Astronomy and Astrophysics Questions and Answers

[Sue U]

If you accept that all these clearly different animals evolved from common ancestry down one small branch of the mammalian family tree in just the last 25 million years, why can you not accept that there were similar processes of genetic divergence in operation for the 4 billion years before that?

Easy - I don't accept that they are clearly different animals. That is (before mockery ensues - oh damn, too late) I can see there is difference of appearance between a mammoth, an African elephant and an Indian elephant. But I have no difficulty in seeing the common features that (to me) indicate the family resemblance.

Now when I look at a rock hyrax (and there are lots here) I see no resemblance whatever and the same with sea elephants (granted trunky thing and big teeth). Those are clearly different animals. But since I don't accept their evolution from mammoths or mastodons this does not bother me.

I think humans share lots of DNA with earthworms don't they? It's hardly surprising that animals utilise similar structural materials and plans since there was one maker.

Meade

Do you consider homo sapiens to be clearly different animals than homo erectus, homo habilis, homo heidelbergensis and homo neanderthalensis? Do you consider genus homo to be clearly different animals than other hominidae (gorillas and chimpanzees)? What is it that you think makes some animals diffrent from others?

[MajGenl.Meade]

That's difficult to say since there are none of the above walking around at present. One has only the flights of fancy indulged in by museum specialists who have a vested interest in producing "may have looked like this" models designed to fit a pre-determined notion of how the things should look. These are not infrequently creations based upon the existence of nothing more than a phalange - build the rest as you want it. I regard most (claimed) hominids as kinds of failed monkeys.

As to gorillas and chimpanzees, of course homo sapiens is a different kind of animal. The first two are far too sensible to hold political conventions and eat fried Mars bars (hmmm, maybe not).

In the immortal (and completely fictitious) words of Stephen Lang playing Pickett in "Gettysburg": "Sirs, perhaps there are those among you who believe you are descended from a ape. I suppose there may even be those among you who believe that I am descended from a ape. But I challenge the man to step forward who believes that General Robert E. Lee is descended from a ape"

Now his argument not only lacks a certain degree of precision but is also confounded by the fact that Lang played R E Lee in "Gods and Generals". An interesting example of adaptation that.

But of course I never disagree that evolution within a species occurs. Or almost never anyway

Meade

[Grim Reaper]

Now when I look at a rock hyrax (and there are lots here) I see no resemblance whatever and the same with sea elephants (granted trunky thing and big teeth). Those are clearly different animals. But since I don't accept their evolution from mammoths or mastodons this does not bother me.

They're clearly different looking animals. But their genetic heritage reveals a common ancestry.

I think humans share lots of DNA with earthworms don't they? It's hardly surprising that animals utilise similar structural materials and plans since there was one maker.

Which raises the question of why there's so much junk in our DNA if there was a maker. Apparently he was pretty sloppy to leave us with stuff like a nonfunctional gene for producing egg yolk even though we use live births.

There's also the question of why certain species are more closely related than others if there was a maker. All species should be close to equally related if there was a guiding force behind their creation. After all, why bother making hyraxes seem more related to elephants when an intelligently designed system should have hydraxes, elephants, and dogs all fairly closely related.

But of course I never disagree that evolution within a species occurs. Or almost never anyway

The problem with this view is that it is like arguing that earthquakes can happen while arguing that continental drift doesn't happen.

[Sue U]

That's difficult to say since there are none of the above walking around at present. One has only the flights of fancy indulged in by museum specialists who have a vested interest in producing "may have looked like this" models designed to fit a pre-determined notion of how the things should look. These are not infrequently creations based upon the existence of nothing more than a phalange - build the rest as you want it. I regard most (claimed) hominids as kinds of failed monkeys.

That's kind of a dodge, isn't it? When I look at chimpanzees and bonobos I have no difficulty in seeing the common features that (to me) indicate the family resemblance. (And that doesn't even take into consideration the poo-flinging.) Of course there is far more than simple outward appearance that shows relationship.

But of course I never disagree that evolution within a species occurs. Or almost never anyway

Isn't that precisely what your "failed monkeys" represent? Or do they constitute the "almost" part?

[MajGenl.Meade]

But their genetic heritage reveals a common ancestry.

That's one conclusion that can be drawn. Another is that it doesn't.

Which raises the question of why there's so much junk in our DNA if there was a maker

I don't know. Do you?

There's also the question of why certain species are more closely related than others if there was a maker. All species should be close to equally related if there was a guiding force behind their creation. After all, why bother making hyraxes seem more related to elephants when an intelligently designed system should have hydraxes, elephants, and dogs all fairly closely related.

Not at all. That second sentence is an unproven claim. According to the science fiction of origins, all animals developed from the same probiotic broth - therefore all animals should be equally related by that kind of reasoning. Whereas the fact is that animals (whether from God or broth) adapt to conditions and genetic slips occur. Over time there is divergence. And hyraxes, elephants and dogs are all fairly closely related.

The problem with this view is that it is like arguing that earthquakes can happen while arguing that continental drift doesn't happen.

Not even remotely analagous. Continental drift is proven.

Meade

[MajGenl.Meade]

That's kind of a dodge, isn't it? When I look at chimpanzees and bonobos

No I don't think it's a dodge. Precisely - we can look at chimpanzees and bonobos. Unfortunately we cannot look at all those hominids - not even a little bit. All we can look at are the fictional pictures and models created by people who shape the final result to conform to what they want it to look like. That's how we get those drivel pictures showing a monkey at one end and a human at the other with all sorts of gradually "improving" bits in between. Fact is, that kind of chain is scientific nonsense (regardless of religious thought).

But of course I never disagree that evolution within a species occurs. Or almost never anyway

Isn't that precisely what your "failed monkeys" represent? Or do they constitute the "almost" part?

I'm sure you are not juxtaposing failed monkeys and pygmies? Not intentionally I'll be bound. Question's unclear. Change occurs within a species... monkeys come and monkeys go. Some made it and some didn't.

Now neanderthal certainly looks like a good candidate to be my brother or cousin at least - not the kissing kind - I doubt that they were failed monkeys. They may not even be extinct - I've not been to a Chicago Bears game for a long time but.... you know....

Meade

[Grim Reaper]

That's one conclusion that can be drawn. Another is that it doesn't.

It's the simplest conclusion, one that doesn't require an outside intervention from a source we can never verify.

I don't know. Do you?

It's a byproduct of evolution. We end up with junk DNA because it doesn't adversely affect the survival of the species. So an egg yolk gene from millions of years ago becomes vestigial, but not completely erased, because it doesn't negatively impact having children.

Not at all. That second sentence is an unproven claim. According to the science fiction of origins, all animals developed from the same probiotic broth - therefore all animals should be equally related by that kind of reasoning. Whereas the fact is that animals (whether from God or broth) adapt to conditions and genetic slips occur. Over time there is divergence. And hyraxes, elephants and dogs are all fairly closely related.

Except that's not what evolution implies. The different species branched off at different times. They didn't all just branch off at once. Mammals and reptiles split off a long time ago, but reptiles and birds split off more recently. And arthropods split off a very long time ago.

Not even remotely analagous. Continental drift is proven.

It's as about as well proven as evolution. We'll never see the continents change within our lifetime, we'll never see a new continent emerge when the plates shift far enough. But we know it happened because we can look at the way pieces things fit together.

[Gob]

When I look at chimpanzees and bonobos I have no difficulty in seeing the common features that (to me) indicate the family resemblance.

[MajGenl.Meade]

[rubato]

We end up with junk DNA because it doesn't adversely affect the survival of the species. So an egg yolk gene from millions of years ago becomes vestigial, but not completely erased, because it doesn't negatively impact having children.

"Junk DNA" is DNA whose function has not yet been discovered.

If you read recent studies you would know this. Much of what was formerly dismissed as 'junk DNA' turns out to have an important control function.


yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

Why did rube just take a quote from one poster and falsely attribute it to another? He took a quote of Grim's and then tried to make it look like it was Grim quoting Meade...

My guess is he did this because he wanted to say something insulting about what was said , ("If you read recent studies you would know this") and he preferred to insult Meade....

[Scooter]

Actually that happens to me a lot - you quote an edited portion of someone responding to someone else, and you mistakenly leave the interior quote tag in place.

[Lord Jim]

I wonder if he'll admit that's what happened?

[MajGenl.Meade]

Yes just a simple mistake. I've done it myself. Besides, everyone knows I drink way too much to type such a complete and coherent sen

[rubato]

I was trying to clip out the MajGenl's quote about "junk DNA" and cut in the wrong place. Fairly obvious what happened.

There was a story about this reported on NPR in the past week. Reproducing truly 'useless' stretches of DNA requires that physical resources be expended needlessly (the chemicals used to make those sections, the phosphate, the sugar, and the base pairs are then unavailable to make useful DNA thus the survival value of an organism with more 'useless' DNA is lower than one with less therefore there is a mechanism for its removal).


http://www.wbur.org/npr/160599136/scien ... man-genome

Scientists unveiled the results of a massive international project Wednesday that they say debunks the notion that most of our genetic code is made up of so-called junk DNA.

The ENCODE project, which involved hundreds of researchers in dozens of labs, also produced what some scientists are saying is like Google Maps for the human genome.

"We like to think about the ENCODE maps similarly," said Elise Feingold at the National Human Genome Research Institute."It allows researchers to look at the chromosomes and then zoom into genes and even down to individual nucleotides in the human genome in much the same way that someone interested in using Google Maps can do so."

For decades, scientists thought that most of our genetic code was essentially useless — basically filler between our genes. Only a tiny fraction — the part that has genes in it — really mattered, according to this thinking.

"The phrase that was thrown around was junk DNA," said Michael Snyder, a geneticist at Stanford University who participated in the project. "I think all of us would agree that really wasn't a good term because it was simply something that we didn't know what it did."

So in 2003, the National Institutes of Health launched the ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA elements) project, at a cost of $288 million. The researchers conducted more than 1,600 experiments to understand what is going on in this supposed genetic wasteland.

The results appear in more than 30 papers published in a slew of leading scientific journals, including Science, Nature and Genome Research.

"So the most amazing thing that we found was that we can ascribe some kind of biochemical activity to 80 percent of the genome. And this really kind of debunks the idea that there's a lot of junk DNA or really if there is any DNA that we would really call junk," NHGRI's Feingold said.

What has been called junk DNA is actually teeming with an intricate web of molecular switches that play crucial roles in regulating genes. The ENCODE project scientists found at least 4 million of these regulatory regions so far.

These switches rev genes up. Calm them down. They orchestrate how the whole complex system works. Scientists have already started to figure out which switches control which genes. And that's uncovered even more surprises. Genes can get instructions from up to dozens of switches. And some of the switches are nowhere near the genes they control.

"Most of the human genome is out there mainly to control the genes," said John Stamatoyannopoulis, a geneticist at the University of Washington School of Medicine, who also participated in the project.

The findings help explain why so many studies have found genetic mutations that appear to be associated with diseases in places where no genes reside. It turns out, these areas contain the molecular switches that, when damaged, are behind the diseases.

"The whole way that we look at the genetic basis of disease is going to change. And it's going to change from this model from trying to look at particular this gene or that gene etc to trying to look at genes operating as a system or a network," Stamatoyannopoulis said

Other scientists hailed the findings as providing crucial new insights. But they warned that any payoff probably won't be seen any time soon. "I think it would be irresponsible and really counterproductive to try to massage this into a situation where you're going to go to the doctor's office in the next year and see these things playing out," said James Evans of the American College of Medical Genetics. "That's not the way science works."

yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

Now that is interesting. Grim's "junk=no God" kind of vanished.

[Sean]

Divine intervention?

[MajGenl.Meade]

God 2 : Death 0 (a.e.t)

[Sean]

No golden goal then...

[MajGenl.Meade]

The ones with the goals make the gold?