Is it a hoax?

[Loudmouth]

It's an homology argument, I don't believe you still don't understand that.

"Here we report the application of ancient human endogenous retrovirus (HERV) sequences to phylogenetic analysis on a time scale spanning recent primate evolution."
Constructing primate phylogenies from ancient retrovirus sequences

Guess what the title of that paper is?

"Constructing primate phylogenies from ancient retrovirus sequences"

Notice how it says "phylogeny" and not "homology"? You don't get to change our argument. You need to address the actual argument we are making.

Two reasons, disease and disorder.

So you are saying that the differences between the chimp and human genomes is not responsible for the physical differences between humans and chimps? If so, what is producing the physical difference?

Once again the most important adaptive evolutionary event in our line, and no reply. Typical.

The reply is the difference in brain size is due to the DNA sequence differences between our genomes.

 

[mark kennedy]

"Here we report the application of ancient human endogenous retrovirus (HERV) sequences to phylogenetic analysis on a time scale spanning recent primate evolution."
Constructing primate phylogenies from ancient retrovirus sequences

Guess what the title of that paper is?

"Constructing primate phylogenies from ancient retrovirus sequences"

I know the paper well, bet you never read it. I don't care what they call it, it's an homology argument.

Notice how it says "phylogeny" and not "homology"? You don't get to change our argument. You need to address the actual argument we are making.

Been there done that. Do note ERV class 1.

With more than 100 members, CERV 1/PTERV1 is one of the most abundant families of endogenous retroviruses in the chimpanzee genome. (Genome Biol. 2006). They can be found in African great apes but not in humans. What is more the ERV virus is nearly extinct in the human genome with only a couple that actually work.

For almost half a century it was believed that Chimpanzee and Human DNA was virtually identical. This is now known to be false. The Comparison of Human Chromosome 21 and Chimpanzee Chromosome 22 revealed that 83% of the 231 coding sequences, including functionally important genes, show differences at the amino acid sequence level. These included gross structural changes affecting gene products far more common than previously estimated (20.3% of the PTR22 proteins) (Nature, 27 May 2004).

You have seen this repeatedly, you haven't addressed it once.

So you are saying that the differences between the chimp and human genomes is not responsible for the physical differences between humans and chimps? If so, what is producing the physical difference?

Another absurd attempt to put words in my mouth. No, I'm saying the genomic differences cannot be accounted for by mutations and that's just the beginning.

• HAR1F: Vital regulatory gene involved in brain development, 300 million years it has only 2 subsitutions, then 2 million years ago it allows 18, no explanation how.
• SRGAP2: One single amino-acid change between human and mouse and no changes among nonhuman primates. accumulated as many as seven amino-acid replacements compared to one synonymous change. 6 known alleles, all resulting in sever neural disorder.
• 60 de novo (brand new) brain related genes with no known molecular mechanism to produce them.

The Taung Child, that replaced the Piltdown hoax, is a chimpanzee, so is Lucy.

The reply is the difference in brain size is due to the DNA sequence differences between our genomes.

Which cannot be explained by mutations.

 

[Loudmouth]

I know the paper well, bet you never read it. I don't care what they call it, it's a homology argument.

Please explain why it isn't a phylogenetic argument.

With more than 100 members, CERV 1/PTERV1 is one of the most abundant families of endogenous retroviruses in the chimpanzee genome. (Genome Biol. 2006).

Did you read the paper?

"Using the procedure described above, we identified a total of 425 full-length chimpanzee endogenous retroviruses."

They only looked at 425 out of the 200,000+ ERVs in the chimp genome. Of course, we have all shown you this multiple times, yet you continue to ignore these facts.

They can be found in African great apes but not in humans. What is more the ERV virus is nearly extinct in the human genome with only a couple that actually work.

Are they found at orthologous positions in the chimp and gorilla genomes? Nope. Once again, the distribution of ORTHOLOGOUS ERVs follows the predicted phylogeny, and that is what evidences common ancestry.

For almost half a century it was believed that Chimpanzee and Human DNA was virtually identical.

It is. Chimps share more DNA with humans than they do with gorillas or orangutans.

This is now known to be false. The Comparison of Human Chromosome 21 and Chimpanzee Chromosome 22 revealed that 83% of the 231 coding sequences, including functionally important genes, show differences at the amino acid sequence level. These included gross structural changes affecting gene products far more common than previously estimated (20.3% of the PTR22 proteins) (Nature, 27 May 2004).

Genes only make up a tiny portion of the genome.

Another absurd attempt to put words in my mouth. No, I'm saying the genomic differences cannot be accounted for by mutations and that's just the beginning.

Why not?

• HAR1F: Vital regulatory gene involved in brain development, 300 million years it has only 2 subsitutions, then 2 million years ago it allows 18, no explanation how.
• SRGAP2: One single amino-acid change between human and mouse and no changes among nonhuman primates. accumulated as many as seven amino-acid replacements compared to one synonymous change. 6 known alleles, all resulting in sever neural disorder.
• 60 de novo (brand new) brain related genes with no known molecular mechanism to produce them.

The explanation is mutagenesis. Look it up.

The Taung Child, that replaced the Piltdown hoax, is a chimpanzee, so is Lucy.

False.

Anyone can see that Australopithecines are not chimps. They have human-like pelvises and not chimp-like pelvises.

Which cannot be explained by mutations.

Why can't they?

 

[mark kennedy]

Please explain why it isn't a phylogenetic argument.

Because it's an homology argument, things alike are proof of common ancestry.

Did you read the paper?

"Using the procedure described above, we identified a total of 425 full-length chimpanzee endogenous retroviruses."

They only looked at 425 out of the 200,000+ ERVs in the chimp genome. Of course, we have all shown you this multiple times, yet you continue to ignore these facts.

Did you read this one? With more than 100 members, CERV 1/PTERV1 is one of the most abundant families of endogenous retroviruses in the chimpanzee genome. (Genome Biol. 2006). They can be found in African great apes but not in humans. What is more the ERV virus is nearly extinct in the human genome with only a couple that actually work.

Are they found at orthologous positions in the chimp and gorilla genomes? Nope. Once again, the distribution of ORTHOLOGOUS ERVs follows the predicted phylogeny, and that is what evidences common ancestry.

Exactly, all you want to talk about are the ones that are exactly or nearly exactly the same, aka orthologous. You don't want to talk about one of the most abundant families of endogenous retroviruses in the chimpanzee genome.

It is. Chimps share more DNA with humans than they do with gorillas or orangutans.

Which doesn't matter.

Genes only make up a tiny portion of the genome.

Which also doesn't matter.

Why not?

Deleterious effects, starting with SRGAP2. What is the problem with 7 amino acid replacements in a highly conserved brain related gene? The only observed effects of changes in this gene in humans is disease and disorder:

• 15,767 individuals reported by Cooper et al. (2011)] for potential copy-number variation. We identified six large (>1 Mbp) copy-number variants (CNVs), including three deletions of the ancestral 1q32.1 region…
• A ten year old child with a history of seizures, attention deficit disorder, and learning disabilities. An MRI of this patient also indicates several brain malformations, including hypoplasia of the posterior body of the corpus callosum…
• Translocation breaking within intron 6 of SRGAP2A was reported in a five-year-old girl diagnosed with West syndrome and exhibiting epileptic seizures, intellectual disability, cortical atrophy, and a thin corpus callosum. (Human-specific evolution of novel SRGAP2 genes by incomplete segmental duplication Cell May 2012)

The search for variation with regard to this vital gene yielded no beneficial effect upon which selection could have acted. The only conceivable way the changes happen is relaxed functional constraint which, unless it emerged from the initial mutation perfectly functional it surly would have killed the host. Mutations are found in children with 'developmental delay and brain malformations, including West Syndrome, agenesis of the corpus callosum, and epileptic encephalopathies'.(cited above)

The explanation is mutagenesis. Look it up.

No need.

False.

Anyone can see that Australopithecines are not chimps. They have human-like pelvises and not chimp-like pelvises.

Anyone seriously thinking about this has the human brain to explain.

FIGURE 2. Comparative neuroanatomy of humans and chimpanzees. (Genetics and the making of Homo sapiens. Nature April 2003)

We are talking about the human brain. But, since you brought it up:

Concurrent with the prominence of the Piltdown fossil Raymond Dart had reported on the skull of an ape that had filled with lime creating an endocast or a model of what the brain would have looked like. Everyone considered it a chimpanzee child since it’s cranial capacity was just over 400cc but with the demise of Piltdown, a new icon was needed in the Darwinian theater of the mind. Raymond Dart suggests to Louis Leakey that a small brained human ancestor might have been responsible for some of the supposed tools the Leaky family was finding in Africa. The myth of the stone age ape man was born.

The Scottish anthropologist Sir Arthur Keith had built his long and distinguished career on the Piltdown fossil. When it was exposed it sent Darwinians scrambling, Arthur Keith had always rejected the Taung Child (Raymond Dart’s discovery) a chimpanzee child. Rightfully so since it’s small even for a modern chimpanzee. Keith would eventually apologized to Dart and Leakey would take his suggested name for the stone age ape man, Homo habilis, but there was a very real problem. The skull was too small to be considered a human ancestor, this impasse became known as the Cerebral Rubicon and Leakey’s solution was to simply ignore the cranial capacity.

"Sir Arthur Keith, one of the leading proponents of Piltdown Man, was particularly instrumental in shaping Louis's thinking. "Sir Arthur Keith was very much Louis's father in science" noted Frida. Brilliant, yet modest and unassuming, Keith was regarded at the time of Piltdown's discovery as England's most eminent anatomist and an authority on human ancestry...a one man court of appeal for physical anthropologists from around the world....and his opinion that assured Piltdown a place on every drawing of humankinds family tree." (Ancestral Passions, Virginia Morell)​

Ever notice that there are no Chimpanzee ancestors in the fossil record? That’s because every time a gracial (smooth) skull, that is dug up in Asian or Africa they are automatically one of our ancestors.

Australopithecus afarensis: AL 288-1
Australopithecus africanus: Taung 1
Lucy a Chimpanzee
Taung Skull not Human-like 26 August 2014

These two are the only Hominid fossils I've seen that are really being passed of as transitional. They both have chimpanzee size brains, with all the features one would expect of a knuckle dragging, tree dwelling ape. What is far more important then finding something indicating a transitional fossil, which they have failed to do, is to understand what the basis of the three-fold of the human brain from that of apes:

Why can't they?

Why can't 60 de novo genes related to highly conserved brain related functions be explained by random genetic mutations?

This all has to occur after the chimpanzee human split, while our ancestors were contemporaries in equatorial Africa, with none of the selective pressures effecting our ancestral cousins. This is in addition to no less then 60 de novo (brand new) brain related genes with no known molecular mechanism to produce them. Selection can explain the survival of the fittest but the arrival of the fittest requires a cause:

The de novo origin of a new protein-coding gene from non-coding DNA is considered to be a very rare occurrence in genomes. Here we identify 60 new protein-coding genes that originated de novo on the human lineage since divergence from the chimpanzee. The functionality of these genes is supported by both transcriptional and proteomic evidence. RNA– seq data indicate that these genes have their highest expression levels in the cerebral cortex and testes, which might suggest that these genes contribute to phenotypic traits that are unique to humans, such as improved cognitive ability. Our results are inconsistent with the traditional view that the de novo origin of new genes is very rare, thus there should be greater appreciation of the importance of the de novo origination of genes…(De Novo Origin of Human Protein-Coding Genes PLoS 2011)​

Whatever you think happened one thing is for sure, random mutations are the worst explanation possible. They cannot produce de novo genes and invariably disrupt functional genes. You can forget about gradual accumulation of, 'slow and gradual accumulation of numerous, slight, yet profitable, variations' (Darwin). That would require virtually no cost and extreme benefit with the molecular cause fabricated from vain imagination and suspended by pure faith.

Have a nice day
Mark

 

[Loudmouth]

Because it's an homology argument, things alike are proof of common ancestry.

No, it isn't Mark. I am saying that common ancestry is evidenced because the distribution of orthologous ERVs matches the expected phylogeny. THAT IS THE ARGUMENT I AM MAKING.

Did you read this one? With more than 100 members, CERV 1/PTERV1 is one of the most abundant families of endogenous retroviruses in the chimpanzee genome. (Genome Biol. 2006). They can be found in African great apes but not in humans. What is more the ERV virus is nearly extinct in the human genome with only a couple that actually work.

I already addressed this in the previous post. They only looked at 425 out of the 200,000 ERVs in the chimp genome.

"Using the procedure described above, we identified a total of 425 full-length chimpanzee endogenous retroviruses. This is certainly an underestimate of the number of endogenous retroviruses in the chimpanzee genome because we consciously excluded any sequences that could not be unambiguously identified as an endogenous retrovirus. "

Exactly, all you want to talk about are the ones that are exactly or nearly exactly the same, aka orthologous. You don't want to talk about one of the most abundant families of endogenous retroviruses in the chimpanzee genome.

They are only the most abundant out of the 425 that they looked at.

Which doesn't matter.

Why doesn't it matter that chimps share more DNA with humans than they do with other ape species? Please explain.

Which also doesn't matter.

Why doesn't it matter that genes only make up a tiny portion of the genome? You are making grand statements about the whole genome.

Deleterious effects, starting with SRGAP2. What is the problem with 7 amino acid replacements in a highly conserved brain related gene?

What deleterious effects are these specific mutations causing in humans?

The only observed effects of changes in this gene in humans is disease and disorder:

• 15,767 individuals reported by Cooper et al. (2011)] for potential copy-number variation. We identified six large (>1 Mbp) copy-number variants (CNVs), including three deletions of the ancestral 1q32.1 region…
• A ten year old child with a history of seizures, attention deficit disorder, and learning disabilities. An MRI of this patient also indicates several brain malformations, including hypoplasia of the posterior body of the corpus callosum…
• Translocation breaking within intron 6 of SRGAP2A was reported in a five-year-old girl diagnosed with West syndrome and exhibiting epileptic seizures, intellectual disability, cortical atrophy, and a thin corpus callosum. (Human-specific evolution of novel SRGAP2 genes by incomplete segmental duplication Cell May 2012)

Those are not the mutations we are talking about, and you know it. Just because one mutation causes disease does not mean all mutations cause disease. Why is this so hard to understand.

The search for variation with regard to this vital gene yielded no beneficial effect upon which selection could have acted. The only conceivable way the changes happen is relaxed functional constraint which, unless it emerged from the initial mutation perfectly functional it surly would have killed the host.

THEN WHY AREN'T HUMANS EXTINCT???

We are talking about the human brain.

We are talking about the whole species. A species is more than just its brain.

Concurrent with the prominence of the Piltdown fossil Raymond Dart had reported on the skull of an ape that had filled with lime creating an endocast or a model of what the brain would have looked like. Everyone considered it a chimpanzee child since it’s cranial capacity was just over 400cc but with the demise of Piltdown, a new icon was needed in the Darwinian theater of the mind. Raymond Dart suggests to Louis Leakey that a small brained human ancestor might have been responsible for some of the supposed tools the Leaky family was finding in Africa. The myth of the stone age ape man was born.

The Scottish anthropologist Sir Arthur Keith had built his long and distinguished career on the Piltdown fossil. When it was exposed it sent Darwinians scrambling, Arthur Keith had always rejected the Taung Child (Raymond Dart’s discovery) a chimpanzee child. Rightfully so since it’s small even for a modern chimpanzee. Keith would eventually apologized to Dart and Leakey would take his suggested name for the stone age ape man, Homo habilis, but there was a very real problem. The skull was too small to be considered a human ancestor, this impasse became known as the Cerebral Rubicon and Leakey’s solution was to simply ignore the cranial capacity.

"Sir Arthur Keith, one of the leading proponents of Piltdown Man, was particularly instrumental in shaping Louis's thinking. "Sir Arthur Keith was very much Louis's father in science" noted Frida. Brilliant, yet modest and unassuming, Keith was regarded at the time of Piltdown's discovery as England's most eminent anatomist and an authority on human ancestry...a one man court of appeal for physical anthropologists from around the world....and his opinion that assured Piltdown a place on every drawing of humankinds family tree." (Ancestral Passions, Virginia Morell)

This has nothing to do with Australopithecines.

Ever notice that there are no Chimpanzee ancestors in the fossil record?

How did you determine that there are no chimpanzee ancestors in the fossil record?/ Have you dug up every inch of sediment on Earth?

These two are the only Hominid fossils I've seen that are really being passed of as transitional. They both have chimpanzee size brains, with all the features one would expect of a knuckle dragging, tree dwelling ape.

I just proved you wrong with the pelvis comparison.

This all has to occur after the chimpanzee human split, while our ancestors were contemporaries in equatorial Africa, with none of the selective pressures effecting our ancestral cousins. This is in addition to no less then 60 de novo (brand new) brain related genes with no known molecular mechanism to produce them.

Mutagenesis is known.

Whatever you think happened one thing is for sure, random mutations are the worst explanation possible. They cannot produce de novo genes and invariably disrupt functional genes.

Yet another unsupported assertion.

 

[mark kennedy]

THEN WHY AREN'T HUMANS EXTINCT???

That's when I know you have nothing left, the fallacious logic takes over. I will answer this question even though I already have in no uncertain terms. Because it never happened, we were created.

 

[Loudmouth]

That's when I know you have nothing left, the fallacious logic takes over. I will answer this question even though I already have in no uncertain terms. Because it never happened, we were created.

What do you mean it never happened? HUMANS DO HAVE THOSE DIFFERENCES IN THAT GENE!!!! So why aren't we all dead from those changes?

Are you saying that if a supernatural deity creates those differences then it doesn't cause disease, but if the natural process of mutagenesis produces those very same differences then they will cause disease? If so, you are off your rocker.

 

[mark kennedy]

What do you mean it never happened? HUMANS DO HAVE THOSE DIFFERENCES IN THAT GENE!!!! So why aren't we all dead from those changes?

Are you saying that if a supernatural deity creates those differences then it doesn't cause disease, but if the natural process of mutagenesis produces those very same differences then they will cause disease? If so, you are off your rocker.

No, I'm saying if homology arguments are proof for common ancestry then differences are arguments against. You know that but now your fallacious arguments have gotten the best of you. We would be dead if mutations in HAR1f and SRGAP2 started 2 million years ago. That's not a formula for adaptive evolution, it's a formula for extinction. There are no exceptions, mutations in brain related genes cause disease and disorder if not death. That doesn't even begin to explain the 60 unique brain related genes you ignored that would have to be built from scratch. You got nothing LM but bluster and circular logic. I didn't do this to you, your hero Darwinian scientists did. They gave you a presumed effect with no known cause, where are they now?

 

[Loudmouth]

No, I'm saying if homology arguments are proof for common ancestry then differences are arguments against.

We are using a phylogenetic argument, not a homology argument. A phylogenetic argument uses a specific pattern of similarities AND differences, not just similarities.

We would be dead if mutations in HAR1f and SRGAP2 started 2 million years ago.

Prove it.

There are no exceptions, mutations in brain related genes cause disease and disorder if not death.

This is falsified by the observation that humans have mutations in those very genes and they do not cause disease.

That doesn't even begin to explain the 60 unique brain related genes you ignored that would have to be built from scratch.

Why don't mutations explain them, as you claim?

You got nothing LM but bluster and circular logic. I didn't do this to you, your hero Darwinian scientists did. They gave you a presumed effect with no known cause, where are they now?

You are projecting.

 

[pitabread]

That's when I know you have nothing left, the fallacious logic takes over. I will answer this question even though I already have in no uncertain terms. Because it never happened, we were created.

You complain about fallacious logic, and yet your entire argument boils down to an argument from incredulity.

Now if you could demonstrate the mechanisms for special creation in the same manner you demand for biological evolution, then you might have something worth talking about...

 

[pitabread]

There are no exceptions, mutations in brain related genes cause disease and disorder if not death.

Citation? (Specifically, the "no exceptions" part.)

 

[mark kennedy]

You complain about fallacious logic, and yet your entire argument boils down to an argument from incredulity.

No it doesn't, it comes down to what we know from secular scientists who expound the fossils and genomic comparisons. Darwinism is an effect presumed without an effective cause. I didn't create the facts I simply presented them and in return the apologists for Darwinian evolution spent pedantic remarks in ever shrinking circles finally resulting in ad hominem taunts. I might add, again, that's all they have. I'm not incredulous. Comparative Genomics should have ended, or at least challenged, Darwinian evolution by now but it is exalted above all skepticism. The a priori assumption of universal common descent is immutable in modern philosophies of natural history. The reason they are not questioned isn't the weight of the evidence, indicating chimpanzee-human common ancestry, but the animosity toward anything remotely theistic being suggested as a cause. This grand theatrical production has been performing for over a century now, it's history littered with fabrication.

Idols of the Theater are those which are due to sophistry and false learning. These idols are built up in the field of theology, philosophy, and science, and because they are defended by learned groups are accepted without question by the masses. When false philosophies have been cultivated and have attained a wide sphere of dominion in the world of the intellect they are no longer questioned. False superstructures are raised on false foundations, and in the end systems barren of merit parade their grandeur on the stage of the world. (Novum Organum)
​

Darwinian isn't a term Creationists made up, the Modern Synthesis is often called neodarwinism, because it's inextricably linked to the philosophy of Charles Darwin originating in his book On the Origin of Species. He said and I quote:

Lamarck was the first man whose conclusions on the subject excited much attention. This justly-celebrated naturalist first published his views in 1801; he much enlarged them in 1809 in his "Philosophie Zoologique,' and subsequently, in 1815, in the Introduction to his "Hist. Nat. des Animaux sans Vertébres.' In these works he upholds the doctrine that species, including man, are descended from other species. He first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all change in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition. (On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin)
​

Now, if you believe that, 'all change in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition', then you are Darwinian in your worldview. These two worldviews would appear to be mutually exclusive. To date I have nothing but problems with every aspect of universal common descent and at the heart of this philosophy I see the core problem being naturalistic assumptions.

On the other hand, if you feel Darwinians have made their case and find their arguments convincing I say go in peace I have no problem with you. If on the other hand you are interested in valid skepticism regarding the evolution of the human brain from that of apes there is ample evidence to indicate that Darwinism isn't a conclusion but an, a priori (without prior), assumption that demands exclusively naturalistic causes.

I'm not incredulous, I just reserve the right to remain unconvinced.

Citation? (Specifically, the "no exceptions" part.)

I've got a better idea, show me an exception.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[pitabread]

No it doesn't

Yeah, it really does. Your entire argument boils down to, "we don't know have X evolved, therefore Goddidit". For all the copy-paste verbiage you keep posting, all you have is one giant argument from incredulity.

And you're still using a private definition of "Darwinism".

I've got a better idea, show me an exception.

Thought not.

 

[mark kennedy]

Yeah, it really does. Your entire argument boils down to, "we don't know have X evolved, therefore Goddidit". All you have is one giant argument from incredulity.

Then so is God didn't do it so there!

And you're still using a private definition of "Darwinism".

No, I'm using a direct quote from the sixth edition of On the Origin of Species. That's hardly primitive. That's relevant, substantive source material which is something you have never bothered to provide.

Thought not.

You don't have an exception, but we both already knew that.

 

[Loudmouth]

You don't have an exception, but we both already knew that.

You already showed us the exceptions.

• HAR1F: Vital regulatory gene involved in brain development, 300 million years it has only 2 subsitutions, then 2 million years ago it allows 18, no explanation how.
• SRGAP2: One single amino-acid change between human and mouse and no changes among nonhuman primates. accumulated as many as seven amino-acid replacements compared to one synonymous change.

There are 18 exceptions in HAR1F alone.

 

[bhsmte]

Pigeon chess.

 

[pitabread]

Then so is God didn't do it so there!

The burden of proof is on those making positive claims.

If I told you there were invisible rabbits living on the moon currently, it would be rather silly to put the burden on you to disprove that claim.

If you're going to tell us that human beings were magic'd into existence, then please demonstrate positive evidence of the mechanisms for this process.

No, I'm using a direct quote from the sixth edition of On the Origin of Species. That's hardly primitive. That's relevant, substantive source material which is something you have never bothered to provide.

Last time I checked, Darwin never was explicitly defining a term called "Darwinism" (or "Darwinian evolution" or whatever other term you want to ascribe to his writings). That's something you have concocted.

To most people, "Darwinism" just refers to biological evolution via descent with modification and natural selection.

You don't have an exception, but we both already knew that.

I'm just asking you to support your claim. You can't support your claim.

 

[sfs]

No, I'm saying if homology arguments are proof for common ancestry then differences are arguments against.

Mark, you've been saying this for years now. You're wrong about it. You've always been wrong. If you think differences between humans and chimpanzees are an argument against common descent, you simply have no understanding of the issue.

 

[mark kennedy]

Mark, you've been saying this for years now. You're wrong about it. You've always been wrong. If you think differences between humans and chimpanzees are an argument against common descent, you simply have no understanding of the issue.

And you still haven't told me why. You have never acknowledged the genomic divergence with regards to over all genomic divergence, rationalizing away the fact that it's reported at 96% the same at best. Never addressed the obvious problems with the causation regarding gross structural changes in protein coding genes required. No explanation of how HAR1f and the other highly conserved genes suddenly undergo dramatic changes. Then there is the problem with the 60 de novo genes that must have originated some 2 mya. You just keep saying I'm wrong and all I keep doing is reminding you of the facts.

I've always liked you Steve, always appreciated some of your insights when your were willing to share them. This response is ad hominem, I would expect better from an expert on the subject matter and certainly wouldn't expect some mutation plus selection argument.

 

[sfs]

And you still haven't told me why.

Sure I have. Mutations accumulate after species diverge. That's why the genetic differences between humans and chimpanzees look exactly like lots of accumulated mutations. I know I've pointed that out to you before, too. You didn't have an explanation for it, and you don't seem to care.

You have never acknowledged the genomic divergence with regards to over all genomic divergence, rationalizing away the fact that it's reported at 96% the same at best.

I have no idea what that's supposed to mean. As you are quite well aware, I did my bit to determine what the difference was between humans and chimpanzees. The observed difference is, again, quite consistent with being the result of lots of accumulated mutations.

Never addressed the obvious problems with the causation regarding gross structural changes in protein coding genes required.

What obvious problems?

No explanation of how HAR1f and the other highly conserved genes suddenly undergo dramatic changes.

You've never understood that genes can be highly conserved under some circumstances and free to evolve under others. (I believe I've also pointed out that HAR1 shows evidence of having been in a high-mutation-rate recombination hotspot, which makes rapid evolution more likely.)

Then there is the problem with the 60 de novo genes that must have originated some 2 mya.

What problem? They've identified 5000 sites in the genome that have started undergoing transcription. If 1% turned out to be useful, that would not be a shock. Why is it that new genes always turn out to have an obvious mechanistic origin? They're either the result of gene duplication, previously noncoding DNA (which can still be seen in other species), or a transposable element.

You just keep saying I'm wrong and all I keep doing is reminding you of the facts.

You frequently get facts very wrong. Just in this thread, you've once again gotten the number of ERVs in chimpanzees completely wrong

I've always liked you Steve, always appreciated some of your insights when your were willing to share them. This response is ad hominem, I would expect better from an expert on the subject matter and certainly wouldn't expect some mutation plus selection argument.

I like you too, Mark, but you consistently get genetics wrong. I tried, repeatedly, to give you detailed explanations about why you were wrong, but eventually I gave up. Life is too short.