Are humans related to apes?

[Zzyzx]

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Are humans related to apes?

Geneticists (people who study such things) tell us that H. sapiens have great genetic similarity to members of the taxonomic group Family: Hominidae (great apes).

This seems to offend some people or to contradict their religious beliefs.

On what basis can argument be made that the classification is in error?

[Difflugia]

In contrast to the secularist view that expected junk to clutter the genome after eons of time...

Who claimed this and when? Prior to cheap and easy DNA sequencing coupled with computers that could begin to collate and compare the huge amounts of data collected, scientists offered a varying number of potential explanations for the presence of non-coding DNA. Some were close to right and some weren't, but their guesses and observations became more focused through time, because science works.

• "We propose that junk DNA in eucaryotes functions to maintain total DNA at an optimum concentration.""The general affinity of lac repressor for E. coli DNA: Implications for gene regulation in procaryotes and eucaryotes, 1975
• "The DNA of higher organisms usually falls into two classes, one specific and the other comparatively nonspecific. It seems plausible that most of the latter originated by the spreading of sequences which had little or no effect on the phenotype. We examine this idea from the point of view of the natural selection of preferred replicators within the genome.""Selfish DNA: the ultimate parasite, 1980
• "Satellite DNA refers to a class of tandem repeats of very simple sequences, usually A + T or G + C rich, which form a satellite band on a CsCl gradient. Their ubiquity and abundance in higher eukaryotes have led to speculation about their functions. It has often been suggested that satellite DNAs are merely innocuous genetic parasites or comprise 'junk' DNA. The recent identification of an array of satellite DNA repeats as the Responder (Rsp) locus of Drosophila melanogaster provides a new perspective on these elements.""Fitness reduction associated with the deletion of a satellite DNA array, 1989

...creationists had predicted that the all-wise Creator had designed amazing, functional complexity into DNA, as ENCODE is now confirming.

First, what creationist predicted this and when? Find me a single reference to a creationist saying anything like this before scientists began to determine the same thing. A "prediction" after the fact isn't really a prediction, is it?

Second, at face value, this "prediction" doesn't explain actual "junk" that is present across species and is there for a known evolutionary reason.

No haplorhines (a subset of primates that includes monkeys, apes, and humans) can produce their own Vitamin C as most mammals can. The reason is the lack of a particular enzyme. Haplorhines can't produce this enzyme because their GULO gene is broken. It's still there as a pseudogene, but it doesn't work. Evolutionary theory predicts the presence of such things, but creationism neither predicts nor accounts for them. If humans, apes, and monkeys are "different kinds" at the genus or species level, then there's no creationist excuse for why variants of the same nonworking gene would be present across species unless their relationship is evolutionary.

[Difflugia]

Are you really suggesting that men and women with Doctorates in each one of the fields and who have taught at universities for years even secular universities are confused about what they are talking about?

Either that or they're dishonest.

Fossils that have undergone mineral replacement are most usually comprised of silicon dioxide. The fossilized hats, loaves of bread, and whatnot that creationists showcase as "young" fossils have instead been encased in calcium carbonate (limestone). The ones that they created in laboratories are formed of silicon carbide.

Silicon dioxide replacement takes a really long time. If creationists can find fossils made of limestone or silicon carbide, then those specific fossils could possibly be recent. The only known method of silicon dioxide mineral replacement, though, involves silicon dioxide dissolved in water. Silicon dioxide is so very slightly soluble in water that the time involved in any sizeable specimen (like a bone) would take tens of thousands of years at minimum.

Anyone with a PhD in a related field should know this.

[Bust Nak]

Are you really suggesting that men and women with Doctorates in each one of the fields and who have taught at universities for years even secular universities are confused about what they are talking about?

You mean creationist "think tank?" They probably knows quite a lot about what is going on. My "confused" statement was about those who believe them.

[SallyF]

[Replying to post 55 by SallyF]

In my experience, Christians almost NEVER discuss the details of biblical "Creation".

But they will discuss scientific evidence and theory at great length.

Would you care to give us the details behind the mud-man and his rib-woman good helper

With the same level of demand for evidence ?

What details would you like to know?

How the layers of strata was laid down by a worldwide flood and the reason that there are huge gaps in the so called geologic record is because the layers of strata have nothing to do with time but how the flood laid down the eroded sediments from that much water moving across the Earth.

If you would like a more detailed explanation here is a whole book on the subject. It is a great read.

http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebo ... ngTOC.html

Or you can order Andrew Snellings book
Earth's Catastrophic Past: Geology, Creation, & the Flood
It is a two volume set that is quite technical.

And in this response you did not discuss the details of biblical "Creation".

Especially regarding the mud-man and his rib-woman.

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

According to the "Word of God" the mythological Jehovah Elohim (Lord God) had created sheep and wombats and apes and such in futile attempts to find a suitable help meet for the mud-man.

I put it to you that everyone reading this knows we are dealing with mythology.



Rather than the evidence-based ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution

It is a great read.


(BTW, ever since I left Sunday school and Christianity, I have still been reading the biblical "scriptures"/propaganda/mythology religiously.)

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Difflugia]

Fossils that have undergone mineral replacement are most usually comprised of silicon dioxide. The fossilized hats, loaves of bread, and whatnot that creationists showcase as "young" fossils have instead been encased in calcium carbonate (limestone). The ones that they created in laboratories are formed of silicon carbide.

Silicon dioxide replacement takes a really long time. If creationists can find fossils made of limestone or silicon carbide, then those specific fossils could possibly be recent. The only known method of silicon dioxide mineral replacement, though, involves silicon dioxide dissolved in water. Silicon dioxide is so very slightly soluble in water that the time involved in any sizeable specimen (like a bone) would take tens of thousands of years at minimum.

Anyone with a PhD in a related field should know this.

But what you are saying is just not true. In fact you can make petrified wood at home if you have the correct equipment and here is how.

Experimental verification
Of course, none of these reports should come as a surprise, since the processes of petrification of wood have been known for years, plus the fact that the process can occur, and has occurred, rapidly. For example Scurfield and Segnit8 had reported that the petrification of wood can be considered to take place in five stages:

1. Entry of silica in solution or as a colloid into the wood.
2. Penetration of silica into the cell walls of the wood's structure.
3. Progressive dissolving of the cell walls which are at the same time replaced by silica so that the wood's dimensional stability is maintained.
4. Silica deposition within the voids within the cellular wall framework structure.
5. Final hardening (lithification) by Drying out.

Furthermore Oehler9 had previously shown that the silica minerals quartz and chalcedony critically important in the petrification of wood, can be made, rapidly in the laboratory from silica gel. At 300C (572F) and 3 kilobars (about 3,000 atmospheres) pressure only 25 hours was required to crystallize quartz, whereas at only 165C (329F) and 3 kilobars pressure the same degree of crystallization occurred in 170 hours (about seven days).

Similarly, Drum10 had partially silicified small branches by placing them in concentrated solutions of sodium metasilicate for up to 24 hours, while Leo and Barghoorn11 had immersed fresh wood alternately in water and saturated ethyl silicate solutions until the open spaces in the wood were filled with mineral material, all within several months to a year. Likewise, as early as 1950 Merrill and Spencer12 had shown that the sorption of silica by wood fibres from solutions of sodium metasilicate, sodium silicate and activated silica sols (a homogeneous suspension in water) at only 25C (77F) was as much as 12.5 moles of silica per gram within 24 hours--the equivalent of partial silicification/petrification. As Sigleo concluded,

'These observations indicate that silica nucleation and deposition can occur directly and rapidly on exposed cellulose [wood] surfaces.'13

John H. Oehler, 'Hydrothermal crystallization of silica gel', Geological Society of America Bulletin, Vol. 87, August 1976, pp. 1143-1152.
R.W Drum, 'Silicification of Betula woody tissue in vitro', Science, Vol. 161, 1968, pp 175-176.
R.E Leo, and E.S. Barghoorn, 'Silicification of wood', Harvard University Botanical Museum Leaflets, No. 25, 1976, pp. 1-47.
R.C. Mernll and R.W. Spencer, 'Sorption of sodium silicates and silicate sols by cellulose fibers', Industrial Engineering Chemistry, Vol. 42, 1950, pp. 744-747.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to post 74 by SallyF]

And in this response you did not discuss the details of biblical "Creation".

Especially regarding the mud-man and his rib-woman.

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

According to the "Word of God" the mythological Jehovah Elohim (Lord God) had created sheep and wombats and apes and such in futile attempts to find a suitable help meet for the mud-man.

I put it to you that everyone reading this knows we are dealing with mythology.

You forgot one very important verse, that God breath into man the breath of life. Ashes to ashes dust to dust. Man does come from the dust of the ground but what makes man different than the rest of the animal kingdom is this one distinction that God breath into man the breath of life. God did this with no other part of His creation.

So is man different than the rest of the created creators?

What other animal can think and contemplate his position in the universe?
Cogito, ergo sum. (I think therefore I am) Only man can do this.

How did man acquire complex language which is hardwired into his brain?

The Bible states that man is different that the rest of the created kingdom in only one respect and that is man's ability to have a deep and meaningful relationship through communication because man has a soul which God breath into him.

[FarWanderer]

Wouldnt we expect from evolution that all the primates are more similar to humans than non-primates?

No. You are assuming the rate of genetic change to be the consistent in time across all lineages. The (retained) mutation rate may vary, or the reproductive rate (i.e. number of generations) may vary.

The latter point can be illustrated through simple familial taxonomy. You are actually more closely related to your uncle (2 degrees, or 25%) than to your grand-niece (3 degrees, or 12.5%), in spite of the fact that your latest shared ancestor with your uncle goes further back: Your grandparents, versus your parents in the case of your grand-niece.

[Difflugia]

But what you are saying is just not true.

Yes it is.

In fact you can make petrified wood at home if you have the correct equipment and here is how.

If "petrified" means by deposition and crystallization of quartz, as it does in natural petrified wood, then even the article you quoted without attribution acknowledges that temperatures of hundreds of degrees and thousands of atmospheres are required for fast quartz crystallization from amorphous silica. Andrew Snelling (the author of the article) neglects to point out that those conditions would also metamorphose the matrix rock as well. Instead of the sedimentary sandstones that petrified wood is naturally found in, the surrounding rock would be something like quartzite.

Snelling plays a sort of sleight of hand. The only paper below describing actual crystallization of quartz is Ohler. Not only is that technique the one that requires extraordinary high temperature and pressure, but it doesn't even involve wood. The only organic matter at all was some strands of algae inserted in a few tests to check if certain features of natural cherts were of organic or inorganic origin.

Drum, Leon and Barghoorn, and the patent mentioned in the references all refer to amorphous (non-crystalline) forms of silica in the wood rather than crystalline quartz. Quite simply, as in the other forms of "fast fossilization" that Answers in Genesis mentions, the "fossils" have a distinctly different structure than natural fossils.

Merrill and Spencer involves neither crystallization nor even solid wood. The researchers soaked pulped paper fibers in a solution of several silica compounds and then weighed the result to see how much bound to the cellulose fibers.

Fortuitously, it turns out that there's a review that references the papers cited by Answers in Genesis that can be downloaded. Read it if you'd like. Though incidental to the author's purpose in writing the paper, the most important sentence for us is on page 23, immediately before the conclusion:

Multiple lines of evidence suggest that natural fossil wood silicified with opal-CT, chalcedony and microgranular quartz requires millions of years to form.

I think it's safe to say that Answers in Genesis is badly misrepresenting the science, here and elsewhere. Whether it's intentional or simply due to a lack of scientific competence, I suggest to you that you may want to find a different source of scientific information. If I might suggest a resource, maybe try the Creation Research Science Quarterly. It's still pretty bad, but I got the impression that most of the authors were at least trying to be honest when I subscribed for a little while about fifteen years ago. $43 gets you a year of quarterly issues and online access to all of the old stuff. Of course, whatever sources you use, I'd also recommend that, if you haven't already, you get in the habit of checking all of the references. Even when only the abstract is available, one can usually get enough information to at least verify whether the creationist authors are making valid inferences.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Difflugia]

Old beliefs die hard and some scientist just refuse to live in the today and in the now. They choose to live in the old dogma of the past. If you want to live in the old geologic dogma of the past you are free to do that but please to not demand the rest of us to live in your fantasy land of the past.

A hot spring water lake in Tateyama Hot Spring has a high content of silica and readily precipitates silica spheres and deposits of opal. Abundant fragments of naturally fallen wood impregnated with silica were found in the overflow stream of the lake. These silicifications resulted from the precipitation of silica spheres onto split surfaces or cell walls of the fallen wood. The textures of wood tissues are the same as those found on naturally silicified wood formed in the vicinity of volcanic regions in the geological record. These results explain the formation mechanism of certain naturally silicified wood fragments that seem to be formed under the same conditions as those found in the hot spring water.To confirm the silicification process, fresh wood pieces of alder wood (Alnus pendula Matsumura) were placed in the hot spring water stream. Experimental wood fragments were silicified to nearly 40% by weight over a period of 7 years by the deposition of amorphous silica spheres in cell lumina of wood tissue.This study reveals that silicified wood can form under suitable conditions in time periods as short as tens to hundreds of years, and contributes to the understanding of the mechanisms forming silicified wood.
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... 's_history

[Difflugia]

Old beliefs die hard and some scientist just refuse to live in the today and in the now. They choose to live in the old dogma of the past. If you want to live in the old geologic dogma of the past you are free to do that but please to not demand the rest of us to live in your fantasy land of the past.

That's solid advice, even if deliciously (though I'm sure unintentionally) ironic.

A hot spring water lake in Tateyama Hot Spring has a high content of silica and readily precipitates silica spheres and deposits of opal.

Those are amorphous, non-crystalline forms of silica, like glass. SiO₂ doesn't crystallize out of solution as quartz in smaller than geologic timescales.