Valentine Pontifex

Here is another thing that Randman can't explain.

Humans and Mice share a common ancestor if evolution is true. Thus there is an obvious evolutionary explanation for why humans and mice have very similiar genes. Now Randman will say this is really because of a common creator. However evolutionary theory demands far more than the genes be similiar. Since the time of the common ancestor, the genes in both "lineages" have been mutating. Sometimes mutations will come faster and sometimes they will come slowers. Sometimes natural selection will happen. But overall, one would expect that over x time there is p chance that a nucleotide, a single "letter" of DNA, will change to another. The rate of mutation is known. Thus for any of the genes in common between mice and men, one would expect a certain number of changes on average. And like any probablistic process some genes will have less than that number and some genes will have more than that number in a way that should form a bell shaped curve.

The following diagram is taken from 2019 genes in common with mice and men. The solid curve is what is expected if an absolutely constant rate of mutation occured since the common ancestor of mice and men. (That assumption is not strictly true, but it is good enough for most practical purposes.) Here is the result:



This is something that evolution predicted, but creationism can only say "God just felt like doing that." There is no functional reason for such a pattern.

Valentine Pontifex

This is an absolutely false statement.

Why don't you read the following:
<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/" target="_blank">http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/</a>

theyeti

Hey Ron.

Yes, basically. First of all, there is no empirical evidence that mutations are non-random, and thus Plaisted's idea can be discarded as unsupported. Another important point to make is that non-random does not mean deterministic. Loaded dice are non-random, but they don't always land on the same numbers. Even with non-random mutation, the chances of all primates recieving the same silencing mutation in the viatmin C gene would be extremely slim. So there would have to be an even less supportable mechanism for deterministic mutation.

You're mixing his arguments here. This last statement is in rebuttal to Plaisted's claim that the pseudogenes might have come about through mutation of random sequences, rather than being the disfunctional remains (or copies) of once functional genes. However, the sequences that pseudogenes contain are so similar to functional genes that it would be too unlikely for this to occur; thus they come from or were copied from genes that were once under selection. Of course, the relaxed selection is what allows them to become pseudogenes.

I'm not sure what your point is here. Yes, identical independent insertions are extremely unlikely. This is why we think they came from common descent, rather than a parallelism. Selection in this case is irrelevant, because while selection might preserve duplicates (in which case they would not become pseudogenes), it cannot make the duplicates occur in the first place, nor can it direct their insertion.

I'm sorry Ron, but I'm having a hard time understanding what you're getting at. First of all, I don't know what a population is supposed to be if not a collection of individuals. I know that's Plaisted's fault and not yours. But either way "survival benefits" simply do not apply in this case, because pseudogenes, by definition, convey no survival benefits.

First off, a retroposon insertion is not a mutation in the classical sense. Anyway, this statement makes no sense. Is he claiming that two separated populations would be more likey to have independent insertions than if they were merged? That's what it sounds like. The chances for an insertion at a give location should be roughly the same (and extremely low) for all individuals regardless of being "within" or "between" a population. Max's point is that since we don't see the same ones happening among members of the same species, then there is clearly no mechanism that would direct the insertions to the same place. This is even more so when you consider that separate species have DNA that is more disimilar, and thus any mechanism not shared by members of the same species definately won't be shared by different species. Simply put, there is strong evidence that retroposon insertion is random, and thus it's impossible to explain identical ones without common descent.

What he's saying is that highly similar sequences, like a pseudogene shared between two species, or the similarity of a pseudogene to a functional gene, could not have come about randomly. Therefore, they are derived from functional genes and not from random sequences.

You've got it just right in regards to how mutations are preserved in functional genes. But since we're talking about pseudogenes here, there is no selection. All mutations in a pseudogene have an equal likelihood of being preserved. This is why we find it odd when the same silencing mutation is in the Vit C gene of every primate, for example, because if the pseudogene arose independently in each species, then we would expect different silencing mutations for each one. In fact, we do see this with the guinea pig, which did aquire this pseudogene independently. (Please note that this example does not include an insertion, but rather a gene that was presumably already present in the common ancestor of guinea pigs and primates.)

The problem here is that the "solution to a survival problem", in the above example, is what rendered the gene disfunctional in the first place! Certainly there are mutations in the gene that were fixed before the gene became disfunctional, but those don't apply to the silencing mutation.

Your analogy to the food left me completely confused and hungry.

What he's saying is that independent mutations that render genes disfunctional in different species is possible. But since we see the same mutation out of hundreds of possible ones, that idea is discarded. Also, this doesn't apply at all to things like retroviral inserts, where there is no way that we would see the same one in different species unless by common descent.

Ron, one more time: there is no selective pressure on pseudogenes! Now you might claim that there was selective pressure to deactivate the gene, but again since there are so many different ways to do that, we wouldn't expect to see the same one in different species. In addition, this kind of selective pressure is very unlikely. More likely is that the gene simply had its selective pressure relaxed, so that it accumulated random mutations until one rendered it disfunctional. All of us primates have since inherited that mutation from a common ancestor. Also, I don't think you can make a case for all primates being under the same selective pressures. Some primates are herbivores, some omnivores, and probably some carnivores; some live on the plains and others in the trees; some are polygynous and others are monogamous. There are clearly different selective pressures.

That's fine, but the important distinction is that science can only be used to understand testable and observable phenomena. This was Max's point; Plaisted left science in the dust and started making untestable speculations about how God would have dun it. One thing I've never understood: If creationists are going to appeal to the mysterious ways of God to do things that make no sense and look deceptive to the causal observer, then what's stopping them from accepting evolution as God's method of creation? It's a lot less silly than putting identical non-functional genes with the same silencing mutation in every primate.

theyeti

Daggah

*bump*

Be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting myself a wandman.

randman

"then what's stopping them from accepting evolution as God's method of creation?"

Many creationists in terms of those that beleive in God do in fact beleive evolution is the way God created.
In fact, it is not hard to read Genesis in that way. "Let the waters bring forth abundantly..." even sounds like evolution.
However, many of us quit beleiving in evolution once we realized that much of the so-called evidence for evolution was bogus.
1. Recapitulation does not occur.
2. Micro-evolution is not macro-evolution. Even YEC predict limted speciation.
3. Nenderthal was not a hunched over ape-like man.
4. The fossil record is very consistent with creationist/ID models. It does not document macro-evolution.
5, 6, 7, etc,...

Pomp

5, 6, 7, etc,...

I'm convinced.

Are you presenting a case for creationism or trying to remember how the theme from Laverne & Shirley started?

Jayhawker Soule

Fool! 7 is obviously flawed.

Pomp

ReasonableDoubt,

Fool! 7 is obviously flawed.

You just say that because you're blinded by the evilutionists' cultish group-think.

Serious question for randman (or anyone): What is "recapitulation" and why should we expect it to occur, given RM&NS?

Edit: Never mind the first part of my question. I looked it up. As far as I can tell from a 15 minute review of the literature, we wouldn't expect to see full recapitulation, given RM&NS, so how the hell does this count as evidence against the theory?

[ March 20, 2002: Message edited by: Pompous Bastard ]</p>

pseudobug

randman--there you are. Are you not breaking a promise to your wife about posting? Shame on you

As to the most recent *$*%(#%) you posted:

$(##)@)%. If that is the case, then why is it so hard for you do freakin' ignore direct evidence and be honest when you quote someone?

I'll tell you why it "sounds like evolution" to you--you live in a friggin' fantasy land.


Well no %*#&, Sherlock. I told you months ago that it became a non-issue in biology years ago.

No #$(% again. However, speciation can and is held to be macroevolution by many scientists. If a population diverges enough that they can no longer interbreed, they then can be subject to further mutation events to result in more phenotypic and genotypic divergence.

Furhtermore, as someone mentioned early, and I posted several days ago on Zigga Zomba, direct species-to-species transitions are not needed to demonstrated macroevolution in the fossil record. What is found and clearly demonstrated by the fossil record is structural intermediates between different classifications of animals.

Over time (millions of years to you tyou bonehead; not one generation to the next), one-at-a-time, random genetic change add up.--molecular and paleontological evidence, as well as experimental evidence from botany, genetics and numerous other fields bear this out.

No *^&% again. Neandertal is way down the list in the divergence from the common ancestors of modern day apes and man as well. So, once again, you make no point.

Unfrigging-belivable horse$*%^.
1. You have been challenged multiple times to crap out a single creationist/ID model--you have yet to do so.

2. You don't know what a *%#$($ model is. You have to have data to make and test a model. ID has no data--therefore they can't make a model. All ID has is criticisms of conventional biochemical evidence--not a sigle %*#$%& ID'er has published a *%#$&$*% thing designed to test their non-existant model.

3. YEC's model? Are you kidding me? Every single bit of evidence even remotely related to evolution results in the rejection of the literal interpretation of Genesis as a plausible scientific model for anything other than how a substantial proportion of the population can believe in a freakin' fairy tale.

You know what happens in science when that occurs, randman? The rejected model ends up on the trash heap of scientific history.

Think LeMarckian theory, you nitwit.

Once again you demonstrate that you are both lazy and hardheaded, ignorant and read only creationist tripe.

Before you leave randman, look at the "feathered dino" link.

Another brick in the wall of evolutionary theory randman--another brick in the wall.

(edited to remove a higher than normal grammatical and spelling error rate brought on from inducement to extreme anger by the rantings of a deranged, lying fundie thumper.}

[ March 20, 2002: Message edited by: pseudobug ]

(edited again to remove profanity--not out of consideration to randman, but out of consideration to the rational, honest posters.)

[ March 20, 2002: Message edited by: pseudobug ]</p>

Daggah

In fact, it is not recapitulation that is important! It is the similarities in embryonic development that are important - we would expect to see them, as our DNA is more of a recipe for our development than a blueprint of our bodies. As species diverge their developmental process would differ in minor ways, but would be mainly similiar, according to evolution. And in fact, this is exactly what we see!

Define macroevolution please. And also, YECs predict evolution out of necessity, and predict a rate of evolution that no sane scientist would ever claim.

So one erroneous claim about one fossil is evidence against evolution? Do you see how silly you look? No, of course you don't. You're still wearing your creationist blindfold.

Again, where are these creationist/ID models? They've not been presenting ANYWHERE. They don't exist! And again, your claim about the fossil record is patently untrue.