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Colin Patterson also did a review of congruence between trees generated by morphology and trees created by molecular data and found that "congruence between molecular phylogenies is as elusive as it is in morphology and as it is between molecules and morphology."
what a dumb thing to say if what shernren said was true!
1. Because Colin Patterson said this 14 years ago. We've come a long way since then.
2. More importantly, because creationists are really good at making people sound like they are saying things they never meant. For if you read the actual abstract of his paper, he says:
However, in practice, we find that incongruence between molecular trees (generated from different data sets or by different analytical methods) is as striking or pervasive as is incongruence between trees generated by morphologists in the long history of their discipline.
Score one for the creationists? Nopes:
Morphologists achieved much during that time, and none of their well-supported phylogenies is overthrown by molecular data. So far, molecular sequences have contributed most significantly in areas where morphological data are inconclusive, deficient, nonexistent or poorly analyzed. The interrelationships of extant hominines (Gorilla, Homo, Pan), where morphology is inconclusive, are exemplary. The pattern [Gorilla [Homo, Pan]] is significantly favored by nucleotide sequence data, but the effort necessary to achieve resolution in that simple case (ca. 30kb of aligned sequences, sampling all four extant species) may foreshadow the workload that lies ahead.
Note:
- Patterson acknowledges that molecular data has only caused major revisions where morphology was inconclusive to begin with.
- Patterson thinks that sampling the human, chimpanzee, and gorilla genomes is a "workload that lies ahead". We've got the human and chimpanzee genome behind us now; if the best creationists can do is tell us how much we didn't know 14 years ago, that's certainly not a strong case for them!
- Patterson thinks molecular phylogeny has done extremely well with the hominines. So, if you accept Patterson's authority to say that there isn't much congruence between morphological and molecular phylogenies, you also accept his authority to say that molecular phylogeny has indeed provided good justification for the evolution of man - the one animal that creationists will stridently deny having evolved!
To be fair, I personally think Colin Patterson had no qualms highlighting where evolution indeed faced difficulties, and this has made it easy for creationists to quote-mine him, for example here.
3. Because congruence as defined by biologists is exact agreement, and trees that agree to a high extent but do not agree exactly are still extremely statistically significant.
When two independently determined trees mismatch by some branches, they are called "incongruent". In general, phylogenetic trees may be very incongruent and still match with an extremely high degree of statistical significance (Hendy et al. 1984; Penny et al. 1982; Penny and Hendy 1986; Steel and Penny 1993). Even for a phylogeny with a small number of organisms, the total number of possible trees is extremely large. For example, there are about a thousand different possible phylogenies for only six organisms; for nine organisms, there are millions of possible phylogenies; for 12 organisms, there are nearly 14 trillion different possible phylogenies (Table 1.3.1; Felsenstein 1982; Li 1997, p. 102). Thus, the probability of finding two similar trees by chance via two independent methods is extremely small in most cases. ...
"Biologists seem to seek the 'The One Tree' and appear not to be satisfied by a range of options. However, there is no logical difficulty in having a range of trees. There are 34,459,425 possible [unrooted] trees for 11 taxa (Penny et al. 1982), and to reduce this to the order of 10-50 trees is analogous to an accuracy of measurement of approximately one part in 106." (Penny and Hendy 1986, p. 414)
So, back to the issue at hand. How does creationism attempt to explain the twin nested hierarchy? The significance is that there is one objective hierarchy. However, if creationists are right, we should be able to mix and match and arrange any set of unrooted trees in any way we like.
__________________
And who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars? - Origen, 215AD [De Principiis 4.1.16]
So, shernren....please read this article about evo devo, including statements from Sean Carrol, and explain to me how it is that we can have a tree of life that supposdely shows congruency between morphology and molecules when it is now known that the same genes are used to create all the different animals across the animal kingdom:
“Evo devo’s first big finding is that all animals are built from essentially the same genes…All animals have Hox genes, and nearly all animals use their Hox genes to determine which appendage should go where along the axis that runs from head to tail. Given that the major animal groups, among them arthropods (now including insects), mollusks (snails), annelids (worms), and chordates (human beings), were in place at the start of the Cambrian period, Hox genes must be at least half a billion years old…
“…Carroll calls these the ‘tool kit’ genes, and they’re the central characters in his story. Nearly all tool-kit genes are present in all animals, and they do much the same thing in all animals. The same gene, for example, that triggers eye development in fruit flies also triggers eye development in mice…Similarly, a gene that affects pigmentation in birds like the chicken and the bananaquit also affects pigmentation in mammals like the jaguar and you. Indeed, changes in bird-plumage color often involve the same gene that causes red hair in humans. This surprising genetic conservatism across nearly all animals is evo devo’s key empirical finding: swans, swallowtails, and socialites are all built from the same genes…
“The real excitement about evo devo, however, has to do with its third claim. Carroll and others have taken the next, and by far the most radical, step and argue that evolution is mostly a matter of throwing these switches.
“Evo devo’s emphasis on switch-throwing represents a profound departure from evolutionary biology’s long obsession with genes. Animal evolution works not so much by changing genes,
so this little relationship you're claiming is false because, like I said, individual animals cannot be reduced to their genes because the same gene in a lizard may be the same gene in a mouse -- so who the heck is to say which animal came first if they both share the same gene(s)? What used to be a theory of changing genes is now a thoery of "switch-throwing".....can you show me a nested heirarchy based on switch-throwing? If so I'd like to see it.
“The real excitement about evo devo, however, has to do with its third claim. Carroll and others have taken the next, and by far the most radical, step and argue that evolution is mostly a matter of throwing these switches.
“Evo devo’s emphasis on switch-throwing represents a profound departure from evolutionary biology’s long obsession with genes. Animal evolution works not so much by changing genes,
The whole sentence:
Animal evolution works not so much by changing genes, Carroll maintains, but by changing when and where a conserved set of genes is expressed.
guzman continues:
so this little relationship you're claiming is false because, like I said, individual animals cannot be reduced to their genes because the same gene in a lizard may be the same gene in a mouse -- so who the heck is to say which animal came first if they both share the same gene(s)? What used to be a theory of changing genes is now a thoery of "switch-throwing".....can you show me a nested heirarchy based on switch-throwing? If so I'd like to see it.
have you heard the term gene expression? it's not the if of a gene, it's the when. females are born with genes for breast development, these genes are simply not expressed until puberty. expression is something that mutation and selection pressure can act on. it poses no threat to evolutionary theory.
__________________ "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" - Theodosius Dobzhansky
have you heard the term gene expression? it's not the if of a gene, it's the when. females are born with genes for breast development, these genes are simply not expressed until puberty. expression is something that mutation and selection pressure can act on. it poses no threat to evolutionary theory.
no threat to evolutionary thoery? So tell me, what makes a fly a fly and a wasp a wasp if they each have the same basic set of genes?
The research team’s results showed that flies and wasps employ most of the same genes and similar interactions among these genes, but some events are changed to adjust to the developmental constraints.
In the old theory -- your outdated ToE -- different animals were said to be different because of their different genetic makeup....this genetic makeup supposedly changed over time, producing different orders, classes and species..... Now, however, it's known that many/most animals share the same basic genes -- so what does this say about the very premise you're still relying on?
If an animal cannot be defined by its genes -- what can it be defined by? If a human and a chimp are 98% (or whatever) the same genetically -- what makes the difference between humans and chimps? It's not genes....and "gene expression" is neither measureable nor explainable.
Any chance you could address the content of the OP directly rather than engaging in the Gish Gallop?
__________________ (The Library of Alexandria) questioned the permanence of the stars, but did not question the justice of slavery - Carl Sagan in Cosmos
so this little relationship you're claiming is false because, like I said, individual animals cannot be reduced to their genes because the same gene in a lizard may be the same gene in a mouse -- so who the heck is to say which animal came first if they both share the same gene(s)?
Same is a relative term. The genes are orthologous, but they have different sequences. We can use molecular phylogeny to determine the branching order...as for "which came first"...what does that even mean?
What used to be a theory of changing genes is now a thoery of "switch-throwing".....can you show me a nested heirarchy based on switch-throwing? If so I'd like to see it.
And what, pray tell, do you think controls gene regulation? What is it that is throwing these switches? its...wait for it...other genes!
Do regulatory genes show the same hierarchical pattern of phylogeny? yes they do.
__________________ I hear stories from the chamber / How Christ was born into a manger
And like some ragged stranger / Died upon the cross
And might I say it seems so fitting in its way
He was a carpenter by trade / Or at least that's what I'm told
--Mercy Seat, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
The research team’s results showed that flies and wasps employ most of the same genes and similar interactions among these genes, but some events are changed to adjust to the developmental constraints.
In the old theory -- your outdated ToE -- different animals were said to be different because of their different genetic makeup....this genetic makeup supposedly changed over time, producing different orders, classes and species..... Now, however, it's known that many/most animals share the same basic genes -- so what does this say about the very premise you're still relying on?
If an animal cannot be defined by its genes -- what can it be defined by? If a human and a chimp are 98% (or whatever) the same genetically -- what makes the difference between humans and chimps? It's not genes....and "gene expression" is neither measureable nor explainable.
read the first sentence:
Biologists at New York University have identified how different species use common genes to control their early development and alter how these genes are used to accommodate their own features.
the same genes are expressed differently in different species. Being different species, it is not as if the distinctions they are making are ambiguous. they were in no way implying that wasps and flies are genetically indistinguishable.
__________________ "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" - Theodosius Dobzhansky
Same is a relative term. The genes are orthologous, but they have different sequences. We can use molecular phylogeny to determine the branching order...as for "which came first"...what does that even mean?
And what, pray tell, do you think controls gene regulation? What is it that is throwing these switches? its...wait for it...other genes!
Do regulatory genes show the same hierarchical pattern of phylogeny? yes they do.
blaze: And what, pray tell, do you think controls gene regulation?
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