Evolution as natural history is psuedo-science

Deamiter said:

But we DO share 98% of our DNA and almost all of our genes with Chimpanzees.

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That is simply not true, the indels and the single substitutions are not rearrangements, the chromosomal rearrangements are inversions but that's something else. There are unique human genes, something like 50 of them and 83% of the protein coding genes show divergence at an amino acid sequence level. Some 20% show gross structural differences and I could go on.

None of the normative evolutionary mechanisms explain any of this, certainly natural selection is not an option. We do not share 98% of our DNA, estimates right now are at 95% and creationists are estimating 90% for various reasons. You might want to check your sources because you are off by close to 100 million base pairs.

That's the whole point.

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Your estimate has been conclusivly demonstrated to be wrong. If that's your point this should be a cake walk.

That another 2.7% is shifted around doesn't detract from the fact that we SHARE all this DNA code.

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Nonesense, vitually of of the single substitutions and indels are fixed. So are the chromosomal rearrangements for that matter. Heck, even the ERVs are not transposable in the human lineage, at least for the most part.

Take a random bit of DNA. If it's not in the exact same spot (due to an insertion event) does that mean we then don't share that section of DNA?

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That is exactly what that means, particularly if it's a deletion.

If DNA worked like a computer code -- running each line until it reached the end, comparing bit by bit (base pair by base pair) would make sense in compring the genome. But DNA is read is small sections, and not from beginning to end either. Rearranging the code sometimes will disable a gene (if it's moved to a non-coding area) but it could just as easily have no effect as the code for an enzyme will work as long as it's read.

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That's the first I have heard of that so I don't know what to tell you. If the gene moves for whatever reason then it will effect how it recombines. It would most likely change the allele, in fact I don't see how it could be moved like that without severly damaging the gene.

Geneticists understand this and know that it makes SENSE to count how much of our genome is found in another genome rather than how many base pairs line up directly. It's only when laymen try to fit their understanding of code (like computer code) that they don't understand that the 98% shared code is more INFORMATIVE than then 96% similarities when looking at it bp by bp.

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Forces Shaping the Fastest Evolving Regions in the Human Genome


The evolution of the human brain is the prize.

Of course, if you're trying to create propaganda against the scientific conclusion of common ancestry, it's much more powerful to claim that you CAN only compare it bp by bp.

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If you mean propaganda as opposed to proof the scientific status quo has been pumping that out. My primary interest is the development of uniquely human features and this should come as no supprise to anyone who has read my posts.

You might even convince some of your fellow laymen that these scientists are hiding the truth because they're afraid of God or some other such nonsense. But scientists don't particularly care that you can't understand why the shared code is much more important than the SAME code -- they just go on using it as the important scientific tool it is.

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They do care very much and God as an explanation for anything is simply unacceptable. One of the things I had hoped to accomplish is to demonstrate the evidential apologestics was a more effective way of arguing for Christian viewpoints. It has been my experience that presuppostional apologetics has had it right all along, there is no getting around a priori assumptions once they are entrenced.

I guess I just can't understand why you refuse to acknowledge that the percentage of sections of shared code might be just as important as the percentage of identical code reading only from one end to the other. Wouldn't an ID proponent be looking for unique code, not just code that's been shifted around by well-known mechanisms?

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I don't see why you can't acknowledge that the adaptation of the human brain would be unprecedented. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs and I have yet to see anything more then circular logic supporting single common ancestor models for human lineage.

Deamiter said:

I'm not sure what you mean. If a part of the genetic code is copied in a new place, is that not a rearrangement?

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There are transposable elements, polymorphisms and a number of other things. The 95% homology is primarily based on single base substitutions and indels. They represent unique sequences and add up to at least 125 million base pairs or something like 96%. I don't know where you get the idea that they are rearrangements but the chromosomal rearrangements add up to another 20 million base pairs.

Anyway, you're well out of my league in terms of genetics here, so I'll have to just shut up. I KNOW you have made unit errors in the past (saying that because the number of bps is larger than the number of mutations, scientists got something wrong) but perhaps it's because you didn't understand that measuring small sections of code is much easier than measuring large sections? Scientists KNEW the bp divergence was larger, but didn't measure indels until the technology came along.

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For a long time it was molecular analysis and then it was various segments compared, then chromosomes and now it's the entire sequence. The Chimpanzee Genome is not finshed yet but the divergence is growing as we speak. They have known since at least the late 90s that the 98% homology figure was wrong. That whole buisness about my error in calculating the mutation rate was easy enough to put away. All anyone had to say is that scientists simply don't have one.

What you don't realize is that the divergence between humans and chimpanzees is due for the most part to indels. The divergence between me and you is due mostly to SNPs. How many indels there are that make us different remains to be seen as far as I'm concerned and I simply don't trust main stream scientists to be candid about them.

Anyway, I'd mention the extreme variation (around 2x) in the size of dog brains -- in just a few thousand years -- but that'd probably be off topic.

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That's no problem, little dogs and great big ones won't be very different in their actual genes. One of the major differences is in how genes are expressed and regulated but mutations are more a consequence of evolution then a cause.

Thanks for the exchange, that was fun.

Grace and peace,
Mark

Aight, let's see if I understand enough of this stuff. Basically an "indel" isn't an "insertion AND deletion" like a cut-and-paste, it's an "insertion OR deletion".

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Not exactly, an insertion would be if you laid two sequences along side by side and compared. them. When there is a section in one that does not appear in the other it's called an insertion and likewise if it's missing it's called a deletion. When comparing the chimpanzee and human genomes they are finding these misalignments all over the place.

By the way, dispite the fact that they appear riddled throughout the two comparitive genomes the Y Chromosomes seem to line up almost perfectly. I have no idea what that means or why it might be of interest but I know it to be true. That little chart I showed you earlier that you dismissed as 'pretty pictures', if you look closely there are only a couple of marks in the Y Chromosome.