Gorilla Genome

[BL2KTN]

I don't know much about ERV's, so I read a few articles on it. It seems to me that there is still a lot of controversy over this "solid evidence".

As far as I'm concerned, it's not proof of common ancestry. I didn't quote any of the article but the conclusions are below.

"In summary, a very strong case can be made pointing to the view that ERVs were not inserted by retroviruses. They have function, should have been ridden by apoptosis, are different than their ancestral genomes, and it is incredible that the organisms did not die after being infected with so many viral genes. With so many problems, how can evolutionists continue to use ERVs as evidence for evolution?"

I'm not posting the link, you will just label it as biased anyway, just like any source that speaks against the TOE.

So he gives you the smoking gun evidence - ERVs. You don't know enough about them to make any claims, so instead you go to a creationist website to confirm what you want to be true. There at the website, they can't even discredit ERVs, only saying "a strong case can be made". Then you play a semantics game about proofs and evidence.

You know the truth, now it's just a question of how well you can keep lying to your own mind.

 

[Loudmouth]

I don't know much about ERV's, so I read a few articles on it. It seems to me that there is still a lot of controversy over this "solid evidence".

Only among creationists who have to reject the evidence because of their religious beliefs.

"In summary, a very strong case can be made pointing to the view that ERVs were not inserted by retroviruses. They have function, should have been ridden by apoptosis, are different than their ancestral genomes, and it is incredible that the organisms did not die after being infected with so many viral genes. With so many problems, how can evolutionists continue to use ERVs as evidence for evolution?"

That is not a scientific peer reviewed paper. That is a lying creationist website. Notice that I cited real scientific papers. You need to do the same.

Not once in the entire argument for ERV's evidencing common ancestry is it argued that ERV's must be non-functional. NOT ONCE. No one is saying that ERV's evidence common ancestry because they are non-functional. The author says:

"It would be inconceivable that viral non-functional ERVs somehow became functional."

That is just made up from whole cloth. The author never attempts to look at the proportion of ERV's that are functional, and never attempts to back up the claim. Even more, the author ignores the fact that the LTR's that bookend the retroviral genome already function as gene promoters since that is their job during an infection.

Your source also lies about species distribution. The evidence comes from ORTHOLOGOUS ERV's, which your source completely ignores and tries to conflate with non-orthologous ERV's. It is the POSITION in the genome that evidences common ancestry.

I am impressed at how you insert the word "evidence" instead of "proof".

Over and over I am told that science never proves anything. Yet, you can state "smoking gun Evidence" and nobody can, in your mind, argue against that. In all actuality, however, you are saying that it is "proof"......

If you found someone standing over a freshly killed corpse holding a smoking gun, would you count that as proof beyond a reasonable doubt? If so, then ERV's are that same kind of proof. Is it proof beyond any doubt? It could easily be argued that we are brains in a vat, or some other such silliness that could rule out absolute proof. However, in a practical since, ERV's are proof of common ancestry just as the authors of the real scientific paper state:

Given the size of vertebrate genomes (>1 × 109 bp) and the random nature of retroviral integration (22, 23), multiple integrations (and subsequent fixation) of ERV loci at precisely the same location are highly unlikely (24). Therefore, an ERV locus shared by two or more species is descended from a single integration event and is proof that the species share a common ancestor into whose germ line the original integration took place (14).
Constructing primate phylogenies from ancient retrovirus sequences

​

Notice that the author states that the evidence is ERV's AT PRECISELY THE SAME LOCATION. The lying creationist site you referred to completely ignores this fact.

 

[Loudmouth]

So he gives you the smoking gun evidence - ERVs. You don't know enough about them to make any claims, so instead you go to a creationist website to confirm what you want to be true. There at the website, they can't even discredit ERVs, only saying "a strong case can be made". Then you play a semantics game about proofs and evidence.

You know the truth, now it's just a question of how well you can keep lying to your own mind.

If creationists have to lie about ERV's, what does that say about their argument?

 

[PsychoSarah]

So, you still have maggot flies. They are physically indistinguishable and are only different at the genetic level.

They can still mate between each other....

This seems to be a similar comparison to, say, Caucasian and Negro's, excepting the visible color difference. So, in effect the maggot flyies are even closer than the differnent races of humans are.

Hardly an example of gorilla's and human's. But, nice story bro.

Oh dude, you did not seriously say that.

 

[lifepsyop]

I expect its because the Ven diagrams one could draw in terms of shared genes between gorillas, chimps, and humans will not line up properly. Creationists would use this as an argument against common decent.

Correct. But it's not an argument attempting to disprove common descent, as evolutionists will be quick to strawman.

The argument is that Evolution theory has such a large degree of plasticity that a 30% conflict with molecular predictions is no problem at all. Evolution theory easily accommodates such failures as it does many others. It predicts both the X and the Not-X. This type of scenario is happening constantly within all facets of the life sciences.

One is left wondering, with these types of extreme "lineage sorting" issues, why evolutionists would even expect robust phylogenetic evidence in their favor as is often the bluff.

Evolution is an amorphous metaphysical fog that continuously settles around a shifting landscape of data. Every time a contradiction arises, they simply defer to a new or a previously established rescue device.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Correct. But it's not an argument attempting to disprove common descent, as evolutionists will be quick to strawman.

The argument is that Evolution theory has such a large degree of plasticity that a 30% conflict with molecular predictions is no problem at all. Evolution theory easily accommodates such failures as it does many others. It predicts both the X and the Not-X. This type of scenario is happening constantly within all facets of the life sciences.

One is left wondering, with these types of extreme "lineage sorting" issues, why evolutionists would even expect robust phylogenetic evidence in their favor as is often the bluff.

Evolution is an amorphous metaphysical fog that continuously settles around a shifting landscape of data. Every time a contradiction arises, they simply defer to a new or a previously established rescue device.

-_- evolutionary theory is just change over time, it isn't a specific order of change.

 

[lifepsyop]

-_- evolutionary theory is just change over time, it isn't a specific order of change.

You're completely wrong of course. I could provide about a thousand links to evolutionary literature that affirm in no unclear terms that the theory is based around the proposition of universal common descent of living things.

 

[PsychoSarah]

You're completely wrong of course. I could provide about a thousand links to evolutionary literature that affirm in no unclear terms that the theory is based around the proposition of universal common descent of living things.

no, universal common descent is actually a theory all by itself.

Unfortunately, abiogenesis, universal common descent, and evolution are mentioned together so often that a lot of people end up thinking they are all a part of the same thing, when in reality they are not.

 

[sfs]

The argument is that Evolution theory has such a large degree of plasticity that a 30% conflict with molecular predictions is no problem at all. Evolution theory easily accommodates such failures as it does many others. It predicts both the X and the Not-X. This type of scenario is happening constantly within all facets of the life sciences.

One is left wondering, with these types of extreme "lineage sorting" issues, why evolutionists would even expect robust phylogenetic evidence in their favor as is often the bluff.

Right -- that's the argument. The argument is wrong. You've been told repeatedly that the argument is wrong, and why. Yet you keep repeating it. Why? Repeating falsehoods doesn't make them true.

 

[lifepsyop]

no, universal common descent is actually a theory all by itself.

Unfortunately, abiogenesis, universal common descent, and evolution are mentioned together so often that a lot of people end up thinking they are all a part of the same thing, when in reality they are not.

"An Introduction to Evolution - Berkeley.edu

Biological evolution, simply put, is descent with modification. This definition encompasses small-scale evolution (changes in gene frequency in a population from one generation to the next) and large-scale evolution (the descent of different species from a common ancestor over many generations). Evolution helps us to understand the history of life.

Biological evolution is not simply a matter of change over time. Lots of things change over time: trees lose their leaves, mountain ranges rise and erode, but they aren't examples of biological evolution because they don't involve descent through genetic inheritance.

The central idea of biological evolution is that all life on Earth shares a common ancestor, just as you and your cousins share a common grandmother.

Through the process of descent with modification, the common ancestor of life on Earth gave rise to the fantastic diversity that we see documented in the fossil record and around us today. Evolution means that we're all distant cousins: humans and oak trees, hummingbirds and whales."

An introduction to evolution

Please do some reading to more fully understand your own position. . Everyone (except you apparently) knows universal common descent is a central doctrine of Evolution theory. There are quite a few books written on the subject.

 

[lifepsyop]

Right -- that's the argument. The argument is wrong. You've been told repeatedly that the argument is wrong, and why. Yet you keep repeating it. Why? Repeating falsehoods doesn't make them true.

My argument is generally accurate. Evolution theory is so plastic and malleable that it has always been designed in a way to accommodate widely disparate results.

 

[sfs]

My argument is generally accurate. Evolution theory is so plastic and malleable that it has always been designed in a way to accommodate widely disparate results.

The last time we had this discussion, you tried to come up with evolutionary explanations for discordant data. You failed. You've never done a phylogenetic analysis, or an analysis of incomplete lineage sorting, or any genetics at all, have you? You don't know enough to judge how malleable the theory is.

 

[lifepsyop]

The last time we had this discussion, you tried to come up with evolutionary explanations for discordant data. You failed. You've never done a phylogenetic analysis, or an analysis of incomplete lineage sorting, or any genetics at all, have you? You don't know enough to judge how malleable the theory is.

Wasn't that where you claimed something like a wolf and a dog having discrepant transposable elements would disprove ToE? I think the conclusion is that Evolution theory is forced to go to absurd extremes in order to establish any semblance of constraints (e.g. if humans were more genetically similar to pine trees than another mammal)

This supports my thesis.

 

[sfs]

Wasn't that where you claimed something like a wolf and a dog having discrepant transposable elements would disprove ToE? I think the conclusion is that Evolution theory is forced to go to absurd extremes in order to establish any semblance of constraints (e.g. if humans were more genetically similar to pine trees than another mammal)

You're not remembering very well. You claimed that incomplete lineage sorting could be invoked to explain any discordant phylogeny. When challenged to do so, you produced a nonsensical chart that indicated you had no idea how ILS works.

Of course, you've also never offered an explanation for why organisms do fall into consistent, well-defined phylogenies, over and over. Or why ILS is only seen in places where we'd expect to see it. Or pretty much anything, for that matter.

This supports my thesis.

Of course it does. In your mind, everything supports your thesis. Scientists tend to be more impressed by data than by certitude.

 

[lifepsyop]

You're not remembering very well. You claimed that incomplete lineage sorting could be invoked to explain any discordant phylogeny.

No, I didn't say "any"... I said it can be invoked in response to major inconsistencies, such as within the entire placental mammal group example I provided from the literature.

Incomplete lineage sorting is a major rescue device for when genetic markers don't match up the way evolutionists want them to.

You of all people should understand this.

Or why ILS is only seen in places where we'd expect to see it.

That's the problem. The degree to which Evolutionists "expect to see it" is so vast that major discrepancies can be accommodated into the theory.

Mosaic retroposon insertion patterns in placental mammals

 

[sfs]

No, I didn't say "any"... I said it can be invoked in response to major inconsistencies, such as within the entire placental mammal group example I provided from the literature.

As I said, your memory is not very good. Your statements: "incomplete lineage sorting" is simply a catch-all rescue device for discordant gene trees," and "There's not really any limiting criteria on how much incomplete lineage sorting is allowed to be invoked in this situation." I'd say my summary of your claims is more accurate than yours. You provided one example of a case where ILS is actually invoked (for a very small number of nodes, and in places where it would be reasonable to expect it), and also offered an example of how it could be invoked that was completely wrong.

Incomplete lineage sorting is a major rescue device for when genetic markers don't match up the way evolutionists want them to.

ILS is an inevitable phenomenon, one that should occur in well-understood circumstances and that has testable consequences.

You of all people should understand this.

You're right: I should indeed understand this, if it's true. Doesn't it cause you the slightest pause that I think you are utterly wrong about evolution? I understand it technically much better than you do, I work with genetic data all the time, and I have no ideological or religious bias in favor of evolution. And yet I find it a thoroughly convincing explanation for a vast range of data, a reliable basis for predicting new data, and a critical tool for understanding biology and the history of life. In contrast, creationism consistently avoids genetic data like the plague, predicts either nothing at all or wildly inaccurate things, and is utterly useless for understanding biology. Why do you think this is the case?

 

[lifepsyop]

You provided one example of a case where ILS is actually invoked (for a very small number of nodes, and in places where it would be reasonable to expect it)

Yet a large group of diverse animals can, in principle, always be pushed back to a small number of nodes of imagined common ancestors, as in the placental mammal example. Inconsistencies of the entire tree are pushed back to their hypothetical origin. This is exactly how Evolution theory accommodates major conflicts in the data.

You're right: I should indeed understand this, if it's true. Doesn't it cause you the slightest pause that I think you are utterly wrong about evolution?

Not at all. Evolution is a metaphysical worldview that you are fully committed to. You will defend it regardless of its strengths and weakneseses.

 

[sfs]

Yet a large group of diverse animals can, in principle, always be pushed back to a small number of nodes of imagined common ancestors, as in the placental mammal example. Inconsistencies of the entire tree are pushed back to their hypothetical origin. This is exactly how Evolution theory accommodates major conflicts in the data.

Only if the inconsistencies occur only between a small number of branches -- as in the actual case you presented. If the organisms didn't fall into an overall tree pattern, you could not accommodate the data with ILS. That's what you got wrong before, and repeating your error doesn't improve it.

Not at all. Evolution is a metaphysical worldview that you are fully committed to. You will defend it regardless of its strengths and weakneseses.

Your willingness to make confident assertions about something you couldn't possibly know anything about -- my metaphysical worldview -- is consistent with your posts on evolution. In short, you make stuff up.

 

[PsychoSarah]

"An Introduction to Evolution - Berkeley.edu

Biological evolution, simply put, is descent with modification. This definition encompasses small-scale evolution (changes in gene frequency in a population from one generation to the next) and large-scale evolution (the descent of different species from a common ancestor over many generations). Evolution helps us to understand the history of life.

Biological evolution is not simply a matter of change over time. Lots of things change over time: trees lose their leaves, mountain ranges rise and erode, but they aren't examples of biological evolution because they don't involve descent through genetic inheritance.

The central idea of biological evolution is that all life on Earth shares a common ancestor, just as you and your cousins share a common grandmother.

Through the process of descent with modification, the common ancestor of life on Earth gave rise to the fantastic diversity that we see documented in the fossil record and around us today. Evolution means that we're all distant cousins: humans and oak trees, hummingbirds and whales."

An introduction to evolution

Please do some reading to more fully understand your own position. . Everyone (except you apparently) knows universal common descent is a central doctrine of Evolution theory. There are quite a few books written on the subject.

Oh, how dare you be this condescending?

Universal common ancestry (UCA) is a central pillar of modern evolutionary theory. As first suggested by Darwin, the theory of UCA posits that all extant terrestrial organisms share a common genetic heritage, each being the genealogical descendant of a single species from the distant past. The classic evidence for UCA, although massive, is largely restricted to ‘local’ common ancestry—for example, of specific phyla rather than the entirety of life—and has yet to fully integrate the recent advances from modern phylogenetics and probability theory. Although UCA is widely assumed, it has rarely been subjected to formal quantitative testing and this has led to critical commentary emphasizing the intrinsic technical difficulties in empirically evaluating a theory of such broad scope.

It's a sub-theory, supports evolution, but isn't truly a part of it.
A formal test of the theory of universal common ancestry : Nature : Nature Publishing Group

 

[lifepsyop]

Only if the inconsistencies occur only between a small number of branches -- as in the actual case you presented.

Again, we're talking about the entire placental mammal group.. from humans to armadillos.... And you're calling that a "small number" of branches? Relative to what?

Regardless of how you choose to characterize it, the study demonstrates the vast spectrum Evolution theory has in order to accommodate discordant data. Evolutionists triumph in that their lump of theoretical jello keeps fitting into whatever physical container is presented. A theory with little to no internal structure can be made to fit into nearly anything.

The diverse animal groups representing roughly "100 Million years" of branching descent can potentially have completely scrambled molecular traits and still it can be fit into Evolution theory.

As noted, this is accomplished by imagining that the scrambling occurred near the "common ancestor" of said animal groups, deep in the mythological evolutionary past.

But since any distribution of traits can, (according to Evolution theory), be pushed back to an imaginary common ancestral node, this gives evolutionists a huge amount of creative license to rescue conflicting phylogenetic data.

If the organisms didn't fall into an overall tree pattern, you could not accommodate the data with ILS. That's what you got wrong before, and repeating your error doesn't improve it.

Yet I have shown the very character traits used by evolutionists to construct such a tree pattern can be in major conflict and still be accommodated. That was the whole point of my argument, so your counter-reasoning here is circular.

Your willingness to make confident assertions about something you couldn't possibly know anything about -- my metaphysical worldview...

I do know... you hold to an evolutionary worldview. You believe nature created all animals essentially from scratch. It's one of the most ancient and superstitious belief systems in the world.