Evidence For And Against Evolution

[Polymath257]

Ok so how many mutations do you think are needed to explain the differences between chimps and humans?

New Genome Comparison Finds Chimps, Humans Very Similar at the DNA Level

"
The consortium found that the chimp and human genomes are very similar and encode very similar proteins. The DNA sequence that can be directly compared between the two genomes is almost 99 percent identical. When DNA insertions and deletions are taken into account, humans and chimps still share 96 percent of their sequence. At the protein level, 29 percent of genes code for the same amino sequences in chimps and humans. In fact, the typical human protein has accumulated just one unique change since chimps and humans diverged from a common ancestor about 6 million years ago.

To put this into perspective, the number of genetic differences between humans and chimps is approximately 60 times less than that seen between human and mouse and about 10 times less than between the mouse and rat. On the other hand, the number of genetic differences between a human and a chimp is about 10 times more than between any two humans."

I'd also point out that most of the changes have pretty minor effect and do NOT explain what most people consider to be relevant differences between humans and chimps. For example, chimps have lost some inflammation genes and humans have lost one that helps to prevent Alzheimer's.

 

[Jose Fly]

Ok so how many mutations do you think are needed to explain the differences between chimps and humans?

That's a nonsense question. It's like asking "How many mutations are needed to explain the difference between you and your 3rd cousin". You do realize that chimps are not our ancestors, and are instead our "cousins" that have gone through their own separate evolutionary path for the last ~6 million years, don't you?

 

[gnostic]

It is so cool how creationists latch onto tidbits of information that they do not fully understand, yet present it as if it is some major argument.

Odd they when they ask these questions, they fail to ask them of themselves regarding their supernatural beliefs. Like this:

Creationist don’t examine what are probable, as the evidence are there. They want Evolution to present incredible and impossible hybrid scenarios.

Like can cats give birth to dogs, or dogs to cats?

Here is one, I see every now and then, can mouse give birth to elephants?...or was it the other way around?

They want biologists to present absurdly impossible and improbable with evolution, which are more to with religions, myths and fairytales and comic books.

What about creationists belief in the existence of angels and demons, where you have, for instance, 4 angels (Ezekiel 1) have bodies of human, but 4 wings and head with 4 faces, that of lion, bull, eagle and human.

Then you have in Revelation, the impossible hybrids of the Two Beasts or the many-headed dragon (supposed Satan).

They would readily believe in impossible creatures, beings and spirits in the Bible, and yet they want more from biology, following more of the same silly and impossible scenarios like the Bible do, and whined about when biologists don’t follow the Bible’s lead.

 

[gnostic]

my point is that according to @TagliatelliMonster Feathers could have not evolved independently in mammals and birds,

I simply tried to explain to him that he is wrong, feel free to give it a try and explain to him why given enough time and selective pressure, it would have been possible for mammals to evolve feathers independently from birds

Birds evolved from specific species of dinosaurs, birds didn’t evolve from mammals.

Likewise mammals didn’t evolve from birds, and more importantly, mammals didn’t evolve from dinosaurs.

You are asking impossible scenarios, scenarios that were never postulated by any biologists or paleontologists.

The feathers were (avian-typed) dinosaurs things, not mammals.

Bats can fly, but they don’t have feathers.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

agree

my point is that according to @TagliatelliMonster Feathers could have not evolved independently in mammals and birds,

I simply tried to explain to him that he is wrong, feel free to give it a try and explain to him why given enough time and selective pressure, it would have been possible for mammals to evolve feathers independently from birds





in this post he specifically mentioned feathers in mammals as an example of somethign that would be
Considered as a failed prediction

They wouldn't be feathers like birds, but something feather-like perhaps. Different genes and regulatory paths, since mammals have diverged so far from birds, would be likely. We wouldn't expect it, given those niches are occupied by birds, but I hear our blundering around and using this world like a toilet is going to open a lot of them up. Feathers likely evolved initially as adaptations for thermo-regulation and mammals already have adaptations that address those pressures.

We wouldn't predict it, but it is not impossible for some mammal group to evolve feather-like vestiture, but not bird feathers.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

agree

my point is that according to @TagliatelliMonster Feathers could have not evolved independently in mammals and birds,

I simply tried to explain to him that he is wrong, feel free to give it a try and explain to him why given enough time and selective pressure, it would have been possible for mammals to evolve feathers independently from birds





in this post he specifically mentioned feathers in mammals as an example of somethign that would be
Considered as a failed prediction

He is correct in the sense that the exact same vestiture we know as bird feathers would not be predicted to arise in mammals. But in circumstances and conditions I previously mentioned, something feather-like could evolve in mammals given appropriate mutations and some selective advantage. They may not derive from the same tissue or follow the same developmental pathway that they do in birds either. The feather-like structures might evolve for reasons other than thermo-regulation or anything related to the selection resulting in birds.

If you are expecting even poor copies of feathers exactly like birds, then that would not be predicted. Recall also, that feathers evolved in the group ancestral to birds and reached their current state with the rise of birds.

I should have qualified my initial answer a bit better.

Editorial comment: Sorry for the typos. I have corrected them.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Birds evolved from specific species of dinosaurs, birds didn’t evolve from mammals.

Likewise mammals didn’t evolve from birds, and more importantly, mammals didn’t evolve from dinosaurs.

You are asking impossible scenarios, scenarios that were never postulated by any biologists or paleontologists.

The feathers were (avian-typed) dinosaurs things, not mammals.

Bats can fly, but they don’t have feathers.

As I read more of this sub-discussion, it strikes me that he is not clear on the kinds of predictions that can meaningfully be made using the theory of evolution. There were reasons to predict Tiktaalik, but there is no reason to predict mammals with feathers.

I believe my initial error in answering this was in thinking more on the possibility of feather-like vestiture evolving in mammals given the right conditions as opposed to predicting finding such given reason to do so. Those are two different scenarios. We know fish existed prior to tetrapod land animals and would be the ancestral group. We know about when tetrapod land animals appear in the fossil record. The theory predicts transitionals. All the information and the prediction were available to find the fossil and they were.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

That's a nonsense question. It's like asking "How many mutations are needed to explain the difference between you and your 3rd cousin". You do realize that chimps are not our ancestors, and are instead our "cousins" that have gone through their own separate evolutionary path for the last ~6 million years, don't you?

This has come up before and already been shot to pieces. I wonder he was the one that brought it up before.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Creationist don’t examine what are probable, as the evidence are there. They want Evolution to present incredible and impossible hybrid scenarios.

Like can cats give birth to dogs, or dogs to cats?

Here is one, I see every now and then, can mouse give birth to elephants?...or was it the other way around?

They want biologists to present absurdly impossible and improbable with evolution, which are more to with religions, myths and fairytales and comic books.

What about creationists belief in the existence of angels and demons, where you have, for instance, 4 angels (Ezekiel 1) have bodies of human, but 4 wings and head with 4 faces, that of lion, bull, eagle and human.

Then you have in Revelation, the impossible hybrids of the Two Beasts or the many-headed dragon (supposed Satan).

They would readily believe in impossible creatures, beings and spirits in the Bible, and yet they want more from biology, following more of the same silly and impossible scenarios like the Bible do, and whined about when biologists don’t follow the Bible’s lead.

I saw a crazy cat/dog magical transformation answer by a creationist just the other day. Hilarious stuff.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

agree

my point is that according to @TagliatelliMonster Feathers could have not evolved independently in mammals and birds,

I simply tried to explain to him that he is wrong, feel free to give it a try and explain to him why given enough time and selective pressure, it would have been possible for mammals to evolve feathers independently from birds





in this post he specifically mentioned feathers in mammals as an example of somethign that would be
Considered as a failed prediction

As I have read more deeply into this, I agree with @TagliatelliMonster . Feathers in mammals would not be predicted. There is no reason to predict them.

That some feather-like structure might evolve in mammals is possible, but not predictable. It is a different type of prediction than made regarding Tiktaalik. In the former the prediction is about a feature we have no reason to expect to find. In the latter, the was a reasoned expectation based on theory and that prediction was fulfilled.

You are using one type of prediction that is doomed to fail in comparison to another type of prediction that was successful. Feather-like structures in mammals is a possibility under some unknown selection conditions, but not a prediction of the theory under any known conditions. The same question could be asked regarding any structure currently known to be restricted in its expression to a particular group. Any such example would result in a failed prediction. Fish gills in mammals for example. Presumably you did this to show some flaw in theory or the application, but clearly it has failed.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Ok it is my claim, and therefore I will support it. Please let me know what is your favorite naturalistic explanation for the FT of the universe and I will try to show that ID is a better explanation.

You have yet to do this.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

However it is still a fact that bats and dolphins evolved the same traits (same genetic material) independently, this is true for atleast 200 genes related to echolocation.

So why cant mammals evolve some bird - like traits (same genes) independently?

Many of those 200 genes are not associated with echolocation.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

agree

my point is that according to @TagliatelliMonster Feathers could have not evolved independently in mammals and birds,

I simply tried to explain to him that he is wrong,

I'm not wrong.

At best, you're just miscromprehending what is being said, eventhough it's been explained multiple times now.

feel free to give it a try and explain to him why given enough time and selective pressure, it would have been possible for mammals to evolve feathers independently from birds

And the underlying genetics underpinning those "feathers" would be different, if that were to happen.

Just like the genetics underpinning echolocation in bats and whales, are different.

in this post he specifically mentioned feathers in mammals as an example of somethign that would be
Considered as a failed prediction

And I was right about that.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Ok so how many mutations do you think are needed to explain the differences between chimps and humans?

Consider an analogous question:

"how many mutations are needed to explain the differences between French and Spanish?"

Do you think that is a sensible question?

 

[ecco]

Stomp that habitat. Splash! It's a Starbucks now.

A Starbucks, or at least your typical restaurant, is far more finetuned to the needs of cockroaches than the open fields that God provided.

 

[ecco]

Sure but if you claim that americans (tetrapods) came from Europeans (tiktaalik) at the very least you are expected to show that europeans predate americans.

You need to ask Dad how "americans (tetrapods)" hopped onto the about-to-move-North-American-plate just as it was about to break away from Europe.

 

[ecco]

Why cant mammals evolve feathers independently?

If there was no environmental reason for mammals to develop feathers, why would they have developed anything like feathers?

I really don't understand what point you are trying to make.





ETA: Oops. Just saw DanFromSmithville's post # 1996 saying the same thing.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

If there was no environmental reason for mammals to develop feathers, why would they have developed anything like feathers?

I really don't understand what point you are trying to make.





ETA: Oops. Just saw DanFromSmithville's post # 1996 saying the same thing.

He doesn't just mean "feather-like" structures. He means actual bird feathers. With like the exact same genetic underpinnings. So millions of years of evolution happening twice, in the exact same way, with the exact same succession of mutations, ending up in the exact same feather structures.

I'm starting to think that the underlying problem is a failure to understand the difference between genotype and phenotype, and how different genotypes can result in phenotypes that are somewhat the same at first sight, or in concept.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

A Starbucks, or at least your typical restaurant, is far more finetuned to the needs of cockroaches than the open fields that God provided.

What a telling observation. The appearance of fine tuning in favor of an organism in an environment where that organism is unwanted as a cohabitant.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

He doesn't just mean "feather-like" structures. He means actual bird feathers. With like the exact same genetic underpinnings. So millions of years of evolution happening twice, in the exact same way, with the exact same succession of mutations, ending up in the exact same feather structures.

I'm starting to think that the underlying problem is a failure to understand the difference between genotype and phenotype, and how different genotypes can result in phenotypes that are somewhat the same at first sight, or in concept.

It took me a bit to fully comprehend what @leroy was trying to get at along those lines.

He doesn't appear to understand the nature of prediction in relation to a scientific theory either.