After over 150 years, why has evolution still not answered

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EarthScienceguy
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After over 150 years, why has evolution still not answered

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Post by EarthScienceguy »

After over 150 years, why has evolution still not answered the most basic questions of theist?

Charles Hodge Systematic theology copywrite 1870.

Although Strauss greatly exaggerates when he says that men of science in our day are unanimous
in supporting the doctrine of spontaneous generation, it is undoubtedly true that a large class of
naturalists, especially on the continent of Europe, are in favour of that doctrine. Professor Huxley,
in his discourse on the “Physical Basis of Life,� lends to it the whole weight of his authority. He
does not indeed expressly teach that dead matter becomes active without being subject to the
influence of previous living matter; but his whole paper is designed to show that life is the result
of the peculiar arrangement of the molecules of matter. His doctrine is that “the matter of life is
composed of ordinary matter, differing from it only in the manner in which its atoms are
aggregated.�2 “If the properties of water,� he says, “may be properly said to result from the nature
and disposition of its component molecules, I can find no intelligible ground for refusing to say
that the properties of protoplasm result from the nature and disposition of its molecules.�3 In his
address before the British Association, he says that if he could look back far enough into the past
he should expect to see “the evolution of living protoplasm from not living matter.� And although
that address is devoted to showing that spontaneous generation, or Abiogenesis, as it is called, has
never been proved, he says, “I must carefully guard myself against the supposition that I intend to
suggest that no such thing as Abiogenesis has ever taken place in the past or ever will take place
in the future. With organic chemistry, molecular physics, and physiology yet in their infancy, and
every day making prodigious strides, I think it would be the height of presumption for any man to
say that the conditions under which matter assumes the properties we call ‘vital,’ may not some
day be artificially brought together.�4 All this supposes that life is the product of physical causes;
that all that is requisite for its production is “to bring together� the necessary conditions.

The theist argument has not changed in 150 years.

In 1870, the full problem in the fossil record of the Cambrian explosion had still not been fully realized.

In 1870 an equation to calculate rate of beneficial mutations in organisms, which makes it impossible for the cambrian explosion to happen through naturalistic means.

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Difflugia
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Post #141

Post by Difflugia »

EarthScienceguy wrote:To summarize the universe miraculously carried out was create a fusion site in humans that is telomere to telomere which does not occur in mammals because of all the information stored at the end of a chromosome and there is no satellite DNA which always occurs at fusion sites.
Whoever told you this is wrong. It actually happens relatively frequently in somatic cells and is implicated in many forms of cancer and generally happens when telomeres are shortened. Somatic telomeres spontaneously get shorter as a person ages and those in germline cells generally don't, but the apparent fusion point of chromosome 2 contains a telomere sequence that is suspiciously short.
EarthScienceguy wrote:I really do not think that is the case considering that the humans Y chromosome and chimp Y chromosome are only 43% similar.
I don't know how your source came up with 43%. I'm not saying it's necessarily wrong, but I couldn't find a way to get that and Google didn't help. Do you have a link for your source?

According to what I assume is the primary source, the 2/3 of the genes on the Y chromosome that are orthologous between humans and chimpanzees are ~98% identical (and only consist of a few dozen genes to start with). The genetic material that differs is "ampliconic," which is a bunch of copies of a few genes and ampliconic regions already diverge widely between human populations. Humans and chimpanzees are more divergent than expected based on the current rate of divergence within human populations, but hardly evolution-breaking.
EarthScienceguy wrote:Are you saying chickens do have males? How about man's Y chromosome are 57% different than a chickens Z chromosome will that work for you.
No. I don't know what that 57% is supposed to represent, but sex determination in the bird ZW pairing isn't mediated by the same genes as in the eutherian XY, or even in a similar way (ZZ is male, ZW is female). I figured searching on what you gave me would turn up an Answers in Genesis article or something, but no dice.
EarthScienceguy wrote:43% similar is not similar that would be classified as very different.
At least figure out how that 43% was calculated and what it's supposed to mean.
EarthScienceguy wrote:When facts cannot be refuted then the argument has been won!!!!
Good gods, wouldn't that be nice?

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Post #142

Post by Diagoras »

[Replying to post 137 by EarthScienceguy]

Talking about ‘land animals to sea animals’, I’m keen to refute your unsupported claim that this is a problem for creating a genetic family tree.

From the downloadable copy of “The Greatest Show on Earth�, on Page 120:
Molecular genetic evidence (see Chapter 10 for the nature of this kind of evidence) shows that the closest living cousins of whales are hippos, then pigs, then ruminants. Even more surprisingly, the molecular evidence shows that hippos are more closely related to whales than they are to the cloven-hoofed animals (such as pigs and ruminants) which look much more like them.
For those genuinely interested in gaining an understanding of that molecular genetic evidence, page 223 (headed with ‘Molecular Comparisons’) onwards lays out a very comprehensive yet readable description of techniques used and results found, with numerous direct references and suggested further reading. A direct quote from the introduction to the section:
Just as the vertebrate skeleton is invariant across all vertebrates while the individual bones differ, and just as the crustacean exoskeleton is invariant across all crustaceans while the individual ‘tubes’ vary, so the DNA code is invariant across all living creatures, while the individual genes themselves vary. This is a truly astounding fact, which shows more clearly than anything else that all living creatures are descended from a single ancestor. Not just the genetic code itself, but the whole gene/protein system for running life, which we dealt with in Chapter 8, is the same in all animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, archaea and viruses. What varies is what is written in the code, not the code itself. And when we look comparatively at what is written in the code – the actual genetic sequences in all these different creatures – we find the same kind of hierarchical tree of resemblance. We find the same family tree – albeit much more thoroughly and convincingly laid out – as we did with the vertebrate skeleton, the crustacean skeleton, and indeed the whole pattern of anatomical resemblances through all the living kingdoms.
There’s much more than that in the book. Well worth a look.
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Post #143

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to post 139 by EarthScienceguy]
In both fairy tale stories, I gave specific facts that refuted the chromosome 2 fusion story.


No ... you're confusing facts with creationist propaganda, developed solely to try and refute actual observations and evidence, in order to support the biblical narrative. It is no different than referencing the Humphreys planetary magnetic field "theory" article, then claiming that is legitimate scientific evidence in support of your position on that subject.

See Difflugia's comments in post 140, and revisit the earlier thread. Nothing you've presented so far refutes the chromosome 2 fusion event. It is the most reasonable explanation to date for why we have 46 chromosomes and the apes we evolved from had 48 (as modern great apes still do).
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Post #144

Post by Still small »

EarthScienceguy wrote: [Replying to post 132 by Difflugia]
Genetic sequencing has determined which two chimpanzee chromosomes fused into which human chromosome.
Oh yea, chromosome 2 right. I love that fairy tale. In fact, I was just talking about this fairy tale with DrNoGods I think. This is the fairy tale that goes once upon a time an ape had a two chromosome that wanted to fuse. They tried and tried but could not find a way to fuse. Then one day some universal consciousness decreed that the ape or chimp or whatever it is you want to call it, the chromosome shall be fused telomere to telomere even though that there are no other mammals have chromosome fused that way. This universal consciousness also degreed that this fusion site would also not contain any ape, chimp or whatever satellite DNA at the fusion site.

To summarize the universe miraculously carried out was create a fusion site in humans that is telomere to telomere which does not occur in mammals because of all the information stored at the end of a chromosome and there is no satellite DNA which always occurs at fusion sites.

That's a great fairy tale but really not believable.
A genuine question. According to my mathematics, wouldn’t this event (fairytale) need to be told twice? As rare and improbable is the event of two chromosomes fusing, 2 fusing from 48 gives you 47 chromosomes. This rare event, according to naturalistic thinking, must have occurred again, fusing 2 from 47 to give 46 chromosomes. Do we have any observable evident of a “47 chromosomes� relative in the naturalistic ‘hominoid family’?

Therefore, doesn’t the event (fairytale) need to be told twice? Again, this is a genuine question (not an argument or attack).

Have a good day!
Still small

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Post #145

Post by Difflugia »

Still small wrote:A genuine question. According to my mathematics, wouldn’t this event (fairytale) need to be told twice? As rare and improbable is the event of two chromosomes fusing, 2 fusing from 48 gives you 47 chromosomes. This rare event, according to naturalistic thinking, must have occurred again, fusing 2 from 47 to give 46 chromosomes.
If the lucky recipient of the original fused chromosome had multiple children with the fused chromosome, then the result is a breeding pool with multiple copies of the fused chromosome.

As long as the original fused chromosome wasn't otherwise damaged and had both centromeres, then it would be heritable in a mixed breeding pool. During meiosis, the fused chromosomes would each pair with both unfused, homologous chromosomes. The result would be that half the gametes would include the fused chromosome and the other half would be unfused.

As long as all the genes are there, then a 23-chromosome gamete will successfully pair either a 23- or 24-chromosome gamete and the breeding pool would soon include individuals with 46, 47, and 48 chromosomes.

The hiccup in this is that fusions like this cause problems during meiosis with crossover and both metaphases (it's only 50/50 that both centromeres will be pulled toward the same daughter cell). The result is a high rate of broken gametes and miscarriages. Most successful pregnancies will end up phenotypically normal, though, so the net effect is pretty much just a somewhat lower fertility rate. Genetic drift occasionally overcomes the effect of a mildly deleterious mutation, especially in a small enough population (the founder effect).
Still small wrote:Do we have any observable evident of a “47 chromosomes� relative in the naturalistic ‘hominoid family’?
There are now fertile human adults with 45 chromosomes. Robertsonian translocation is one way this can happen. Note that one of the references is a case study of three, 44-chromosomed children of parents with 45 chromosomes each. If we paid as close attention to the genetics of the other great apes, I have no doubt that we'd find living individuals with 47 chromosomes.

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