Methuselah factor and ancient dating and mutation rates.
Posted by 2cents on March 19, 2002 at 06:29:42:

Hi Don:

But I wonder if they accounted for the Methuselah factor (see link) in deriving the mutation rate for genes ?

In other words, a stretch of people that lived a long time may have biased the expected results a little.

Also, with the speed of varying and all I believe ancient dating is suspect. Somebody said that a live seal will carbon date at 5000 years old.

I get your general point though that their was a population bottleneck and that maybe the volcanoe was the cause. Hmmm I wonder if it causes flooding too....

.02