Why Human Chromosome 2 isn't evidence for Evolution

Nazaroo · Sep 15, 2012

Earlier, in an unrelated thread, Deadalus tried to pass off the alleged fusion of two ancestral chromosomes (pairs, e.g., analogous to a C-2 + C-23 in some proto-ape) into the Human C-2 (leaving 23 pairs instead of 24: Apes have 24 pairs or 48 chromosomes).

Of course, Evolutionists have been dancing (or pretending to dance) over this 'discovery' for over a decade (first discussed in 1991).

The sketch offered by Doofus however, really sidesteps the important questions regarding the phenomenon.

I am posting here a great introduction to the topic by a semi-neutral Christian who was curious about this claim, and did his own investigation.
Because it is written in almost non-technical terms, it will be a helpful introduction for interested readers here.
I also highly recommend you review the posts from other readers on this person's blog in response to the article:

Quote:

Human chromosome 2 - a creationist response

I recently came across a page giving evidence for fusion in human chromosome 2 -- it was the first time I had heard about this. The conclusion of the article is:
The evidence that human chromosome 2 is a fusion of two of the common ancestor's chromosomes is overwhelming.
I searched the web in vain for any creationist response to this--I only found some creationist skepticism about whether there really were telomene structures in the middle of the human chromosome (which seems unjustified), and large numbers of evolutionists doing victory dances. So I was forced to actually think about it myself (oww, painful!), taking it on trust for now that the facts presented on the site linked above are basically correct. The process was quite helpful to me, and perhaps might be useful to other people, so here goes. I'm mainly looking at this from an explicitly creationist perspective, but some of this may apply to some intelligent design positions.

The problem with the conclusion, and with much of the discussion, is that it mingles the evidence with the explanation--so the conclusion, as stated, assumes that there was a common ancestor between apes and humans, which makes it difficult to use it as evidence for a common ancestor. To untangle this, let's rewrite the conclusion so that it no longer makes this assumption:
The evidence that human chromosome 2 is the fusion of two chromosomes is overwhelming. The two chromosomes it appears to derive from are directly analgous to chromosomes that are found in apes.
However, once you make this change, an explanation that agrees with creationist accounts of human ancestry just falls out. It would go something like this:
Humans were created in a separate creative event from the other primates, but with 24 chromosome pairs just like them. At some point early in human history, fusion of the chromosomes occurred to give us the 23 pairs we have now. All living humans are descended from those in which the fusion occurred.
The point is simply this: the evidence points to the fusion of human chromosomes, but gives no indication when this happened, except that it must have occurred to a creature that was the ancestor of all living humans. Since none of the apes share this fused chromosome, there is no reason at all to date this fusion any further back than warranted, so it becomes unnecessary to even posit the existence of a common ancestor between apes and humans based on this evidence alone.
What is interesting is this: at first glance, looking from an evolutionary perspective, this seems to have dealt a death blow to creationist accounts of human origins. (The main problem for the creationist is why God would have chosen to create humans with chromosomes that have useless bits in them i.e. the telomene sequences in the middle, and in a way that mimics fusion of 2 chromosomes).
But actually, the evolutionary interpretation has overstepped the mark -- it doesn't demonstrate common ancestry, it assumes it. All the way through it talks about the chromosomes of a common ancester etc. But by putting the evidence into the evolutionary framework ahead of time it has confused what the evidence actually points to. The evidence does indicate (assuming that the God-created-it-to-look-like-fusion explanation is invalid) that human chromosomes were once more similar to those of apes than they are currently, but that is all.
The article also states:
Not only is this strong evidence for a fusion event, but it is also strong evidence for common ancestry; in fact, it is hard to explain by any other mechanism.
The main basis for saying this appears to be the statement: "At the place where we would expect it on the human chromosome we find the remnants of the chimp 2q centromere". But of course, as the author explains later, we don't actually find the chimp 2q centromere -- there is no label on it saying "I'm a chimp 2q centromere". What we find is the remnants of centromere that is in the same place, relative to certain sequences, as the 2q centromere is in chimps. All this shows is that the ancestor chromosomes (i.e. before the fusion event) of current human chromosomes were closely analagous to chromosomes of apes, including chimps.

So the author claims we can rule out other accounts of human origins, but is unjustified in doing so. The reason for this logical mistake is that he/she has intertwined the evidence and the evolutionary explanation so tightly, and seen that they fit so well, that the author cannot imagine another explanation would fit.

In reality, the evidence fits a creationist explanation equally well--there is nothing contrived or tricky about what I have presented, and if evolutionary theory did not exist, there is nothing in this evidence that would make creationists think of common descent. The idea that humans originally had a complete set of chromosomes that correspond to ape chromosomes, rather than only 23 out of 24, does not shake creationist ideas one little bit. We already knew there was a vast amount of similarity between humans and primates both in terms of physical characteristics and genetic material and structure.

It is a mistake of the evolutionary mindest to assume that observing similarities necessarily brings you to the conclusion of common descent. Taxonomy based on physical characteristics was already a very well established science when the idea of common descent came on the scene, and people from both the intelligent design and the creationists camps have no problem in understanding physical and genetic similarities that are not rooted in common descent -- that is, it is easy to think of perfectly adequate reasons why a designer (either an unknown intelligence in the case of ID, or God in the case of creationism) might have reused designs.

A lesson for both sides to take away is the importance of detaching yourself from your current position in order to see where the evidence actually points. It is easy to imagine that because evidence fits with your position, and fits very well, it therefore not only confirms your position but disconfirms the rival theories.
____________________________________

[Note, I realise that I'm likely to get flamed for this entry, as I have been in the past for the smallest references to things of this nature. Since this is my blog, and I'm interested in intelligent debate, and don't want my readers to have to trall through screens of rubbish, I will not hesitate to delete comments that are just stupid and contribute nothing. I promise not to censor you if you have something intelligent to say, and I am genuinely interested in any flaws in my logic or gaps in my knowledge of the evidence.]

Now to save time for the trolls, I'm not going to defend either the thinking, the sentiments, or the wording of our example skeptic in the previous post.

Frankly since he's not a physicist, I'm not likely to be taking any lessons.

But I will do us the favour of quoting our Evolutionist mouthpiece,
for the purpose of examining his weak nonsense:

EVIDENCE:

At each end of a chromosome we have a Telomere the purpose of the telomere in a chromosome is to prevent deterioration of the important bits of the chromosome from the end.

Chimpanzees and Humans have extremely similar DNA to humans, but Chimpanzees have more chromosomes than Humans do, and if Humans and Chimpanzees are genetically related (sharing a common ancestor), this extra chromosome had to go somewhere. Evolutionary Biologists might predict that two chromosomes fused into one. As it turns out Chromosome number 2 in Humans was once two different chromosomes that were fused together, and the evidence is that that a extra large Telomere appear in the middle of the chromosome as well as an extra Centromere, as depicted in the illustration above.

Dr. Kenneth Miller has stated that he believes in God but not a deceptive one, which is why he accepts Evolution and is a prominent biologist.

This looks like quite a neat, tidy little package.
Who cares if he stole the picture from Wikipedia.

The real point is that the diagram is actually deliberately misleading.
In the original set of drawings used in the (1992?) legal trial over IC/ID,
the actual biologist who used this example had an extra step!

Later, the biologist used a simplified diagram, but still showing the same important detail MISSING from the Wikipedia version:

The ALL IMPORTANT SECOND Centromere was originally labeled "inactivated",
which is itself a bit of a fraud.

In fact the hidden "Centromere", as correctly noted in the article last post,
is not an intact or identically sequenced centromere as found in other primates,
but a unique, possibly corroded, deteriorated or otherwise damaged REMNANT of a centromere.

This (quite long) sequence of nucleotides is actually a unique signature belonging to the human Chromosome 2, and does not resemble,
except in the most general terms, the supposed "source centromere"
found in apes.

The original biologist was at least honest enough to indicate the discrepancy in his own diagrams,
and label it (albeit inaccurately to avoid drawing attention),
while the Wikipedia FAKE diagram is a far more serious 'simplification',
implying that there is an actual match.

Had there been a simple "fusion" of two chromosomes,
it should be obvious to even the most inept observer,
that (especially since these segments of DNA are DORMANT),
they should be identical, since they are not anywhere near the site
of the fusion.

"Random" mutation of this segment of the chromosome would of course require eons of time (millions of unavailable years), and place the C-2
segment millions of years away from our supposed "proto-ape" ancestor.

The huge problem with this of course, is that it requires a 'Catastrophe Theory',
to explain why it would be present in EVERY HUMAN BEING,
which in essence means something killed off all other members of our species, while only a SINGLE PAIR of parents survived...

I'll leave that event up to your imagination.

Nazaroo · Sep 15, 2012

Putting the "Disappearing Centromere" aside (for later fraud charges),
Lets now consider the absurdity of this being "evidence for Natural Selection".

Even if we were to accept the ridiculous time-scales for "early hominids"
proposed by these idiots,
this radical fusion of two whole chromosomes into one chromosome is an obvious
'one-time' event, having apparently little or nothing to do with evolution
in the 'survival' sense.

The immediate result of this horrific and possibly fatal "accident",
might be to render the lone 'survivor' incapable of sexual reproduction
with any other member of its species.

Unless early man was a hermaphrodite, this poor sod is dead in the water.
He may be able to hunt and fish, but he is unlikely to build himself a genetic lab,
in order to clone a female version of himself for reproduction purposes.

What then happened?
Obviously this was not a step in the "evolution" of modern man,
but a far more recent birth defect.

From my other thread:

Originally Posted by Alate_One
As Stuu said, fusing chromosomes doesn't need to be evidence for natural selection. It could easily be the result of drift.

(1) Thank you for confirming my first point. Its not evidence for Natural Selection, and its also not evidence of any kind for any part of the Theory of Evolution.

Quote:

Except none of this is true...
There are plenty of human beings running around right now with *other* fused chromosomes.
These people can have children just fine,...
.

(2) Thank you for biting the hook and confirming my 2nd Sleeper point. Man does not have exactly 23 pairs of chromosomes, and Evolutionists have no idea how the complex system of the molecular biology of the cell operates.

Nazaroo · Sep 15, 2012

Originally Posted by The Barbarian http://www.theologyonline.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3213518#post3213518
Well, one man doesn't.

The point is that the difference in the number of chromosomes
between humans and other apes led to the prediction that
humans had a chromosome fusion at some point in our evolution.

...for all the wrong reasons.

And here are two reasons that demonstrate the impulse of Evolutionists is unscientific and wrongheaded.

(1) At least two famous biologists have claimed that the discovery of a possible fusion of two chromosomes to create the number of 23 human pairs, was a proof of Evolutionary Theory, because failing to find this case of fusion would have actually falsified Common Descent!

That is, the claim of the significance of Chromosome 2 is so radical, that in 'lucky' hindsight, the Evolutionists have now claimed that had it not been discovered, Evolution from proto-apes would have been false!

The irony is as stunning as the level of nonsense surrounding this issue:
If the lack of evidence for fusion of Chromosome 2 was so damning to Evolutionary Theory, then Evolutionists should have been acknowledging that Common Descent of humans and chimps from a proto-ape was utterly implausible right up until 1991.

(2) History shows however, that Evolutionists have never stopped making exaggerated and outrageous claims of "fact" regarding the Evolutionary Hypothesis, ever since it was conceived. There has never been a period in the history of the Theory of Evolution where it was regarded as implausible or in serious doubt as a result of the state of contemporary knowledge or ignorance.

The high and mighty claims regarding Evolution have been a total CONSTANT, regardless of the lack of or state of evidence at any point in its 100 year history! That is, for all practical purposes, Evolutionary Theory is UNFALSIFIABLE in practice, and is sustained whatever direction scientific knowledge progresses in!

Quote:

This was later confirmed.
This and many other confirmed predictions
of the theory are why scientists accept it as true.

The problem is, the Darwinian Theory of Natural Selection made no such prediction. The history of the idea of a Chromosome Fusion could only begin AFTER molecular biology had advanced to a state of knowledge concerning DNA.

The entire claim of 'Prediction' and 'Confirmation' has been entirely fabricated anachronistically in order to advance the cause of "Evolution".

The Theory of Evolution has never really made ANY historical predictions, that were actually unknown and subsequently confirmed by scientific investigation.

Nazaroo · Sep 15, 2012

Quote:

(1) At least two famous biologists have claimed that the discovery of a possible fusion of two chromosomes to create the number of 23 human pairs, was a proof of Evolutionary Theory, because failing to find this case of fusion would have actually falsified Common Descent!

Example 1 (modern claim about Chromosome 2):

Quote:
4:55 -

"...The implications are clear:
if according to various other lines of evidence human beings do in fact share a common ancestor with nonhuman primates, evolutionary theory simply must account for the missing pair of chromosomes.

There can be little doubt that if it were the case that such a large amount of
genetic material were deleted in such a short span of time, it would most certainly prove lethal, in effect preventing the afflicted gamete from developing into a healthy individual. Because of this evolutionary biologists where in essence forced to make a bold prediction:

That prediction stated that at some point following the divergence of human and nonhuman primate lineages, two chromosomes must have fused, and of course we should expect to find clear evidence of a chromosomal merging somewhere in the human careotype.
Soon after the prediction was made the prediction was confirmed.
Striking evidence of a chromosomal fusion is observed in human chromosome 2"

Evidence of Common Ancestry: Human Chromosome 2 - YouTube

Example 2: (Original Claim at trial about Chromosome 2):

Quote:
"...and therefore you could say when modern genetics came into being
everything in Darwin's theory was at risk, could have been overturned,
if it turned out the genetics contradicted the essential elements of evolutionary theory: - but it didn't contradict them. It confirmed them in great detail."

And as Miller would testify, a genetics paper published less than a year before the trial had confirmed what has long been the most inflammatory part of Darwin's theory:
the common ancestry of humans and apes.
That paper exported curious discrepancy in our chromosomes. The cells
of all great apes like chimpanzees gorillas and orangutans, contain twenty four pairs of chromosomes. If humans share a common ancestor with apes, you'd expect us to have the same number. But surprisingly human cells contain only twenty three pairs.

"The question is, if evolution is right about this common ancestry idea, where did the chromosome go? Well: Evolution makes a testable prediction:
And that is that somewhere in the human genome, we ought to be able to find a piece of the "scotch tape" holding two chromosomes together
so that of twenty four pairs, two of them were pasted together to form just twenty three. And if we can't find that, then the hypothesis of common ancestry is wrong and evolution is mistaken ."

Modern Genetics Confirms Evolution - YouTube
Its quite clear that Evolutionist Biologists are not merely claiming that the discovery of evidence for a fused pair of chromosomes was consistent or corroborative of Evolutionary Theory, but that it was critical to it,
and that a lack of such evidence would be FATAL to Evolutionary Theory, the portion that asserts the common descent of man and apes from a shared ancestor (proto-ape).

But if this were the case, then prior to this evidence, namely for at least 25 years between the 1970s and the 1990s, when genetics and the problem of the chromosome count was well known and understood, evolutionary biologists should have been coming forward as scientists, and saying plainly and loudly that the Descent of Man from Apes was actually unlikely and fraught with difficulties, unless a possible mechanism to explain the discrepancy in the chromosome count was found.

Of course there is no such history of intellectual honesty
and scientific integrity in Evolutionary biology.

Now all of a sudden, evolutionary biologists are heralding the "discovery" of a possible chromosome fusion as PROOF of human descent from apes. But since they haven't been acting as impartial scientists from the beginning, or ever, why should they be treated as such now, and believed?

In fact, we plainly have another problem. In order to demonstrate that two chromosomes have indeed been fused, they must also show what the mechanism was, and how this genetic mutation came to completely invade every single human being.

Finally, since by their own calculations, humans split off from this "ape ancestor" some 14 - 7 million years ago, but this genetic feature has the appearance of having taken place only 5 million years ago, this has nothing at all to do with "evolution" from a proto-ape at all, but is simply an incidental genetic 'tag' of pure humans, happening millions of years AFTER the supposed evolution of man from a proto-ape.

Its as "important" as a hairless behind, or male pattern baldness. It may uniquely identify "humans", but it has nothing to do with speciation, since if this mutation had caused any kind of speciation at all, it would not have survived as a genetic trait. The first human with this mutation HAD TO be able to multiply with other humans.

Its not an "evolutionary" trait at all, but a mere inherited birth defect.

Nonetheless, its total dominance in humans millions of years AFTER "evolution",
must be accounted for by a catastrophic event!

This particular genetic example provides better evidence for a universal flood
than it does for descent from Apes.

Loudmouth · Sep 15, 2012

Name one creationist who used the Bible to predict the presence of homologous sequences in human chromosome 2 that matched telomeres and centromeres in ape chromosomes. Just one.

There were evolutionists who predicted these homologous sequences. You know why? Because the theory of evolution works. Do you know why no creationists predicted these homologies? Because creationism does not work. It never has.

Jamin4422 · Sep 15, 2012

Nazaroo said:
Earlier, in an unrelated thread, Deadalus tried to pass off the alleged fusion of two ancestral chromosomes (pairs, e.g., analogous to a C-2 + C-23 in some proto-ape) into the Human C-2 (leaving 23 pairs instead of 24: Apes have 24 pairs or 48 chromosomes).

Its been suggested that the ancient Denisovans spilt from the ancestors of the modern human between 170,000 and 700,000 years ago. There is a claim that Denisovans have 23 pairs of Chromosomes.

The molar from a Denisovan, an archaic humans closely related to Neandertals and modern humans. Fossil evidence of the Denisovans is scanty; the existence of this group only came to light in 2010 when DNA from a piece of a finger bone and two molars were excavated in Siberia. (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology)

Read more: Genome of mysterious extinct human completed, scientists say | Fox News

Jamin4422 · Sep 15, 2012

Loudmouth said:
Because creationism does not work.

OEC works just fine, GAP works just fine. There is nothing wrong with YEC when you consider that YEC ONLY covers the last 6,000 years of Human History. The problem is whey YEC tries to explain anything that happened before Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. In fact Evolution is one of the best evidence we have for YEC becasue Adam and Eve were a common ancestor for the Hebrew People and Evolution has done a lot of research on Common Ancestors. Also Eden was a Biodiversity Ecosystem and Evolution is all about Ecosystems. So the theory of evolution can go a LONG way toward helping us to understand our Bible.

46AND2 · Sep 15, 2012

Nazaroo said:
Quote:

Nonetheless, its total dominance in humans millions of years AFTER "evolution",
must be accounted for by a catastrophic event!

LOL. Really? How do you figure?

46AND2 · Sep 15, 2012

Nazaroo said:
In fact the hidden "Centromere", as correctly noted in the article last post,
is not an intact or identically sequenced centromere as found in other primates,
but a unique, possibly corroded, deteriorated or otherwise damaged REMNANT of a centromere.

This (quite long) sequence of nucleotides is actually a unique signature belonging to the human Chromosome 2, and does not resemble,
except in the most general terms, the supposed "source centromere"
found in apes.

Source?

46AND2 · Sep 15, 2012

Nazaroo said:
This looks like quite a neat, tidy little package.
Who cares if he stole the picture from Wikipedia.

The real point is that the diagram is actually deliberately misleading.
In the original set of drawings used in the (1992?) legal trial over IC/ID,
the actual biologist who used this example had an extra step!

image 1

Later, the biologist used a simplified diagram, but still showing the same important detail MISSING from the Wikipedia version:

image 2

The ALL IMPORTANT SECOND Centromere was originally labeled "inactivated",
which is itself a bit of a fraud.

...

The original biologist was at least honest enough to indicate the discrepancy in his own diagrams,
and label it (albeit inaccurately to avoid drawing attention),
while the Wikipedia FAKE diagram is a far more serious 'simplification',
implying that there is an actual match.

Sorry, those illustrations were used BY MILLER in the most recent trial. Found at this youtube video here:

zi8FfMBYCkk

@2:37 (sorry, can't post links, yet)

The information contained in your illustrations wasn't even known in 1992.

You might have known that if your source hadn't cut off the bottom of your second picture above, which included a cited source for the information next to the picture that lead to a 2005 paper by Hillier, et al.

So apparently, that "original biologist" you are talking about was Miller, himself.

juvenissun · Sep 15, 2012

Nazaroo said:
Earlier, in an unrelated thread, Deadalus tried to pass off the alleged fusion of two ancestral chromosomes (pairs, e.g., analogous to a C-2 + C-23 in some proto-ape) into the Human C-2 (leaving 23 pairs instead of 24: Apes have 24 pairs or 48 chromosomes).

What does this fusion do to human?

Split Rock · Sep 15, 2012

Nazaroo said:
"Random" mutation of this segment of the chromosome would of course require eons of time (millions of unavailable years), and place the C-2
segment millions of years away from our supposed "proto-ape" ancestor.

Reference for this assertion that it would have taken millions of years to accumulate the sufficient number of mutations in an inactive centromere? Or perhaps you can do the math for us??

Nazaroo said:
The problem is, the Darwinian Theory of Natural Selection made no such prediction. The history of the idea of a Chromosome Fusion could only begin AFTER molecular biology had advanced to a state of knowledge concerning DNA.

I find it amusing that you creationists are so fixated on Charles Darwin all the time. Evolutionary biology has progressed WAY beyond Darwin. There are even predictions concerning evolution that were made AFTER Darwin passed away! Yes... its true!

Nazaroo said:
The Theory of Evolution has never really made ANY historical predictions, that were actually unknown and subsequently confirmed by scientific investigation.

There are a number of examplse you are ignoring, such as Tiktaalik roseae or any number of whale intermediates with rear legs recently discovered, such as Dorudon. In fact, evolution is tested whenever an experiment on evolution is completed. Every time a species genome is sequenced is a test of evolution.

NailsII · Sep 16, 2012

Wow, what a lot of hot air and empty phrases taking up so much space!

The fused chromosome is evidence for evolution by definition.
It is the observation of a past genetic change which has been passed down by the descendents, and can be directly compared with another species which diverged before the chromosome fussion..

This really is a change in genetic information which has resulted in a genetic change in the gene pool of an extant species - and is a key speciation event.

If you want to play word games and pretend it is evidence for a creation event, then you are only misleading yourselves.
All this could possibly show from such a perspective is that your designer or creator (be that Jesus, Yahweh, Allah, Mbombo, Atum, El or Lord Brahma - it matters little) prone to some serious errors or wishes to make his design look like it was a natural act, following natural laws as if evolution were true.

Personally, I'd have thought that it makes a nonsense out of creation - but hey, what would I know!

RickG · Sep 16, 2012

Loudmouth said:
There were evolutionists who predicted these homologous sequences. You know why? Because the theory of evolution works. Do you know why no creationists predicted these homologies? Because creationism does not work. It never has.

I thought it was because no creationist ever did any original research. They just regurgitate other peoples research using what fits their agenda and ignore all the rest that doesn't. Thus cherry picked data interwoven with quote mines.

juvenissun · Sep 16, 2012

How does this chromosome fusion make human different? Is it responsible for all the differences between human and chimp?

KimberlyAA · Sep 16, 2012

The chimpanzee and human genome projects demonstrated that the fusion did not result in loss of protein coding genes. Instead, the human locus contains approximately 150 thousand additional base pairs not found in chimpanzee chromosome 12 and 13 (now also known as 2A and 2B). This is remarkable because why would a fusion result in more DNA? We would rather have expected the opposite: the fusion would have left the fused product with less DNA, since loss of DNA sequences is easily explained. The fact that humans have a unique 150 kb intervening sequence indicates it may have been deliberately planned (or: designed) into the human genome.

Geneticist Jeffrey Tomkins and Biologist Jerry Bergman re-analysed the genomic data concerning the chromosome 2 fusion model of evolution. These are their findings :

The reputed fusion site is located in a peri-centric region with suppressed recombination and should exhibit a reasonable degree of tandem telomere motif conservation. Instead, the region is highly degeneratea notable feature reported by a previous investigation.
In a 30 kb region surrounding the fusion site, there exists a paucity of intact telomere motifs (forward and reverse) and very few of them are in tandem or in frame.
Telomere motifs, both forward and reverse (TTAGGG and CCTAAA), populate both sides of the purported fusion site. Forward motifs should only be found on the left side of the fusion site and reverse motifs on the right side.
The 798-base core fusion-site sequence is not unique to the purported fusion site, but found throughout the genome with 80% or greater identity internally on nearly every chromosome; indicating that it is some type of ubiquitous higher-order repeat.
No evidence of synteny with chimp for the purported fusion site was found. The 798-base core fusion-site sequence does not align to its predicted orthologous telomeric regions in the chimp genome on chromosomes 2A and 2B.
Queries against the chimp genome with the human alphoid sequences found at the purported cryptic centromere site on human 2qfus produced no homologous hits using two different algorithms (BLAT and BLASTN).
Alphoid sequences at the putative cryptic centromere site are diverse, form three separate sub-groups in alignment analyses, and do not cluster with known functional human centromeric alphoid elements.

Jamin4422 · Sep 16, 2012

KimberlyAA said:
Instead, the human locus contains approximately 150 thousand additional base pairs not found in chimpanzee chromosome 12 and 13 (now also known as 2A and 2B). This is remarkable because why would a fusion result in more DNA?

The additional 150 thousand base pairs were found AT the sight of the fusion. Where did they come from? It's going to be difficult to explain that away with random mutation. The evidence is just not conclusive. Unless they can come up with an explaination as to where all those extra chromosomes came from.

"At the site of fusion, there are approximately 150,000 base pairs of sequence not found in chimpanzee chromosomes 2A and 2B." wiki

juvenissun · Sep 16, 2012

KimberlyAA said:
The chimpanzee and human genome projects demonstrated that the fusion did not result in loss of protein coding genes. Instead, the human locus contains approximately 150 thousand additional base pairs not found in chimpanzee chromosome 12 and 13 (now also known as 2A and 2B). This is remarkable because why would a fusion result in more DNA? We would rather have expected the opposite: the fusion would have left the fused product with less DNA, since loss of DNA sequences is easily explained. The fact that humans have a unique 150 kb intervening sequence indicates it may have been deliberately planned (or: designed) into the human genome.

Geneticist Jeffrey Tomkins and Biologist Jerry Bergman re-analysed the genomic data concerning the chromosome 2 fusion model of evolution. These are their findings :

The reputed fusion site is located in a peri-centric region with suppressed recombination and should exhibit a reasonable degree of tandem telomere motif conservation. Instead, the region is highly degeneratea notable feature reported by a previous investigation.

In a 30 kb region surrounding the fusion site, there exists a paucity of intact telomere motifs (forward and reverse) and very few of them are in tandem or in frame.

Telomere motifs, both forward and reverse (TTAGGG and CCTAAA), populate both sides of the purported fusion site. Forward motifs should only be found on the left side of the fusion site and reverse motifs on the right side.

The 798-base core fusion-site sequence is not unique to the purported fusion site, but found throughout the genome with 80% or greater identity internally on nearly every chromosome; indicating that it is some type of ubiquitous higher-order repeat.

No evidence of synteny with chimp for the purported fusion site was found. The 798-base core fusion-site sequence does not align to its predicted orthologous telomeric regions in the chimp genome on chromosomes 2A and 2B.

Queries against the chimp genome with the human alphoid sequences found at the purported cryptic centromere site on human 2qfus produced no homologous hits using two different algorithms (BLAT and BLASTN).

Alphoid sequences at the putative cryptic centromere site are diverse, form three separate sub-groups in alignment analyses, and do not cluster with known functional human centromeric alphoid elements.

It is all over my head. But it certainly sounds good and it absolutely answered my question.

Thanks.

Gracchus · Sep 16, 2012

juvenissun said:
It is all over my head. But it certainly sounds good and it absolutely answered my question.

You didn't understand it, but it sounded good, so it answered your question!

There are no words ...

Naraoia · Sep 17, 2012

Nazaroo said:
Frankly since he's not a physicist, I'm not likely to be taking any lessons.

What does being a physicist have to do with molecular genetics?

This looks like quite a neat, tidy little package.
Who cares if he stole the picture from Wikipedia.

Pictures on Wikipedia are there to be used. You know what a Creative Commons licence is?

Nice try at using snide irrelevant attacks to discredit an argument, though.

The real point is that the diagram is actually deliberately misleading.
In the original set of drawings used in the (1992?) legal trial over IC/ID,
the actual biologist who used this example had an extra step!

2005. It's pretty famous.

Later, the biologist used a simplified diagram, but still showing the same important detail MISSING from the Wikipedia version:

Look closely at Miller's slide, and you can see a faint reddish band where the vestigial centromere would be.

The ALL IMPORTANT SECOND Centromere was originally labeled "inactivated",
which is itself a bit of a fraud.

In fact the hidden "Centromere", as correctly noted in the article last post,
is not an intact or identically sequenced centromere as found in other primates,
but a unique, possibly corroded, deteriorated or otherwise damaged REMNANT of a centromere.

Exactly. That's why it's called "inactivated". If if were intact, it would be a working centromere and they wouldn't call it inactivated.

This (quite long) sequence of nucleotides is actually a unique signature belonging to the human Chromosome 2, and does not resemble,
except in the most general terms, the supposed "source centromere"
found in apes.

You mean this?

Hillier et al. 2005 said:
On chromosome 2, the local region surrounding the ancestral chromosomal fusion site on 2q132q14.1 had previously been described2. Here we identified a 2.6-Mb region within 2q21.12q21.2 that is enriched for pericentromeric duplications and centromeric satellite repeat sequence motifs, including a stretch of alpha-satellite sequence that probably identifies the location of the ancestral centromere.

Sounds like a perfectly legitimate degenerate centromere to me.

The original biologist was at least honest enough to indicate the discrepancy in his own diagrams,
and label it (albeit inaccurately to avoid drawing attention),
while the Wikipedia FAKE diagram is a far more serious 'simplification',
implying that there is an actual match.

There IS an actual match, or no one would have called it a centromere remnant. Note also that the caption on Wikipedia clearly states it is a vestigial centromere. Who's being dishonest now?

Had there been a simple "fusion" of two chromosomes,
it should be obvious to even the most inept observer,
that (especially since these segments of DNA are DORMANT),
they should be identical, since they are not anywhere near the site
of the fusion.

Had you ever studied molecular evolution, it should be obvious that they should NOT be identical. One, the centromere is no longer needed. One per chromosome is just enough. Sequences that are no longer useful can degenerate very quickly (see also: pseudogenes). Plus there might actually be selection against having two functional centromeres.

"Random" mutation of this segment of the chromosome would of course require eons of time (millions of unavailable years), and place the C-2
segment millions of years away from our supposed "proto-ape" ancestor.

It would be nice if you presented some calculations. I'll kindly provide you with a discussion of human mutation rates to get you started.

(Oh, wait, are you trying to imply some young earth nonsense? Looking forward to that...)

The huge problem with this of course, is that it requires a 'Catastrophe Theory',
to explain why it would be present in EVERY HUMAN BEING,
which in essence means something killed off all other members of our species, while only a SINGLE PAIR of parents survived...

I don't follow your reasoning.

KimberlyAA said:
The chimpanzee and human genome projects demonstrated that the fusion did not result in loss of protein coding genes. Instead, the human locus contains approximately 150 thousand additional base pairs not found in chimpanzee chromosome 12 and 13 (now also known as 2A and 2B). This is remarkable because why would a fusion result in more DNA?

Why would it have to be the fusion? That thing happened a while ago. Humans are notorious for having large duplications all over the place.

In a 30 kb region surrounding the fusion site, there exists a paucity of intact telomere motifs (forward and reverse) and very few of them are in tandem or in frame.

What does "in frame" even mean for telomeres? They don't exactly code for proteins...

No evidence of synteny with chimp for the purported fusion site was found. The 798-base core fusion-site sequence does not align to its predicted orthologous telomeric regions in the chimp genome on chromosomes 2A and 2B.

Dunno about the fusion site, but pretty much the entire rest of the chromosome is syntenic with chimp 2A/B. (On Ensembl, you can also see actual nucleotide alignments between the two species.)

By the way, "synteny" means conserved linkage. It sounds kind of silly when someone talks about synteny in relation to a single DNA element.

Queries against the chimp genome with the human alphoid sequences found at the purported cryptic centromere site on human 2qfus produced no homologous hits using two different algorithms (BLAT and BLASTN).

That makes me wonder how they found them in the first place. Presumably they didn't just point at a bunch of repeaty-looking things and call them a centromere.

Why Human Chromosome 2 isn't evidence for Evolution

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