Mutations are rare (Talk.Origins)

Claim CB100:

Evolution requires mutations, but mutations are rare.

Source:
 * Morris, Henry M. 1985. Scientific Creationism. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, pg. 55.

CreationWiki response: First of all, this claim is not an accurate representation of what Morris said. He was saying that major mutations in higher organisms are rare. (0.0001 to 0.000001 per gene per generation)

Thus Talk Origins is using a straw man argument. (However, it should be noted that evolutionists themselves have admitted in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science that "Beneficial mutations are especially difficult to identify because of their scarcity.")


 * 1) Viruses are living organisms, they employ gene transfer methods that require a living cell in order to reproduce. It is also likely that viruses acquire some genetic material from the host thus inflating the mutation rate.
 * 2) Morris was only speaking of higher organisms so this is actually irrelevant to the real claim.

While Talk Origins and Morris give estimated mutation rates they do not use the same units. Talk Origins uses mutations per generation, while Morris uses mutations per gene per generation. To translate Morris’ mutation rates to Talk Origins units requires multiplying Morris’ mutation rates by the estimates number of genes in the human genome. Currently it is estimated that there are 20,000 to 25000 protein-coding genes in the human genome.
 * Reference: Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The higher end of Morris’ mutation rates is 0.0001 mutations per gene per generation and the lower end of the gene count is 20,000 genes. This results in 2 mutations per generation for protein-coding genes. Talk Origins mutation rate for protein-coding genes is given as 1.6 mutations per generation. So Morris and Talk Origins basically agree on the number of mutations per generation for protein-coding genes. They only disagree on whether or not that figure makes such mutations rare.