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I'm reading The Perfect Health Diet, and in it the author says that the probability of a point mutation is (175/3*10^9) per new child. He then goes on to write:

In the Paleolithic, with 100000 children per generation, it would have taken 8000 generations, or 160000 years, for each possible mutation to occur once.

Today, with more than a billion children per generation, every possible point mutation now appears about twenty times per generation, or almost yearly.

Using his probability, I get that you need 1 / (175 / (3 * 10^9)) (which is about 17 million children). But he writes that for the Paleolithic era, you need 10000 * 8000 = 80 million children! Can someone help me reason out how he got that number?

EDIT My math was wrong :-) leaving up the og calculation. Here's the reference that he cites:

"Estimate of the Mutation Rate per Nucleotide in Humans" by Michael W. Nachman and Susan L. Crowell In the abstract they write "The average mutation rate was estimated to be 2.5x10^-8 mutations per nucleotide site or 175 mutations per diploid genome per generation."

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  • $\begingroup$ Does he give a reference for this mutation probability? I remember smaller numbers. $\endgroup$
    – Chris ♦
    Commented Feb 18, 2015 at 9:04
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    $\begingroup$ This is assuming that mutation rates are constant across the genome, which is generally not the case (see e.g. Smith et al. 2002. Deterministic Mutation Rate Variation in the Human Genome). So I think the statement/calculation rests on unfounded assumptions, and therefore vote to close as "primarily opinion-based". $\endgroup$
    – fileunderwater
    Commented Feb 18, 2015 at 10:05
  • $\begingroup$ The authenticity of that text seems doubtful. $\endgroup$
    – WYSIWYG
    Commented Feb 18, 2015 at 13:34
  • $\begingroup$ I added the reference that he cited. $\endgroup$
    – gsastry
    Commented Feb 18, 2015 at 19:41

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