marking!
The Common Ancestry Thread
by cantleave 271 Replies latest members adult
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still thinking
Marking thanks...
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Satanus
Great evolutionary thread. It explains a few of the basics.
I would like to add that the fact that some plants have a larger genome than humans proves that they have had a longer time to adapt, rather than falsifying evolution.
S
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still thinking
I was astonished to discover that we still have the instructions in our genes for making eggs, in fact the very same genes that are still active in fish, amphibians, reptiles, insects and birds to this day!...COFTY
Is it the same gene in plants too?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovum
Or am I understanding that completely wrong? Are you just talking about the gene that makes the yolk of the egg?
***I'm loving this thread cantleave***
And Psac...that link was great....although I don't claim to understand it all...I'm slowly plodding through and getting some of it...bit by bit...
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still thinking
WOW cofty...that post about human chromosome 2 explained it so well...and more importantly...simply for me. THANK YOU!
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Ticker
First just a quick response to one of the posts. I would argue strongly contrasting what you said about ones who believe in creation having a "sad existence compared to the enlightened position of those who really know." First off this is again appealing to the prejudice that somehow ones who accept creation are less intelligent or are ignorant. This might fly on the popular basis but holds no merit when scrutinized. There are many equally intelligent people who accept creation and having a sad existence has no relation to creation or evolution. This is simply an erroneous assumption, in fact I would almost argue that the creationist would have a happier existence due to their beliefs. Those comments are fine and don't upset me but it's better if we avoid making presumptions against the person but rather focus on the topic.
This is a very technical subject and not sure if to jump into this one due to my time constraints and since genetics is not generally a layman's subject. I'm more suited to discuss theology but I'll take on one point that is critical to the ERVS being a case for common descent. I will note that the thread was well prepared and I can see that many of the bases were covered that would have opened it up to immediate rebuttal. The point I would like to address is the so called "Junk DNA".
The human genome contain over 100,000 ERVs and account for 1-10% of DNA in most mammals. Now we include all the fragmented ERV derivatives and find that 50% of the human DNA comprises ERV elements. Until recently these ERV elements were though of as Junk DNA or useless remnants as a sort of evolutionary hangover effect. This region of the genome doesn't code for proteins so it was considered Junk or without purpose while not causing harm. I believe this point was noted in one of the posts. However new lab data is challenging this view.
Reference to article on lab data
Thus since thought to be Junk DNA all research was mainly focused to show how it relates to disease. No direct correlation was found however other research discovered that essential genetic material is directly attributed to ERVs.
Fundamental problems exist for considering ERVs germline infections of exogenous retroviruses instead of intrinsic essential genetic material that I will list later. Regrettfully I started this post in Google Chrome and can't seem to copy and paste articles so the best I can do is give links to them. To save time I would like to post some key points from the articles. I will go into this part of my rebuttal possibly tomorrow and use IE instead. My apologies.
In closing and addressing a point raised on DNA similarities I think a good point is made in the following. There are two possibilities. Either they are inheritited or programmed by the same designer. It is logical that the same designer would use some of the same DNA programming. This would explain why our DNA is very similar to other species. Evolution sees this as evidence for a common descent, creationists see this as evidence for a common designer and one creator. If protein whether in a human or ape has to be an almost exact sequence to function then simularity in that DNA sequence that codes the protein cannot be held up as evidence for evolution as opposed to creation. To use this as an argument for common descent is referencing without particular facts. It's claiming that all DNA sequences in humans come from common descent with primates so then any similarities is because of common descent. This is circular reasoning and not logical reasoning. The reason people hold ERV arguments as proof of evolution is because they consider ERV inserts to be "Junk DNA." Since Junk DNA would have no function to constrain sequence and location, an occurence of the same sequence in the same location in humans and chimps would indeed be strong evidence. However I think I've clearly shown with the cited reference articles that the science community no longer assumes these ERV inserts as "Junk DNA" and thus the whole reliance on ERV for proof begins to fall apart.
The whole argument depends on the validity that the sequence has no function. A creator would not put useless bits of DNA with the same sequence and location in both humans and chimps. Now if they have a function then their sequence and location have to be what they are for them have the function and then they become evidence for design. We are back to the classic argument of evolution and creation in "no purpose vs a purpose." Evidence is starting to show that they do have a function and a purpose. Heres a good article on this very thing and it's even from an evolutionnews so it is non-biased, if anything it should be in support of ERV being Junk DNA but it even has to concede. (The use of Darwinist is not mine but the article title as I don't want to offend since some atheist dislike the term Darwinist)
Thank you for reading this long post.
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Ticker
Just wanted to clear up my wording so it is not misunderstood. The article is non-biased. The article is from "Annals of New York Academy of Sciences." Sorry for any confusion as it is only posted on EvolutionNews but is not their article specifically. I can't speak for the whole website of EvolutionNews only this one article.
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bohm
Ticker: did you read any of the articles? You realize they dont exactly support your argument...
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Phizzy
Ticker wrote above :
"First just a quick response to one of the posts. I would argue strongly contrasting what you said about ones who believe in creation having a "sad existence compared to the enlightened position of those who really know." First off this is again appealing to the prejudice that somehow ones who accept creation are less intelligent or are ignorant. This might fly on the popular basis but holds no merit when scrutinized. There are many equally intelligent people who accept creation and having a sad existence has no relation to creation or evolution. This is simply an erroneous assumption, in fact I would almost argue that the creationist would have a happier existence due to their beliefs. Those comments are fine and don't upset me but it's better if we avoid making presumptions against the person but rather focus on the topic."
My comment about being enlightened was not an aspersion on the intelligence of individuals who persist in accepting creation, the Animist living deep in a South American jungle may well be more intelligent than all of us on this board, he/she may well be happier than many. But we would not call such a person "enlightened" because they live in a situation where they are unaware of so many things. The Light of so much knowledge has not lit their lives, not their fault, nor does it diminish them as human. The same with the poor girl denied an education by the benighted Taliban.
The privileged individual in our situation, with some education, and access to the Internet and to Libraries full of books, who wilfully ignores the science and the facts to my mind leads a sad life, sad in the sense of I am sad for him/her, they are not living in the real world, but a world where science and facts are ignored.
May I again thank Cantleave and all contributors for this thread, I have learned a lot, many thanks.
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cofty
Ticker - "junk DNA" does provide raw material and a very small percentage of it sometimes becomes useful in regulatory sequences for example.
This does not change the fact that it the vast majority of it has no purpose in the genome and more importantly we know how they got into the genome in the first place. ERVs began as a viruses. The fact that they appear in other species in exactly the same places in the genome with exactly the same mutations proves beyond all debate that we evolved from a common ancestor.
In addition 21% are of our genome is made up of LINEs Long Interspersed Nuclear Elements 13% are SINEs Short Interspersed Nuclear Elements and 3% are DNA Transposons (jumping genes). All of these resulted form copying errors. When we look at other species we again find a family tree of similarity that confirms precisely the relationships evolution already predicted.
That adds up to millions and millions of markers in every cell in your body that demonstrate your evolutionary past.
To illustrate - if you suspected a student was cheating by plagiarising an essay it would not be the accurate parts of the text that would prove guilt it would be the identical errors you would use as proof. We have millions of identical errors in our genome that show Homo sapiens evolved just as every other species did.
Those who claim "junk DNA" actually has a purpose have to explain why t he onion Alium altyncolicum has double the DNA we do and a very similar species of onion Alium ursinum has TEN times as much. Does it really take 10 times as many instructions to make an onion as a human or has the onion suffered more genomic duplication and parasitic DNA than we have? The answer is obvious.
As with many issues in evolution, this is a matter of relative quantity, not an exclusive dichotomy. We may reasonably expect a significant fraction of non-genetic DNA to show evidence of function, and the pursuit of such evidence is a valid and important endeavor. It does not follow, however, that the pendulum must be perceived to swing from entirely functional to entirely non-functional and back again - T. Gregory Ryan