Evolutions Smoking Gun

[rocketman]

I have no problem with the mixing of proto-pans and proto-hominids genetically mixing for thier initial million years or so. I don't think it was likely to have been widespread, but it may well have left a mark on our genetics. I'd like to see more reserch into it before I make a solid commitment.

I understand your position. It's a pity the average scientist doesn't move with the same control that you do.

The same goes for Toumai, one horribly crushed skull is not quite enough to solidly put something so old and so contrary to established genetic studies into the family tree.

You're arguing with the authors of the paper on this one, not with me. I'm just speculating as to what the implications will
be if they are right.

Nature doesn't have a set stance on the age of the human/chimp split. The articles are submitted by individuals and peer reviewed. They do not say "this is fact" they present the arguments of individual scientific papers and promote the discussion of them.

I know, but the fact is the new idea got past peer review, which wouldn't have happened if there wasn't some possiblity of it
being true. When Joe or Jill Public read a newspaper that quotes from "the prestigous journal Nature" they are left with
the impression that the "scientific community" is accepting of an idea. Of-course you and I know what it really means.
Anyway, I know you always held to a 5M year timeframe, and I'm not saying I know who is right or wrong, just asking what does
it mean to the creation-evolution debate if the new idea is right, timeframe wise.

I don't understand how you "loose" a mutation.

I said lose not 'loose' . Anyways, I'll ask again: Do we inherit all of our parent's genes?
Variations of genes can be lost forever, look at the leopard. Genes can be bred out of a population - thoroughbred horse
owners use artificial selection to banish or neutralise autosomal recessive diseases, and dog breeders are now looking at
controlled breeding to eliminate the faulty EPM2b gene, for instance. There's no guarantee that a mutated variant will remain
in a population, even if it's beneficial. As breeders of roses went more and more for larger and prettier flowers over the
years they accidentaly bred out the gene that gave roses of old their strong smell. A pre-modern example would be corn,
thousands of years ago it dropped seeds to self-propagate, but human selection that favoured the ear and the cob has stopped
this from happening, now it can't survive without human help. Same goes for many agricultural plants ability to resist pests,
something they used to be able to do. I would class these nuetralised/banished genes as lost. Some researchers say that blond
hair in humans will disappear in about 200 years because less and less people carry that gene.

Given how hard it is to get a new mutation well established, and with no guarantee that it will be passed on, I'm surprised
that anyone can take seriously the idea that all the genetic differences between humans and chimps could have made their way
down through the ages, namely, 5.4M years. The mutations could not have all come at the very end either, they must be
distributed, however bumpy in frequency, along the timeline. This means that the early mutations had to be of a type that
worked in complete harmony at the time, and then also with later mutations, but given the high interdependancy of any genome
I find this, too, to be more than I can swallow.

You only need one major change and six bouts of the common cold per generation.

When the white-man came here to Australia 236 years ago they brought the common cold which killed some aboriginies, but not
all of them. 60000 years of seperate evolution did not see the protection fully integrated into the population. The idea
that these things can happen every generation and eventually all form up seems silly to me. I stand by my assertion that
mutations are difficult to establish in a population, especially if they are not immediately critical. I believe that, more
often than not, that they are likely to be lost before they are needed [selected], especially when I look at some of the
computational biology models and the way in which many trait distributions have a non-branching nature. Most mutations are
somatic, and most germline mutations are neutral or non-beneficial. Just out of curiosity, do you know of any documented
evidence of a new selectable functional advantage showing up in our species recently? At 7 per gen, with 10s x 1000s of
scientists, plenty of diseases and a planet of billions, we should have one by now that can't be traced to a previous
generation.


to be continued...

 

[rocketman]

...continued

Only 1% of the actual difference between us and chimps has to do with our being "human". Duplications and shuffling of information make up for another 3% of the difference... We really arn't talking about a lot of mutations to make a human. 5 million years is plenty of time for 1% change.

You make it sound so easy. As I said to Fade, I'm trying to fit the changes into the timeframe, regardless of what they
actually do. I'm not debating that a small number of genes can account for big diferences, but I am saying that a big number
of differences won't fit into a small timeframe [imho]. I think the 'other 3%' is underrated. Plus we are only guessing which
known evolutionary processes account for them. If not by mutation then by what I ask? There is a distinct morphological and
functional novelty between humans and chimps that runs much deeper than viral resistance. I strongly disagree that most of
the differences are immunological products if everything else is taken into account. Your emphasis on single-letter changes
puzzles me. Indels have a strong influence. It's only fair to add the indel mutation events to the letter events, and who
knows if the genes responsible for the initial indels are still present or have been lost. The interaction between indels and
the rest of the genome hints to me that there were more than simple control gene mutations involved. It's one thing to
replicate something, it's another to integrate in a new way.

Considering the different ways in which homologous genes behave between humans and chimps I see no good reason to suggest
that the letter changes alone account for anywhere near the real world functional differences. That being the case, what
happened along the way? Obviously the interactivity of the genome is much more complicated than many once thought. Humans are
96% the same as chimps yet we only share 29% of our proteins. I propose that a different type of mutaion event, other than
single-letter or indels or cascade, has something to do with this mysterious arrangement. I'm reminded here of the term
'divergent evolution', which is what some people seem to say when they really mean 'they look so similar they must have a
common ancestor'. I fear that straight letter counts will be used in the same way. Thankfully there is a turning of the tide,
albeit slowly. Consider these quotes from nbc/Fujiyama et al.

"Fujiyama’s team found differences that may be more important than the single-letter changes."

“There is also an impressive number (68,000) of small to large stretches of DNA that have been either gained or lost .... in
one species or the other,” the researchers wrote.

“These differences are sufficient to generate changes in most of the proteins: Indeed, 83 percent of the 231 coding
sequences, including functionally important genes, show differences at the amino-acid sequence level,” they added.

“Our data suggest that indels within coding regions (genes) represent one of the major mechanisms generating protein
diversity and shaping higher primate species.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5067906/

This was from the pilot sudy in 2004. I compared these comments with the draft paper you cited from 2005, and I found no
overwhelming reason to dismiss these comments, in fact, apart from a few minor questions the data seems to be strongly
supportive. The paper you cite makes me think that it's actually prudent NOT to focus on straight letter counts. One day we
might know exactly how many mutations it takes for these interesting rearrangements but I don't see that we are there yet.
Therefore, I suggest that more than 1% change has taken place, but not within the timeframe. The paper says:

"...... constituting approximately thirty-five million single-nucleotide changes, five million insertion/deletion events, and
various chromosomal rearrangements. "

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v437/n7055/full/nature04072.html

I couldn't deduce if this draft study analysed any heterocrhomatin or unresolved alignment gaps. Anyway, I think it's an
exiting time for evolutionary biologists. I'll be interested to see where all of this goes in a few years time. Obviously I'm
not disputing any evidence, I just have my own interpretations.

Thank you.

 

[gnostic]

I am sorry, Roli, if I send you the wrong message. I am not asking people not to believe what you all believe in their religions, but you must also realise that the Bible (or any other religious scriptures) is not end-all-truth.

I am asking people to open their eyes that the Bible's Creation doesn't necessarily published facts.

Ask around the forums, here, and you will see that not all Christians believe in the literal interpretation of the creation. Some believed that the Creation and the Flood are actually metaphors than actual events; sort of like Jesus' parables in the gospels. Some Christians here believed in this metaphors as the truths, but not in literalism of what it say, because they realise that there are many scientific evidences that the earth is far older than it supposedly dating of Creation.

According to the Jewish calendar, the Creation of Adam (and the Earth) happened 5766 years ago, which would make it 3760 BC (or BCE, depending on if you're scientist or not). There is a lot of evidences that there were people living before this supposed date. The Flood was supposed to have happened in 2104 BC (1656 years after the Creation), but there are no evidences of such flood taking place at this time. The Sumerian 3rd Dynasty of Ur was uninterrupted by such biblical devastation beyond the normal annual innudation between the two rivers.

Although, the 3rd dyanasy was in decline around this time, there are no evidence that there were mass extinction, caused by the flood, and when it did collapsed, it was not the water that killed the Sumerians living in Ur, but pressures from the Akkadians, and the nomadic incursions into the land. Other Sumerian civilisations around the Mesopotamia seemed unaffected by this so-called biblical flood.

There are Sumerian extant literature before 2100 which stated that their (Sumerian)version of the Flood happened half-dozen centuries, which also have a Noah-like hero, named Ziusudra building ark to save his family. Other evidences is the Sumerian poems of Gilgamesh (not the Akkadian-Babylonian version), also written before 2104 BC, which also mentioned Ziusudra's name. So the Sumerian version of the Flood is older than the Genesis' Flood.

How do you account for that if the Flood destroyed the world in 2104 BC, when there are earlier evidence of other literature before the biblical flood even took place?

 

[painted wolf]

When the white-man came here to Australia 236 years ago they brought the common cold which killed some aboriginies, but not
all of them. 60000 years of seperate evolution did not see the protection fully integrated into the population

*sigh* the 'common cold' was just ment as an example....
the white men brought viruses that the Aboriginal population had no natural defence to... so they missed out on a few variations of the common cold in thier time of isolation, leaving them vulnerable. Everytime you catch it, you catch a 'new' virus. The common cold is only one of the viruses that humans have been coping with for thier long history, how many such viruses have we delt with in our 5 million year evolutionary history? How many do we not even notice because we have had them so long they no longer effect us... like Foamy virus?

Anyway, I know you always held to a 5M year timeframe, and I'm not saying I know who is right or wrong, just asking what does it mean to the creation-evolution debate if the new idea is right, timeframe wise.

not a lick IMHO... except to creationists who are desperatly clutching for straws to hold up thier house of cards.
Evolution doesn't always move in a slow stately pace, it can happin in fits and starts. Punctuated equilibrum... it has been observed in nature. Evolution can happin in a geological blink of an eye.

Just out of curiosity, do you know of any documented
evidence of a new selectable functional advantage showing up in our species recently?

I belive that I showed you at least two recent mutations in the human mind that can be traced back to a single individual. Not to mention the human migration prodject.
some more examples:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=7732592&dopt=Abstract
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2156/6/47
http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/ingman.html
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoHumBenMutations.html
here is the journal of human mutation (an important medical publication):
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/38515/?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

Fujiyama’s team compared chromosome 22 on three different chimpanzees to its counterpart in humans, chromosome 21.

they only studied one chromosome...not the whole genome.
You compeletely missed mentioning this part which is the whole big part of the article.

“Our data suggest that indels within coding regions (genes) represent one of the major mechanisms generating protein diversity and shaping higher primate species.”

In other words, while the genes and other DNA may look the same in chimpanzees and humans, the proteins they eventually code for can be very different. This supports what genetic researchers have been saying lately — that subtle changes in the genetic code that reach far beyond the genes themselves may be extremely important to biology.

I would think that they included Heterochromatin as they did the entire Geneome all the DNA.

There are notable differences in the rate of transposable element insertions: short interspersed elements (SINEs) have been threefold more active in humans, whereas chimpanzees have acquired two new families of retroviral elements.

Therefore, I suggest that more than 1% change has taken place, but not within the timeframe

and yet earlier you were very keen on one letter changes (hence I found for you how many there were, 35 million as opposed to your guessed at 60 billion)... you seem to be changing your position to dodge the evidence.

wa:do

 

[rocketman]

*sigh* the 'common cold' was just ment as an example.. everytime you catch it, you catch a 'new' virus.

I know, but does that cause a germ-line mutation? No, you have to already have the protection. Natural selection obviously pares down a population to those who have the protection once the virii come, but my point was that barring immediate selection a gene can drift/stagnate/disappear - I feel this is important when looking at new mutations travelling through 5-6 million years.

Evolution doesn't always move in a slow stately pace, it can happin in fits and starts. Punctuated equilibrum... it has been observed in nature. Evolution can happin in a geological blink of an eye.

That's why I said "The mutations could not have all come at the very end either, they must be distributed, however bumpy in frequency, along the timeline." Which nevertheless leaves me with the problem of how do all the changes survive each​

generation. The authors of the 2005 draft were clear that most of the differences did not come about as a result of selection. I can't see how so many mutations can become established in the timeframe without selective advantage , regardless of their arrival timing -imho.

I belive that I showed you at least two recent mutations in the human mind that can be traced back to a single individual. Not to mention the human migration prodject...

I have to thank you for taking the time for looking. The earlier examples you gave were for 37000 and 5800 years ago. I was talking about evidence from the modern scientific era. One of the other studies you cite refers to beneficial mutations that seem to be already resident in a measurable fraction of the population, and doesn't indicate if they are germline mutations - I'm looking for the recent appearance of a new, novel, beneficial germ-line mutation that isn't already in the family history.
It's not that I don't think they exist, it's just that I've never been able to find one , that's why I phrased it: 'just out of curiosity..' The link you gave for the journal of human mutaton gave a 'session cookie error'; I went searching through the homepage but all the full texts I tried to read required a licence ??. The other long range 'family tree' studies you cite don't answer my question. Incidentaly one of them places 'mitochondrial Eve' at 171500 years ago, which is only 3 times the [supposed] Australian aboriginal split. Considering the minimal functional diferences between those aboriginals and the rest of the human populaton in 60000 years, I can't see that much happened in the 170000 years. 170000 into 6 million only goes 35 times... Hmmm ...​

they only studied one chromosome...not the whole genome. You compeletely missed mentioning this part which is the whole big part of the article.

Hold on a minute, I said it was a pilot study, not the whole show. I placed the link for all to read, and I drew a clear distinction between the 2004 work and the 2005 work by saying that I compared them. I was homing in on the fact that single letter changes are only one part of the story - either work shows that.​

and yet earlier you were very keen on one letter changes (hence I found for you how many there were, 35 million as opposed to your guessed at 60 billion)... you seem to be changing your position to dodge the evidence.

Ouch. Let me clear a few things up here. First and foremost, earlier in this thread I started refering to a creationist argument and I stated that "I find it is not a bad argument from a scientific point of view, because no matter whose numbers you look at, there seems to have been an extravagantly large number of mutations per generation" It's in that context that I have been proceeding. Secondly, YOU were the first to use the 4% figure, not me. I thought that someone as well read as yourself would have known about the indels/substitution ratio so I assumed you wanted to do things in a generalist way [base pairs only: 1 pair=1 mutation], thus I spoke of the different number of base-pairs, which really is 120 odd million [say, 60M each]. That's 35M substitutions, 45M indels for humans, and similar again for chimps. Now consider
this: when you decided to tighten things up and drop it to 35 million [letters only] I did not stick to the 60 million figure, I came down with you - only mentioning that you should also take into account the indels [which would be a reduction of the two 45M figures down to 5M ] for 40 million mutations difference all up. Then, only when you changed over to '1%' did I start a seperate line of discussion on why I think 1% is ultimately not enough. I'm beginning to think you didn't know about the number of single letter changes; I should have just jumped straight to it, which constitutes a mistake on my part. Thirdly, I showed NO keeness on single-letter changes [I regret it now..]. At no point did I say that base-pair differences constitute substitutions [single-letter changes] only. Base pair differences are a mix of substitutions, inserts and ommissions, and I never said otherwise. Fourthly, when you seemed to be indicating only 7 mutations per generation you cited 35 million mutations without specifying if you used 5 or 6 million years nor the generation span. I calculated this as generously as I could based on your scattered figures [6.1M years, guessed a 12yr gen' span, and 35M mutations=17.5M mutations each for chimp and human] which gives 34 per generation, 5 times your per-gen figure. Did I say you were dodging the evidence? No. I let it go. I thought maybe you just made an error. And lastly, seeing as I am going on about things, you just misquoted me as saying 60 billion when I clearly said 60 million, but I'm assuming that was just a typo.. no worries. Anyway, I've been trying hard to carry on a polite logical discussion. You say I seem to be dodging the evidence... I have dodged nothing. I just don't interpret the evidence the way you do. I hope I haven't sounded mean spirited or disrespectful in this paragraph, because nothing would be further from the truth.

To restate my postion, I don't see that there was enough time for all the changes. Even at the most generous I am prepared to go [40 Million changes ie: 20 Million each for human and chimp, along with a generation span of 10 years and a 7.4M year
timeframe] that still gives 27 mutations per generation. I don't buy it for a minute. I think the creationists have a good argument here.

"to-hi-du ni-hi a-ge-yv wa-ya"
[I hope I got that right.]

 

[painted wolf]

I think untill we know what the whole genome does and how mutations effect it, especally in relation to cascade effects... that the whole practice of trying to say you need x number of mutations per generation to be a bit silly.

it is well known that one mutation can have noticable effect on more than just the one bit 'mutated'... changing whole sequences. One change can have major consequences... like putting legs on flys heads insted of antennae.

(and yes, viral insertions/resistances can and are passed down from mother to child in the form of inherited immunities, one of the bennfits of breast feeding. I'm not 100% sure about inheriting from the father.)

again I just want to point out that assigning a minimum number of 'nessisary mutations' to each generation to be highly questionable IMHO.

It will be intresting to see what more we learn from the DNA as we do more than scratch the surface.

:sorry1:I'm sorry if I came accross snippy in my previous post, it wasn't my intent. :run:
I will admit I am a fossil person formost, my knowledge of genetics is still fairly basic. (a fact I hope to fix as soon as I can get into the Biology program in college)
We only have one fossil chimp from around 500,000 years ago. Sadly they don't tell us much as they are only 3 teeth, but they are identifiable as a chimp ancestor.
The fossil evidence of hominid evolution is remarkably more complete by comparison.

gaest-ost yuh-wa da-nv-ta
wa:do

 

[roli]

[

quote=gnostic]I am sorry, Roli, if I send you the wrong message. I am not asking people not to believe what you all believe in their religions, but you must also realise that the Bible (or any other religious scriptures) is not end-all-truth.

No offense taken,just a reminder that ,as the bible is not the be all end all to all truth in a literature aspect neither is much of the speculative literature you research,but to many out there,it is most certainly ranked high to the christian for many varifiable reasons.
But a s a Christian (Christ Follower) the truth for me is not ever summed up alone in a piece of literature of any nature,be it the bible,or other, as much as it is in Jesus himself,not to preach or anything just a side note that truth is in the person of Jesus.
But from the outside looking in,that is impossible to those who know not Christ in the person as savior, He was just a man and not viewed as the embodiment of truth, in the literal sense.Many say he spoke truth but was not and could not be truth in itself.
But the moment you come to know him as savior the revealtion of absolute truth becomes evident.
You see it is not and has never been an intellect assent to find the truth of God or His word,it never came about that way but by personal revealtion.
Sorry just a side note again

I am asking people to open their eyes that the Bible's Creation doesn't necessarily published facts.

The facts are available if you so incline yourself to view them,from fossils,to starta,etc 1 site just quickly http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/evid9.htm
Explains so much on the only way that large masses of animals ,mammals etc could have been fossilized so quick,but that is another thread

Ask around the forums, here, and you will see that not all Christians believe in the literal interpretation of the creation. Some believed that the Creation and the Flood are actually metaphors than actual events; sort of like Jesus' parables in the gospels. Some Christians here believed in this metaphors as the truths, but not in literalism of what it say, because they realise that there are many scientific evidences that the earth is far older than it supposedly dating of Creation.

Again don't believe in all those who make the claim to be christains as being of the sort. If Genisis is refuted in any way,not saying I don't have questions,but then the very words of God as were used to create must likewise be questionable throughout the whole bible,including Jesus,sin judgement heaven hell,law etc.
The best way to destroy something is found in its foundation ,creation is that foundation for Christianity. The creation account has the Gospel meassage embedded within it's foundation ,eternity,communion with God,disobedience,sin grace,mercy,pardon,etc
If any athiestic group or individual ever decides to refute God, create an evolution theory or (similar "DeVinci Code)implement it into the fabric of society and the foundation of Christianity is compromised,not faulty or extinct,just threatened,questioned and refuted for ever.

According to the Jewish calendar, the Creation of Adam (and the Earth) happened 5766 years ago, which would make it 3760 BC (or BCE, depending on if you're scientist or not). There is a lot of evidences that there were people living before this supposed date. The Flood was supposed to have happened in 2104 BC (1656 years after the Creation), but there are no evidences of such flood taking place at this time. The Sumerian 3rd Dynasty of Ur was uninterrupted by such biblical devastation beyond the normal annual innudation between the two rivers.

Yes, many theories of dates,but evidence is still available.

Although, the 3rd dyanasy was in decline around this time, there are no evidence that there were mass extinction, caused by the flood, and when it did collapsed, it was not the water that killed the Sumerians living in Ur, but pressures from the Akkadians, and the nomadic incursions into the land. Other Sumerian civilisations around the Mesopotamia seemed unaffected by this so-called biblical flood.

Dr. John R. Hornet in Digging for Dinosaurs stated,
"Judging from the concentration of bones in various pits, there were 30 million fossil fragments in that area. At a conservative estimate, we had discovered the tomb of 10,000 dinosaurs. There was a flood. This was no ordinary spring flood from one of the streams in the area but a catastrophic inundation. . . That’s our best explanation. It seems to make the most sense, and on the basis of it we believe that this was a living, breathing group of dinosaurs destroyed in one catastrophic moment."

There are Sumerian extant literature before 2100 which stated that their (Sumerian)version of the Flood happened half-dozen centuries, which also have a Noah-like hero, named Ziusudra building ark to save his family. Other evidences is the Sumerian poems of Gilgamesh (not the Akkadian-Babylonian version), also written before 2104 BC, which also mentioned Ziusudra's name. So the Sumerian version of the Flood is older than the Genesis' Flood.

How do you account for that if the Flood destroyed the world in 2104 BC, when there are earlier evidence of other literature before the biblical flood even took place?[/quote]
http://www.nwcreation.net/noahlegends.html

 

[Fade]

If the timeframe thing: Just trying to fit the changes into the timeframe, regardless of what they actually do they still
need to be accounted for using evolutionary mechanisms. I find myself edging toward the creationist view on this one Fade,
and with the majority of articles saying that the timing has been moved forward, doesn't that mean the new idea actually
adds weight to this argument?

And what is the creationist view on this? No wait, don't answer that...I presume that you are kidding. That or you don't actually know the creationist view on this.

Timeframe is not an issue. All it takes is one generation to pass on a mutation. Multiply that by a few thousand generations (Still well within the 5 million years) and you have the makings of a new species.

I still don't get your point.

 

[rocketman]

it is well known that one mutation can have noticable effect on more than just the one bit 'mutated'... changing whole sequences. One change can have major consequences... like putting legs on flys heads insted of antennae.

I completely agree that cascade effects aren't yet well understood. I know that existing genes can be duplicated and even
reassigned, but given the complexity of bioforms I for one will be pretty surprised if cascade changes are able to
repurpose large numbers of genes at a time - just my personal opinion.

(and yes, viral insertions/resistances can and are passed down from mother to child in the form of inherited immunities, one of the bennfits of breast feeding. I'm not 100% sure about inheriting from the father.)

So cute! Sorry, I'm a bit 'clucky', a good mate of mine and his wife just had their first baby. I always thought that the
breastfeeding thing was more like a flu-shot that didn't actually change the babies' genes. I'm probably wrong...

again I just want to point out that assigning a minimum number of 'nessisary mutations' to each generation to be highly questionable IMHO ...It will be intresting to see what more we learn from the DNA as we do more than scratch the surface.

You're right. It is still too early to be debating the specifics of this one. Honestly, I never intended for this subject to
become the main topic of this thread. I hearby promise to stop raving and ranting about this subject as of now.

I'm sorry if I came accross snippy in my previous post, it wasn't my intent.

Not at all. [Now I feel bad]. You did nothing wrong. May I also add that having read many of your posts I can say with
confidence that you know a lot more about scientific matters than I do.

gaest-ost yuh-wa da-nv-ta

Please check your PMs.

Thank you

 

[rocketman]

And what is the creationist view on this? No wait, don't answer that...I presume that you are kidding. That or you don't actually know the creationist view on this... Timeframe is not an issue. All it takes is one generation to pass on a mutation. Multiply that by a few thousand generations (Still well within the 5 million years) and you have the makings of a new species. I still don't get your point.

Obviously! I cannot seriously believe you have read through this thread properly. Why on earth did you bring up speciation? I
was talking about fitting all the differences into the timeframe, regardless of what they do. "All it takes is one generation
to pass on a mutation" LOL! What, did I say it took two? Sorry, that's a cheap shot...but you can handle it. Seriously mate,
you either don't understand the focus here or you've just skimmed over the posts. Anyways, I have agreed with Painted Wolf
that it's too premature to debate the specifics on this one until more work is done to show how many mutations were required.
She's right about that. And while I appreciate your extension of terms for this thread, I've said to her that I wasn't going
to rant and rave about it anymore so you'll have to practice your 'hubris' on someone else.

 

[Fade]

Seriously mate, you either don't understand the focus here or you've just skimmed over the posts.

That was my point, I don't understand your comment. I don't see how the timeframe is an issue. How much time did it take to get the genetic variance between the various members of the canine family. You know, wolves into domestic dogs? 30000 years? maybe less?

Anyways, I have agreed with Painted Wolf
that it's too premature to debate the specifics on this one until more work is done to show how many mutations were required.

Nothing wrong with that, I just don't think it has any bearing on things.

...so you'll have to practice your 'hubris' on someone else.

/me is keeping the faith.

 

[Smoke]

To restate my postion, I don't see that there was enough time for all the changes. Even at the most generous I am prepared to go [40 Million changes ie: 20 Million each for human and chimp, along with a generation span of 10 years and a 7.4M year timeframe] that still gives 27 mutations per generation. I don't buy it for a minute. I think the creationists have a good argument here.

I'm not sure I understand you correctly. Are you proposing that each change in nucleotides requires a separate mutation? And are you proposing that mutation is the only engine of evolution?

 

[Fade]

And are you proposing that mutation is the only engine of evolution?

I know the question wasn't directed to me but I am of the opinion that evolution does not happen without mutation.

 

[rocketman]

I'm not sure I understand you correctly.

It seems like you haven't read through the whole thread. I'm going to answer these two questions as a courtesy because I'm assuming you haven't read the bit where I said I was no longer going to debate the details of this idea. But after this, that's it.

Are you proposing that each change in nucleotides requires a separate mutation?

No. Mutation can of-course act on both the gene-level and the chromosome-level. That's why it's more accurate to count the 120 million base-pair differences as only 40 million. This was already mentioned in the thread. I've since been persuaded that we don't know the actual number of causal mutations, which is why I'm no longer debating this.

And are you proposing that mutation is the only engine of evolution?

I don't think you understand evolutionary theory. While it's true that selection, gene flow, genetic drift and recombination all have an influence and can even result in speciation, at the end of the day the raw material for all of this still has to come from mutation. Natural selection can't work if it doesn't have anything to select from. I agree with Fade on this one. Anyway, the equation required three numbers: an average event count, a time count, and an interval count. That's why I focused on mutations, because it was a known number from the literature, but ultimately not solid enough for me to keep going. If you go back far enough you'll see that I never intended for this topic to take over this thread.
Thanks for your interest.

Some reading for you:

http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/biobk/BioBookEVOLII.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v437/n7055/full/nature04072.html

 

[rocketman]

That was my point, I don't understand your comment. I don't see how the timeframe is an issue. How much time did it take to get the genetic variance between the various members of the canine family. You know, wolves into domestic dogs? 30000 years? maybe less?

I don't understand why this is still dragging on...

Very well. For the sake of posterity I'll try one last time to tell you what I was going on about [even though I'm no longer debating it].

In a nutshell I questioned the idea that all of the differences between humans and chimps could have occured in a certain timeframe. Towards the end it didn't matter what the timeframe or dna count was, I still questioned it. I didn't say the speciation wouldn't fit the timeframe, I said the WHOLE THING wouldn't. There are a great many differences between human and chimp DNA which have nothing whatsoever to do with speciation, yet they came about after we split from our last common ancestor, so, from a forensic analysis point of view, we should want to see if ALL of the DNA differences can be accounted for within the arbitrary timeframe using known evolutionary mechanisms. OK? That's what I was on about. Then Painted Wolf wisely pointed out that it's a little early to be debating this one given the lack of good numbers. I agreed. The more I look at what she said the more I see that now is not the time to debate the specific mechanics of this idea - I'm not doing it now and I have no plan to do so anytime soon - so if you want to revisit the debate look elsewhere.

I hope this has helped you understand what I was on about. [The dog/wolf thing shows you were a mile off]. If you still don't get it then I'm sorry, I can't help you. By the way, understanding what I was on about and agreeing with it are two completely different things. I feel like I am 'debating the debate', which is kind of sad, really. No doubt you'll have a witty quip to type out, but I for one am out of here.

Have a good one.

 

[Fade]

I must be completely thick. I don't understand how my dog/wolf thing isn't related to what you are saying. I think it is a perfect analogy.

 

[Smoke]

I don't think you understand evolutionary theory.

My interest is strictly that of an amateur, but, with all due respect, I think I understand it somewhat better than you do.

While it's true that selection, gene flow, genetic drift and recombination all have an influence and can even result in speciation, at the end of the day the raw material for all of this still has to come from mutation. Natural selection can't work if it doesn't have anything to select from.

However, that's not at all what you said, or what a reasonable person would infer from what you said. Since you've withdrawn the argument, though, I guess there's no point in pursuing the point.

Thanks for your interest.

You're welcome.

 

[rocketman]

My interest is strictly that of an amateur, but, with all due respect, I think I understand it somewhat better than you do.

I did not mean to insult your intelligence. You sure took that one the wrong way.

However, that's not at all what you said, or what a reasonable person would infer from what you said. Since you've withdrawn the argument, though, I guess there's no point in pursuing the point.

The argument, yes, but the 'debate about the debate' seems to have developed an annoying life of it's own. You asked: "are
you proposing that mutation is the only engine of evolution?". Your question was singular, not plural. You didn't ask me
about 'all that I said'. I answered your question as honestly as I could. I think that mutation is the ultimate engine of
evolution because everything else ultimately depends on it. Do you know of another root cause? Looking back through the
thread I can see that I was talking about how the mutations might travel, which actually touched on some of these other
'engines', but the mutations had to occur in the first place, so it was a 'first cause' study, and that was my main thrust,
which I distilled into a simple equation. You should have no doubts about the position I was taking, you even quoted it. Yes,
I was using the number of mutations as a factor, a master factor, given that every other engine is secondary and that all of
the mutations had to fit into the timeline, but ultimately I didn't know the factor value, which ended it. Are you sure
you've read the whole thread? As I said, I won't revisit debate questions and this ends it for the 'debate about the debate'
questions as well [ok, one more to Fade, then that's it]. If you want to post a specifc counter to what I was arguing for,
or anything else, then be my guest.

 

[rocketman]

I must be completely thick. I don't understand how my dog/wolf thing isn't related to what you are saying. I think it is a perfect analogy.

I certainly don't think you are thick.

The wolf/dog thing is a completely different type of investigation. I understand that you are using it as a guage to show
that x-number of mutations can occur in such and such a time, but I just thought it was a poor example for the following
reasons [seeing as you are interested ]: They haven't really split yet, they can still interbreed and some biologists
classify them as the same species, often referring to dogs as canis lupus familiaris. This is an important point because
the .2% difference between dogs and wolves is not uncommon within a single species, thus some or all of that percentage would
have been present in the original ancestor gene-pool, so not a lot has changed. Except that we see some visually diverse
morphology resulting mostly from artificial selection. The 'variance' you speak of is a result of a remixing of mostly the
same genes, not new ones. Don't be fooled by the morphology of 'all the breeds', the difference between a boxer and a poodle
is about one change in every 900 bases, they are 99.85% identical. That also shows you, as a convenient example, that there
can be roughly a .1% or .2% difference between two animals of the same species, probably always was, probably always will be.
What's changed?

The other members of Canidae have larger differences but with divergences that stretch back a lot further, some older than
the chimp-human split, so we're back to square one. The problem here is that many of them can still interbreed, so we don't
really know what was going on in terms of hybridisation. Interestingly, one study calculated that the divergance in mtDNA
between wolves and coyotes, which is only 20 bases [minimum], occured at a rate of one substitution per 50,000 years. That's
not very impressive. Going back to dogs and wolves, it's well known that domestic dogs do not derive from a single parentage
and that therefore hybridisation between dogs and wolves was going on well into the domestication period. This
convergence/divergence thing muddies the waters somewhat as far as trying to count mutations within a timeframe goes. Humans
and chimps on the other hand are definitely two seperate species, cannot interbreed, and have a lot more differences between
them than the usual difference in dna that occurs within a species, and most importantly, there is said to be a definite
split - thus one could theoretically compare mutations against a timeframe [not that I know the correct number for either
mutations or the timeframe].

Maybe my reasoning is off here..I don't know, I'm tired, rather ill, and this no longer interests me. Maybe you have more
recent data than I do which speaks differently. For now I think it's a stretch to use canines as a guage, but go ahead if you
want to, because it's not my debate anymore.

All the best.

 

[Fade]

As I said to Fade, I'm trying to fit the changes into the timeframe, regardless of what they
actually do. I'm not debating that a small number of genes can account for big diferences, but I am saying that a big number
of differences won't fit into a small timeframe

5 million years is not a small timeframe. There, consider your argument countered.

I would argue that there isn't enough genetic difference between humans and chimps when taking into account the amount of time our evolutionary paths have had as seperate entities. Generally speaking the only real difference between us is all in our heads. Our brains have evolved but our bodies are as different to a chimps as a british bulldogs is to a greyhound.