Monkeying around

The doctrines of evolutionism thrive in the fog of speculation surrounding early discovery.

The more distant the object of the guesswork (in space or time) the "more certain" are the beliefs and teaching of evolutionism on that speculative view - and for good reason.

In Christ,

Bob

 

What is the problem you are proposing exists? "Out of the bits that line up, 1.44% of the individual base pairs were different, settling a debate based on previous, less accurate studies." This sounds in line with the previous estimates to me. Yes, a higher percentage of the functional genes were a little different, and a small percentage even more different. But you have to remember how the genome is set up. Most single nuecleotide substitutions either insert the same amino acid, an amino acids which has a similar affinity for water as the previous one and will therefore make a protein with nearly the same function, or will substitute an amino acid in which one is a precursor of the other. This difference seems to me to point to evolution not away from it in light of what the changes generally do. Do you have a specific objection to evolution based on the article? The authors do not seem to. At best, they seem a bit surprised on where the differences are.

 

Let me put this a different way. If we show that genes between chimps and humans are the same then that is evidence for a young earth based on a common designer. If we show that some of these genes actually have some minor differences you are going to assert that this, too, is evidence for a young earth. Which is it?

 

Interesting article. I thought it was a proven FACT that we evolved from monkey? I wonder if the textbooks will be updated. But I doubt it will make into the textbooks, especially since Haeckel’s fraudulent embryos still liter our children’s textbooks like McDonalds Big Mac wrappers on the side of our roads.

Thanks for the article Deacon.

 

john6:63

I'll repeat the question for you. What part of this do you think speaks against evolution? The article said "Out of the bits that line up, 1.44% of the individual base pairs were different, settling a debate based on previous, less accurate studies." That is a tiny amount of difference.

Here is an article you might want to read on Haeckel. Some good some bad. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/wells/haeckel.html

 

Rob, I'll take the time to explain what the article is REALLY saying to you.

First of all, it CONFIRMS that we share 98.56 per cent of our dna with chimps. This measure was determined by the crude process of mixing chimp and human dna in a test tube and checking to see how much of the one links perfectly with the other.

And that result is still true, there is no difference on the total score of all our genetic material, its still very very similar as always claimed.

(Who says there are no experimental results that prove evolution?)

But now they have actually sequenced some of the chimp dna and can compare it gene by gene with the human dna.

What they find is that the JUNK dna - that extra stuff that sits between working genes and does nothing - is not where the differences turn out to be.

The differences turn out to be more in the WORKING GENES part of the DNA.

So for the part of the genes that are actually used, the similarity between us and chimps goes down. It is less than 98%. They report that in this one chromosone it is reduced to about 80% similar.

The one chromosone they have evaluated is only 1% of the chimp dna so they are naturally going to examine more and see how the trend goes in the rest of the chimp vs human actual genes used comparison.

The evolutionary explanation would be that the junk dna was not subjected to any evolutionary pressure as the two species became better adapted to their respective ways of life, but it was the actually used genes that were under pressure to change.

Creationists have yet to explain why junk dna even exists. I leave it to creationists to explain why the junk dna is so similar between us and chimps.

It is true that there will probably be some use found for some of it, along the lines of "skip this next bit" or "oops stop making this gene it's junk", or other guidance for the gene making machinary that might even do some good in an indirect kind of way. Some of it we can recognize as being the result of a virus that infected an ancestor and left a bit of its dna in the chromosone. Most of it will be forever junk.

And we share that same junk with the chimps. Hmmm - how DID that happen?

 

Actually, it's the bonobos that we're most similar to. Interestingly, the bonobos is the only other animal besides humans that have sex just for pleasure, and do so facing each other.

Not taking a stance either way, I just thought that was interesting.

 

I'm in the same boat with you on that score. I am definately not a scientist nor the son of a scientist - I follow it with interest as a sort of hobby.

I've seen some hints along that line in what I have read also. My current understanding is that there are some things that make a difference to the organism in these areas of the genome that don't actually code for proteins - things that would be equivalent to computer code branching instructions. "goto" commands, or "halt" commands or "repeat" commands . . . and if they don't send the gene reading machinery to the right place, it could be bad. But still within all that stuff would be junk code.

For example, take the genes for making teeth still found in birds. Cells taken from bird embryos have been coaxed into forming teeth, showing the genes that inform cells how to be teeth are still there. They are totally passed over and never expressed in modern birds, and have become "junk dna".

Not necessarily. If a junk dna sequence is a few thousand units long and a mutation hits it, and it is never used for anything, it is still almost exactly identical, and there is absolutely no evolutionary pressure to remove it or enhance it, so there isn't any further diverging. 1 unit out of a thousand different - thats .1 percent difference only.

The nylon eating bacteria, on the other hand, would be expected to start improving the peculiar gene structure that allows for eating nylon over time.

As for the phrase "junk", it may indeed be a passing fad to use that word, only time will tell.

Accumulating junk dna makes evolutionary sense - but so does finding a weird use for it after it has arrived. I expect we'll find both have occurred, with the emphasis on the junk and some surprise uses to be found in a few cases.

We live in exciting times of discovery.

 

"It was my understanding that the term “junk DNA” is being phased out (am I wrong?). There are a growing number of studies beginning to find a purpose in these areas of patterned non-coded DNA. These areas are not so useless, but may be required for genomic functionality, therefore actually providing substantial evidence for intelligent design."

You are correct about uses being found for some of the "junk" DNA. What they are finding is that some portions of the non-coding part of the genome does play a part. The functions are varied but a safe generalization would be that some of it serves in a regulatory capacity.

But there is also much, I would guess most, that truly is junk. There are duplicates of genes, and genes that have mutated to the point of no longer being functional. There is a large percentage, I think 5% is about right, that is made up of insertions of viral DNA into the genome from a billion years of virus infections of our ancestors. These are the kinds of things that should not be there in a young earth paradigm and that need explaining.

"So for the part of the genes that are actually used, the similarity between us and chimps goes down. It is less than 98%. They report that in this one chromosone it is reduced to about 80% similar."

Lest there be any confusion, it is important to point out here that these two numbers are arrived at differently. The 1.44 % difference cited is basically if you line up all the base pairs, 98.56% will be exactly alike. The 80% is a different number. It says that if you take all of the identified functional genes, that 17% of them will be exactly alike. 83% will have a difference of at least one base pair. (I think they actually defined it as a difference sufficient to change at least one amino acid. Not all base pair substitutions will result in a different amino acid.) Even in this 83 %, the individual base pairs are probably still close to 98% similar. That number is just not given in the press release nor in the abstract. Further, in the 83% that have at least some small difference, there is a grouping of 20% that have enough of a difference to significantly affect the function of the resulting protein.

 

<Briefly going off topic>

Greetings John:

I used to be a volunteer at a science center that had resident dolphins. They too do it for pleasure, especially when I was leading a group of schoolkids on a field trip through the center!!


I hope this post finds you well.

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