152
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

OK, I hope my question doesn't get misunderstood, I can see how that could happen.
Just a product of overthinking.

Idea is that we can live fairly easily even with some diseases/disorders which could be-life threatening. Many of these are hereditary.
Since modern medicine increases our survival capabilities, the "weaker" individuals can also survive and have offsprings that could potentially inherit these weaknesses, and as this continues it could perhaps leave nearly all people suffering from such conditions further into future.

Does that sound like a realistic scenario? (Assuming we don't destroy ourselves along with the environment first...)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Hardy-Weinberg isn't appropriate here. If all alleles were neutral, they'd get slowly lost or move toward fixation at a rate proportional to the mutation rate by genetic drift. In the absence of negative selection, new variants that are deleterious without modern medicine would do a random walk in allele frequency, meaning some would become prevalent. But the population is so large they would take far too long to be completely fixed.

Hardy-Weinberg is a model that makes by true assumptions (like zero mutation rate and infinite, isolated populations).

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

You seem to be lost in the weeds a bit. Of course hardy-weinberg is a model that never exists in reality. It's a good method to explain the importance of selection pressure on populations.

Without an active selection agent on the allele, it's frequency in the population remains the same.

Now in reality there is no such thing as zero selection pressure on any allele. Having a deleterious or advantageous allele 49.99cM away exerts selection pressure.

However allelic frequencies without a strong selection acting on them remain relatively stable.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

You're not understanding. Without selection, real populations would have changing allele frequencies. They would not stay static. That's because random sampling exists, but only outside of the H-W model.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Random sampling has a significant effect when the population size is smaller. Say less than 10,000 individuals.

It has very little effect as the population size increases to say something a little more than 8,000,000,000 individuals.

this post was submitted on 18 May 2024
152 points (86.5% liked)

Ask Lemmy

25242 readers
1363 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS