Chimp genome again

[Schroeder]

Actually, mutations which occur from conception to birth, like those that occur after birth, are generally irrelevant to evolution, as they are not passed on to the next generation unless they occur in a germ cell.

The mutations that are most relevant to evolution are those that occur during the production of germ cell due to uncorrected miscopying of DNA or to the recombination of DNA as the chromosomes re-form and cross-over. By the time you get to fertilization, all the mutations that apply to this generation have basically occurred, and the next round happens when the adult organism generates its germ cells.

mutations are most generaly bad. So a mutation happens ever so slightly changing it. then the next mutation happens in the same place and again ever so slightly changes it so on for millions of years and we have us and everything else. And this happens in multiple places of genes and or DNA. I havent seen this type mutations happen in a way to make the theroy stick. It doesnt generally lead to any great change over time as in reptile to mammal. But again we have this time limit. so we cannot observe such a thing happen. though we have been looking for a while and you think their would be such a animal close enough that we could possible finish its change from one class to another. but maybe not.

Not true. Most mutations are neither helpful nor harmful. In some cases, even a slightly harmful mutation will persist over many generations, and definitely will persist if it is recessive.

When a mutation is helpful it will spread through the population faster and occur more frequently in following generations. But some mutations spread even without being helpful (genetic drift).

So now its neither. It will spread if that population is not killed off. or the family starting it doesnt die off. what if like say a metorite comes and kills 98 percent off. do we start all over again. This happened twice i think they say. so we evolved from what was left.

Since one mutation doesn't make a new species, it has no problem finding a mate among the rest of the population it is part of. Remember, evolution is a change in the species, not a change in the organism. By passing on its mutation to its offspring, it ensures that it will be preserved in the species. If it is a helpful mutation, it will become more common in the species. When the mutant version of the gene has become the most common in the species, the species has evolved a little bit.

Its not the finding in that idea, its that some get ate or killed etc without passing it on. how many babies do they have. generally most die off before adulthood. this adds to the odds of it happening like you say from one common ancestor. Yes this little common change that becomes dominate is called speciation. evolution. its not the theory of evolution.

Same as the odds of anything that has taken place: 1

Note that the 13 mutations did not all have to occur in the same generation. They just each had to persist in and spread through the population. Each would provide some benefit of some kind, and as each became more common, it would also become more common for some individuals to have 3 or 7 or 10 of the 13 mutations instead of just one or two of them. There could be a positive epistasis (two or more mutations together being even more helpful than a simple addition of their benefits would produce) to spread the relevant genes even faster.

ndont say it all happen at once. God created animal to adapt and change over time. over amny many years they change alot i would think. but never been shown to change from fish to amphipian to reptile to mammal. every thing on earth can be placed into one of these. every thing found can to. and guessing from just bones isnt easy and they have been wrong before. You would think the way we reproduce humans would be evolving fast. environment works for or against changes which is used alot but the environment changes alot and the animals do no how to MOVE when it does so change isnt needed. Mutations only do so much there is just to many varibles to consider that they could, even in the time given, to create everything from one common ancestor. I mean you start with plants or food base then to animal and still have to have food base for what was just evolved which is probably eating whats their. Is there a book or something that has a kind of model or story of how it could have happened from the first element to cell to plant to animal to etc etc. Its easy to come up with it all when its all already here.

 

[gluadys]

mutations are most generaly bad.

No.most are neutral--neither helpful nor harmful. That's why we can have so much variation in species.

So a mutation happens ever so slightly changing it. then the next mutation happens in the same place

No, the second mutation probably doesn't happen in the same place, nor in the same individual, or even the same generation. It happens in a different cell entirely, in a different organism, probably on a different chromosome and at least somewhere else in the gene. No reason at all for other mutations to happen in the same place to affect the same character trait. And even if by chance it did, it would still be in a different individual, whether it happened in the same generation or a future generation.

What you need to work on is this question: how does one mutation happening in you and a completely different mutation happening in your granddaughter contribute to the evolution of humanity? The theory of evolution explains this. Do you know what the explanation is?

I havent seen this type mutations happen in a way to make the theroy stick.

Where have you looked? Are you an expert in DNA sequencing and analysis? have you read published scientific papers on observed changes in DNA in a population over several generations?

It doesnt generally lead to any great change over time as in reptile to mammal. But again we have this time limit.

Right. One human lifetime of active research only allows us to see about 40-50 years of evolution directly. The transition from reptile to mammal took at least 100 million years. Do you have any reason to hold that is not enough time?

so we cannot observe such a thing happen. though we have been looking for a while and you think their would be such a animal close enough that we could possible finish its change from one class to another. but maybe not.

A change from one class to another takes a really, really long time. To go from fish to amphibian to reptile to mammal took 2-3 hundred million years. Is it any wonder no one human can directly observe it? Even a change of species can take thousands of years so it is too gradual to be noticed in one generation. It's a bit like watching a mountain erode. Over time, the Rockies will wear down to the height of the Appalachians, but you are not going to notice much change in your lifetime.

So now its neither. It will spread if that population is not killed off. or the family starting it doesnt die off. what if like say a metorite comes and kills 98 percent off. do we start all over again.

Yes, we start all over with whatever survives.

This happened twice i think they say. so we evolved from what was left.

Five times, actually and it is happening again today. We need to make a lot of changes in the way we live to keep as many species alive as possible.

Its not the finding in that idea, its that some get ate or killed etc without passing it on. how many babies do they have. generally most die off before adulthood. this adds to the odds of it happening like you say from one common ancestor.

It would seem to me to lower the odds. If most individuals die off before adulthood, there are fewer adults to be ancestors, so if one of them carries a mutation, it is more likely to get a foot into the next generation than if all the other individuals also survived. Put it this way: if the adult population is 10,000, then a new mutation is likely to appear in 0.001% of the next generation if reproduction is asexual and 0.0005% if reproduction is sexual (since it is passed on to only half of one's offspring). If the adult population is only 100, then a new mutation is likely to appear in 1% of the next generation if reproduction is asexual and 0.5% of the population if reproduction is sexual. And that is before factoring in natural selection which would increase the odds of survival and reproduction in offspring inheriting the mutation.

Yes this little common change that becomes dominate is called speciation. evolution. its not the theory of evolution.

Yes it is the theory of evolution. Maybe you don't actually know what the theory of evolution is. Here is a definition from Understanding Evolution:

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.​

An introduction to evolution

Here is one from Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne

In essence, the modern theory of evolution is easy to grasp. It can
be summarized in a single (albeit slightly long) sentence: Life on Earth
evolved gradually beginning with one primitive species—perhaps a selfreplicating
molecule—that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then
branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and
the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural
selection.
When you break that statement down, you find that it really consists
of six components: evolution, gradualism, speciation, common ancestry,
natural selection, and nonselective mechanisms of evolutionary change.​

http://evolbiol.ru/large_files/why_evolution_is_true.pdf

ndont say it all happen at once.

What you asked was:
"how many mutations in just the right place and time and parents and domination of parents genes etc would this take." And you also asked about an individual with a mutation finding a mate.

This sort of question only makes sense if all the mutations need to happen at the same time.

Why do you ask such a question if you understand that each mutation happens in a different cell, which is probably in a different individual, who is probably in a different generation, and is not significantly different from other individuals in its own generation? Furthermore each mutation probably affects a different part of the genome, even in the unlikely case that it happens in the same gene.

God created animal to adapt and change over time. over amny many years they change alot i would think.

Yes, God created animals to evolve, and natural selection to adapt them to their habitat and to changes in their habitat. And not just animals, but all other forms of life as well. And they do change a lot as we can see from series of transitional fossils--like those of horses and their ancestors.

but never been shown to change from fish to amphipian to reptile to mammal.

Sure you have. It is in most standard textbooks on evolution.

every thing on earth can be placed into one of these. every thing found can to.

Oh, not by a long shot. More things are placed outside of these categories than inside them. All the things that are not animals to begin with: E.coli bacteria, Parmecium (a protist), rhodophytes and other algae, all sorts of plants and fungi. Then, even among animals, there are all the animals that don't have bones: sponges, jellyfish, clams, snails, spiders, bumblebees, ants, beetles (lots and lots of beetles). The four classes you name are only one small group: vertebrates.

and guessing from just bones isnt easy and they have been wrong before.

That's why scientists don't just guess. They use many ways to test their inferences and establish what is factual. Sure, sometimes they make mistakes, they are only human, but usually something comes along to correct the errors.

You would think the way we reproduce humans would be evolving fast.

Why? Most scientists would say there is every reason we would not be. We have a huge, global population that has not broken down into isolated populations that don't interbreed. We have a long time between generations and we have few offspring per couple. That's a recipe for slow evolution, not fast evolution.

environment works for or against changes which is used alot but the environment changes alot and the animals do no how to MOVE when it does so change isnt needed.

Not all animals can move. Some remain fixed where they are as adults. And even if they can move, they can't always move fast enough or get across barriers. Clams, for example, can't move very fast or very far, so if the habitat changes quickly, they can't simply move somewhere else.

Mutations only do so much there is just to many varibles to consider that they could, even in the time given, to create everything from one common ancestor.

Right, mutations only put variation into a population and that's not enough. You need selection to get from variation to evolutionary change. You need natural selection to get adaptive change. With mutations and selection and speciation all affecting a population, there is lots of time for all the changes that have been recorded.

I mean you start with plants or food base then to animal and still have to have food base for what was just evolved which is probably eating whats their. Is there a book or something that has a kind of model or story of how it could have happened from the first element to cell to plant to animal to etc etc. Its easy to come up with it all when its all already here.

Most don't include "from the first element" since that is more about the origin of life and cells (abiogenesis) than about evolution. But there are plenty of sources that can take you from early populations of cellular life to the biodiversity of today. The two links I gave you above are good. If you don't mind going backwards (from us to our more and more ancient ancestors, right back to the earliest cells) an interesting, if long, read is The Ancestor's Tale, by Richard Dawkins.

There are also some interesting theories on the origin of life.

 

[Asyncritus]

The genetic similarities so often touted as support for evolution and the alleged common descent of man and chimpanzees etc are quite simply trivial.

Of far more weight are the differences which cannot be accounted for by any theory of evolutionary origins. Here are 2 short articles which demonstrate this conclusively. All supporters of evolution are invited to account for these differences singly, rather than with broad brush strokes.

Why the primates (or should that be proto-primates?) cannot have become humans.

The bulk of this information comes from Man: A Special Creation by Douglas Dewar and from “Is Man an Animal” author unknown.

To put it as simply as possible, the differences are just too great to be overcome, and certainly a chromosomal structural resemblance is completely inadequate to explain such enormous differences.

The most apparent differences are the mental and psycho-spiritual ones.

The intellectual powers of a human child far exceed those of any primate. The said child has a conception of religion, spirituality, and some abstract thought. If we think of the young Mozart writing magnificent pieces of music, and playing highly complex pieces of music with his hands behind him, and compare that with the exploits of the most highly trained chimpanzee, the mind boggles.

The intellectual and spiritual powers of an adult human are light years beyond those of a chimpanzee, and to say that an allegedly fused chromosome or a handful of genetic similarities is proof of their descent from a common ancestor beggars belief.

Here are some of the major such differences.

Man is the only creature with the ability to count extensively
Man is the only creature with the ability to have a religion
Man is the only creature with the ability to have a moral sense
Man is the only creature with the ability to appreciate beauty
Man is the only creature with the ability to have a complex language
Man is the only creature with the ability to bury its dead
Man is the only creature with the ability to reason abstractly
Man is the only creature with the ability to manufacture tools and weapons
Man is the only creature with the ability to make articles of dress and adornment
Man is the only creature with the ability to make fire
Man is the only creature with the ability to sow and reap
Man is the only creature with the ability to improve its appearance
Man is the only creature with the delicacy and precision of touch that enables eye surgery as an example

I call upon the common descent advocates to account for the origin and implantation of these instincts in the common ancestor which manifest themselves in the characteristics above.

 

[Asyncritus]

THE CHIMPANZEE CONNECTION PART 2​

The physical differences must also be accounted for.

What are those differences, then?

They are quite enormous as we shall see.
[FONT=&quot]
1 The Pelvis

The shape of the pelvis is entirely different. In man it is broad, low, and basin-shaped.
In the apes, for example, its broad axis is from back to front

In man, its width from one iliac crest to the other is greater than its height. In
apes, it is the other way round.

The pubic symphysis is short in man, long in apes.

In man the lower part of the pelvis is almost equally distributed in front of and behind the socket bone. In apes it is inserted much further back, to permit the forward bending posture.

The special features of the human pelvis appear early in embryonic development , and are not preceded by conditions even resembling those that prevail in apes.

The large ilia, broad pelvis and well-developed spines all serve to give us our erect posture.

Here are a few words about how essential our upright posture really is:

To my mind, the most thorough single paper on this question was written by F. A. Hallebrandt and E. B. Franseen, entitled "Physiological Study of the Vertical Stance in Man."74 The following brief extracts will give a useful summary of this paper that runs into some thirty-six pages. The authors stated in introducing their subject:75

Many clinical papers in the current literature on posture indicate that stance defects may result ultimately in a variety of malfunctions including lessened respiratory efficiency, prolapse of the abdominal viscera, impairment of digestion, pressure and derangement of the pelvic organs, dysmenorrhea, haemorrhoids, varicose veins, constipation, cyclic vomiting, foot strain, backache, neuritis, and arthritis. Barring orthopedic disabilities, few of the etiologic associations are based on demonstrable fact....
74. Hallebrandt, F. A., and Franseen, E. B., "Physiological Study of the Vertical Stance in Man," Physiol. Rev. 22-23 (1943):221.

From this it must be obvious that any allegedly intermediate stages must have been hopelessly ill.

One of the less well recognized results of truly erect posture in man is its effect upon his powers of communication. The neck structure allows a certain configuration of the windpipe and vocal organs which permits men to talk easily to one another while maintaining the natural and normal position of the head. Both speaking and singing are possible for man without any such straightening out of the head and neck as must occur in other animals when they give voice
ibid

3 The coccyx is longer in human beings than in anthropoid apes (4 fused in humans, 3 fused in apes).

The human coccyx is placed lower than in the ape. It reaches almost to the end of the pubic symphysis, involving the production of a transverse perineum, as opposed to the oblique one of the ape.

The absence of a tail in man is due to the impedance it would offer to movement in an upright posture.

[/FONT]

 

[Asyncritus]

4 The straight legs of man are unique to man. Those of the anthropoids cannot be straightened.

5 Man is the only fully plantigrade primate.

The foot presses on the ground at three points which form the pillars of a double arch.

In the anthropoids, only the outer edge of the foot presses on the ground when the animal is standing.

In the apes, the relative lengths of the fingers are similar to those of the toes.

The first toe of the ape is opposable to the other four. Those four are bound together by a broad band of fibre known as the transverse metatarsal ligament. In man, this ligament includes the big toe, and so binds all 5 toes together.

6 In the spinal column, there are other unique features.

The axis vertebra is absolutely vertical in man. In the apes it is oblique.

In order that that the head may rest on the spine in the vertical axis, the spinal column is curved to the front in the neck region, then it curves backwards and then forward in the lumbar region. This last curve is exhibited by no other animal.
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]

 

[Asyncritus]

[FONT=&quot]7 The human arm differs markedly from that of any anthropoid.

It alone can be stretched so that upper and lower arm form a straight line.
The arm is relatively much shorter than that of any anthropoid, and the ratio of the length of the upper to the forearm is lower.
The human arm hangs differently from that of any anthropoid: the thumb points forward. In the apes, it points inward.

8 Man’s thumb is perfectly opposed to the rest of the fingers and is much bigger than that of the apes. The transverse lines on the palms run obliquely, rather than transversely as in the apes.

9 The scapula is applied to the back of the thorax in man. In other animals it is applied to the side of the thorax.
The socket for the insertion of the humerus faces outwards in man. In the apes, it faces downwards.

10 Man is unique among land animals in not possessing a covering of hair or fur. As a result, unlike other animal, has to adopt clothing of one sort or another to retain heat and ward off cold.

The absence of hair is difficult to explain – because the young anthropoid clings to the hair of its mother like a leech. The mother therefore need not bother too much about the infant when she is moving about. There is not the faintest resemblance to this in the human species.

11 Among other features exhibited by man and not the anthropoids are the following:

the bed of fat beneath the skin, the legs being longer than the arms, the large size and permanent separation of the nasal bones in man, the shortness of the external ear, the human brachial artery lying below the median nerve, the lack of sexual differentiation in the teeth, the premolar teeth of man having fewer roots than the anthropoids.

We could go on at some length, But I trust that the foregoing is enough to shake any evolutionary theories of the common descent of man and chimp to its foundations.
[/FONT]

 

[shernren]

The genetic similarities so often touted as support for evolution and the alleged common descent of man and chimpanzees etc are quite simply trivial.

Of far more weight are the differences which cannot be accounted for by any theory of evolutionary origins. Here are 2 short articles which demonstrate this conclusively. All supporters of evolution are invited to account for these differences singly, rather than with broad brush strokes.

Why the primates (or should that be proto-primates?) cannot have become humans.

The bulk of this information comes from Man: A Special Creation by Douglas Dewar and from “Is Man an Animal” author unknown.

To put it as simply as possible, the differences are just too great to be overcome, and certainly a chromosomal structural resemblance is completely inadequate to explain such enormous differences.

The most apparent differences are the mental and psycho-spiritual ones.

The intellectual powers of a human child far exceed those of any primate. The said child has a conception of religion, spirituality, and some abstract thought. If we think of the young Mozart writing magnificent pieces of music, and playing highly complex pieces of music with his hands behind him, and compare that with the exploits of the most highly trained chimpanzee, the mind boggles.

The intellectual and spiritual powers of an adult human are light years beyond those of a chimpanzee, and to say that an allegedly fused chromosome or a handful of genetic similarities is proof of their descent from a common ancestor beggars belief.

Here are some of the major such differences.

Man is the only creature with the ability to count extensively
Man is the only creature with the ability to have a religion
Man is the only creature with the ability to have a moral sense
Man is the only creature with the ability to appreciate beauty
Man is the only creature with the ability to have a complex language
Man is the only creature with the ability to bury its dead
Man is the only creature with the ability to reason abstractly
Man is the only creature with the ability to manufacture tools and weapons
Man is the only creature with the ability to make articles of dress and adornment
Man is the only creature with the ability to make fire
Man is the only creature with the ability to sow and reap
Man is the only creature with the ability to improve its appearance
Man is the only creature with the delicacy and precision of touch that enables eye surgery as an example

I call upon the common descent advocates to account for the origin and implantation of these instincts in the common ancestor which manifest themselves in the characteristics above.

A baby human can do none of these things, either. So I suppose no baby human can ever develop into an adult human. The gap is just too vast.

 

[Asyncritus]

Now is that a serious reply to some very serious factual points?

You can surely do better than that miserable effort?

 

[mark kennedy]

mutations are most generaly bad. So a mutation happens ever so slightly changing it. then the next mutation happens in the same place and again ever so slightly changes it so on for millions of years and we have us and everything else. And this happens in multiple places of genes and or DNA. I havent seen this type mutations happen in a way to make the theroy stick. It doesnt generally lead to any great change over time as in reptile to mammal. But again we have this time limit. so we cannot observe such a thing happen. though we have been looking for a while and you think their would be such a animal close enough that we could possible finish its change from one class to another. but maybe not.

It really doesn't happen that way if you study evolution as natural history. For one thing step wise gradual change isn't seen so much in the fossil record. For another, when you lose 98% of a population to a massive die off it shrinks the gene pool, if a species falls below 100 members the are most likely doomed to extinction. Just not an environment where dramatic change is going to be positive.

Pick a chromosome, any chromosome and you will find a disease or disorder effecting the human brain as the result of a mutation.

Human Genome Project Landmark Poster

The thing is that our evolution would have had to happen pretty quickly about two million years ago. For instance:

Our ancestors to have evolved it would have required a dramatic adaptive evolution of the size just under 2 mya sandwiched between two long periods of relative stasis. One such gene would have been the HARf regulatory gene involved in the early development of the human neocortex from 7 to 19 gestational weeks. With only two substitutions allowed since the common ancestor over the previous 310 million years. The divergence between humans and chimpanzees indicates 18 substitutions as early as 2 mya after only allowing two since the Cambrian. (Nature, vol. 443, no. 7108, pp. 167-172 September 14, 2006)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im0-LTqOHxs

That's one of a hundred riddle TOE has not solved.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[sfs]

Now is that a serious reply to some very serious factual points?

You can surely do better than that miserable effort?

You provided a long list of factual points (some accurate, some not), but what you didn't provide was an argument, so it's not clear what sort of reply you're expecting. All you gave was a long list of differences between humans and other primates, and the assertion that these differences were too big to result from evolution. Your assertion carries no weight at all, however.

If you want to make a case that human-chimpanzee differences cannot be the result of evolution, by all means do so. Start by considering the rate at which morphological change can be observed to occur within a species, both in a stable environment and in a changing one. How does that rate compare to the differences between humans and chimpanzees, given the estimated divergence date? Next, consider the behavioral differences. First, discard the inaccurate ones (e.g. absence of tool use by nonhumans, or the supposed lack of any moral sense in other primates). Then consider when different behaviors first appear in the fossil record: does symbolic expression first appear at the same time, or in the same species, as the use of fire, or the fashioning of stone tools? Does the large human brain, which is obviously related to these abilities, appear suddenly, or has there been a long period of increasing brain size in our ancestors, along with increasingly complex behavior, going back to long before the human-chimpanzee divergence?

Then, once you've started actually addressing the data, you can see if you have grounds for formulating a real argument.

(Oh yes, you did do one other thing: you dismissed the enormous amount and range of genetic data indicating common ancestry as "quite simply trivial", without bothering to actually address the data. How would you characterize that effort?)

 

[Asyncritus]

That list is a reasonably comprehansive one, but could easily be doubled in size and number of individual items.

In MHO, no theory of evolution can account for the origin of any of the anatomical facts, and certainly none of the psychological ones.

No theory of gradualism now extant can account for them.

Every one of the possible methods of evolution known cannot account for any one of those facts.

Quite apart from the fact that they are present universally in the non-diseased human, there is an extremely large problem pointed out by the book: 'How does Instinct Evolve?'

Let us grant for a moment, that out of the blue, an advanced characteristic appears, for example the perfectly non-opposable toes. We may debate whether this is a improvement or not, but let us agree that the ability to grasp branches between the great toe and the others is now lost.

The new organism does not know that such a change has taken place.

There would, of course, be countless broken necks, arms and legs, as the new organism thinking that all is well, swings from tree to tree,but is unable to grasp what it formerly could, and dies as a consequence.

Species extinction is only to be expected.

Evolutionary theory cannot account for the 'progression', and that is but one example.

Consider also the loss of hair. To what will the baby X's cling as the mother crashes down to the forest floor, to break her neck?

Do you see that chromosomal similarities cannot account for the vast gulf between the chimp and the human? That gulf means that the differences cannot be bridged.

And is it not obvious that the instincts required by the new organism had to spring full-blown to birth with no intermediates possible? Once it could swing - but now it cannot: and a new armoury of instinctive equipment is required for its survival in a new habitat.

Such equipment cannot have arisen gradually - in fact it cannot have 'arisen' at all. It was implanted full-grown, and at the first appearance of the human species.

 

[laconicstudent]

That list is a reasonably comprehansive one, but could easily be doubled in size and number of individual items.

In MHO, no theory of evolution can account for the origin of any of the anatomical facts, and certainly none of the psychological ones.

No theory of gradualism now extant can account for them.

Every one of the possible methods of evolution known can account for any one of those facts.

Quite apart from the fact that they are present universally in the non-diseased human, there is an extremely large problem pointed out by the book: 'How does Instinct Evolve?'

Let us grant for a moment, that out of the blue, an advanced characteristic appears, for example the perfectly non-opposable toes. We may debate whether this is a improvement or not, but let us agree that the ability to grasp branches between the great toe and the others is now lost.

The new organism does not know that such a change has taken place.

There would, of course, be countless broken necks, arms and legs, as the new organism thinking that all is well, swings from tree to tree,but is unable to grasp what it formerly could, and dies as a consequence.

Species extinction is only to be expected.

Evolutionary theory cannot account for the 'progression', and that is but one example.

Consider also the loss of hair. To what will the baby X's cling as the mother crashes down to the forest floor, to break her neck?

Do you see that chromosomal similarities cannot account for the vast gulf between the chimp and the human? That gulf means that the differences cannot be bridged.

And is it not obvious that the instincts required by the new organism had to spring full-blown to birth with no intermediates possible? Once it could swing - but now it cannot: and a new armoury of instinctive equipment is required for its survival in a new habitat.

Such equipment cannot have arisen gradually - in fact it cannot have 'arisen' at all. It was implanted full-grown, and at the first appearance of the human species.

Easy: your strawmen of traits suddenly changing so significantly within a generation does not actually happen.

 

[sfs]

That list is a reasonably comprehansive one, but could easily be doubled in size and number of individual items.

In MHO, no theory of evolution can account for the origin of any of the anatomical facts, and certainly none of the psychological ones.

No theory of gradualism now extant can account for them.

Every one of the possible methods of evolution known can account for any one of those facts.

Repeating your assertions doesn't make them more persuasive. Why are you convinced that evolution can't account for these differences? I gave you a sketch of how a scientist would start thinking about whether evolution could be the right explanation -- based on evidence. What's the basis of your thinking? Have you ever looked at evidence relating to any of these questions, beyond reading things attacking evolution?

Quite apart from the fact that they are present universally in the non-diseased human, there is an extremely large problem pointed out by the book: 'How does Instinct Evolve?'

Let us grant for a moment, that out of the blue, an advanced characteristic appears, for example the perfectly non-opposable toes. We may debate whether this is a improvement or not, but let us agree that the ability to grasp branches between the great toe and the others is now lost.

The new organism does not know that such a change has taken place.

There would, of course, be countless broken necks, arms and legs, as the new organism thinking that all is well, swings from tree to tree,but is unable to grasp what it formerly could, and dies as a consequence.

Species extinction is only to be expected.

Evolutionary theory cannot account for the 'progression', and that is but one example.

That's a highly implausible scenario from an evolutionary perspective. A single mutation does not produce complex, functional changes like the one you're talking about. That kind of change takes multiple mutations, and will be spread out over a long period of time. Small physical changes, no one of which changes function dramatically, make it quite possible for behavioral changes to keep up.

Even more likely, in this case, is that the behavior changed before the morphology did. Based on the fossil record, human ancestors started walking upright before they lost their opposable toes. So your imagined situation, with the poor primates trying to grasp branches and dropping out of trees, is just that -- imaginary.

Consider also the loss of hair. To what will the baby X's cling as the mother crashes down to the forest floor, to break her neck?

What makes you think we lost our hair while we were still in trees, or that we weren't already carrying our babies in our arms by then? As I said above, upright posture appears early in the human lineage.

Do you see that chromosomal similarities cannot account for the vast gulf between the chimp and the human?

No, I don't. Honestly, the arguments your offering suggest that you haven't learned much about evolutionary biology.

Such equipment cannot have arisen gradually - in fact it cannot have 'arisen' at all. It was implanted full-grown, and at the first appearance of the human species.

When was that, exactly? When A. ramidus was walking upright, but still had an opposable toe? When later australopithecenes were chipping stone to make tools? Later still, when H. erectus was using fire? Even later than that, when Neandertals were making sophisticated stone tools and burying their dead? Or when anatomically modern humans started making widespread use of symbols?

 

[norswede]

Well of course we are similar to chimps and every other creature on the planet. We are all made up of the same stuff! Science is just the knowledge of the mysteries of God. God created us and all other creatures out of the same building blocks and apes are the closest animal to us in creation but that doesn't mean that we were once apes.

 

[laconicstudent]

Well of course we are similar to chimps and every other creature on the planet. We are all made up of the same stuff! Science is just the knowledge of the mysteries of God. God created us and all other creatures out of the same building blocks and apes are the closest animal to us in creation but that doesn't mean that we were once apes.

You do know we are, actually, apes, right?

 

[norswede]

You do know we are, actually, apes, right?

And what evidence do you base that on?

 

[laconicstudent]

And what evidence do you base that on?

Genetics

SpringerLink - Journal of Molecular Evolution, Volume 29, Number 2

SpringerLink - Journal of Molecular Evolution, Volume 35, Number 1

ScienceDirect - Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution : Genetic and Morphological Records of the Hominoidea and Hominid Origins: A Synthesis

SpringerLink - Journal of Molecular Evolution, Volume 26, Numbers 1-2

 

[Papias]

I've found the similarities, regardless of their meaning, to be less understandable and useful in the ancestry discussion as other features. As everyone here (on both sides) will probably agree, this is because the creationist position relies on the "design similarities" argument to dismiss them.

For that reason, perhaps a more productive direction for this conversation with Asyncritus would be to look in the chimp, human, and other primate genomes at ERVs and the Gulop gene, both of which are obviously not a result of intentional design?

After all, we could go in circles for weeks with "the similarities show ancestry" ...... "no they don't, they show common design." (repeat).

Papias

 

[Asyncritus]

Easy: your strawmen of traits suddenly changing so significantly within a generation does not actually happen.

You are so right! They most certainly don't!

But they don't change much in a zillion generations either.

In the Cambrian, a gazillion new species, genera and all the higher taxons appeared just like that - out of the blue, it seems. Excuse the technical phraseology, but...

K-A-P-O-W!!!

AND THERE THEY ARE!

Just look at the Cambrian fossil records, and you'll see exactly what I mean.

Question: Where did they come from?

Gradualism? Nonsense.
​

 

[Asyncritus]

You do know we are, actually, apes, right?

Of course!

OOK,OOK OOK!

Do you know that joker Dawkins actually went to some city in Africa and was standing on the road asking people if they were descended from apes?

I don't know how somebody didn't smash his face in. He deserved it. Luckily, the people were not descended from apes, behaved in a civilised manner and tried to reply intelligently to the stupidity.