Zachriel
Posts: 2723
Joined: Sep. 2006
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This gives an idea of the distribution of fitnesses within a population. (The red horizontal line is the mean.) It's fairly uniform except at the margins, but a lot happens at the upper margin. Notice how bottlenecks, though risking extinction, increase overall fitness by weeding out the weakest.
100 numP, Beginning population (of Parents)
100 topP, Population capacity (of Parents)
6 numO, Average Offspring per Parent
20 numG, Genes
0.002 rateFav, Rate of Favorable mutations
20% varChildren, Drift in average fecundity (relative standard deviation)
20% varParents, Drift in average population (relative standard deviation)
5% varMuts, Drift in average mutation rate (relative standard deviation)
Mutational meltdown is only a plausible problem if a population is kept few in number and genetically isolated for a long period of time. Otherwise, bottlenecks can be evolutionary opportunities. The claim that even large populations suffer genetic meltdown, and therefore the world can only be a few thousand years old, is not supported by this sort of modeling.
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Edit: Fixed graphic so it doesn't show the truncation after previously having calculated the average.
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You never step on the same tard twice—for it's not the same tard and you're not the same person.
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