Atheistic intelligent design

[ydoaPs]

Going back to the thread. What do you think about atheistic intelligent design. Have you read John Gribbins work?

So, you admit you've been spouting bollocks?

[cabinintheforest]

So, you admit you've been spouting bollocks?

 

No. Just we need to stop going around in circles evolution can not be proven, just cease disgussing that now. People such as yourself have completey ruined my thread here i myself have spouted off, we should stick to the topic title. I want to discuss atheistic intelligent design, the multiverse theory.. john gribbins work. Enough about evolution. Are you familiar with his work?

[ydoaPs]

No. Just we need to stop going around in circles evolution can not be proven, just cease disgussing that now. People such as yourself have completey ruined my thread here i myself have spouted off, we should stick to the topic title. I want to discuss atheistic intelligent design, the multiverse theory.. john gribbins work. Enough about evolution. Are you familiar with his work?

Oh, you just happen to want to get back on topic now after it's been pointed out that you're blatantly ignoring us....ok......that's likely to be a coincidence

[cabinintheforest]

Oh, you just happen to want to get back on topic now after it's been pointed out that you're blatantly ignoring us....ok......that's likely to be a coincidence

 

If you gave me some scientific evidence i would embrace it. But all you offered was pasted in information from talk origins which is based on faith. I read what you wrote but it's no different than me pasting in lines from a religious book.

Edited November 3, 2010 by cabinintheforest

[ydoaPs]

If you gave me some scientific evidence i would embrace it. But all you offered was pasted in information from talk origins which is based on faith. I read what you wrote but it's no different than me pasting in lines from a religious book.

Those of us that can read can see you are lying right now. You're not fooling anyone.

 

So do you believe in paranormal phenomena. UFOS? Aliens? Ghosts? Supernatural entities? Deity?

What happened to you 'embracing specific evidence'? Cap'n's post:

Hmm. I can propose a test. Suppose I have some organisms. I introduce a chemical that kills most of the organisms. Using evolution, I'd predict that after some time, all of the organisms that are vulnerable to the chemical will be dead, and the rest will have gotten more and more immune. After a sufficiently long time, the chemical will not kill the organisms at all.

 

What have we here? Antibiotic resistance, observed in numerous strains of bacteria.

 

Hmm. How about another one?

 

Suppose I put some organisms in an environment with several kinds of food. They can only digest one kind of food there, and they eat it and thrive. Using evolution, I'd predict that if one of the organisms develops the ability to eat more than one kind of food, it'll get ahead, because it gets to eat food that no other organism eats -- so there's plenty of food for it. Guess what! It's the Lenski experiment, exactly, and Lenski has the actual bacteria frozen away in petri dishes for you to examine under a microscope.

 

Or another one?

 

Suppose we have an insect that lives in a certain environment. Suppose humans build a new environment -- say, underground tunnels. Some of this insect get into the new environment and adapt. Years later, they've adapted so much they no longer breed with the original insects. What's this? Why, it's the London Underground mosquito, Culex pipiens molestus.

 

In each of these examples, you can get samples of the actual organisms in question. You can perform whatever experiments you want on them. You can look at them under microscopes. (Lenski froze samples of his bacteria from every stage in the process, and analyzed the genome of many samples. You can get some of his samples if you have a lab and a freezer capable of handling them.)

 

But you won't get video of it happening in real-time. The Lenski experiment has been running for 22 years, or 50,000 generations. Try videotaping that.

That gives multiple specific examples, most of which you can get samples of and all of which you've entirely ignored.

[cabinintheforest]

Those of us that can read can see you are lying right now. You're not fooling anyone.

 

Too bad you can not read. You are the one who has resorted to lieing of course that's no problem for you becuase you do not believe in morals. read over my other thread. I said i want read live footage from someone else, where did i say i wanted to do this myself?, if these experiments were possible to do don't you think i would of done them? He somes up the thread by saying it takes 22 years. I said i want present moment footage is 22 years present? No.

 

Also read over the thread - I said i want an ape evolving into a human or a fish turning into a land creature (two views evolutionists share). Where did i ask for anything to do with bacteria? The information which was given about bacteria is evidence for microevolution, bacteria was experimented on and at the end of the day bacteria was there, and guess what apparently after 22 years it's still bacteria it hasn't changed into anything different. This is microevolution. I did not ask for this.

Hmm. I can propose a test. Suppose I have some organisms. I introduce a chemical that kills most of the organisms. Using evolution, I'd predict that after some time, all of the organisms that are vulnerable to the chemical will be dead, and the rest will have gotten more and more immune. After a sufficiently long time, the chemical will not kill the organisms at all.

 

What have we here? Antibiotic resistance, observed in numerous strains of bacteria.

 

Yes then get it on camera then. But as you have admitted these tests are non observable. These are suppose thought experiments which you are meant to think about. Not actual experiment an average every day to day person can perform and observe. evolution is a fairytale why do you believe men evolved off monkeys. You have no scientific evidence except faith, beliefs and ideas.

Edited November 4, 2010 by cabinintheforest

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Yes then get it on camera then. But as you have admitted these tests are non observable. These are suppose thought experiments which you are meant to think about. Not actual experiment an average every day to day person can perform and observe. evolution is a fairytale why do you believe men evolved off monkeys. You have no scientific evidence except faith, beliefs and ideas.

All of these tests have been done. They are not thought experiments. Scientists have samples of MRSA and other antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the lab. They've exposed them to antibiotics and watched resistance emerge over time, taking samples, observing things under the microscope.

 

Lenski watched citrate metabolism evolve in E. coli. He still has the samples of bacteria as they evolved the ability -- frozen samples of bacteria from before and after the transition. He has sequenced DNA.

 

What more do you want? A video of a tiny cell shaking its fist and shouting "I'll figure out this penicillin stuff, just you wait!"?

[tomgwyther]

Having video evidence of macro-evolution via natural selection is for the most part, impossible.

The measuring device is inappropriate for data collection. Cameras generally only record a few hours of footage, moreover it only been around for about 100 years, not the millions of years needed to record such data.

You can no more use a camera for evolutionary research; than use a toaster for medical research. Or a washing machine to observe supernovae.

[cabinintheforest]

All of these tests have been done. They are not thought experiments. Scientists have samples of MRSA and other antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the lab. They've exposed them to antibiotics and watched resistance emerge over time, taking samples, observing things under the microscope.

 

Lenski watched citrate metabolism evolve in E. coli. He still has the samples of bacteria as they evolved the ability -- frozen samples of bacteria from before and after the transition. He has sequenced DNA.

 

What more do you want? A video of a tiny cell shaking its fist and shouting "I'll figure out this penicillin stuff, just you wait!"?

 

Im very skeptical about lenskis experiments. For 40 years it was brought up by intelligent designers "evolution has never been observed" then suddenly out of nowhere lenski pops up with his back yard/bed room experiments with no witnesses being able to repeat, replicate what he has done, or even confirm he has done it, it sound hoax to me, its a shame people buy into it. You read over creationist websites and they say the whole thing is a hoax. Even if it isnt a hoax bacteria, evolved into what? bacteria.. this is not macroevolution. forget bacteria where is the scientific evidence that humans have evolved? None is ever given? Can not be observed. And yes a video of lenskis stuff would be good but none exist. No scientific reports are even published confirming his results, his results never replicated or confirmed by anyone but himself...

 

nobody on this forum has seen/replicated/observed/tested lenskis experiments.. so really.. this is not science. It's faith. Il wait til some video footage arrives then it would classify as scientific evidence.

[ydoaPs]

forget bacteria where is the scientific evidence that humans have evolved? None is ever given?

You're wrong again.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Im very skeptical about lenskis experiments. For 40 years it was brought up by intelligent designers "evolution has never been observed" then suddenly out of nowhere lenski pops up with his back yard/bed room experiments with no witnesses being able to repeat, replicate what he has done, or even confirm he has done it, it sound hoax to me, its a shame people buy into it. You read over creationist websites and they say the whole thing is a hoax. Even if it isnt a hoax bacteria, evolved into what? bacteria.. this is not macroevolution. forget bacteria where is the scientific evidence that humans have evolved? None is ever given? Can not be observed. And yes a video of lenskis stuff would be good but none exist. No scientific reports are even published confirming his results, his results never replicated or confirmed by anyone but himself...

 

nobody on this forum has seen/replicated/observed/tested lenskis experiments.. so really.. this is not science. It's faith. Il wait til some video footage arrives then it would classify as scientific evidence.

 

If you've ever watched a magic show, you'd shut up about video evidence being so reliable.

 

Now... as I pointed out before, Lenski has samples of all of the bacteria. If you have a lab and you want to see them, he can send you some. He's made this offer to doubters in the past, but it turns out that none of them had labs.

 

So, will we share the bacteria? Of course we will, with competent scientists. Now, if I was really mean, I might only share the ancestral strain, and let the scientists undertake the 20 years of our experiment. Or if I was only a little bit mean, maybe I’d also send the potentiated bacteria, and let the recipients then repeat the several years of incredibly pain-staking work that my superb doctoral student, Zachary Blount, performed to test some 40 trillion (40,000,000,000,000) cells, which generated 19 additional citrate-using mutants. But I’m a nice guy, at least when treated with some common courtesy, so if a competent scientist asks for them, I would even send a sample of the evolved E. coli that now grows vigorously on citrate.

 

Lenski's website also has detailed information on the genetics of his bacteria, the raw genetic data, procedures on how he performed the experiment, instructions on how to perform it in your own lab, and so on. He has made numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals, where other microbiologists scrutinized his data and methods for problems.

 

If you want to throw his data out, you need stronger evidence than "I don't like it, so it must be a hoax." You don't have the right to say "I disagree with this, so he must have just made it up." You need reasons.

 

As for macroevolution... what's stopping lots of changes, like Lenski's citrate mutation, from building up over time? The E. coli he has in the lab now are much different from the ones 20 years ago -- different in size and shape, metabolizing different food sources, and so on. They have accumulated mutations.

[Red Hypergiant]

All of these tests have been done. They are not thought experiments. Scientists have samples of MRSA and other antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the lab. They've exposed them to antibiotics and watched resistance emerge over time, taking samples, observing things under the microscope.

 

Lenski watched citrate metabolism evolve in E. coli. He still has the samples of bacteria as they evolved the ability -- frozen samples of bacteria from before and after the transition. He has sequenced DNA.

 

What more do you want? A video of a tiny cell shaking its fist and shouting "I'll figure out this penicillin stuff, just you wait!"?

 

Nice one.

 

 

But really cabin, you have clearly ignored all the evidence laid before you and then assert that evolution is faith and you are correct.

 

 

[cabinintheforest]

You're wrong again.

 

Seriously i have asked for your own research but every time you leave a negative comment and an internet website on purpose. I spent 2 days writing the OP to this thread out you have not even commented on this thread and what's its actually about so clearly you are just here to attack people. Can you actually write something for yourself instead of pasting links in? As mentioned it's no different than me pasting in an intelligent design website. If you are going to put some evidence across atleast type it out and try and put across some observable scientific evidence rather than words and beliefs from websites. It's ok if you dislike religion, creationism, ID etc I am not here to promote any of that. I simply have question the theory of evolution. You seem to take anything you read on a website at face value, as i have mentioned before what then is the difference of pasting something in from a holy book? You are just toying around with beliefs and ideas. Science is not about beliefs.

 

The easiest way to convince me that evolution is a proven fact. Is to show me observational evidence. I will leave my house tomorrow morning when i get outside i see plants, trees, soil, insects, water.... where can i observe this evolution? Lenskis stuff is not obersable you yourself know this. Nobody here has a 1million£ lab with scientific equipment.

 

So i walk outside my house, where can i observe evolution happening?

Edited November 4, 2010 by cabinintheforest

[Red Hypergiant]

Cabin, you link to websites that support your claims, but when other people do it, to an actual scientific site, it proves nothing to you.

 

 

Evolution is a long process, you can't just walk outside and see it. It can happen quicker with bacteria, but you can't see them with the naked eye.

 

 

You can observe evolution in the fossil record, and in numerous experiments that people here have shown you, but you blatantly disregarded.

[ydoaPs]

Fine, I'll quote the post I linked to in my last post. Perhaps you'll read it this way.

 

 

I see there are a few creationist posters here from time to time. So here is a very small amount of the evidence for common ancestry with the rest of the apes:

 

 

(1) Chromosome Banding Patterns

 

 

 

Here is Human Chromosome 2, alongside Chimp, Gorilla and Orang-Utan 2p,2q

 

 

 

 

 

 

you can see there that the banding patterns are all pretty much the same. one major difference of course if that the other apes have 2 chromosomes there, whereas humans only have 1. However when we examine the human chromosome in more detail (which you can't from those diagrams) you find that in the centre of the human chromosome we have telomere like structures, which normally exist only at the ends of chromosomes. telomeres are a bit like the cellular lifetime counter, and a bit is lost on each cellular reproduction (with the exception of sex cells and cancer, which repair their telomeres) so if a telomere is '=' and a centromere is '8' (that is the bit of the chromosome containing the genes and so on) then the chimp, gorilla and orang utan 2p and q would look like ===888=== and ===888=== but the human 2 looks like ===888====888=== and you can still see this now in humans.

 

 

 

Telomeres are highly conserved sequences, which are primarily the same between all organisms in a group, for example all vertebrates have TTAGGG repeating over and over. In primates, between 300-5000 times. Ajacent to these regions are other regions of repeats called pre-telometric regions, which are highly variable, and vary significantly even within a species, but can be recognised between members of a species and closely related species.

 

 

 

In Humans, further evidence for a chromosome fusion, the order of these sequences (in the middle of the chromosome between the two centromere sections)

 

 

 

pretelomeric sequence, a telomeric sequence, an inverted telomeric sequence and an inverted pretelomeric sequence. so even these features are conserved.

 

 

 

note that only the 2p centromere functions now. the centromere of 2q, while remaining very clear that it was a functioning centromere, is no longer the point where the two chromatids join dusing cellular reproduction.

 

 

 

 

 

This sort of analysis is not limited to chromosome 2, but can be applied to the entire karyotype:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The above image is just of humans and chimps.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2) Endogenous Retroviral Sequences.

 

 

 

Retroviruses are a class of viruses that have their genetic material in the form of RNA and consist of groups such as the oncoviruses (e.g. HTLV-1) and lentiviruses (e.g. HIV). Normally DNA is transcribed into RNA before being read in order to produce proteins, however retroviruses use Reverse Transcriptase in order to take their own RNA and integrate it into the organisms own DNA. Like all genetic processes however, there is a risk of inaccuracy, and sometimes a retrovirus may become crippled by a mutation during reverse transcription, and hence may not be able to reproduce itself as a normal virus would.

 

 

 

Endogenous retroviruses may embed themselves into any cell in the body, and this includes the sex cells (gametes) as well as the normal body (or somatic) cells. If an ERV occurs in a sex cell that goes on to fertilise an egg (or be fertilised by a sperm) then the ERV will be present in every single cell of the new organism, including it's sex cells (well since it will be in one chromosome, initially it will only be in 50% of the sex cells).

 

 

 

Now one of the most important theories within evolution is that of random genetic drift, and this is an element of evolution that was only understood after the discovery of DNA. Genetic drift is a stochastic (statistical definition) process in which a particular allele (version of a gene), or bit of the DNA, will randomly increase and decrease in presence in the population, provided there is no selection pressure on that particlar allele or section of the DNA, and eventually it may become fixed within the population i.e. when it is present in all members of the population. This may happen to an ERV which became embedded within one particular individual; via random genetic drift it may become embedded in the whole breeding population. This occurs more rapidly in smaller breeding groups than large breeding groups.

 

 

 

The next step is the consideration of ancestry. If we have a group A, all of whose members have a particular ERV, we will call this ERV 'E1', and this group splits into 2 new groups, B and C, perhaps by a river forming in the middle of the group across which none of the organisms can cross, now both groups B and C will still have this ERV in all members. Now let us say that a new ERV is introduced into a member of group B and becomes fixed in group B. all members of group B will have this new ERV, which we will call 'E2'. now when we look at populations B and C, we see that B has both E1 and E2, and C has only E1. this means that E2 was introduced to the population B after B and C became separated. If B furter splits into Bi and Bii and Bii has a new ERV 'E3' fixed within its poulation, we find that Bi has E1 and E2, Bii has E1 E2 and E3 and population C still only has E1, so we can build up a tree of what order these different groups broke apart. An important point to note, is that we should never find a retrovirus shared between, for example, Bii and C alone, since the common ancestral group between Bii and C is the same common ancestral group with Bi: if an ERV becomes fixed in A, then all of its ancestors should have the ERV.

 

 

 

By examining ERVs, we can look at ancestral links between these populations. if we look at the presence of retroviruses within a population we can find when a particular group broke away from a different group due to the presence of the retroviruses within the group.

 

 

 

here is a chart of ERV distributions in the primates, and the phylogenetic tree constructed from it

 

 

 

 

 

 

the above diagram is from the following paper:

 

 

 

Lebedev, Y. B., Belonovitch, O. S., Zybrova, N. V, Khil, P. P., Kurdyukov, S. G., Vinogradova, T. V., Hunsmann, G., and Sverdlov, E. D. (2000) "Differences in HERV-K LTR insertions in orthologous loci of humans and great apes." Gene 247: 265-277.

 

 

 

also we have

 

 

 

 

fig 3: Results of the 12 chimeric retrogenes insertional polymorphism study. The chimeras’ integration times were estimated according to the presence/ absence of the inserts in genomic DNAs of different primate species.

 

 

Note that u3-L1;Ap004289 is a polymorphism within the human species -- it integrated since the LCA of humans.

 

 

Ref: Buzdin A, et al. The human genome contains many types of chimeric retrogenes generated through in vivo RNA recombination. Nucleic Acids Res. 2003 Aug 1;31(15):4385-90.

 

 

 

A common creationist objection to the ERV concept is that of multiple insertions i.e. the idea that a virus might insert itself into the same place in different organisms and it becomes embedded in both organisms i.e. a human might be infected with E1, and this ERV becomes embedded in the human population, and a chimp might become infected with E1 and this also becomes embedded, however there are multiple problems with this hypothesis.

 

 

 

First and foremost, Of a genome that is 6 billion bases long, what are the odds that a ERV will be inserted into the same place? 1 in a 6 billion, right? Now, if there are 2 such ERVs, the odds are 1 in 6 billion times 1 in 6 billion for both being inserted into the same places by chance. If there are 3, you must multiply by another 1 in 6 billion. Now, since you have 12 such insertions in humans compared to the common ancestor, you have just passed the creationist number for it having occured by chance! By creationism's own criterion, their argument is invalid. The only creationist rebuttal to this is that there are hot spots, where the odds of a virus being inserted are slightly higher than other places, but there are still a great number of hotspots throughout the genomes, and given the above points, there is no reason why multiple infections would result in the same ERVs being inserted in the same locations with the same crippling errors and showing the same pattern of change with time. Again if there are multiple hotspots and multiple infections, there is no reason that there should not be ERVs that do not match the phylogenetic tree. again we see no deviances from expected inheritance patterns.

 

 

 

Secondly, there is no good reason as to why this would form the phylogenetic tree that it does. Even if there was a virus that was simultaneously capable of infecting every kind of primate from new world monkeys through to humans, there is no reason to think that this virus would actually infect every available primate and become fixed in every single population. we might well expect several to be missed i.e. we might see spider monkeys, bonobos, chimps and humans infected, but not gorillas or Orang Utan. we do not find these spurious distributions of ERVs.

 

 

 

Thirdly, we just do not find these sorts of retroviruses that have such a wide species affinity. and again, even if we did, there is no reason that the retroviruses would form the phylogenies that they do.

 

 

 

Fourthly, the retroviruses are crippled, but still identifiable as retroviruses. the retroviruses that we see in different species are crippled in the same way. If the retroviruses are the result of multiple infections, then there is no reason to expect the retroviruses to be crippled in the same way in different species.

 

 

 

Finally, additional alterations have been made to the ERV sequences over time. Since the ERVs themselves are not selected for or against, they themselves may be altered due to the same kind of genetic drift that caused them to be embedded within the population. we see inheritance of these changes too, that also match the phylogenetic tree of the presence of different ERVs.

 

 

 

Other Phylogenetic trees can be constructed in similar fashions by looking at ALU sequences (long sequences of repeating DNA) and transposons (kind of like internal viruses that only ever exist within the nucleus and copy themselves around the DNA)

 

 

 

(3) Transposons.

 

 

I will be brief with transposons since most of what needs to be said has already been said in the ERV section. Transposons are a form of internuclear parasite; they are sections of the genome that can copy and paste themselves around the rest of the genome. Again these transposons may become fixed within the population, and form the same sorts of phylogenetic profiles as ERVs. transposons are however completely independent from ERVs and function with a different mechanism (i.e. they do not use reverse transcriptase, they do not have viral coat proteins and they cannot cross cellular boundaries). The only possible mechanism of infection of another organism is via germ line cells - you may infect your children in other words, but nobody else. In this case there is absolutely no possibility for multiple insertions. The same phylogenetic trees can be constructed from independent analysis of transposons. It is these transposons which are responsible for much of the intergenic DNA and are also used in DNA fingerprinting, since cutting of certain chunks of DNA results in the same patterns for a given individual.

 

So i walk outside my house, where can i observe evolution happening?

The corn field or the dog show.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

That's not what "observable" means.

 

Also, you don't get to disqualify evidence because we didn't type it out ourselves. It's still evidence, regardless of who typed it or observed it. Why does it matter if you get it from us instead of some other guy? In fact, you should prefer some of our links, because some are written by actual biologists in actual peer-reviewed journals -- which certainly get higher credence than CreationWiki.

[cypress]

Somebody needs to catch on camera an ape evolving into a human. Or a fish evolving into a land creature becuase that is what evolutionists believe. And i aint see any evidence for it. Infact i have never seen a specie evolve into a different specie... species simply do not evolve into different species. Get photo / real live footage of this evolution then i would support evolution, becuase it would be based on empirical evidence (science) but it can not be observed becuase it does not exist, it's just a theory.

 

Standards of evidence need to be reasonable. I must take into account what is realm of possibility. For example one cannot use a paradox to show that some act is impossible.

 

Examples of evidence in favor of evolution (the idea that new form and function leading to derivation of all observed biological diversity is derived from observed non-teleological natural processes in operation today) would be:

 

1. direct observation of a contiguous multistep evolutionary pathway leading to derivation of any of a number of molecular subcomponents identified as necessary for new cell functions. These include new functional protein tertiary structures, new protein-protein binding sites, new gene expression controls, new functional developmental controls, new cell functional controls and circuits, new protein inventory and transportation systems, etc.

 

2. New functional systems require functional, specified information in order to construct, and instantiate and manage the components and processes that allow them to function. Examples of non-teleological natural systems that generate new functional information at a rate consistent with the timeframe estimated by the geologic record would support the evolutionary claims.

 

If the current evolutionary is correct, there would be hundreds and thousands of examples of these kinds of observations. As it is there seem to be none. Fruit flies have been mutated every conceivable way by non-teleological means with only three results; A) normal fruit flies, B) deformed fruit flies, C) dead fruit flies. Observed processes appear to be quite proficient at disabling and removing function but incapable of routinely deriving novel function other than the occasional single and double step mutations predicted by probability. There seems to be a limit to what observed processes can accomplish.

[ydoaPs]

New cell functions like the digestion of nylon byproducts?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

2. New functional systems require functional, specified information in order to construct, and instantiate and manage the components and processes that allow them to function. Examples of non-teleological natural systems that generate new functional information at a rate consistent with the timeframe estimated by the geologic record would support the evolutionary claims.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that I recently discovered that the No Free Lunch theorems don't apply to evolutionary searches. This renders a lot of our previous discussions (and your previous objections) irrelevant. Whoops. This leaves us back where we started, with no mathematical reason why evolutionary searches can't be faster than random searches.

 

Otherwise, yes, I think your goals are more achievable (if still difficult to observe on timeframes less than decades). But unless you catch them on video, I doubt cabinintheforest will be impressed.

[cabinintheforest]

Fine, I'll quote the post I linked to in my last post. Perhaps you'll read it this way.

 

 

I see there are a few creationist posters here from time to time. So here is a very small amount of the evidence for common ancestry with the rest of the apes:

 

 

(1) Chromosome Banding Patterns

 

 

 

Here is Human Chromosome 2, alongside Chimp, Gorilla and Orang-Utan 2p,2q

 

 

 

 

 

 

you can see there that the banding patterns are all pretty much the same. one major difference of course if that the other apes have 2 chromosomes there, whereas humans only have 1. However when we examine the human chromosome in more detail (which you can't from those diagrams) you find that in the centre of the human chromosome we have telomere like structures, which normally exist only at the ends of chromosomes. telomeres are a bit like the cellular lifetime counter, and a bit is lost on each cellular reproduction (with the exception of sex cells and cancer, which repair their telomeres) so if a telomere is '=' and a centromere is '8' (that is the bit of the chromosome containing the genes and so on) then the chimp, gorilla and orang utan 2p and q would look like ===888=== and ===888=== but the human 2 looks like ===888====888=== and you can still see this now in humans.

 

 

 

Telomeres are highly conserved sequences, which are primarily the same between all organisms in a group, for example all vertebrates have TTAGGG repeating over and over. In primates, between 300-5000 times. Ajacent to these regions are other regions of repeats called pre-telometric regions, which are highly variable, and vary significantly even within a species, but can be recognised between members of a species and closely related species.

 

 

 

In Humans, further evidence for a chromosome fusion, the order of these sequences (in the middle of the chromosome between the two centromere sections)

 

 

 

pretelomeric sequence, a telomeric sequence, an inverted telomeric sequence and an inverted pretelomeric sequence. so even these features are conserved.

 

 

 

note that only the 2p centromere functions now. the centromere of 2q, while remaining very clear that it was a functioning centromere, is no longer the point where the two chromatids join dusing cellular reproduction.

 

 

 

 

 

This sort of analysis is not limited to chromosome 2, but can be applied to the entire karyotype:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The above image is just of humans and chimps.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2) Endogenous Retroviral Sequences.

 

 

 

Retroviruses are a class of viruses that have their genetic material in the form of RNA and consist of groups such as the oncoviruses (e.g. HTLV-1) and lentiviruses (e.g. HIV). Normally DNA is transcribed into RNA before being read in order to produce proteins, however retroviruses use Reverse Transcriptase in order to take their own RNA and integrate it into the organisms own DNA. Like all genetic processes however, there is a risk of inaccuracy, and sometimes a retrovirus may become crippled by a mutation during reverse transcription, and hence may not be able to reproduce itself as a normal virus would.

 

 

 

Endogenous retroviruses may embed themselves into any cell in the body, and this includes the sex cells (gametes) as well as the normal body (or somatic) cells. If an ERV occurs in a sex cell that goes on to fertilise an egg (or be fertilised by a sperm) then the ERV will be present in every single cell of the new organism, including it's sex cells (well since it will be in one chromosome, initially it will only be in 50% of the sex cells).

 

 

 

Now one of the most important theories within evolution is that of random genetic drift, and this is an element of evolution that was only understood after the discovery of DNA. Genetic drift is a stochastic (statistical definition) process in which a particular allele (version of a gene), or bit of the DNA, will randomly increase and decrease in presence in the population, provided there is no selection pressure on that particlar allele or section of the DNA, and eventually it may become fixed within the population i.e. when it is present in all members of the population. This may happen to an ERV which became embedded within one particular individual; via random genetic drift it may become embedded in the whole breeding population. This occurs more rapidly in smaller breeding groups than large breeding groups.

 

 

 

The next step is the consideration of ancestry. If we have a group A, all of whose members have a particular ERV, we will call this ERV 'E1', and this group splits into 2 new groups, B and C, perhaps by a river forming in the middle of the group across which none of the organisms can cross, now both groups B and C will still have this ERV in all members. Now let us say that a new ERV is introduced into a member of group B and becomes fixed in group B. all members of group B will have this new ERV, which we will call 'E2'. now when we look at populations B and C, we see that B has both E1 and E2, and C has only E1. this means that E2 was introduced to the population B after B and C became separated. If B furter splits into Bi and Bii and Bii has a new ERV 'E3' fixed within its poulation, we find that Bi has E1 and E2, Bii has E1 E2 and E3 and population C still only has E1, so we can build up a tree of what order these different groups broke apart. An important point to note, is that we should never find a retrovirus shared between, for example, Bii and C alone, since the common ancestral group between Bii and C is the same common ancestral group with Bi: if an ERV becomes fixed in A, then all of its ancestors should have the ERV.

 

 

 

By examining ERVs, we can look at ancestral links between these populations. if we look at the presence of retroviruses within a population we can find when a particular group broke away from a different group due to the presence of the retroviruses within the group.

 

 

 

here is a chart of ERV distributions in the primates, and the phylogenetic tree constructed from it

 

 

 

 

 

 

the above diagram is from the following paper:

 

 

 

Lebedev, Y. B., Belonovitch, O. S., Zybrova, N. V, Khil, P. P., Kurdyukov, S. G., Vinogradova, T. V., Hunsmann, G., and Sverdlov, E. D. (2000) "Differences in HERV-K LTR insertions in orthologous loci of humans and great apes." Gene 247: 265-277.

 

 

 

also we have

 

 

 

 

fig 3: Results of the 12 chimeric retrogenes insertional polymorphism study. The chimeras' integration times were estimated according to the presence/ absence of the inserts in genomic DNAs of different primate species.

 

 

Note that u3-L1;Ap004289 is a polymorphism within the human species -- it integrated since the LCA of humans.

 

 

Ref: Buzdin A, et al. The human genome contains many types of chimeric retrogenes generated through in vivo RNA recombination. Nucleic Acids Res. 2003 Aug 1;31(15):4385-90.

 

 

 

A common creationist objection to the ERV concept is that of multiple insertions i.e. the idea that a virus might insert itself into the same place in different organisms and it becomes embedded in both organisms i.e. a human might be infected with E1, and this ERV becomes embedded in the human population, and a chimp might become infected with E1 and this also becomes embedded, however there are multiple problems with this hypothesis.

 

 

 

First and foremost, Of a genome that is 6 billion bases long, what are the odds that a ERV will be inserted into the same place? 1 in a 6 billion, right? Now, if there are 2 such ERVs, the odds are 1 in 6 billion times 1 in 6 billion for both being inserted into the same places by chance. If there are 3, you must multiply by another 1 in 6 billion. Now, since you have 12 such insertions in humans compared to the common ancestor, you have just passed the creationist number for it having occured by chance! By creationism's own criterion, their argument is invalid. The only creationist rebuttal to this is that there are hot spots, where the odds of a virus being inserted are slightly higher than other places, but there are still a great number of hotspots throughout the genomes, and given the above points, there is no reason why multiple infections would result in the same ERVs being inserted in the same locations with the same crippling errors and showing the same pattern of change with time. Again if there are multiple hotspots and multiple infections, there is no reason that there should not be ERVs that do not match the phylogenetic tree. again we see no deviances from expected inheritance patterns.

 

 

 

Secondly, there is no good reason as to why this would form the phylogenetic tree that it does. Even if there was a virus that was simultaneously capable of infecting every kind of primate from new world monkeys through to humans, there is no reason to think that this virus would actually infect every available primate and become fixed in every single population. we might well expect several to be missed i.e. we might see spider monkeys, bonobos, chimps and humans infected, but not gorillas or Orang Utan. we do not find these spurious distributions of ERVs.

 

 

 

Thirdly, we just do not find these sorts of retroviruses that have such a wide species affinity. and again, even if we did, there is no reason that the retroviruses would form the phylogenies that they do.

 

 

 

Fourthly, the retroviruses are crippled, but still identifiable as retroviruses. the retroviruses that we see in different species are crippled in the same way. If the retroviruses are the result of multiple infections, then there is no reason to expect the retroviruses to be crippled in the same way in different species.

 

 

 

Finally, additional alterations have been made to the ERV sequences over time. Since the ERVs themselves are not selected for or against, they themselves may be altered due to the same kind of genetic drift that caused them to be embedded within the population. we see inheritance of these changes too, that also match the phylogenetic tree of the presence of different ERVs.

 

 

 

Other Phylogenetic trees can be constructed in similar fashions by looking at ALU sequences (long sequences of repeating DNA) and transposons (kind of like internal viruses that only ever exist within the nucleus and copy themselves around the DNA)

 

 

 

(3) Transposons.

 

 

I will be brief with transposons since most of what needs to be said has already been said in the ERV section. Transposons are a form of internuclear parasite; they are sections of the genome that can copy and paste themselves around the rest of the genome. Again these transposons may become fixed within the population, and form the same sorts of phylogenetic profiles as ERVs. transposons are however completely independent from ERVs and function with a different mechanism (i.e. they do not use reverse transcriptase, they do not have viral coat proteins and they cannot cross cellular boundaries). The only possible mechanism of infection of another organism is via germ line cells - you may infect your children in other words, but nobody else. In this case there is absolutely no possibility for multiple insertions. The same phylogenetic trees can be constructed from independent analysis of transposons. It is these transposons which are responsible for much of the intergenic DNA and are also used in DNA fingerprinting, since cutting of certain chunks of DNA results in the same patterns for a given individual.

 

 

The corn field or the dog show.

 

 

You just copying and pasting this of this chap here:

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/8493-evidence-of-human-common-ancestry/

 

Who himself has copied it off a website. None of this is directly observable. It's theoretical pseudoscience trying to prove that all of mankind evolved off an ape ancestor. If you believe in this you gotta be some kind of nutcase.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

None of this is directly observable.

You can observe chromosome banding patterns under a sufficiently good microscope.

 

You really shouldn't dismiss things when you don't even understand them.

[cypress]

All of these tests have been done. They are not thought experiments. Scientists have samples of MRSA and other antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the lab. They've exposed them to antibiotics and watched resistance emerge over time, taking samples, observing things under the microscope.

 

Lenski watched citrate metabolism evolve in E. coli. He still has the samples of bacteria as they evolved the ability -- frozen samples of bacteria from before and after the transition. He has sequenced DNA.

 

What more do you want? A video of a tiny cell shaking its fist and shouting "I'll figure out this penicillin stuff, just you wait!"?

 

No this is incorrect. Lenski identified a two or three step mutation that led to over expression of an existing enzyme that allowed a for metabolism of citrate not in the presence of oxygen to provide for metabolism in the presence of oxygen. This kind of thing falls well within the limits of shear probability given the 30000 generations and countless millions of trillions of individual organisms involved in his experiment. Contrast this with the number of estimated generations and the relatively few individual organisms between the presumed common ancestor of humans and chimps and modern humans and the many thousands of differences far greater than this example.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

No this is incorrect. Lenski identified a two or three step mutation that led to over expression of an existing enzyme that allowed a for metabolism of citrate not in the presence of oxygen to provide for metabolism in the presence of oxygen. This kind of thing falls well within the limits of shear probability given the 30000 generations and countless millions of trillions of individual organisms involved in his experiment. Contrast this with the number of estimated generations and the relatively few individual organisms between the presumed common ancestor of humans and chimps and modern humans and the many thousands of differences far greater than this example.

 

I thought that was the point. An improbable (but still possible) mutation occurred within the countless generations, gave benefit to the organism, and the mutation was soon present in the entire population. That's evolution.

 

Now, whether it happened fast enough is a different matter entirely, and I think it'd be hasty to make a judgment on one experiment on one species of bacteria in a single unchanging environment.

[ydoaPs]

You just copying and pasting this of this chap here:

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/8493-evidence-of-human-common-ancestry/

Which is exactly what I said I did.

 

None of this is directly observable. It's theoretical pseudoscience trying to prove that all of mankind evolved off an ape ancestor. If you believe in this you gotta be some kind of nutcase.

Did you even read the frakkin post? It's ALL observable. Go grab some DNA and do it yourself.

[cabinintheforest]

You can observe chromosome banding patterns under a sufficiently good microscope.

 

You really shouldn't dismiss things when you don't even understand them.

 

ok karyotypes, chromosomes banding patterns observed with a microscope.... still doesnt prove evolution. Where is the ape or the fish evolving into a completly different specie. Going round and round here, just accept the fact macroevolution can not be observed infact some of you have admitted it you then say "direct observation is not needed"anything other than direct observation is based on faith... do you admit this truth? Admit it then i will happily leave this forum. Atleast then we can get some truth out of you.