What does having 96% chimp dna mean to you?

[Speedwell]

If something changes, it is by definition a mutation. If it is not a mutation, it has not changed. I keep thinking about the blue vs brown eyes thing as I type my posts.

But not a genetic mutation as we are discussing "mutation" in this forum. What you are calling "mutation" would be called "variation" by an evolutionary biologist.

The bottom line is I think we can establish that we all believe in the kind of evolution that some have described as "micro". Though I hate that word because it is a completely different thing from "macro" evolution.

How so? According to the theory of evolution, both "micro" evolution and "macro" evolution procdeed by the same process. The difference is just a matter of degree.

 

[Almost there]

But not a genetic mutation as we are discussing "mutation" in this forum. What you are calling "mutation" would be called "variation" by an evolutionary biologist.

I suspect most of the people here are not evolutionary biologists, so I like to keep it simple. Both words work. And at the end of the day, a "variation" is, in fact, a mutation. A mutation results in a variant (variation).

How so? According to the theory of evolution, both "micro" evolution and "macro" evolution procdeed by the same process. The difference is just a matter of degree.

Because one has been observed and the other has not. It is only an hypothesis that they are the same process.

 

[Speedwell]

I suspect most of the people here are not evolutionary biologists, so I like to keep it simple. Both words work. And at the end of the day, a "variation" is, in fact, a mutation. A mutation results in a variant (variation).

Not directly. Genetic mutations contribute to variation but are not the sole cause of it.

Because one has been observed and the other has not. It is only an hypothesis that they are the same process.

It depends on how you define the terms. In biology "macro" evolution is regarded as starting with speciation, which has been observed.

 

[xianghua]

Because one has been observed and the other has not. It is only an hypothesis that they are the same process.

or you can think about this analogy: if we had a self replicating car that can reproduce with variation over time. can such a car will evolve into something like an airplane?

 

[Almost there]

or you can think about this analogy: if we had a self replicating car that can reproduce with variation over time. can such a car will evolve into something like an airplane?

You can ask. The problem is that just because it can be imagined doesn't mean it's really possible. If the chance of something happening is one in .000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001, it is disingenuous to say it's possible. That is statistically zero. Saying someone designed it is actually more likely.

 

[Almost there]

Not directly. Genetic mutations contribute to variation but are not the sole cause of it.

It depends on how you define the terms. In biology "macro" evolution is regarded as starting with speciation, which has been observed.

That's certainly debatable. Evolution - Speciation finally observed in the wild?

 

[Astrophile]

No you do not have any evidence of it ever occuring. None. You assume it occurred. The fossil record does not show evolution from a common ancestor. In the rock layers all that is shown are things fully formed. It shows no transitional fossils.

As I have pointed out many times, every living thing has or had parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on in an unbroken lineage extending indefinitely far back in time. This is simply the law of biogenesis, 'All life comes from life'. Living things come from parents of the same kind; they don't appear by spontaneous generation from water or from dirt.

As DogmaHunter explained,

We don't find mammals mixed with trilobites for example.

Nevertheless, mammals must have had ancestors that lived at the same time as trilobites, but these ancestors were not themselves mammals. In other words, the fossil record shows that mammals must be descended from non-mammalian vertebrates, which did live at the same time as the trilobites.

And you analogy proves my point. All those babies, are still humans even if we don't know who their ancestor was. Their ancestor was a human being. Their ancestor was not some sort of monkey.

But we must have had ancestors that lived during the Miocene and Oligocene and earlier epochs, where there are no fossils of human beings. Therefore our Miocene and earlier ancestors were not humans; since anatomy and genetics show that our closest affinities are with the Primates, these ancestors were almost certainly Primates. As G.G. Simpson said, if we could meet our Miocene and earlier ancestors, we should certainly call them apes or monkeys.

 

[Skreeper]

or you can think about this analogy: if we had a self replicating car that can reproduce with variation over time. can such a car will evolve into something like an airplane?

Or you can simply stop repeating the same faulty analogy over and over.
You know what they say: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

 

[bhsmte]

Or you can simply stop repeating the same faulty analogy over and over.
You know what they say: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

It is all he has. Kind of like a security blanket.

 

[pitabread]

That is a figure of speech. The spotted moths are still the same thing. Not one single moth evolved. And after many generations, not one single moth evolved. The traits are still there.

The point of the peppered moth research is that it's a demonstration of natural selection. Namely whereby changing environmental pressures favor specific phenotypes of said moths, resulting in changing frequency of those phenotypes in the population.

That's it.

Sure, an attribute can go away completely over time, but that is different from something brand new coming into existence that was not there before, and becoming a dominant trait in the species.

If you want research into how new traits appear in populations, there is loads of literature on that. Those tend to get into how specific mutations arise. In many cases, specific mutations or combinations of mutations are identified.

But this doesn't change the peppered moth research, which demonstrates what it set out to demonstrate. Namely, natural selection in action.

 

[doubtingmerle]

This "young earth" thing is where I depart from many of my Christian brethren. I confess that I believe that they could be right, since God really could do "it", to make it look old, but I've not seen a reason for Him to. Fact is, the bible is silent on a LOT of things. It gives enough information to prove His authority and power, but hanging on every "interpreted into english" word in text written thousands of years ago by a man who did not witness events is not really the right way to go about it.

I believe that just as Revelation uses a lot of euphemisms and symbolisms, so does Genesis regarding the period before recorded history.

However, all of that being said, I would not be surprised if the YEC's are correct, if only because God has all sorts of reasons for doing things that none of us are privy to.

Next question: Are some animal fossils hundreds of millions of years old?

 

[pitabread]

Please pay attention. For example we believe that stars are formed certain ways. How old is our sun? You believe it is ariund a certain age. But God told us he formed the sum and made it to light the Earth. That means it was created a certain age. If you looked at the sum at the time of creation you would assume it is millions of years old. But it wasn't. It was only a couple of days old when life was placed on this planet. Adam was created with age. If you saw him right after his creation you would assume he was a certain age. But he wasn't. He was just a few minutes old. That's my point. God said he did it that way. It's not a deception.

I still don't think you realize the implications of what you are suggesting. Perhaps the following analogy would help.

Imagine you are buying this car:

It's got dents, paint chips, rust, wear on the tires, drivetrain, etc. The interior smells of old cigarettes and there are stains on the seats. And it's got about 300,000 miles on the odometer.

The owner tells your it is brand new, fresh out of the factory as of yesterday. They even hand you a piece of paper they claim certifies that it is a brand new vehicle.

Do you believe them?

 

[doubtingmerle]

Why would you believe non-supportable and non-demonstrably claims about anything, especially if these claims fly in the face of observable reality?

Because of the social consequences of not believing, perhaps?

 

[Ronald]

T

I know some people like to point out how close our species is to chimps and use this as evidence that God doesn't exist but would you really come to this conclusion on your own? If God created The universe, chimps and humans. Why couldn't he have used similar methods when creating chimps as us.

I was watching a video about 15 body parts that we were supposed to lose over the next 500 years due to evolution and it had me starting to have some atheist sayings run through my mind and made me just ponder a bit. I eventually came to the conclusion that if God created humans and chimps then we should expect similarity between two created things God made right?

So what do things like the closeness of our dna to chimps, and the fact that we have certain body parts that we don't even need mean to you in regards to your belief in God or lack of belief?

That 4 % physical difference makes quite a difference! It's like the difference between a tricycle and the Space shuttle. The abilities we our endowed with which I do not believe is part of our dna and animals do not have like talent, creativity and the spirit. There is just a huge gulf between animals and man that any evolutionary relationship is just plain absurd. We are so uniquely and wonderfully made. Animals hunt for and or are provided with food, mate, care for their young are equipped and designed to live in their ecosystem. They may burrow in the ground, or build simple homes. They can do all sorts of things in order to live. But when you listen to Mozart, try to follow Einstein's theories, you revel at their acievements. We enjoy modern conveniences and technology and talk of the progress of history while dining at a gourmet restaurant. What history does a chimp have or any other animal? There lives don't change really, They have done the same instinctive things for thousands of years. They are able to adapt to changes in environment, but that's it, their history looks the same because that's all they were designed to do. Animals have limitations. Their abilities are fixed. We can do all things in Christ who strengthens us. We can commune with our Creator and we can live forever.
That 4% difference in DNA by itself is obviously very unique and special ... aside from all the rest.

 

[DogmaHunter]

But the fact is that the "theory" (really, it's an hypothesis)

It's the only game in town, it accounts for the data and it is widely acceptd by consensus.
It is, in fact, one of the most solid established ideas in all of science.

No, it's not just a hypothesis. It's a widely accepted, well established, scientific theory.

of evolution depends on a single mutation in a single, individual, that is then carried forward to future generations.

It is also dependend on natural selection.

Without that, nothing has evolved.

When natural selection removes most individuals with gene X and thereby favoring by default those with alternative gene Y, that's evolution too.

Well, except a population.

That makes no sense as a follow up on the previous sentence.
It's always about populations.
A mutation only matters on evolutionary scale if it achieves fixation (= becomes permanent part of the gene pool), which means it has to spread throughout the population.

Every single new born individual comes with a set of mutations.

You know, like the population of the US is different than it was five hundred years ago. But nobody evolved. i.e. mutated.

Every individual human as an average set of 50 mutations.
What you say makes no sense.

 

[DogmaHunter]

No you do not have any evidence of it ever occuring. None. You assume it occurred.

Just as much as the result of DNA test is an assumption.

The fossil record does not show evolution from a common ancestor

It is consisted with the idea of gradual change throughout geological time.
You don't find mammals with trilobites.

It's consisted through comparative anatomy, geographic distribution, geological layer they are found in, etc.

Idd, the fossil record very much fits the evolutionary framework.

In the rock layers all that is shown are things fully formed.

What else did you expect?
Half an elephant?
A crockoduck?

It shows no transitional fossils. Nested heirarchy and DNA only show commonalities they do not show evolution. It shows common design.

You can keep on repeating these statements like a mantra, but it will not change the fact that they are wrong statements, as I explained.

In the lab all you can show are things adapting and changing but remaining what they have always been.

Which is evolution.

Evolution from a common ancestor states that all life came from one thing.

From one population, actually. Not necessarily from an individual.
That starting point is dificult to determine. There's the idea of a "universal common ancestor", which I think is the mainstream. There's also the idea of several abiogenesis events with multiple, albeit mostly similar, ancestral generation 0 populations.

Yet all observable verifiable data shows in that all things remain in the same family or group they belong to.

Evolution does not say otherwise.
That's what the "nested hierarchy" is, actually....
Start at the root and pick a branch, any branch. Move down all the way through till you end up at an extant point of "homo sapiens". You'll encounter several "nodes", where the branch splits in two or more branches. Each sub-branch is a "specialisation" of the ancestral branch.

So you start at Eukaryote and move down. Here are a few of those nodes you'll encounter:
- Vertebrate (still an eukaryote)
- tetrapod (still a vertebrate, eukaryote)
- mammal (still a tetrapod, vertebrate, eukaryote)
- primate (still a mammal, tetrapod, vertebrate, eukaryote)
- homo sapiens (still a primate, mammal, tetrapod, vertebrate, eukaryote)

See?

Viruses remain viruses and bacteria remain bacteria. They don't change into something they were not in the beginning.

Indeed. Evolution does not say otherwise.

And you analogy proves my point.

It does not. It demonstrates that one does not need to be able to identify the common ancestor in order to be able to determine common ancestry.

All those babies, are still humans even if we don't know who their ancestor was. Their ancestor was a human being.

:facepalm:

Their ancestor was not some sort of monkey.

Their ancestor was a homo sapiens. Which is a primate, mammal, tetrapod, vertebrate, eukaryote,...

Nested heirarchy and phylogenetic trees are nothing but assumptions based upon the belief in evolution.

No. Life happens to be structured that way. I don't know what you hope to accomplish by denying the facts of reality.

When mapping out DNA matches in comparative genetics, you end up with a nested hierarchical tree. You get the same tree when you map it from comparative anatomy (independend line of evidence). Or individual genes or other genetic markers.

It's just the way it is.

uncommondescent.com/darwinism/taxonomic-nested-hierarchies-dont-support-darwinism

Try a scientific source.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Because one has been observed and the other has not. It is only an hypothesis that they are the same process.

It's not a hypothesis that 1+1+1+1+1+...+1+1+1 = huge number.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

The fossil record does not show evolution from a common ancestor. In the rock layers all that is shown are things fully formed. It shows no transitional fossils.

And why do you feel that your claim is correct vs the claims made by literally thousands of paleontologists and geologists worldwide who have actually spent years studying the fossils and the fossil record and the rocks the fossils are found in?

 

[Jimmy D]

The fossil record does not show evolution from a common ancestor. In the rock layers all that is shown are things fully formed. It shows no transitional fossils.

Nested heirarchy and phylogenetic trees are nothing but assumptions based upon the belief in evolution. Yet no evidence of it ever occuring has never been shown.

If this is the level of challenge against established science and think us "evos" can rest easy.

 

[sfs]

What else did you expect? "non-specific" mutations?

You mean generic mutations -- almost as good as specific mutations, and a whole lot cheaper.