Humans aren't apes... but biologically how?

[VirOptimus]

My suggestion is that the Creator could have used developing templates as He moved from less sophisticated to more complex designs. Thus what is discerned as common ancestry is related to the hierarchy of templates used. That also mutation history following creation will share commonalities because very often it was the same code responding to the same conditions post fall and flood.

Using magic in an science debate is an auto-loss.

 

[VirOptimus]

Did you restrict human behavior to "biological"? Is that one of thing you can do very well biologically?

Answer the OP.

 

[Jimmy D]

Extinction events and dead end microevolutionary history in a fallen and broken universe would account for those.

How so?

 

[sfs]

No rational designer would bother to make commonalities between non-coding regions, because they don't do anything and thus don't have to have any specified content.

Most noncoding regions don't do anything, but many do. Something like 8% - 11% of the genome is functional, but less than 2% is coding.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Did you restrict human behavior to "biological"? Is that one of thing you can do very well biologically?

Did you actually read the OP? Because I don't think you did.

 

[tas8831]

Apparently the difference makes all the difference in distinguishing man and ape.

Amazingly astute! For, if there were no differences, there would be none, and we would be the same!

Also when people do these comparisons they discard large chunks of what they call junk DNA which may actually be more significant than we think.

Can you support that claim?


Because when I did primate phylogeny analyses in college, I specifically used noncoding DNA, and for very good reasons.

Also, tell me about the significance of junkDNA - but please do not use that silly ENCODE hyperbole. They all but retracted that, you know.

Also what is a match? It is rarely ever a 100% match. With code so complex a single line or character may change everything and no one is really in a position as yet to say how.

Such amazing code.

A single line of code does not exist in genomes. Did you not know this?

Also, ever heard of synonymous mutations?

But please - go ahead and explain. Taught genetics last semester, so feel free to use science words and use citations.

 

[sfs]

Ptolemy made accurate predictions about star and planet movement and still worked with a faulty model.

Sure, it's possible to have a faulty model and still make accurate predictions. But there's still a reason that the faulty model is accurate -- it can be mapped onto the more accurate model, in this case. But what you're advocating is a model that doesn't make any predictions at all.

What do you mean by explanation.

I already told you: an explanation tells why things are the way they are, rather than some other way. If your explanation would be identical regardless of the data ("God did it that way"), then it's not an explanation.

Concrete example: If you compare the human and chimpanzee genomes, you'll find that the transition-transversion ratio is around 2.1. Common descent offers a simple explanation for this observation: the genetic differences between the two species are the result of accumulated mutations, and single-base mutations in primates have a Ti-Tv ratio of approximately 2.1.

What is the creationist/ID explanation for the value of 2.1?

 

[sfs]

OK apes have more hair

Pedant point: thicker hair, not more hair.

 

[tas8831]

I'll be honest: junk DNA kind of confuses me when Creationists use it. Like, I get what it means (it's basically non-coded DNA, so it does nothing), but when they use like it a "Gotcha!" type thing, I just don't get how.

They are probably referring to their favorite junkDNA myths as laid out by the likes of Jon Wells - that because some 'junkDNA' has function, it means most or all of it does, and therefore evolutionists were wrong about it, and creationists were right. Because creationists had predicted junkDNA would be functional because Designer. They made these "predictions" AFTER some junkDNA had been shown to have function by... evolutionists.

But they fail to understand why 'junkDNA' is very useful for phylogenetic analyses, or why whether or not it has function is largely irrelevant to these activities.

 

[tas8831]

My point was that the evidence that points to a common ancestor can actually be reinterpreted in a creationist understanding by simply asserting that our Common Designer differentiated his ongoing code with each new species. The tree of life is thus verified without verifying evolution. Also that the differences which do exist make all the difference whether observed or on the DNA level. Which is why the apes do not have a developed language ability, have built no pyramids and run around naked without the ability to adapt to extreme cold for instance.

Have YOU built a pyramid?


Never mind - this common designer schtick, tell us about the common design of whales and sharks, and what we should find in the DNA.

 

[sfs]

You accepted that even one change in a base pair could be fatal. Yet you cannot accept that 40 million differences point to an even more significant difference and de novo design intervention.

Quite true, since your second sentence has little to do with your first. One change in a base pair could indeed be fatal, and yet the roughly 6 million differences between my DNA and yours does not mean we're not related.

 

[mindlight]

And yet, humans are still apes.
We are classed as apes.
We are great apes.

You are ignoring massive similarities and focusing on minute differences here.

Sorry but the brain thing is not a minute difference.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Sorry but the brain thing is not a minute difference.

True, but I'm not talking about the brain thing. You focusing on things like the toes and hair are minute differences when compared to the massive similarities that exist between humans and other apes.

 

[mindlight]

Using magic in an science debate is an auto-loss.

If stuff you cannot explain or duplicate is your definition of magic then I guess it is. But if you believe in a Creator with the capabilities of the One I believe in then it is not magic, it is an act of creativity that no human can duplicate and therefore no human can really explain.

 

[mindlight]

How so?

e.g. Homo Erectus (which we have no DNA of) no longer exists. It appears to have been a mutated ape or a mutation of a human being. Given the cranial capacity of the skull which is not as small as an apes I would favour the view it was human. But clearly these are not walking around amongst us today.

Homo erectus - CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science

 

[mindlight]

Most noncoding regions don't do anything, but many do. Something like 8% - 11% of the genome is functional, but less than 2% is coding.

Just cause they are not currently genetically expressive does not mean that they do not do anything. The jury is still out on that one.

Junk DNA - CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science

 

[xianghua]

It is the same programmes as I have previously looked at then. We are talking about 40 million mutation differences between chimp and human! The similarities and differences in the genome support a creationist template theory just as easily as common ancestry.

there is also the question of how many of those mutations are adaptive. if we need about 20 new mutations for a complex language, what make us believe that every mutation toward a complex language is adaptive at all? so or so: the fact that we have no empirical evidence that such a transition is possible make evolution a problematic theory to begin with.

 

[jayem]

And yet, humans are still apes.
We are classed as apes.
We are great apes.

You are ignoring massive similarities and focusing on minute differences here.

That's essentially what Desmond Morris thought. He wrote a famous book about it back in the 60s. If you haven't read it, it's still interesting and worthwhile.

The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal by Desmond Morris

 

[xianghua]

No, they don't. It's not the similarities or differences that matter, it's their pattern. It's not only the 1.3% point mutations, it's also the chromosomal synteny, ERV patterns, The Chimp 2A,2B fusion, nested hierarchy, just to name the first 4 that come to mind. Noting that 40 million over 3 billion is about 1.3%, it's not that much...not that a higher number would matter.

how a chromosomal fusion support common descent rather then a common designer?

 

[xianghua]

Most noncoding regions don't do anything

are you sure about that?:

What is the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) Project?

"Scientists discovered that more than 80 percent of this non-gene component of the genome, which was once considered “junk DNA,” actually has a role in regulating the activity of particular genes (gene expression)."

of course there is still a debate about this but many scientists still believe that most of the genome can be functional.