Do Chimps and Humans Share a Common Ancestor? Primer for a formal debate

[Split Rock]

"Nearly all of the human insertions are completely covered, whereas only half of the chimpanzee insertions are completely covered. Analysis of the completely covered insertions shows that the vast majority are small (45% of events cover only 1 base pair (bp), 96% are <20 bp and 98.6% are <80 bp), but that the largest few contain most of the sequence (with the approx 70,000 indels larger than 80 bp comprising 73% of the affected base pairs) (Fig. 5). The latter indels >80 bp fall into three categories: (1) about one-quarter are newly inserted transposable elements; (2) more than one-third are due to microsatellite and satellite sequences; (3) and the remainder are assumed to be mostly deletions in the other genome." (Chimpanzee Genome, Nature 2005)

73% are over 70,000 in length. That's my problem Steve. Then when we can look at where they are and how genes are effected we can talk about the a priori assumption of a common ancestor.

That is NOT what it says. It says that 70,000 indels are more than 80 bp in length. More than half are transposon insertions or are micro/satellite DNA.

You do this all the time... whether it is just sloppiness, or is done on purpose I do not know. When you are corrected, you invariably claim you are being insulted or attacked.

And one more time, there is no assumption, common descent is inferred from the physical evidence.

 

[Valkhorn]

I remain incredulous.

In spite of the evidence that supports it?

Some people just want to believe I suppose.

 

[Valkhorn]

And one more time, there is no assumption, common descent is inferred from the physical evidence.

Agreed. If there's any assumption it is on the part of Creationists what with all the shoehorning of evidence into tiny margins, cherry-picking, and twisting of the facts to jump to conclusions.

 

[sfs]

That was a remark about the slightly deleterious model you are working from.

The slightly deleterious model I was working from had nothing about less effective repair mechanisms in it. It was about lowered efficiency of natural selection, not about changes in the mutation rate.

Ok, you have never discussed the evolution of the human brain so why should I expect you to now? Pick a mutation rate:

2.5 x 10^-8 for all mutations
2.3 x 10^-9 for length mutations
2.3 x 10^-8 for all nucleotide substitutions

(Estimate of the Mutation Rate per Nucleotide in Humans. Genetics, Sept 2000)

Now you have 35 million substitutions in 5 million years, that is 140 per generation. Is that what this mutation rate predicts Steve?

A mutation rate of 2.3 x 10^-8 per generation for each base pair in the genome (for substitutions) predicts the following. Humans are separated from the human/chimpanzee common ancestor by roughly 350,000 generations, and there are 3 x 10^9 base pairs in the genome, so we should expect to find 2.3 x 10-8 x 3 x 10^9 x 3.5 x 10^5 = 24 million accumulated mutations in humans in that amount of time. Add the same number in chimpanzees, and that mutation rate predicts 48 million single-base differences. That's a little higher than the 35 million observed single-base subsitution differences between humans and chimps (not surprising, since that mutation rate is at the upper end of estimates), but certainly in the right ball park. And the error is in the wrong direction, as far as you're concerned: the known mutation rate is more than enough to explain the observed differences between humans and chimps, not hopelessly inadequate, as you claim.

Do the same calculation for the indels. The estimated number of indel mutations should be 2.3 x 10^-9 x 3 x 10^9 x 3.5 x 10^5 = 2.4 million predicted indels in humans, and an equal number predicted in chimpanzees, for ~5 million predicted indel differences between them. The observed number of indel differences is (as you have pointed out several times) 5 million, exactly as predicted.

The fact that common descent makes exactly the the right prediction about indels is not a good argument against common descent, Mark. (Personally, I don't make a lot from this prediction, since the uncertainty on the estimated indel mutation rate should be very large -- but I sure don't see any signs of a problem for evolution here.)

So let's try again, Mark. What is the problem with the overall number of indel differences between humans and chimpanzees?

When you finally tell me what the mutation rate would have to be for 90 Mb to accumulate. You can add, divided, multiply or use calculus for all I care. Just show me in the considerable research that has been going on for the last half a century what the mutation rate was when the differences amounted to 1% and what they are now that it is below 5%.

The mutation rate you quoted above does just fine here. When are you going to get around to spelling out your problem?

I am but you keep dodging the question. You want me to argue but you don't want me to actually use the evidence. Pick a mutation rate, if you don't like the one I just offered then concoct one off the top of your head. Then you tell me the difference between 35 million base pairs in 5 million years and 145 million base pairs in 5 million years.

The difference between 35 million base pairs and 145 million base pairs is that the latter includes mutations that affect more than one base. To focus on indels, since that's supposed to be what we're talking about, there are ~77 million base pairs that differ between humans and chimpanzees in a total of 5 million individual insertions and deletions. So indel mutations must occur about one-seventh as often as single-base substitutions (5 million / 35 million), and the average indel is about 16 base pairs long (with most indels being very short but rare ones being very long indeed). Still looking for that problem, Mark.

The mutation rate changes somewhat does it not?

No, the mutation rate doesn't change. The ones you quoted above are still just fine. The substition rate is probably slightly high, but the indel rate is just about perfect (as I showed above) to give the 5 million observed indels.

Note that to predict the number of base pairs of indel difference between humans and chimpanzees (rather than just the number of indels), you need to know the average size of an indel. The mutation rate estimate you quoted above doesn't do that, since it just describes the rate at which indel mutations occur, not how big they are.

When you honestly admit to a mutation rate and apply it to 99% the same and 94% the same I will show you the argument. It's not that you don't know what it is, you want the evidence before you make a prediction. Then you are going to act like that's what you expected all along just like you did with the differences in the DNA

No, Mark, I don't know what your argument is. I'm sure that it's wrong, and that when I explain to you why it's wrong you'll again tell me I'm lying and that all evolutionary biologists are conspiring to conceal the obvious flaws in our own work, but we can't cycle through this idiotic process until you actually present the argument, can we? So could you present your argument already?

"Nearly all of the human insertions are completely covered, whereas only half of the chimpanzee insertions are completely covered. Analysis of the completely covered insertions shows that the vast majority are small (45% of events cover only 1 base pair (bp), 96% are <20 bp and 98.6% are <80 bp), but that the largest few contain most of the sequence (with the approx 70,000 indels larger than 80 bp comprising 73% of the affected base pairs) (Fig. 5). The latter indels >80 bp fall into three categories: (1) about one-quarter are newly inserted transposable elements; (2) more than one-third are due to microsatellite and satellite sequences; (3) and the remainder are assumed to be mostly deletions in the other genome." (Chimpanzee Genome, Nature 2005)

73% are over 70,000 in length. That's my problem Steve.

That can't be the problem, since the quotation doesn't say that. 1.4% of the observed indels were over 80 bp in length (70,000 out of 5 million), which is not remotely the same as 73% being over 70,000 in length; those 1.4% contribute 73% of the sequence difference. In other words, there are lots of small indels (occurring at exactly the predicted rate, I'll note again), and a small number of large ones. And guess what? It turns out that small numbers of large indels also occur in modern humans. The mutation rate doesn't change, since the mutation rate counts the number of indels, not their size.

So try again: what's the problem with the indel rate?

We are not talking about deleterious alleles, we are talking about 585 genes that are under positive/adaptive selection. Not neutral, not deleterious or even slightly deleterious. I'm talking about gene duplication and the overhaul of the genes involved in the unprecedented expansion of the human brain from that of apes.

No, we're not talking about those things. Those are the things you always try to change the subject to when I challenge you. What I'm doing is trying to get you to defend one very specific claim, which is that the indel differences between humans and chimpanzees are too large to be explained by evolution. First defend that claim.

I never said I could find them,

You said that we should have found them, since we had the sequence of the human genome. And I want to know how having the sequence of the human genome would have let us find them. I still want to know.

 

[mark kennedy]

The slightly deleterious model I was working from had nothing about less effective repair mechanisms in it. It was about lowered efficiency of natural selection, not about changes in the mutation rate.


A mutation rate of 2.3 x 10^-8 per generation for each base pair in the genome (for substitutions) predicts the following. Humans are separated from the human/chimpanzee common ancestor by roughly 350,000 generations, and there are 3 x 10^9 base pairs in the genome, so we should expect to find 2.3 x 10-8 x 3 x 10^9 x 3.5 x 10^5 = 24 million accumulated mutations in humans in that amount of time. Add the same number in chimpanzees, and that mutation rate predicts 48 million single-base differences. That's a little higher than the 35 million observed single-base subsitution differences between humans and chimps (not surprising, since that mutation rate is at the upper end of estimates), but certainly in the right ball park. And the error is in the wrong direction, as far as you're concerned: the known mutation rate is more than enough to explain the observed differences between humans and chimps, not hopelessly inadequate, as you claim.

That's not how I'm getting it:

Table 3. Estimates of mutation rate assuming different divergence times and different ancestral population sizes

4.5 mya, pop.= 10,000 mutation rate is 2.7 x 10^-8
4.5 mya, pop.= 100,000 mutation rate is 1.6 x 10^-8
5.0 mya, pop.= 10,000 mutation rate is 2.5 x 10^-8
5.0 mya, pop.= 10,0000 mutation rate is 1.5 x 10^-8
5.5 mya, pop.= 10,000 mutation rate is 2.3 x 10^-8
5.5 mya, pop.= 10,000 mutation rate is 1.4 x 10^-8
6.0 mya, pop.= 10,000 mutation rate is 2.1 x 10^-8
6.0 mya, pop.= 100,000 mutation rate is 1.3 x 10^-8

Calculations are based on a generation length of 20 years and average autosomal sequence divergence of 1.33%

Table 4. Estimates of mutation rate for different sites and different classes of mutation

Transition at CpG mutation rate 1.6 x 10^-7
Transversion at CpG mutation rate 4.4 x 10^-8
Transition at non-CpG mutation rate 4.4 x 10^-8
Transversion at non-CpG mutation rate 5.5 x 10^-9
All nucleotide subs mutation rate 2.3 x 10^-8
Length mutations mutation rate 2.3 x 10^-9
All mutations mutation rate 2.5 x 10^-8

Rates calculated on the basis of a divergence time of 5 mya, ancestral population size of 10,000, generation length of 20 yr, and rates of molecular evolution given in Table 1.

(Estimate of the Mutation Rate per Nucleotide in Humans Michael W. Nachmana and Susan L. Crowella Genetics, 297-304, September 2000)​

Now I know that at the time this was written the differences in the DNA were thought to be less then 2%. When this percentage doubles it only makes sense that the mutation rate increases. Notice that the indel mutation rate is estimated as well as the overall mutation rate by nucleotide.

Do the same calculation for the indels. The estimated number of indel mutations should be 2.3 x 10^-9 x 3 x 10^9 x 3.5 x 10^5 = 2.4 million predicted indels in humans, and an equal number predicted in chimpanzees, for ~5 million predicted indel differences between them. The observed number of indel differences is (as you have pointed out several times) 5 million, exactly as predicted.

That's the number of indels, when the size of the mutation increases then the mutation rate is supposed to increase with it is it not?

The fact that common descent makes exactly the the right prediction about indels is not a good argument against common descent, Mark. (Personally, I don't make a lot from this prediction, since the uncertainty on the estimated indel mutation rate should be very large -- but I sure don't see any signs of a problem for evolution here.)

I never once thought, much less argued that TOE was somehow threatened by 6% of the DNA being different. It is very curious though, when you realize that the percentage of base pairs in a genome is 3%-4% higher then previously thought don't you recalculate the mutation rate? I only ask because no one seems to be doing that.

So let's try again, Mark. What is the problem with the overall number of indel differences between humans and chimpanzees?

It's the fact that you are using the same mutation rate you did when you thought that the DNA was 99% the same.

The mutation rate you quoted above does just fine here. When are you going to get around to spelling out your problem?

When you tell me how this changed the statistical average.

The difference between 35 million base pairs and 145 million base pairs is that the latter includes mutations that affect more than one base. To focus on indels, since that's supposed to be what we're talking about, there are ~77 million base pairs that differ between humans and chimpanzees in a total of 5 million individual insertions and deletions. So indel mutations must occur about one-seventh as often as single-base substitutions (5 million / 35 million), and the average indel is about 16 base pairs long (with most indels being very short but rare ones being very long indeed). Still looking for that problem, Mark.

I was looking through the only textbook I have available to me citing medical evidence on mutations. It says:

"Gene mutations are relatively rare but overall 1% of infants have a single mutant gene 10-8 to 10-6 per locus per gamete. "

(Genetics in Obstentrics and Gynecology, 3rd ed. Simpson and Elias)

What is the problem? For one thing mutations are rare to begin with, it is very rare for them to become a permanent part of the genome and extremely rare for them to be adaptive on an evolutionary scale.

My problem is that the human brain is close to three times the size of a chimpanzee's. I also have a problem with random mutations being an explanation when the deleterious effects of mutations of fitness are the most likely effect from mutations.

I'm just curious, what would you say the difference between orthologous nucleotide sequences in their complement of genes, in the two genomes is?

Our results imply that humans and chimpanzees differ by at least 6% (1,418 of 22,000 genes) in their complement of genes, which stands in stark contrast to the oft-cited 1.5% difference between orthologous nucleotide sequences. (The Evolution of Mammalian Gene Families, Jeffery P. Demuth, Tijl De Bie, Jason E. Stajich, Nello Cristianini, and Matthew W. Hahn PLoS ONE.December 20, 2006)

The truth is coming out, I don't know or really care if this upsets the common ancestor model or not. The truth is I feel I'm wasting my time and it has nothing to do with genetics. I don't think you can ever really put a dent in someone else's a priori assumptions and common ancestry is no exception.

No, the mutation rate doesn't change. The ones you quoted above are still just fine. The substition rate is probably slightly high, but the indel rate is just about perfect (as I showed above) to give the 5 million observed indels.

So it really does not matter if it's a 1% difference or a 6% difference, the mutation rate is unchanged?

Note that to predict the number of base pairs of indel difference between humans and chimpanzees (rather than just the number of indels), you need to know the average size of an indel. The mutation rate estimate you quoted above doesn't do that, since it just describes the rate at which indel mutations occur, not how big they are.

All I can tell you for sure is that the bigger the indel the less likely it is to happen.

No, Mark, I don't know what your argument is. I'm sure that it's wrong, and that when I explain to you why it's wrong you'll again tell me I'm lying and that all evolutionary biologists are conspiring to conceal the obvious flaws in our own work, but we can't cycle through this idiotic process until you actually present the argument, can we? So could you present your argument already?

Steve, I'll level with you because I don't want to waste your time or mine. I'm tired buddy, I'm tired of looking for an answer to a question that has kept me into this for far too long. I simply want to know what it is that creates adaptations on a large scale. No one is interested and I'm tired of the drama.

Ok, you are telling me my arguments are idiotic and that is exactly what I am hearing from everyone. Don't worry about it because I'm just tired of trying. Three years of this and you guys still talk to me as if I were mentally retarded. I don't know what you are trying to accomplish but I finally found someone interested in a formal debate. I'm going to work on that and I think I'll just find something more productive to do with my time like beating my head against the wall.

That can't be the problem, since the quotation doesn't say that. 1.4% of the observed indels were over 80 bp in length (70,000 out of 5 million), which is not remotely the same as 73% being over 70,000 in length; those 1.4% contribute 73% of the sequence difference. In other words, there are lots of small indels (occurring at exactly the predicted rate, I'll note again), and a small number of large ones. And guess what? It turns out that small numbers of large indels also occur in modern humans. The mutation rate doesn't change, since the mutation rate counts the number of indels, not their size.

So try again: what's the problem with the indel rate?


No, we're not talking about those things. Those are the things you always try to change the subject to when I challenge you. What I'm doing is trying to get you to defend one very specific claim, which is that the indel differences between humans and chimpanzees are too large to be explained by evolution. First defend that claim.

Right now I would settle for someone admitting that the mutation rate changes when the differences go from 1% to 6%. Still in the interests of open discussion lets take another look at this:

"but that the largest few contain most of the sequence (with the approx70,000 indels larger than 80 bp comprising 73% of the affected base pairs)"

I really don't know what the problem was with what I said earlier and frankly I'm over it whatever it was. There are 70,000 indels that are larger then 80 base pairs. So that, according to the paper I wish I never read, it accounts for 73% of the affected base pairs. we are talking about 45 million base pairs in the human lineage.

That sounds like 1, 80 base pair indel, permanently fixed every 100 years. By the way, most of the changes had to occur around 2 million years ago. Homo habilis was little more then a big chimpanzee and Homo erectus was human in every way that is meaningful to me. This happened 2 mya pretty suddenly and if that is not a problem for you then your view of natural history is no longer a cause of concern for me.

You said that we should have found them, since we had the sequence of the human genome. And I want to know how having the sequence of the human genome would have let us find them. I still want to know.

I'm not sure what you mean but I have a headache and I have had a really weird day. I'm pretty disgusted with CF right now and while it has been the highlight of my time on here to discuss these things with you I think I've listened to as much of this as I can stand.

I was pretty much buying that we were very close to the chimpanzee in our DNA when I happened upon the Chimpanzee Chromosome 22 paper. It raised some questions so I pursued it. Then the Chimpanzee Genome paper came out and when I started this business of mutation rates and differences I was just curious how it changed the mutation rate.

You keep saying it doesn't, for me that indicates I am wasting my time with this.

I do owe you guys a lot though, you will never know just how frustrating it is to try to learn about genetics from Creationist essays. The only reason I stuck with this for so long is because I thought there was a chance that I might get other creationists interested in exploring the life sciences. It sounds kind of stupid to me now but that was the only thing that was really holding my interest.

I'll pop in from time to time and see if you guys have any comments on the formal debate but I don't see any reason to pursue this any further beyond that.

Straight up Steve, I deeply appreciate your efforts and patience. Maybe you guys are right and I'm just incredulous or something, I don't know. Either way I'm going to find something else to do with my time.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[sfs]

That's the number of indels, when the size of the mutation increases then the mutation rate is supposed to increase with it is it not?

I'll confine myself to this, since this seems to be at the heart of your difficulties with this subject. The answer is no, the mutation rate does not increase if the size of each mutation increases. The mutation rate is the rate at which mutations occur; it is not the rate at which mutations add or subtract bases. A mutation rate of 1 per generation may change one base per generation, if each mutation is 1 base in size, or it may change 1 million bases if each mutation is 1 million bases long. That's just how mutation rates are defined (something that many people have told you on at least two different boards).

 

[Tomk80]

That's not how I'm getting it:

Table 3. Estimates of mutation rate assuming different divergence times and different ancestral population sizes

4.5 mya, pop.= 10,000 mutation rate is 2.7 x 10^-8
4.5 mya, pop.= 100,000 mutation rate is 1.6 x 10^-8
5.0 mya, pop.= 10,000 mutation rate is 2.5 x 10^-8
5.0 mya, pop.= 10,0000 mutation rate is 1.5 x 10^-8
5.5 mya, pop.= 10,000 mutation rate is 2.3 x 10^-8
5.5 mya, pop.= 10,000 mutation rate is 1.4 x 10^-8
6.0 mya, pop.= 10,000 mutation rate is 2.1 x 10^-8
6.0 mya, pop.= 100,000 mutation rate is 1.3 x 10^-8

Calculations are based on a generation length of 20 years and average autosomal sequence divergence of 1.33%

Table 4. Estimates of mutation rate for different sites and different classes of mutation

Transition at CpG mutation rate 1.6 x 10^-7
Transversion at CpG mutation rate 4.4 x 10^-8
Transition at non-CpG mutation rate 4.4 x 10^-8
Transversion at non-CpG mutation rate 5.5 x 10^-9
All nucleotide subs mutation rate 2.3 x 10^-8
Length mutations mutation rate 2.3 x 10^-9
All mutations mutation rate 2.5 x 10^-8

Rates calculated on the basis of a divergence time of 5 mya, ancestral population size of 10,000, generation length of 20 yr, and rates of molecular evolution given in Table 1.

(Estimate of the Mutation Rate per Nucleotide in Humans Michael W. Nachmana and Susan L. Crowella Genetics, 297-304, September 2000)​

Now I know that at the time this was written the differences in the DNA were thought to be less then 2%. When this percentage doubles it only makes sense that the mutation rate increases. Notice that the indel mutation rate is estimated as well as the overall mutation rate by nucleotide.

This is not the case, since the doubling of the differences is due to indels. Since indels can insert more than one base at the same time, the mutation rate does not have to increase.

Again, you need to realize that we already knew that the difference of 1-2% was the difference without indels. In the mutation rates, we also knew that indels were not included. So we already knew that both the number of differences and the mutation rates would be higher if indels would be included.

That's the number of indels, when the size of the mutation increases then the mutation rate is supposed to increase with it is it not?

SFS has already explained this quite well. An indel of 1000 bases is still one mutation, even though it is a mutation with a lenght of 1000 bases.

I never once thought, much less argued that TOE was somehow threatened by 6% of the DNA being different. It is very curious though, when you realize that the percentage of base pairs in a genome is 3%-4% higher then previously thought don't you recalculate the mutation rate? I only ask because no one seems to be doing that.

Because the known mutation rates were the mutation rates of substitutions and the 1-2% difference was also the number of substitutions. We do not have to recalculate that rate of mutations, because the other 3 to 4% are indels. What we need to do is determine the rate at which indels occur, we do not need to recalculate the rate with which subsitutions occur.

It's the fact that you are using the same mutation rate you did when you thought that the DNA was 99% the same.

Because that is the rate for substitutions. That rate hasn't changed because we have found indels. Different kinds of mutations, Mark, different rates.

When you tell me how this changed the statistical average.

Who cares? All information you needed was in that post. You're again comparing apples and oranges, although here they're called substitutions and indels.

I was looking through the only textbook I have available to me citing medical evidence on mutations. It says:

"Gene mutations are relatively rare but overall 1% of infants have a single mutant gene 10-8 to 10-6 per locus per gamete. "

(Genetics in Obstentrics and Gynecology, 3rd ed. Simpson and Elias)

What is the problem? For one thing mutations are rare to begin with, it is very rare for them to become a permanent part of the genome and extremely rare for them to be adaptive on an evolutionary scale.

And yet, when we look at the mutations rates they match up with the differences. One of the things you fail to take into account over and over again is that the differences in the comparison between chimp and human are all differences, not just fixed differences. So the number of fixed differences would indeed be lower than reported in the human/chimp paper.

My problem is that the human brain is close to three times the size of a chimpanzee's. I also have a problem with random mutations being an explanation when the deleterious effects of mutations of fitness are the most likely effect from mutations.

1 is not relevant to the discussion on indels. The latter part completely ignores natural selection, but that seems par the course for you. How many people with deleterious brain genes reproduce Mark?

I'm just curious, what would you say the difference between orthologous nucleotide sequences in their complement of genes, in the two genomes is?

Our results imply that humans and chimpanzees differ by at least 6% (1,418 of 22,000 genes) in their complement of genes, which stands in stark contrast to the oft-cited 1.5% difference between orthologous nucleotide sequences. (The Evolution of Mammalian Gene Families, Jeffery P. Demuth, Tijl De Bie, Jason E. Stajich, Nello Cristianini, and Matthew W. Hahn PLoS ONE.December 20, 2006)

The truth is coming out, I don't know or really care if this upsets the common ancestor model or not. The truth is I feel I'm wasting my time and it has nothing to do with genetics. I don't think you can ever really put a dent in someone else's a priori assumptions and common ancestry is no exception.

"The truth is coming out", woooooo. The truth is that the first and second refer to different markers, which is a fact you continually ignore. The truth is that the former figure is also better for comparisons, since there differences are actually one-on-one. The truth is that the mutation rates as well as the differences were without indels and that the indels as far as we know also match up. The fact is that the only one who is letting himself be completely guided by his a priori assumptions is you.

So it really does not matter if it's a 1% difference or a 6% difference, the mutation rate is unchanged?

Yes. As has been explained to you again and again and again.

All I can tell you for sure is that the bigger the indel the less likely it is to happen.

Gosh, I wonder whether that would explain that bigger indels are less common when comparing chimp/human sequences? What a surprisingly trivial insight.

Steve, I'll level with you because I don't want to waste your time or mine. I'm tired buddy, I'm tired of looking for an answer to a question that has kept me into this for far too long. I simply want to know what it is that creates adaptations on a large scale. No one is interested and I'm tired of the drama.

Ok, you are telling me my arguments are idiotic and that is exactly what I am hearing from everyone. Don't worry about it because I'm just tired of trying. Three years of this and you guys still talk to me as if I were mentally retarded. I don't know what you are trying to accomplish but I finally found someone interested in a formal debate. I'm going to work on that and I think I'll just find something more productive to do with my time like beating my head against the wall.

Perhaps this has to do with you being to stubborn to actually accept explanations that are perfectly adequate?

Right now I would settle for someone admitting that the mutation rate changes when the differences go from 1% to 6%. Still in the interests of open discussion lets take another look at this:

It doesn't. This has been explained to you again and again and again. You want an admission of something that isn't true and then act all surprised when you do not get it.

"but that the largest few contain most of the sequence (with the approx70,000 indels larger than 80 bp comprising 73% of the affected base pairs)"

I really don't know what the problem was with what I said earlier and frankly I'm over it whatever it was.

Which is part of your problem. You were mixing up numbers again. But instead of accurately looking at where you are mixing up, you just ignore it. This seems to be par the course in your posts. What you really should start to be doing is actually asking yourself what each number that you use actually means, instead of just throwing them around because they are big numbers.

There are 70,000 indels that are larger then 80 base pairs. So that, according to the paper I wish I never read, it accounts for 73% of the affected base pairs. we are talking about 45 million base pairs in the human lineage.

And?

That sounds like 1, 80 base pair indel, permanently fixed every 100 years.

They are not necessarily permanently fixed, since the paper does not compare fixed differences but rather overall differences between a few humans and chimps. So the fixed difference is likely smaller, something you fail to realize every time you talk about this paper.

By the way, most of the changes had to occur around 2 million years ago. Homo habilis was little more then a big chimpanzee and Homo erectus was human in every way that is meaningful to me. This happened 2 mya pretty suddenly and if that is not a problem for you then your view of natural history is no longer a cause of concern for me.

I bolded one of the problems in your statement. Instead of looking at actual data, you look at what is "meaningful to you". If you have a better argument, feel free to present it. But nowhere in any thread have you ever done so.

I'm not sure what you mean but I have a headache and I have had a really weird day. I'm pretty disgusted with CF right now and while it has been the highlight of my time on here to discuss these things with you I think I've listened to as much of this as I can stand.

I was pretty much buying that we were very close to the chimpanzee in our DNA when I happened upon the Chimpanzee Chromosome 22 paper. It raised some questions so I pursued it. Then the Chimpanzee Genome paper came out and when I started this business of mutation rates and differences I was just curious how it changed the mutation rate.

You keep saying it doesn't, for me that indicates I am wasting my time with this.

I do owe you guys a lot though, you will never know just how frustrating it is to try to learn about genetics from Creationist essays. The only reason I stuck with this for so long is because I thought there was a chance that I might get other creationists interested in exploring the life sciences. It sounds kind of stupid to me now but that was the only thing that was really holding my interest.

I'll pop in from time to time and see if you guys have any comments on the formal debate but I don't see any reason to pursue this any further beyond that.

Straight up Steve, I deeply appreciate your efforts and patience. Maybe you guys are right and I'm just incredulous or something, I don't know. Either way I'm going to find something else to do with my time.

Grace and peace,
Mark

The bolded part sums up the arrogance.

 

[shernren]

By the way, most of the changes had to occur around 2 million years ago. Homo habilis was little more then a big chimpanzee and Homo erectus was human in every way that is meaningful to me. This happened 2 mya pretty suddenly and if that is not a problem for you then your view of natural history is no longer a cause of concern for me.

What gap?

And how was Homo habilis - note the upper jaw especially -

(KNM-ER1813)

(OH 24 "Twiggy")

"little more than a big chimpanzee"?

(modern chimpanzee)