The Coccyx

[pshun2404]

Please EXPLAIN, without copy-pastes or doctored quotes, HOW, exactly, a viral genome could be inserted at the exact same locus in a chromosome of 2 different species (given that the target integration sites are literally all over the genome*), AND possess the same inactivation mutations, purely randomly.

I just did that...only allowing the possibility of randomicity without assuming it was.

Next I said "In my humble opinion because researchers seek these alleged ERVs out to form or improve phylogenetic trees, lineal relationship is already a pre-supposed reality before they look (which biases the interpretation)."

Sorry but this is true! Was there ever a time when you did not assume lineal relationship even long before you started reviewing evidence as interpreted this way? Of course not because you were taught it was true already (just as I was and my father before me). Darwin, and then all his followers, believed it and accepted it as true, long before they had any of this. And this pre-held conviction biases interpretation no less than does the pre-held convictions of a Ken Ham bias his.

 

[pshun2404]

The index card on which I wrote down the codes for the 24 taxa is still hanging on my office wall, yellowed and curling on the edges. It was about 14 years ago.

He refused to test his creationist hypothesis.

Would YOU take the challenge? I will have to update the format of the old file - do you use FASTA in your DNA analyses?

No! I do not have the time. But if YOU sometime in the future just take the natural human genome as it is and the natural chimp genome as it is (un-effected by ANY machinations of man including any intelligently designed programs) and then starting at any earliest point one quickly comes upon a difference that throws the whole thing in stark difference for the remainder of the 3000000000 pairs. At very few places do they naturally agree. And this makes sense to me because they are totally different creatures and I no longer assume they are long lost cousins.

 

[Ophiolite]

Re the OP, my apologies if someone already said this. I haven't read all the posts.

The coccyx? Now thereby hangs a tale.

 

[tas8831]

Okay, one at a time (and I honestly admit I may not have and explanation for all you asked). FASTA is a DNA sequence alignment software package. Other variations like FASTP and FASTN are likewise specific software alignment programs. They are great tools so long as their value regarding truth is honestly presented.

So, as usual, you impugn the character and integrity of anyone doing the analyses at any level, to include those writing software.

I believe that is called poisoning the well?

And I was referring to the FASTA file format, one that can be used as an import format in many analysis packages, not the analysis package.

But since you bring it up - please explain, exactly, what you mean by "their value regarding truth".

You seem to be implying that the folks that write the software for these packages are, I don't know, part of some big anti-God conspiracy or something.

So please outline how these packages operate - how the outcomes of their analyses can be apparently pre-biased. I am especially curious to understand how the authors could pre-bias their outcomes despite the fact that they have no idea what the inputs will be.

As with any software program it is made by modern man and intelligently designed with a purpose and intent. In this case to align like-sequences can and does create a certain illusion.

Simple as that - gearing up to pre-dismiss the results. Did you do that when you worked in biotech?

Look, I might deal with the rest of this overly-verbose well poisoning later, but are you up for the challenge or not?


Can you put your money where your mouth is?

 

[tas8831]

Re the OP, my apologies if someone already said this. I haven't read all the posts.

The coccyx? Now thereby hangs a tale.

Aye.

The OP itself is standard creationist doublespeak and 'win by definition.'

I've taken graduate-level human gross anatomy, taught remedial anatomy to medical students, taught anatomy at the undergrad level for more than 15 years, and I had to laugh when I saw the overly-superlative language used, the notion that the coccyx 'is there to support' a ganglion, blah blah. It is like saying that, when describing a painting, that the paint is there to cover the canvas.

A forest for the trees thing.

I might deal with the OP at some point, too...

 

[tas8831]

Please stop brainwashing our children with this heinous fairytale.

This from the fellow that wrote a couple of weeks ago that he actually accept evolution...

'That their own words defeat them...'

And by the way - "ganglia" is plural. Ganglion is singular.

 

[tas8831]

Doctor David Menton disagrees:

Menton has been nailed for lying to prop up his bible beliefs in the past.


He is a charlatan, as far as I am concerned.

 

[Ophiolite]

This from the fellow that wrote a couple of weeks ago that he actually accept evolution...

'That their own words defeat them...'

And by the way - "ganglia" is plural. Ganglion is singular.

Following your pertinent attack we might say "the lambast shall lie down with the ganglion". *

*Note to Biblical scholars: I am aware that the "lion lying down with the lamb" phrase does not appear in Isaiah, or anywhere else in the Bible, but see Isaiah 11: 6 and 65:25

 

[tas8831]

We do, however, have the genes for producing the pharyngeal apparatus, as do fish, as do birds, as do dogs, etc.


Which is really the point - that all vertebrate embryos possess pharyngeal apparatus at some early stage of their development is indicative of a shared ancestral genetic architecture.

After all, if all vertebrates were created de novo from nothing during the creation week, by what logic would this creator put the same embryonic structures in fish and human embryos at any point in the first place?

An un-answered question.

 

[pshun2404]

So, as usual, you impugn the character and integrity of anyone doing the analyses at any level, to include those writing software.

I believe that is called poisoning the well?

And I was referring to the FASTA file format, one that can be used as an import format in many analysis packages, not the analysis package.

But since you bring it up - please explain, exactly, what you mean by "their value regarding truth".

You seem to be implying that the folks that write the software for these packages are, I don't know, part of some big anti-God conspiracy or something.

So please outline how these packages operate - how the outcomes of their analyses can be apparently pre-biased. I am especially curious to understand how the authors could pre-bias their outcomes despite the fact that they have no idea what the inputs will be.

Simple as that - gearing up to pre-dismiss the results. Did you do that when you worked in biotech?

Look, I might deal with the rest of this overly-verbose well poisoning later, but are you up for the challenge or not?

Can you put your money where your mouth is?

But since you bring it up - please explain, exactly, what you mean by "their value regarding truth".

Carefully re-read the response in full...I already did that! When the program is designed to align like sequences the differences between the two compared are just DIFFERENCES. They do not need to be explained (only if one has become stuck on an answer before the question was asked).

When one has additional data the other does not it need not be INTERPRETED as being inserted at some later or earlier time when we actually have no evidence it happened.

Likewise, the imaginary gaps it MUST create to get a match ACTUALLY are NOT there (so they need not be explained...unless one needs to do this so it can fit into the interpreter’s presupposition).

So the tool...the instrument and data...are amazing and valuable but the conclusions drawn are sometimes skewed. That’s the truth. The presupposition dominates the data instead of the other way around. No conspiracy to do so just a lack of objectivity...

So please outline how these packages operate - how the outcomes of their analyses can be apparently pre-biased. I am especially curious to understand how the authors could pre-bias their outcomes despite the fact that they have no idea what the inputs will be.

The actual data the program reveals is NOT itself pre-biased (I thought I have made that clear more than once so I will explain it again...hopefully last time)

Because they already a belief as truth going in, this biases their interpretation of what the data MEANS (the actual results are just what they are). I cannot make that any clearer. My position is let the data simply be the data, and let IT speak for itself.

One very different creature has the 123456, and the other unique and unrelated creature has 123987431456. That is what actually IS. No story need be invented to explain this. The actual data does not show any progression over time just that the two creatures ARE IN FACT different creatures.

I cannot grasp that such an intelligent person as yourself has a mind so fixed that it cannot process the reality and separate it from the story told that interprets according to the presupposition?

I continuously slam into the same processing block with YECs. They cannot accept any alternate understanding of the same data. Like their insistence that Genesis 1 be taken in an absolutely wooden literal sense when even the very same book implicates alternate possibilities for the same wording. Go figure!

 

[pshun2404]

Aye.

The OP itself is standard creationist doublespeak and 'win by definition.'

I've taken graduate-level human gross anatomy, taught remedial anatomy to medical students, taught anatomy at the undergrad level for more than 15 years, and I had to laugh when I saw the overly-superlative language used, the notion that the coccyx 'is there to support' a ganglion, blah blah. It is like saying that, when describing a painting, that the paint is there to cover the canvas.

A forest for the trees thing.

I might deal with the OP at some point, too...

Vestigial:

Forming a very small remnant of something that was once greater or more noticeable;

Yet we do not see any such “once greater” or “more noticeable” in humans EVER as far back as we can go...

Also - degenerate, rudimentary, or atrophied, having become functionless in the course of evolution

But...with the coccyx we have ZERO evidence that in humans (or apes for that matter) they were anything other than what they are, right now.

NO evidence of degeneration from more to less anywhere!

NO evidence they were once there as tails that atrophied over time!

AND we have definite CONFIRMABLE, OBSERVABLE, TESTABLE EVIDENCE that the coccyx HAS FUNCTION!

So are you saying we should accept the unfounded baseless supposition as truth and not rest oour conclusions on the confirmable, observable, testable evidence?

Let’s see which will I place my trust in? Hmmm? Sorry the reality beats the Sci Fi...NO the coccyx was never a tail! The same area of the anatomy of these very distinct and different creatures demonstrates their unrelated difference...nothing more...and that is reality.

 

[pshun2404]

*Note to Biblical scholars: I am aware that the "lion lying down with the lamb" phrase does not appear in Isaiah, or anywhere else in the Bible, but see Isaiah 11: 6 and 65:25

As anyone should be..."God helps those who help themselves" is another popular propaganda piece, in reality He often helps those not capable of helping themselves and directs us to pick up that role and run with it.

 

[pshun2404]

An un-answered question.

Because it works!

 

[Ophiolite]

Vestigial:

Forming a very small remnant of something that was once greater or more noticeable;

Yet we do not see any such “once greater” or “more noticeable” in humans EVER as far back as we can go...

Of course we don't. That's the whole point. It was once greater, or more noticeable in our ancestors, from whom we came via common descent under the mechanisms of evolution. If it were detectable as being greater, or more noticeable we likely would be dealing with pre-humans, or much earlier ancestors.

Thank you for so concisely pointing out why vestigial organs are neat evidence for evolution.

 

[pshun2404]

Of course we don't. That's the whole point. It was once greater, or more noticeable in our ancestors, from whom we came via common descent under the mechanisms of evolution. If it were detectable as being greater, or more noticeable we likely would be dealing with pre-humans, or much earlier ancestors.

Thank you for so concisely pointing out why vestigial organs are neat evidence for evolution.

Of course we don't. That's the whole point.

Right! We do not....

It was once greater

Never in humans so not vestigial in humans...it is exactly what it always has been. And as far as the ancestor of the gaps default you would have to present confirmable observable transition

 

[Ophiolite]

Of course we don't. That's the whole point.

Right! We do not....

It was once greater

Never in humans so not vestigial in humans...it is exactly what it always has been. And as far as the ancestor of the gaps default you would have to present confirmable observable transition

Manipulative misdirection. Shame on you!

Of course it is vestigial in humans because it used to be "greater" in our ancestors. And you protest when people associate you with YECs! Tell us directly, how did humans come to be, in your opinion?

 

[pshun2404]

Manipulative misdirection. Shame on you!

Of course it is vestigial in humans because it used to be "greater" in our ancestors. And you protest when people associate you with YECs! Tell us directly, how did humans come to be, in your opinion?

Which ancestor would that be? And can you show this transformation? The other question has nothing to do with the subject at hand (try to focus on that) but if you want to start such a thread I would be glad to discuss it with you.

 

[Ophiolite]

Which ancestor would that be? And can you show this transformation? The other question has nothing to do with the subject at hand (try to focus on that) but if you want to start such a thread I would be glad to discuss it with you.

Ancestors is plural. Ancestor is singular. Try to keep up.

 

[pshun2404]

Ancestors is plural. Ancestor is singular. Try to keep up.

CA, UCA, LUCA...take your pick and show the transition FROM one TO the other...I'll wait.

 

[Ophiolite]

CA, UCA, LUCA...take your pick and show the transition FROM one TO the other...I'll wait.

Wait as long as you like. I sometimes continue playing when the goal posts are shifted. I don't play when the game moves from Wembley to Hampden.