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

mindlight · Mar 7, 2018

tas8831 said:
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.

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.

Well aren't you clever. It is privilege to be able to discuss with you. Thanks for being so gracious as to allow the rest of us, intellectual pygmies that we are, into your presence. No doubt your ability to educate can even extend to stubborn and small minded creationists like myself.

Not sure however you or anybody else really understand the full significance of what junk DNA is. The main creationist view is that a lack of genetic expression does not mean it has no potential to do anything or serve any useful conceivable function. That the testing thus far is incomplete.

Junk DNA - CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science

That changes in DNA sequences may sometimes not result in changes in actual amino acids selected is interesting but even there how an amino acid is encoded may have a significance which we are just not clear about. GGT, GGA, GGC, and GGG all code for glycine for example but how do we know that there are not some subtle calls being made with that third letter with as yet unquantified effects.

mindlight · Mar 7, 2018

tas8831 said:
Have YOU built a pyramid?

I think most human beings have achievements that they are proud of which surpass the ability of any ape to reproduce

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

OP is about ape - human difference and you are just being a smart alec

Warden_of_the_Storm · Mar 7, 2018

mindlight said:
OP is about ape - human difference and you are just being a smart alec

It's not about the differences between apes and humans since humans are apes.
What I'm asking is, can creationists and ID proponents give a biological reason why humans aren't apes.

Jimmy D · Mar 7, 2018

mindlight said:
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

A mutated ape? Is that a way of avoiding saying an evolved ape? What's the difference? I thought each species in your creation model involved a creator tinkering with templates, yet here we see one that appears to combine the traits between humans and apes.

Quite relevant to the OP isn't it, if you (or your creationist source) can't decide which category this should fall into.

You favour the view that it was human because of it's cranial capacity though, I wonder where you feel the cut off point is in terms of being human? Is it arbitary?

tas8831 · Mar 7, 2018

mindlight said:
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

From 'creationwiki':

"Junk DNA is an informal term used by scientists to describe portions of DNA called pseudogenes for which no biological function is yet discovered or known to be associated with."

That is wrong on any number of levels.

From a 1972 paper*:

"It has frequently been suggested that the DNA of genetically inactive heterochromatin represents the degenerate and useless DNA of the genome. However, heterochromatin rarely constitutes more than 20% of the genome. This suggests that there are two categories of junk DNA, (1) DNA of constitutive heterochromatin which is neither transcribed nor translated, and (2) nonheterochromatic junk DNA which is probably transcribed, but not translated. This distinction adds one more dimension to the mystery of heterochromatic DNA. Why is it singled out to be nontranscribable when being nontranslatable seems adequate for most of the junk DNA? Perhaps there is clustered junk (heterochromatic DNA) and nonclustered junk, just as there is clustered repetitious DNA (satellite DNA) and nonclustered repetitious DNA. "

No mention of pseudogenes.

*as quoted and cited here: A word about "junk DNA". « Genomicron

mindlight · Mar 7, 2018

sfs said:
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.

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?

Why can't I just use your model when it speaks of observable microevolutionary changes since I do not dispute microevolution is happening. Quite obviously no model predicted the kind to kind evolution hypothesised between an ape like creature and man (or indeed any other kind to kind evolution) so your ability to call something that predicts nothing that substantial a prediction is curious. It seems you are simply referring to the consistency of a model and its ability to predict patterns that reoccur within it before they have been measured in specific cases. When these confirmed patterns are observably verifiable I am not going to disagree with you.

Basically I believe God solved similar problems when he created apes and man and used similar code and genomic patterns when doing so. But a Common Designer/Creator is just as adequate an explanation as the theory of common ancestry. There are no major predictions to be made here. The reason apes exist and the reason man does is because God created them.

tas8831 · Mar 7, 2018

mindlight said:
I think most human beings have achievements that they are proud of which surpass the ability of any ape to reproduce

And apes are capable of many tasks and feats that humans can only dream of. Your criteria seem to be entirely biased and anthropocentric. An adult make common chimp, for example, has approximately 2x the strength of adult human males.

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

Click to expand...

OP is about ape - human difference and you are just being a smart alec

And you have mentioned repeatedly a Common Designer re-using 'templates' as a means of skirting the DNA issue. And now you are running away from a rather obvious conundrum based on your tactic.

And you are copping-out.

mindlight · Mar 7, 2018

sfs said:
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.

True that the differences between 2 people of the same species can be quite significant even when the vast majority of stuff puts them in the same family.

tas8831 · Mar 7, 2018

mindlight said:
Well aren't you clever.

Yes, thanks.

It is privilege to be able to discuss with you. Thanks for being so gracious as to allow the rest of us, intellectual pygmies that we are, into your presence. No doubt your ability to educate can even extend to stubborn and small minded creationists like myself.

I sort of doubt it, but proceed.

Not sure however you or anybody else really understand the full significance of what junk DNA is.

Well, here is your chance to set me straight. And you do this:

The main creationist view is that a lack of genetic expression does not mean it has no potential to do anything or serve any useful conceivable function. That the testing thus far is incomplete.

Junk DNA - CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science

Creationwiki - awesome. My standard question - how do you know that what you read on Creationwiki is accurate?

That changes in DNA sequences may sometimes not result in changes in actual amino acids selected is interesting but even there how an amino acid is encoded may have a significance which we are just not clear about. GGT, GGA, GGC, and GGG all code for glycine for example but how do we know that there are not some subtle calls being made with that third letter with as yet unquantified effects.

But wait - noncoding ('junkDNA') DNA does not HAVE triplets/codons in it, so why did you bring those up?

Oh, right - creationwiki. But how then does creationwiki deal with this:

Mice do fine without 'junk DNA' : Nature News

They don't. In fact, not one of the articles/essays they cite there even mentions pseudogenes!

And yup, they reference the 2012 ENCODE paper, but subsequent papers from ENCODE where they backpedal.

So you basically rely on creationwiki for your genetics information?

tas8831 · Mar 7, 2018

mindlight said:
True that the differences between 2 people of the same species can be quite significant even when the vast majority of stuff puts them in the same family.

Sort of undercuts your whole 'single line of code' thing, doesn't it...

mindlight · Mar 7, 2018

Jimmy D said:
A mutated ape? Is that a way of avoiding saying an evolved ape? What's the difference? I thought each species in your creation model involved a creator tinkering with templates, yet here we see one that appears to combine the traits between humans and apes.

Quite relevant to the OP isn't it, if you (or your creationist source) can't decide which category this should fall into.

You favour the view that it was human because of it's cranial capacity though, I wonder where you feel the cut off point is in terms of being human? Is it arbitary?

There are children today with the same cranial capacity of homo erectus. It falls inside the human range. Creationists do not rule out microevolution into different types of human. They believe in a set of harsh conditions that human beings would have adapted to in order to survive and also that early post flood humans had a longevity which could have allowed various interesting configurations to occur e.g. the thick cranial container of homoerectus.

mindlight · Mar 7, 2018

tas8831 said:
And apes are capable of many tasks and feats that humans can only dream of. Your criteria seem to be entirely biased and anthropocentric. An adult make common chimp, for example, has approximately 2x the strength of adult human males.

Nope since we can build machines that apes cannot conceive with many times the strength of any ape the strength comparison does not work. Also individual apes taught to say that their colour is gray or name is Chewbacca are hardly poets , philosophers or dare I say it scientists. Of course my criteria is anthropocentric when no other species remotely compares with us.

And you have mentioned repeatedly a Common Designer re-using 'templates' as a means of skirting the DNA issue. And now you are running away from a rather obvious conundrum based on your tactic.

And you are copping-out.

Please clarify what you are accusing me of running away from.

tas8831 · Mar 7, 2018

mindlight said:
The manifestations of physical difference are as follows:

1) Apes have more hair

Not really. Their hair is coarser and longer, but they do not really have 'more.'

2) Apes do not have an Appendix

Yes, they do.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q-vYpcGdQ-Q/T1ql3zLVClI/AAAAAAAABd8/5y1hDXtiEhc/s1600/chimp+gut.gif

3) Apes communicate with grunts and growls not words

And when they do this, do you understand them?

What you are really saying is that humans do not understand ape communication.

4) Apes have less developed brains and the ape brain is about 1/3rd the size of a human brain.

That is true. 1 out of 4 is bad.

So the main difference that makes all the difference is the intelligence factor that comes from having a smaller less developed brain and a limited and less flexible view of language. If you rule out the intelligence/language factor and the spiritual factor of humans being made in Gods image then the differences are not that important.

The spiritual factor is devoid of evidence, so we can ignore that.

And yes, the 'intelligence factor' is there. And of course we differ from other apes. If we did not, we would be them. I fail to see what point you think you are making by, in essence, claiming we are not identical, which nobody is claiming in the first place.

Jimmy D · Mar 7, 2018

mindlight said:
There are children today with the same cranial capacity of homo erectus. It falls inside the human range. Creationists do not rule out microevolution into different types of human. They believe in a set of harsh conditions that human beings would have adapted to in order to survive and also that early post flood humans had a longevity which could have allowed various interesting configurations to occur e.g. the thick cranial container of homoerectus.

Post flood? When do you believe this flood occurred?

I was under the impression that H Erectus was around 2 million years before H Sapiens?

Besides, going back to your earlier post, it seems inconsistent to accept the micro evolution of Ape into "Mutated Ape" like human, but not the micro evolution of "Mutated Ape" like human into human.

mindlight · Mar 7, 2018

tas8831 said:
But wait - noncoding ('junkDNA') DNA does not HAVE triplets/codons in it, so why did you bring those up?

Sorry thought you would have recognised that I was talking about synonymous mutations in response to your previous post.

tas8831 · Mar 7, 2018

mindlight said:
Nope since we can build machines that apes cannot conceive with many times the strength of any ape the strength comparison does not work.

Going extra-biological when biology fails you.

Also individual apes taught to say that their colour is gray or name is Chewbacca are hardly poets , philosophers or dare I say it scientists. Of course my criteria is anthropocentric when no other species remotely compares with us.

So again you are taking aspects of intelligence (poetry writing and such) and claiming those as "extra" things that distinguish us from apes - an argument that nobody is making.

Nobody is claiming we are identical. Taxonomy and anatomy and physiology tell us we are similar enough to warrant being classified in a category with them, and further, that the evidence indicates we share a common ancestry.

You want to hide behind, in effect, 'Oh YEAH??? Well, We write POEMS! And build TRUCKS! And they just grunt and poop in the woods!'

Seems pretty desperate to me.

Please clarify what you are accusing me of running away from.

Dealing with the fact that your whole Common Designer routine seems pretty lame when on considers that a whale's DNA is more similar to ours than a sharks.

Warden_of_the_Storm · Mar 7, 2018

mindlight said:
Of course my criteria is anthropocentric when no other species remotely compares with us.

It's refreshing that you've finally admitted that your entire hangup on this thread is basically because of your own line of reasoning which is "I ain't no dirty stinking ape!"

tas8831 · Mar 7, 2018

mindlight said:
Sorry thought you would have recognised that I was talking about synonymous mutations in response to your previous post.

JunkDNA does not have anything to experience synonymous mutations in, so why would that have mattered?

Do you not realize that synonymous/nonsynonymous only refers to exonic DNA?

tas8831 · Mar 7, 2018

mindlight said:
There is clearly something far more sophisticated in our code.

What 'code'?

Apes are not comparable to human beings in intelligence and in language and in all the attributes that mark us as being made in Gods image.

What does God look like?

Larniavc · Mar 7, 2018

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

Aren’t you the one who thinks rocks are alive but plants aren’t?

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

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