endorsers deste artigo.
Estranho, mui estranho o PNAS publicar um artigo assim que dá a impressão de não ter passado pelo processo de revisão por pares.Mas, quando a questão é Darwin, na Nomenklatura científica é tutti cosa nostra, capice?
