Blinn

Supposed fusion? Oh yes, they're probably lying about it, since they're scientists.

Telomere-telomere (end to end) fusion of chromosomes 7 and 22 with an interstitial deletion of chromosome 7p11.2-p15.1: phenotypic consequences and possible mechanisms.
Zneimer, SM et al
Clinical Genetics 58(2), 129-133

The biological sciences library or health sciences library at your local university should have it.

Mageth

"Telomere-telomere (end to end) fusion of chromosomes 7 and 22 with an interstitial deletion of chromosome 7p11.2-p15.1: phenotypic consequences and possible mechanisms."
Zneimer, SM et al
Clinical Genetics 58(2), 129-133

Perhaps someone could point you to a library where this publication may be located.

Mageth

Cross-post, there, Zetec.

It's amazing how easy it is to find something if you really want to...

Vanderzyden

I'm curious: How did you find the reference? Do you have the full paper?

Thanks,

Vanderzyden

Mageth

No, the paper doens't appear to be online. I did a google search for the title "Telomere-telomere (end to end) fusion of chromosomes 7 and 22", IIRC, and it was in the first link (<a href="http://www.nt.net/~a815/orphan22.htm" target="_blank">Chrom 22 disorders</a>)

Ought Naught

I'm not sure if you need a subscription for this, but <a href="http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/rd.asp?abbrev=Clin%20Genet&vol=58&page=129&goto=ab stract" target="_blank">here's</a> the URL for the paper (links for either HTML or .pdf versions are at the bottom).

Doubting Didymus

beausoleil, This is more of an issue than you think. Vanderzygen has not infringed copyright, he has committed libel. Using the words of the scientists in question to say something that they would completly disagree with is not copyright infringement (he does reference his quotes, at least), but libel.

If I were to quote Richard Dawkins as saying

"Biologists, however, have had doubts about Darwins theory" - Dawkins "the blind watchmaker" p 352.

I would be using his words out of context to make it look like he was saying something he wasn't. I could expect someone to look up my reference and call me on it. This quote, for example, is followed by the words "...of HOW evolution happened"

I would not only be lying, I would be forcing a lie out of the mouth of an otherwise respected individual. This is the definition of libel.

I too am used to the ordinary copyright infringements that are part and parcel of the internet these days. I, like most others, am desensitised to all but the most striking examples of this. But I will not stand for blatent libel, and I don't think many others on this board will either.

Highlighting the seriousness of this issue is the fact that vanderzyden himself has not yet addressed the issue at all, other than that he considers it 'whining, or 'hijacking'. An entire thread is separately devoted to an attempt to bring his attention to the issue, and he is conspicuous only by his absence.

Not only has he never replied to the allegations brought against him, but worse, he continues to pretend that the quotes do in fact support his claim that animal phylogenies are inconsistent.

Here, well after the true context was revealed:

This is a far more serious issue than plagerism, beausoleil, and forgive me if I hound it to its conclusion. The last thing I want is for libel to be as common as plagerism on the internet. To ignore it is to encourage it.

My sincere apologies to anyone who considers this issue superfluous to the main debate in the thread, but as this is the thread where the quotes were originally made, this is where the issue will be persued until vanderzyden agrees to take it elsewhere.

Lizard

Not to muddy the waters, but in a recent talk at the KU Anthropology Museum, a University of Michigan paleoanthropologist named Milford Wolpoff gave a talk about the recently discovered skull from Chad. One of his slides showed about six different phylogenies for the hominid-to-human transition. He claimed the fossil evidence would support any of them equally well. I was surprised, because when you see timelines in Newsweek, etc., they have a few dotted lines and question marks, but I had the impression most of the tree was uncontroversial.

Of course, Wolpoff is a controversial figure who many times challenges the conventional wisdom. When many others were embracing the "Out of Africa" theory, he vigorously defended a multi-regional theory, which now has attracted the interest of other researchers.

Questioning orthodox interpretations is not a bad thing. It's done all the time in the sciences. It's how scientists make their name -- by altering or extending the usefulness of a theory: witness Gould and Eldredge. It's also what keeps science dynamic and relevant.

Thoughtful scientists add much to the store of knowledge by questioning what everyone else accepts. However, what VZ is doing is something different. Here, someone who admits to being uneducated in the matter at hand is questioning things which are so well-supported by either direct observation or extensive testing over decades that to question their validity is absurd.

I must say this is the first time I have ever heard a creationist try to make arguments in genetics using such big words. Unfortunately, although there are many of them strung together in proper English sentences, they make no sense.

Vibr8gKiwi

I think it's not that he's questioning without the education (he is learning with every question, I hope). I think the problem is that he's questioning with a dogmatic conclusion already decided. He's questioning not because the data leads him to question, but because his dogma leads him to question despite the data. He doesn't follow where the data points, he tries to point the data. With such an attitude, he'll always be able to find one more "gap" in the data to hide his dogma in.

Van is giving the perfect demonstration of the difference between science and religion. Science questions and follows the data for answers. Religion thinks it already has the answer so it questions (or ignores) the data that conflicts with its dogma. Van's mind has been bent by his religion--there's just no hiding the double standard here: Van requires an impossible level of evidentiary proof for one sort of claim, yet accepts next to no proof for the (more incredible!) religious claims he embraces.

[ September 07, 2002: Message edited by: Vibr8gKiwi ]</p>

Valentine Pontifex

I often start ignoring threads that go on and on and on... But between plays I have been scanning the last 6 pages or so of this thread that I had not read yet. Now it is halftime and the lead over those heathens is 20 points and I would like to make some comments and a suggestion. :-)

There is a lot of good stuff in this thread. Unfortunetely, even at best only few people will ever read it.

The materal found for this thread really could be collected and organized into a killer article. It be far stronger than the original article that scigirl cited. It can include better explanations of the terms being used and the processes being implicated, strong references to the scientific literature including demonstrations that fussions of these sort really are observed, the observation that this sort of observation is not limited to chimp/humans, that YECs use the exact same type of observations to prove rapid "microevolution" after the Deluge ignoring the implication that that reasoning makes humans and chimps the same kind, etc.

If this is done, it could be posted to the t.o. newgroup and proposed for The T.O. Archive. There it can be seen by many and not a few and might even be used in real biology classes.
Most of the real work already seems to be done. I don't think that anything will convince Vander, but it could do a lot of good with a larger audience.

Go Crimson and Cream...