I didn't "account for SNPs": I explained why single-base substitutions (they're still not SNPs, no matter how many times you call them that) are powerful evidence for common descent of humans and chimpanzees. What you left out was any kind of response to the evidence, beyond trying to change the subject again.
I am not trying to change the subject, this is what you presented in your Quiet Post submission:
"For starters, we should be able to predict how different the genomes should be. The seven million years of evolution in each lineage represents about 350,000 generations in each (assuming 20 years per generation). How many mutations happen per generation? Estimating mutation rates is not easy (at least without assuming common descent): it is hard to find a few changed nucleotides out of 3 billion that have not changed. By studying new cases of genetic diseases, individuals whose parents' do not have the disease, however, it is possible to identify and count new mutations, at least in a small number of genes. Using this technique, it has been estimated[1] that the single-base substitution rate for humans is approximately 1.7 x 10^-8 substitutions/nucleotide/generation, that is, 17 changes per billion nucleotides. That translates into ~100 new mutations for every human birth. (17 x 3, for the 3 billion nucleotides in the genome, x 2 for the two genome copies we each carry). At that rate, in 350,000 generations a copy of the human genome should have accumulated about 18 million mutations, while the chimpanzee genome should have accumulated a similar number."
Common ancestry of humans and chimpanzees: mutations
That would come to about 34 million mutations, do you still expect me to believe that this takes into account the indels? By the way, SNPs is not my term, I got it from the Nature article that you help to author. :
"...thirty-five million single-nucleotide changes, five million insertion/deletion events...
I call them polymorphisms because the HGP refers to SNPs frequently so I was under the impression that they were the same thing.
SNPs: VARIATIONS ON A THEME
Comparison of human and ape genomes shows many features that are explicable only in terms of common ancestry. Among these are the features I mentioned in my post, and those listed by others here and elsewhere: e.g. ERVs, shared pseudogenes, and the nonfunctioning centromere and telomere on chromosome 2. Instead of starting a new thread asking yet again for evidence, why don't you try responding to the evidence that's already out there? No other creationist has come up with a consistent alternative explanation -- you could be the first.
The ERVs are supposed to be some kind of a smoking gun for evolution. It would appear to be a statistical probability problem but I don't see any real signifigance beyond that. I'll keep looking but a non-functioning retrovirus does not strike me as a solid prediction with no other explanation other then common ancestory.
Mostly you are focusing you evidences on non-functioning parts of the genome. What I am most interested in right now is the genetic mechanisms thought to be responsible for human evolution. Random (chance) mutations does not account for major alterations of highly conserved genes. This is one of them and it has probablity problems just like your telemere and ERV 'predictions'.
"The Nature paper looks in depth at the region that has undergone the most change in the human lineage, which the researchers called HAR1 (for human accelerated region 1). Only two of the region's 118 bases changed in the 310 million years separating the evolutionary lineages of the chicken and the chimp. Incredibly, since the human lineage separated from that of the chimp, 18 of the 118 nucleotides have changed. This region “stood out,” said Pollard."
http://www.hhmi.org/news/haussler20060816.html
What I am looking for is an actual genetic mechanism for a change on this level. What do you think the odds of this occuring are. Random mutations could not pull this off and as you know, my main interest is in human evolution. The human brain is three times that of a chimpanzee, that is a giant leap in evolution by all accounts. I have yet to see a single evolutionist admit that they are supprised that the divergence is higher then expected even though the scientific literature does. We have been told for decades that we only diverge by about 1% but not it is 5% and growing.
Hundreds if not thousands of mutations in hundreds if not thousands of genes is not normal evolution, it's highly accelerated. Apparently there are some 40,000 nucleotides that are known to diverge in functionally important genes. That number is going up and the mutation rate, given the deleterious effects that result from mutations makes this neat linear model a whole lot more complicated then we have been told.
Sure the simularities are compelling but the differences are far larger then we have been told. The genetic mechanisms for the rapid expansion of the human brain do not exist. We can chase these anecdotal evidences around all day long and at the end of the day we will still not have an evolutionary mechanism that can pull this off.
"A total of 251 categories showed significantly low KA/KS ratios (compared with 32 expected by chance; P < 10-4). These include a wide range of processes including intracellular signalling, metabolism, neurogenesis and synaptic transmission, which are evidently under stronger-than-average purifying selection. More generally, genes expressed in the brain show significantly stronger average constraint than genes expressed in other tissues"
251 discovered and 32 expected by chance and this doesn't even raise an eyebrow.
Grace and peace,
Mark
