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Category #4 includes all non-harmful mutations that do not fall under categories #1-#3 above. These organisms greatly outnumber the first three types. By defi- nition, they do not have any direct bearing on the calculations.
Using the mean estimates of mutation rates and categorizations we’ll now choose a saturation cycle period and calculate how many mutations have occurred. In a period of 1000 saturation cycles (one “year”), 10e32 cell divisions result in:
10e23 non-harmful mutations maximum 10e22 non-harmful mutations mean 10e21 non-harmful mutations minimum
Using the above “mean,” the following seems (See “It should now be noted . . .” on page . . ./e-boundary/page8.html) to show the populations at the end of the first “year”:
Category #1: 5.49 * 10e19 (see population “2-A”, page 8) (mutation type “C1”) Category #2: 5.49 * 10e19 (see population “2-B”, page 8) (mutation type “C2”) Category #3: 5.1 * 10e17 (see population “2-C”, page 8) (mutation type “C3”) Category #4: a bit less than 10e22
We will no longer keep track of category #4 as, by definition, these organisms don’t have anything leading to any structure that might allow for another energy source. According to baggage principles, these organisms, though they greatly outnumber other non-harmful mutations, won’t out-compete average varieties in the long term. Since the best they can do is present an average competition, their effect is no differ- ent than the competition offered by the non-mutated original variety.
In categories #1-#3 we see that in the timeframe of 1000 saturation cycles secondary non-harmful mutations are to be predicted. That is, the mutants in these three cate- gories have themselves produced descendants and that a portion of these third-level groups each received a non-harmful mutation.
Before we can proceed with calculating secondary mutations, we need to establish naming conventions and abbreviations. This will facilitate charting family trees, timelines, and tables and help keep populations organized.
The original population that saturated the oceans of the planet will be designated “1-A”. Groups arising directly from the original, through non-harmful mutations, will be named “2-A”, “2-B”, “2-C”, etc. Third “generation” groups will be named “3-A”, “3-B”, etc., as they came about when second “generation” groups received non-harmful mutations. For the purposes of the simulations, the word “generation” does not refer to a single cell cycle but to the origination of mutant groups.
The three basic categories of mutation will be designated “C1”, “C2”, and “C3”. It will be seen that when population sizes are large enough, groups may produce more “generations” of C1, C2, and C3 during the “year”. This leads to an accumu- lation of two qualities in the next “generation” of groups.
Now we need to keep track of the accumulated qualities, the two types of relevant qualities being “immediate survivability” and the “potential for another energy source”. We’ll abbreviate the first quality as “IS” and the second as “PAES”. The degrees of these qualities will be designated by the number of mutations that have contributed to them. “IS=3” refers to three degrees of immediate survivability, for example. “PAES=2” refers to two non-harmful mutations that have contributed to the organism’s future potential for having a secondary energy source. |
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