"Haldane's Dilemma is a severe limit on the speed of evolution, first calculated in 1957 by renowned evolutionary geneticist, J. B. S. Haldane. The limit is sufficiently slow that it calls into question the “fact” of evolution, or evolutionary genetics as an empirical science.
Evolution requires the substitution of new beneficial mutation into the population, to create new biological adaptation. Haldane calculated that organisms with low reproduction rates, such as cows, could substitute a new beneficial mutation no more frequently than one per 300 generations.
The problem can only be seen through examples, and the easiest example to understand is human evolution. Start at some alleged human ancestor ten million years ago, which generously allows
evolution far more time than is available. (Allegedly the last common ancestor between humans and chimps was three to five million years ago. And the human adaptations in question are alleged to have evolved mostly within the last two million years.) In ten million years, an ape-human-like lineage could substitute no more than 1667 beneficial mutations. In evolutionary genetic literature, it is undisputed that Haldane’s calculations, if correct, would indicate such a limit.
The problem is: Can all the uniquely human adaptations be explained within that limit? Such adaptations would include: the tripling of brain size, upright posture, hand dexterity, vocal speech organs, language, distribution of hair, and appreciation of music, to name a few. Is a limit of 1,667 beneficial mutations sufficient to create all the uniquely human adaptations? This is Haldane’s Dilemma.
Haldane’s Dilemma is easy to communicate – a limit of 1,667 beneficial mutations for human evolution. Yet evolutionists never communicated any such limit to the general public.
Evolutionary geneticist, G. C. Williams, writes:
Evolution requires the substitution of new beneficial mutation into the population, to create new biological adaptation. Haldane calculated that organisms with low reproduction rates, such as cows, could substitute a new beneficial mutation no more frequently than one per 300 generations.
The problem can only be seen through examples, and the easiest example to understand is human evolution. Start at some alleged human ancestor ten million years ago, which generously allows
The problem is: Can all the uniquely human adaptations be explained within that limit? Such adaptations would include: the tripling of brain size, upright posture, hand dexterity, vocal speech organs, language, distribution of hair, and appreciation of music, to name a few. Is a limit of 1,667 beneficial mutations sufficient to create all the uniquely human adaptations? This is Haldane’s Dilemma.
Haldane’s Dilemma is easy to communicate – a limit of 1,667 beneficial mutations for human evolution. Yet evolutionists never communicated any such limit to the general public.
Evolutionary geneticist, G. C. Williams, writes:
- “In my opinion the [Haldane's Dilemma] problem was never solved, by Wallace or anyone else. It merely faded away, because people got interested in other things. They must have assumed that the true resolution lay somewhere in the welter of suggestions made by one or more of the distinguished population geneticists who had participated in the discussion.” (G. C. Williams, 1992, Natural Selection: Domains, Levels, and Challenges, p 143-144, emphasis added).
- Haldane’s analysis assumed continual evolution, with no stasis. But that contradicts what is now recognized about the fossil record. Evolutionary paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould conservatively estimates that fossil species are in stasis – where change is not occurring – more than ninety-nine percent of the time. (Gould included the primate species and humans within his claims.) This predominance of stasis could reduce Haldane's limit by a factor of one-hundred – to a limit of 17 beneficial mutations for explaining human evolution." CW
- But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create:
- Isaiah 65:18
