scigirl

Hmm. The evolution conspiracy again. (Scigirl wonders if she remembered to pay her Conspiracy Dues this month.)

Vanderzyden,

Do you also feel that subjects in a biology book, such as DNA replication, or anatomy, are also "uncritically feeding undemonstratable Darwinism to unwary young people?" If not, why not?

Why pick on the evolutionists? Many theories regarding meterology, astronomy, and medicine are also difficult to demonstratably prove.

To me, it appears you are trying to mask your religious-induced disdain for evolution with an apparent concern for science. I, for one, am not fooled.

The way I understand it is this: A fusion can either happen with two whole chromosomes, or with one whole chromosome and a piece of another chromosome that had broken off. The latter is called a "translocation" since it used to be somewhere else. I'm not sure why you accept translocation data but disregard whole chromosome fusion data: in the former - two actions have to occur (breakage then fusion) and in the latter, just one (fusion).

In terms of your question about proof of fusions, read this site again:

<a href="http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoEvidence.html" target="_blank">http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoEvidence.html</a>

and
How's that for some cool data?


Yeah I've been busy purchasing and reading those indoctrinating books here at Denver Med School(and they are expensive I tell ya!)

Well I'm not exactly sure what more I can add to this discussion - it seems to me that despite your lack of understanding in biology, you are ready to dismiss conclusions drawn by biologists. Would you respect a critiquer of the Bible who could barely read English?

Once again, I ask - do you have any biological questions about genetics or other aspects of biology, so that you can understand the issue we are debating? I am not at all trying to be insulting, just surprised.

Thanks,

scigirl

[ August 28, 2002: Message edited by: scigirl ]</p>

Daggah

If you're so concerned with the children being indoctrinated, Vanderzyden, why aren't you out raising hell about all the religions - including yours - that are out there teaching kids to believe in them at such young ages...including from BIRTH? When a kid is that age you can make them believe anything...so isn't that...gasp...indoctrination?

Oolon Colluphid

Translation: “Okay, it sure as hell looks like these chromosomes fused. Now demonstrate that fusions can happen.”

Vander, call me overly simplistic, but the presence of centromeres and telomeres where predicted in these chromosomes looks to me like pretty good evidence that chromosomes can fuse. This in itself shifts the burden of proof. If I find a dagger in someone’s back, I’d need a good reason to think that something else killed him. Similarly we’d need some good reasons why chromosomes cannot fuse to discount the obvious conclusion that they have in this case. As it happens, there’s good evidence that chromosomes can and do fuse.

So tell us why they can’t.

Oolon

pangloss

Auto made some excellent points, that I and others had touched upon earlier, that the creationist now, as creationists often do, seems to be trying to weasel out of.

That is the creationist way.

It has also been clearly demonstrated that the creationist knows very little about what he writes.

That is also standard creationist fare.

To paraphrase Gould in a talk I saw him give a few years ago - if you know a little about science, creationist claims can appear to make sense. If you know a LOT about science, then it is a completely different matter.

Vanderzyden

It's not a matter of active conspiracy, but NATURALISTIC DOGMATISM.

This is the first of several insults in your reply. Again, evolution is NOT a science. It is a collection of unsubstantiated hypotheses. (It cannot justifiably be dignified with the title theory.) Biology is a proper science, like astronomy and physics. Darwinian evolution is merely an idea.

You do realize that the default interpretation for this response is that you cannot address my inquiry. My questions aren't particularly difficult, and yet you do not even attempt to answer. I have demonstrated basic understanding of biology. Furthermore, you know nothing about me and what I know in detail. High presumption and insults are the extant characteristics of your response.


As I indicated, this site is uninformative, and contains a proliferation of faulty logic. Perhaps you should consider avoiding the citation of it any longer.

The first paper you cite apparently concerns translocations. The second discusses breeding (i.e. artificial) experiments.

I understand the issue clearly enough. What I see is that you are choosing to avoid the issue and address the challenges to your position. You don't concede that there are IMMENSE problems in positively demonstrating a mechanism, and that natural chromosome fusions are merely hypothetical.

Unless I can find--or someone can provide me--conclusive, detailed information regarding natural chromosome fusion (in any animal), then I consider this issue closed.

Vanderzyden

Jack the Bodiless

Utterly false. Darwinian evolution is one of the most thoroughly verified theories in all of science. It is supported by an overwhelming abundance of evidence.
You have asked for evidence of chromosome fusion. You have been GIVEN evidence of chromosome fusion. Stop trying to pretend that you have not been answered.

And wasn't it you who said recently that there was only one suspected transitional fossil? This speaks volumes about the state of your knowledge.
Not to sane people. Any normal person can conclude from the cited evidence that chromosomal fusion has occurred. You seem to be deliberately seeking an impossible level of proof: actually watching chromosomes fuse before your very eyes. We have all the evidence that we could reasonably hope to get.
Let me spell out the problem you face.

The genomes of humans and chimps are virtually identical. We are more closely related to chimps than chimps are to gorillas. We are more closely related to chimps than African elephants are related to Indian elephants.

There is only ONE significant difference: we have 23 chromosome pairs and other primates have 24.

Conclusion: two chromosomes have fused. Prediction: we should be able to see the fused chromosomes.

And we can.

Even with NO OTHER EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER that chromosomes can fuse, what we have is solid evidence that fusion has occurred.

This is a true scientific prediction that has been verified. Evolution is real, rock-solid SCIENCE.

But you wish to bury your head in the sand. You are now seeking ANY EXCUSE to "close the issue", to escape from this nightmare.

Do not pretend that you have fooled us. Your motive is clear to all.

Mageth

This link may have already been posted, but if so maybe it'll actually get read this time.

From: <a href="http://www.grisda.org/origins/11067.htm" target="_blank">CHROMOSOMAL CHANGES IN MAMMALIAN SPECIATION</a>:

[ August 29, 2002: Message edited by: Mageth ]

[ August 29, 2002: Message edited by: Mageth ]</p>

Automaton

Why don't you back this up for once instead of just throwing it out at every opportunity as if it were axiomatically true or something?

Science is, by definition, methodological naturalism, as it is the study (read: methodology) of the natural world. It cannot be anything else. If you think the success of methodological naturalism has uncomfortable ontological implications, then that's your problem, not the fault of science.

And maybe you should take up the "dogmatic naturalism" of that percentage of scientists (50% or so) that have religious beliefs.
Outrageous. Where were these insults? Nothing she said was at any way directed towards you or your position, and nothing was stated in a mocking manner. She simply stated that evolution isn't the only science that is "difficult to demonstratably prove".
Population geneticists, paleontologists, etc. might have to take you up on that.
Yet you continually fail to demonstrate just why you think is "unsubstantiated". When your line of "reasoning" for this (out-of-context quotes ripped from other creationist authors) is questioned, you merely become evasive and abusive.
Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution.
Oh, the hypocracy! Why don't you apply this same "logic" to yourself, when you refuse to answer most of my posts? Is your default interpretation of yourself that you cannot address them?
*ahem* I seem to recall you stating out-right that there are no such thing as beneficial mutations.
We have observed your posting, and so far, you have not demonstrated any thinking that was not spoon fed to you by another creationist.
Stop whining and address the relevent points I and others raised. Your only (subsequential to the opening) posts on this thread have been largely rhetorical and not of any factual value (such as this one).
Yes, you indicated, but you did not justify. Just saying something is so does not make it so.
Nice attempt at obfuscation, there, but still no dice. The title of the article is "A new centric fusion translocation in cattle". It deals, specifically, unequivocally, and directly, with a fusion. Plus, there is nothing else that a chromosomal fusion could be, other than a translocation! A translocation is simply defined (in the biological sense) as a mutation where parts of the genetic code change from their original location. A fusion is a translocation, why would the latter exclude the former?
This is a total evasion. It doesn't matter in which context the observation of a fusion takes place, the fact is, a centric fusion took place, out of its own means, naturally. Just because the selection was artificial, does not mean the mutation was. No act of the breeders caused the fusion.
Scigirl obviously felt that what needed to be said had already been said. This is reasonable, considering you haven't even tried to respond to the criticisms given by myself, Lpetrich, and others.
Stop lying. Scigirl provided you with two articles demonstrating observed chromosome fusion. Your dismissals of them were simple-minded and irrelevent.

scombrid

You acknowledged that biology is a valid science. Ecology is a valid branch of biology, a valid science. In ecology we seek to understand ecosystems but cannot directly measure ecosystem processes because spatial and temporal scales render direct measurements impractical. Therefore we develope mesocosm experiments in which we create a small, manageable artificial system that is a model of the larger system. We then extrapolate the results of the mesocosm experiments to the larger system.

A breeding experiment in which fusion occurs accomplishes the same thing for genetics that a mesocosm experiment does for ecology. It allows us to directly observe a process that was hypothesized by viewing natural systems.

[ August 29, 2002: Message edited by: scombrid ]</p>

Oolon Colluphid

Just wondering, vander...

a) you did read my post above, yeah?

b) Are you expecting that someone has actually observed chromosomal fusion taking place? If so, don’t you think that might be a bit unreasonable? Where, when and how might someone look, eh?

So it’s obvious that observations of chromosomal fusion will either be indirect inferences, or under artificial, controlled conditions, and so not the ‘natural’ you demand. But that is no different to heaps of other science. Nobody has seen the inside of an atom or the sun, but it doesn’t stop us drawing conclusions about them indirectly from other evidence. Nevertheless...

<a href="http://www.nature.com/nsu/990318/990318-8.html" target="_blank">www.nature.com/nsu/990318/990318-8.html</a> -- ref ageing research, mice without telemerase:

<a href="http://www.stowers-institute.org/labs/GolicLab.asp" target="_blank">www.stowers-institute.org/labs/GolicLab.asp</a> -- lab researching the relationship between chromosome structure and function:


<a href="http://www.swmed.edu/home_pages/cellbio/shay-wright/publications/tin2.nature.gen.pdf" target="_blank">More ageing research (pdf)</a>:


<a href="http://www.rockefeller.edu/labheads/delange/delangeweb.html" target="_blank">Rockerfeller University Laboratory of Cell Biology and Genetics</a>:

<a href="http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/00412/bibs/7106007/71060413.htm" target="_blank">Chromosoma Volume 106 Issue 7 (1997) pp 413-421: ‘Telomere length, chromatin structure and chromosome fusigenic potential’</a>:

<a href="http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/00412/contents/00/00100/" target="_blank">Chromosoma Volume 109 (2000) pp 490-497: ‘Inheritance and meiotic behaviour of a de novo chromosome fusion in the aphid Myzus persicae (Sulzer)’</a>:

Curiously, Toru M Nakamura, of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Colorado, felt able to give a presentation in 1999 at the Cold Spring Harbor Meeting on Telomeres and Telomerase entitled
‘Prevention of chromosome fusion by telomerase in fission yeast’. But I guess yeast’s not an animal, so doesn’t count.

Sounds like without telomerase, you can’t stop the buggers fusing.

Get a pipe. I’ve got something for you to stick in it and smoke.

TTFN, Oolon

PS Ferfuckssake, I found this stuff on bloody Google. Vanderplonker, if you honestly wanted answers, why didn’t you bloody look yourself?

[ August 29, 2002: Message edited by: Oolon Colluphid ]</p>