molecular clocks: (was Re: Letter from Reasons to Believe)

David Campbell wrote:

> I have yet to encounter convincing evidence that molecular clocks can be
> reliable enough to give precision like that, despite the persistant use of such
> calculations by molecular biologists.
>
>

This is quite interesting. Would you be willing to say
a little more on this? Does this extend all the way to
neutral mutation? Are these differences species depended?
What might drive the differences and would the rates
actually make a factor of two difference over millions of
years? Indeed, what error bars should we expect or be
prepared to accept in such analysis?

Perhaps it is also a question on how one measures
species diversification.

It probably would make sense that the rates are not
universally uniform. Your on study in living bivalves
includes species that go back some 4 to 500 million
years.

So much for uncritical usage of GCG and so forth....

it's by Grace we learn,
Wayne
Received on Thu May 25 20:12:50 2006