[_ Old Earth _] Dr. John Sanford interview

[Barbarian]

So I am talking about the Bible showing lifespan decrease since Noah

Even if you assume a few people lived a very long time, and the "years" mentioned were the same as ours, the Bible says that man's time is threescore and ten, and if you'll check, we now exceed that. So the Biblical evidence also refutes the idea that we've degenerated.

I am aware of the Haldane's Dilemma Sarfarti has some good stuff on it. The I.Q increase is what I was showing you with my son, with education. He started sign language in K Spanish in 2nd grade and robotics in 5th so ya he will probably have a higher I.Q. then me. your 100 beneficial mutations was speculation of 10,000 years ago

Comes down to evidence. And that's what it shows. You can speculate otherwise, but evidence trumps your speculation.

you can maybe name a couple you have proof for and they are still a broken gene.

All improvements in the human genome have involved mutations. I thought you know. A "broken" gene is something different, like the GULO gene.

I showed you where those that train hard nowadays use supplements and they help or else they wouldn't use them.

Lots of people carry rabbit's feet for luck. But if they worked, the rabbits would still have them. What people believe is not evidence.

You quote is just saying they won't throw weight on you in a week, thats pretty obvious. Could someone just drink milk or eat meat after a workout and be fine? Yes.

But fools pay huge amounts of money for junk that makes no difference at all. As you learned, even the guys who are selling it, admit it doesn't do much.

And if you eat properly, it will make no difference at all.

But if you understand the different types of protein their brake down rate and protein synthesis you would understand how that extra benefit adds up to increase your long term performance.

Protein synthesis is merely the stringing together of amino acids by mRNA and ribosomes, and it doesn't matter how the amino acids got in your body. It's all the same stuff. You've been played by the guys making "supplements."

Would you declined an extra 20 dollars a day or a week? It might not be a lot but it adds up to increase your long term financial ability. Go to the gym and ask you local athletes what they find beneficial, not those standing in front of the mirror during curls for 2 hours, but those doing heavy squats, Dead lifts, presses, Bench press, tire flips and etc.... You might find few that do something called gomad( gallon of milk a day) but most try and keep a lean figure and improve performance and supplements come in handy.

It's all nonsense. Those guys depend on P.T. Barnum's maxim.

BTW your last post you claimed the athletic records continue to fall

In sports, we speak of a record "falling" when someone improves on it. I thought you knew.

(confusion of people's eating habits with increased fitness)

Yes, our diets aren't as healthy as they used to be. And yet, athletic achievement continues to rise. You've confused behavior with genetics.

And you've seen that each generation is getting smarter, and that we can't attribute this to environment.

You've also seen that Kimura's data show that a single positive mutation over 200 generations is sufficient to overcome the issue of neutral mutations. And as you've also see, we have over 100 positive mutations in humans not yet fixed in the population.

Mutations are copying errors known for destroying things not creating them, sometimes when they destroy something it may be beneficial, but is still an error in the copying of the information, it will not increase the genome.

You contradicted yourself in a single sentence. It can't be benefical and harm the genome at the same time.

 

[cupid dave]

How can mutations be harmful in all cases when the fusing together of the two ape chromosomes resulted in a human which was a positive advancement?

What about Hormonal changes in organism which over time can ultimately have anatomical effects such as when based upon things like emotional reactions to the environment.

I am referring to the experiments with the Fox which has illustrated the hypothesis that dogs were the evolutionary product of wolves becoming more and more in contact with humans and hence, selected for tameness.

 

[spartakis]

How can mutations be harmful in all cases when the fusing together of the two ape chromosomes resulted in a human which was a positive advancement?

What about Hormonal changes in organism which over time can ultimately have anatomical effects such as when based upon things like emotional reactions to the environment.

I am referring to the experiments with the Fox which has illustrated the hypothesis that dogs were the evolutionary product of wolves becoming more and more in contact with humans and hence, selected for tameness.

Do you have anything more than the same experiments and assumptions.

 

[spartakis]

Don't have much time here. So when your beatles had a mutation to lose their wings that was beneficial but was a loss information. Not a contradiction.

Don't have time to address to waste of time topics.

You decline all below, and what Sandford is claiming in the video, and claim the opposite is happening correct?

Over the last 20-30 years, young people have become fatter and less fit http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17387261

Canadians were far less fit in 2009 than they were in 1981, according to a sweeping new Statistics Canada survey, which found that obesity rates have sky-rocketed in both teenagers and adults. http://www.obesitysurgery.ca/blog/ex...for-canadians/

You IQ problem can be found here http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/flynneffect.shtml

Mutations with s within this range are neutral enough to accumulate almost freely, but are still deleterious enough to make an impact at the level of the whole genome. This paradox cannot be resolved by invoking beneficial mutations or environmental fluctuations. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7475094

A neutral theory predicts multigenic aging and increased concentrations of deleterious mutations on the mitochondrial and Y chromosomes. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12208346

Under the present model, effectively neutral, but, in fact, very slightly deleterious mutants accumulate continuously in every species. The selective disadvantage of such mutants (in terms of an individual’s survival and reproduction – i.e. in Darwinian fitness) is likely to be of the order of 10-5 or less, but with 104 loci per genome coding for various proteins and each accumulating the mutants at the rate of 10-6 per generation, the rate of loss of fitness per generation may amount of 10-7 per generation.

Human race deteriorating says genetics expert http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/hu...enetics-expert

This rapid evolution of the Y chromosome has led to a dramatic loss of genes on the Y chromosome at a rate that, if maintained, eventually could lead to the Y chromosome's complete disappearance. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0716201127.htm

Genetic code of human race is deteriorating due to environmental factors http://www.naturalnews.com/021220.html

Mutations are copying errors known for destroying things not creating them, sometimes when they destroy something it may be beneficial, but is still an error in the copying of the information, it will not increase the genome.

 

[Barbarian]

Don't have much time here. So when your beatles had a mutation to lose their wings that was beneficial but was a loss information. Not a contradiction.

Beetles. Beatles never had wings. But Darwin's beetles didn't lose their wings. They remain intact under permanently fused elytra. The fusion is a new feature, and thus requires an addition to information.

Over the last 20-30 years, young people have become fatter and less fit http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17387261

So even though cultural effects are making some kids less fit, humans are becoming more fit and continuing new atheletic records demonstrate this fact, as does the fact that humans have been increasing in intelligence for a long time.

As you learned, Kimura's data (the stuff used by Sanford) shows that one favorable mutation every 200 generations would overcome any harmful effect of neutral mutations.

No point in denying it.

 

[Milk-Drops]

I watched both videos completely. They were painful to watch, but I made it through. The first is Sanford throwing his personal ideas out about Genetic entropy. He claims that all these geneticists agree with him, yet his papers and works on this subject matter aren't getting any traction amongst geneticists.

My main problem here is that Sanford is trying to claim that mutations are causing us humans to decay. Well, what exactly are we decaying from? He rambles a tad about Eugenics, but to be honest, his idea of Genetic Entropy sounds more like Eugenics then anything I've read on the topic of genetics. His "theory" is that the genome is degrading, but what exactly is degrading? Is the change in hair color bad? Is a change in skin color bad? Is the change of how tough your nails are bad?

He never really explains.


The second video is the same as it is in the other thread. 2 guys who are either ignorant of the topic, or are being purposely fallacious about what they know. Their arguments are straw men. I can understand how someone with limited education on the subject of genetics, but to put a show forward and claim you have an expert that says everyone agrees with him, when a simple Google search will show that Sanford view is not widely accepted is just sad.






The problem here is Sanford has poorly defined his theory, dose an appeal to majority, uses an appeal to authority, and the 2 presenters use a straw man argument and add more onto the fallacy pile with arguments from ignorance and tons of non sequiters.

That is what I got out of the videos.

 

[Milk-Drops]

Do you have anything more than the same experiments and assumptions.

I have one. Society prides certain eye color, Specific abdominal muscle layouts, face structures, height, amount of hair on the body, genital size, etc. as attractive features.

Almost all of these are effected by mutations. Blue eyes and brown eyes are based on different mutations of genes. Face structure, height, etc. all depend on what mutations and what genes are activated during birth and before during conception.

To say some mutations are not beneficial, then you would have to say that all humans are ugly (physically) because they are mutated.

When the reality is, we as humans prefer certain mutations. Some men tend to like certain mutations that effect female breast size and face structure.

Women tend to like men that are taller, more athletic, and focused.

 

[cupid dave]

I have one. Society prides certain eye color, Specific abdominal muscle layouts, face structures, height, amount of hair on the body, genital size, etc. as attractive features.

Almost all of these are effected by mutations. Blue eyes and brown eyes are based on different mutations of genes. Face structure, height, etc. all depend on what mutations and what genes are activated during birth and before during conception.

To say some mutations are not beneficial, then you would have to say that all humans are ugly (physically) because they are mutated.

When the reality is, we as humans prefer certain mutations. Some men tend to like certain mutations that effect female breast size and face structure.

Women tend to like men that are taller, more athletic, and focused.

True.

Nevertheless, the quintessimal evidence for beneficial mutations, which is supported all so clearly in that the #2 Human chromosome, can be observed to STILL have the two Ape chromosome stuck together.

That the telomeres of the one ape chromosome is still present with the telomeres on the second chromosome demonstrates BOTH a mutation and the evolutionary event of creating a man out of the dust of chemistry, born by an Act-oif-God in the womb of a mothering Ape to whom this first man was not related by species.

 

[cupid dave]

Do you have anything more than the same experiments and assumptions.

YES

I gave you something in the post above.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome_2_(human)

"Chromosome 2 presents verystrong evidence in favour of the common descent of humans and other apes.

According to researcher J. W. IJdo,"We conclude that the locus cloned in cosmids c8.1 and c29B is the relicof an ancient telomere-telomere fusion and marks the point at which two ancestral ape chromosomes fused to giverise to human chromosome 2.











Because the fused chromosome isunique to humans and is fixed, the fusion must have occurred after thehuman–chimpanzee split, but before modern humans spread around the world, thatis, between 6 million and ~1 million years ago (Mya; Chen and Li 2001; Yu etal. 2001) (Fig.5).



References:

1.Fan Y, et al.Genomic Structure and Evolution of the Ancestral Chromosome Fusion Site in2q13-2q14.1 and paralogous regions on other human chromosomes. Genome Research2002, volume 12, pages 1651-1662.





This gross karyotypic change may have helped to reinforcereproductive barriers between early Homo sapiens and other species, as the F1offspring would have had reduced fertility because of the risk of unbalancedsegregation of chromosomes during meiosis.

http://genome.cshlp.org/content/12/11/1651.longapechromosomes fused to give rise to human chromosome 2."

 

[spartakis]

YES

I gave you something in the post above.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome_2_(human)

"Chromosome 2 presents verystrong evidence in favour of the common descent of humans and other apes.

According to researcher J. W. IJdo,"We conclude that the locus cloned in cosmids c8.1 and c29B is the relicof an ancient telomere-telomere fusion and marks the point at which two ancestral ape chromosomes fused to giverise to human chromosome 2.











Because the fused chromosome isunique to humans and is fixed, the fusion must have occurred after thehuman–chimpanzee split, but before modern humans spread around the world, thatis, between 6 million and ~1 million years ago (Mya; Chen and Li 2001; Yu etal. 2001) (Fig.5).



References:

1.Fan Y, et al.Genomic Structure and Evolution of the Ancestral Chromosome Fusion Site in2q13-2q14.1 and paralogous regions on other human chromosomes. Genome Research2002, volume 12, pages 1651-1662.





This gross karyotypic change may have helped to reinforcereproductive barriers between early Homo sapiens and other species, as the F1offspring would have had reduced fertility because of the risk of unbalancedsegregation of chromosomes during meiosis.

http://genome.cshlp.org/content/12/11/1651.longapechromosomes fused to give rise to human chromosome 2."

No that is the same thing we addressed in another thread still an assumption.

 

[spartakis]

I have one. Society prides certain eye color, Specific abdominal muscle layouts, face structures, height, amount of hair on the body, genital size, etc. as attractive features.

Almost all of these are effected by mutations. Blue eyes and brown eyes are based on different mutations of genes. Face structure, height, etc. all depend on what mutations and what genes are activated during birth and before during conception.

To say some mutations are not beneficial, then you would have to say that all humans are ugly (physically) because they are mutated.

When the reality is, we as humans prefer certain mutations. Some men tend to like certain mutations that effect female breast size and face structure.

Women tend to like men that are taller, more athletic, and focused.

Okay I see all these new features:toofunny mean we are not deteriorating. I don't think you understand what he is saying and yes geneticists do agree this is their information he is getting this from and his own knowledge. As you see like barbarian is saying they assume in 200 generations it might have a substitution.

 

[spartakis]

Beetles. Beatles never had wings. But Darwin's beetles didn't lose their wings. They remain intact under permanently fused elytra. The fusion is a new feature, and thus requires an addition to information.

VARIATION AND ATROPHY OF FLYING WINGS OF SOME CARABID BEETLES
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/esa/aesa/1936/00000029/00000001/art00017
You should study more, you know what atrophy means correct?

So even though cultural effects are making some kids less fit, humans are becoming more fit and continuing new atheletic records demonstrate this fact, as does the fact that humans have been increasing in intelligence for a long time.

As you learned, Kimura's data (the stuff used by Sanford) shows that one favorable mutation every 200 generations would overcome any harmful effect of neutral mutations.

That is his assumption, he has no clue what could and could not happen in 200 generations. And can someone show a mutation that adds new genetic information in a mutation. No. We have 100 per generation x 200. That would be a mutation you can't show, or have proof for.

No point in denying it.

Why are you

 

[Barbarian]

Barbarian chuckles:
Beetles. Beatles never had wings. But Darwin's beetles didn't lose their wings. They remain intact under permanently fused elytra. The fusion is a new feature, and thus requires an addition to information.

You should study more, you know what atrophy means correct?

Beetles have wings that are covered by a hard horny shell that connects from a cephalothoracic hinge.(If you look at a beetle , it looks like a little tank with its head and wings covered by protective armor, called an ELYTRA). The elytra is opened and the two sets of wings then allow the beetle to take off. Look at a ladybug and see how before she takes off, she opens her little elytra and like with flaps extended, takes off
However, in many island beetles , the elytra is fused so the beetle cannot fly at all . The wings are perfectly formed beneath the elytra but unless someone would cut the elytra sagitally, the beetle remains on land as a hiker.
http://able2know.org/topic/84414-1

And once again reality takes you unawares.

Barbarian observes:
So even though cultural effects are making some kids less fit, humans are becoming more fit and continuing new atheletic records demonstrate this fact, as does the fact that humans have been increasing in intelligence for a long time.

Barbarian observes:
As you learned, Kimura's data (the stuff used by Sanford) shows that one favorable mutation every 200 generations would overcome any harmful effect of neutral mutations.

That is his assumption

Nope. Comes from the same data that led him to conclude neutral mutations might have a long-term harmful effect. If you accept one, the other follows.

And can someone show a mutation that adds new genetic information in a mutation.

Yep. Would you like me to show you a simple case with the numbers? I can also show you some real-life cases that demonstrably increase information.

It is a fact that all new mutations add information to a population, as you learned earlier.

Edit: BTW "Elytra" is plural. There are two of them. The singular, of course, is "elytrum."

 

[Milk-Drops]

Okay I see all these new features:toofunny mean we are not deteriorating.

Yep, because if we were deteriorating, none of these would be beneficial, when its the opposite.

I don't think you understand what he is saying and yes geneticists do agree this is their information he is getting this from and his own knowledge.

No, I don't see geneteists agreeing with him. Care to enlighten me on who these geneticists are?

As you see like barbarian is saying they assume in 200 generations it might have a substitution.

So far your argument has nothing to stand on. Care to lay some ground before claiming victory?

 

[spartakis]

Barbarian chuckles:
Beetles. Beatles never had wings. But Darwin's beetles didn't lose their wings. They remain intact under permanently fused elytra. The fusion is a new feature, and thus requires an addition to information.

You state they don't have wings but your own link stated they do.

Beetles have wings that are covered by a hard horny shell that connects from a cephalothoracic hinge.(If you look at a beetle , it looks like a little tank with its head and wings covered by protective armor, called an ELYTRA). The elytra is opened and the two sets of wings then allow the beetle to take off. Look at a ladybug and see how before she takes off, she opens her little elytra and like with flaps extended, takes off
However, in many island beetles , the elytra is fused so the beetle cannot fly at all . The wings are perfectly formed beneath the elytra but unless someone would cut the elytra sagitally, the beetle remains on land as a hiker.
http://able2know.org/topic/84414-1

And once again reality takes you unawares.

No not really you could of went to wiki and found that.

The elytra are connected to the pterathorax, so named because it is where the wings are connected (pteron meaning "wing" in Greek).[2] The elytra are not used for flight, but tend to cover the hind part of the body and protect the second pair of wings (alae). They must be raised in order to move the hind flight wings. A beetle's flight wings are crossed with veins and are folded after landing, often along these veins, and stored below the elytra. In some beetles, the ability to fly has been lost. These include some ground beetles (family Carabidae) and some "true weevils" (family Curculionidae), but also desert- and cave-dwelling species of other families. Many have the two elytra fused together, forming a solid shield over the abdomen. In a few families, both the ability to fly and the elytra have been lost,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beetle

Barbarian observes:
As you learned, Kimura's data (the stuff used by Sanford) shows that one favorable mutation every 200 generations would overcome any harmful effect of neutral mutations.

Nope just an assumption.

Nope. Comes from the same data that led him to conclude neutral mutations might have a long-term harmful effect. If you accept one, the other follows.

His assumption is only that, he don't have a clue of what will happen in 200 generations. I will take the empirical evidence and leave his assumption for whomever wants to take it.

Yep. Would you like me to show you a simple case with the numbers? I can also show you some real-life cases that demonstrably increase information.

It is a fact that all new mutations add information to a population, as you learned earlier.

Well you are wrong. You can calculate frequencies all you want, it will be a waste of time, no one is denying frequency change. We have went over this in 2 different threads. We are not talking about frequencies. I have posted what the 2 leading evolutionist on your side stated about the matter. Everybody knows what mutation do and are capable of. They are a copying error. People can go to pages 2&3 if they would like. This is an endless debate with you because you need something that would be able to add new genes to a genome to be able to make microbes to men feasible so you lean on mutations, a copying error. Like I said this has been discussed, views can find it on pages in this forum and others.

Edit: BTW "Elytra" is plural. There are two of them. The singular, of course, is "elytrum."

Ya your point. I have never even spelled it.

 

[spartakis]

Yep, because if we were deteriorating, none of these would be beneficial, when its the opposite.

We are talking about nucleotide deleterious mutations. If don't matter if the healthiest breed because they still have the same mutation rate of 100 per generation getting passed down.

So far your argument has nothing to stand on. Care to lay some ground before claiming victory?

put down plenty ground, facts just get ignored because they don't agree with some peoples opinion. Came here to discuss the facts stated below not debate assumptions. Debating assumptions would be a waste of my time.

Mutations with s within this range are neutral enough to accumulate almost freely, but are still deleterious enough to make an impact at the level of the whole genome. This paradox cannot be resolved by invoking beneficial mutations or environmental fluctuations.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7475094

A neutral theory predicts multigenic aging and increased concentrations of deleterious mutations on the mitochondrial and Y chromosomes.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12208346

Under the present model, effectively neutral, but, in fact, very slightly deleterious mutants accumulate continuously in every species. The selective disadvantage of such mutants (in terms of an individual’s survival and reproduction – i.e. in Darwinian fitness) is likely to be of the order of 10-5 or less, but with 104 loci per genome coding for various proteins and each accumulating the mutants at the rate of 10-6 per generation, the rate of loss of fitness per generation may amount of 10-7 per generation.


Human race deteriorating says genetics expert
http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/hu...enetics-expert

This rapid evolution of the Y chromosome has led to a dramatic loss of genes on the Y chromosome at a rate that, if maintained, eventually could lead to the Y chromosome's complete disappearance.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0716201127.htm

Genetic code of human race is deteriorating due to environmental factors
http://www.naturalnews.com/021220.html

 

[Barbarian]

We are talking about nucleotide deleterious mutations. If don't matter if the healthiest breed because they still have the same mutation rate of 100 per generation getting passed down.

But they don't. As soon as a mutation becomes significantly harmful, natural selection begins to remove it. And none of these becomes fixed for reasons you learned earlier. Even more important, the ones that are not visible to natural selection are due to them being recessive, which means they are a problem only if you're unlucky enough to be the offspring of two people with them, and are in the one-quarter of their offspring who are heterozygous for the trait. Which is why siblings don't get married.

And epistasis (whereby two such genes are actually useful in combination or become severely harmful in combination) throws a wrench into the calculations because it opens such "neutral" genes to natural selection. It's not as simple as Sanford would have you believe.

Mutations with s within this range are neutral enough to accumulate almost freely, but are still deleterious enough to make an impact at the level of the whole genome. This paradox cannot be resolved by invoking beneficial mutations or environmental fluctuations. Several possible resolutions are considered, including soft selection and synergistic epistasis among very slightly deleterious mutations.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7475094

I took the liberty of restoring , in red, the part you quotemined out. Turns out, they are right:

Genetics April 2011 vol. 187 no. 4 1139-1152
Epistasis Increases the Rate of Conditionally Neutral Substitution in an Adapting Population

But when epistasis among sites is common, as numerous empirical studies suggest, do neutral mutations substitute according to Kimura's expectation? Here we study simulated, asexual populations of RNA molecules, and we observe that conditionally neutral mutations—i.e., mutations that do not alter the fitness of the individual in which they arise, but that may alter the fitness effects of subsequent mutations—substitute much more often than expected while a population is adapting.

Turns out your nearly 20-year-old research has been passed by. And reality stomps yet another Async story.

This rapid evolution of the Y chromosome has led to a dramatic loss of genes on the Y chromosome at a rate that, if maintained, eventually could lead to the Y chromosome's complete disappearance.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0716201127.htm

A number of organisms do just fine without a Y. Unlikely in humans, since sex differences are maintained that way. But a lot of Y material has been lost and of course, can be with little effect on the species.

Genetic code of human race is deteriorating due to environmental factors
http://www.naturalnews.com/021220.html

See above. Turns out, they got it wrong. Not only does epistasis take care of the "harmful neutral" problem (as Kimura predicted), but the direct evidence shows it's wrong.

Humans have been getting more intelligent, and human physical performance has been continuously increasing. You'd have to be pretty desperate to assume that's "degeneration."

 

[spartakis]

Yes I told you I left out the assumptions. You know where they say

Several possible resolutions are considered,

Your quote on asexual is not what we are talking about and lets see what some research in 2011 found.

Diminishing returns epistasis among beneficial mutations decelerates adaptation
These results provide the first evidence that patterns of epistasis may differ for within- and between-gene interactions during adaptation and that diminishing returns epistasis contributes to the consistent observation of decelerating fitness gains during adaptation.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21636771

Many studies have found that epistasis is widespread, but they have rarely considered beneficial mutations. We analyzed the effects of epistasis on fitness for the first five mutations to fix in an experimental population of Escherichia coli. Epistasis depended on the effects of the combined mutations—the larger the expected benefit, the more negative the epistatic effect. Epistasis thus tended to produce diminishing returns with genotype fitness, although interactions involving one particular mutation had the opposite effect. These data support models in which negative epistasis contributes to declining rates of adaptation over time. Sign epistasis was rare in this genome-wide study, in contrast to its prevalence in an earlier study of mutations in a single gene.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6034/1193.abstract


I could continue to post references, this is a small amount as to what is out there, but I am sure they are all wrong to you.

So it seems like they got it right and your assumptions got it wrong.

 

[Barbarian]

Yes I told you I left out the assumptions. You know where they say
Several possible resolutions are considered,

Predictions. You quote-mined out the part where soft selection and epistasis were suggested as ways to explain observed increases in fitness.

Turns out they were right. As you learned, epistasis does tend to remove any harmful effects of neutral mutations.

I could continue to post references, this is a small amount as to what is out there, but I am sure they are all wrong to you.

So it seems like they got it right and your assumptions got it wrong.

Well, let's take a look...

Diminishing returns epistasis among beneficial mutations decelerates adaptation
Epistasis has substantial impacts on evolution, in particular, the rate of adaptation. We generated combinations of beneficial mutations that arose in a lineage during rapid adaptation of a bacterium whose growth depended on a newly introduced metabolic pathway. The proportional selective benefit for three of the four loci consistently decreased when they were introduced onto more fit backgrounds. These three alleles all reduced morphological defects caused by expression of the foreign pathway. A simple theoretical model segregating the apparent contribution of individual alleles to benefits and costs effectively predicted the interactions between them. These results provide the first evidence that patterns of epistasis may differ for within- and between-gene interactions during adaptation and that diminishing returns epistasis contributes to the consistent observation of decelerating fitness gains during adaptation.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21636771

This says epistasis can slow (but not stop) increasing fitness in a very fit population. It says the opposite of what you think it does. Darwin wrote about it, not knowing the genetic basis for it. It's called "stabilizing selection."

I could continue to post references, this is a small amount as to what is out there, but I am sure they are all wrong to you.

Surprise.

 

[spartakis]

No it goes well with this one.

Many studies have found that epistasis is widespread, but they have rarely considered beneficial mutations. We analyzed the effects of epistasis on fitness for the first five mutations to fix in an experimental population of Escherichia coli. Epistasis depended on the effects of the combined mutations—the larger the expected benefit, the more negative the epistatic effect. Epistasis thus tended to produce diminishing returns with genotype fitness, although interactions involving one particular mutation had the opposite effect. These data support models in which negative epistasis contributes to declining rates of adaptation over time. Sign epistasis was rare in this genome-wide study, in contrast to its prevalence in an earlier study of mutations in a single gene.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/33.../1193.abstract


Most finding are a rapid deceleration of the rate of fitness increase.

Genetic deterioration has been a concern for a long time.
Here is some reading for you
http://www.scribd.com/doc/63353594/New-Microsoft-Word-Document