Alternatives to Modern Evolutionary Theory

Okay, @colewd, ill bite…

These 70 “identical” genes…
How are they identical ? They cant be identical in chromosome locations, right?

Are they identical in purpose AND composition?

70 genes is a pretty big number…

They are close enough to do research into human disease using Zebra fish.

, and 84 per cent of genes known to be associated with human disease have a zebrafish counterpart.

@colewd,

They could be complete analogs and still be worth studying… to see what they are affecting.

“Identical” is well within God’s means… if he intends to send us a message. Less than identical sends no message.

When the message is “the genes are not identical” it is God sending a message to @Scd that He sometimes uses Evolution!

The only way to explain this using common descent is to say the genes were lost twice. This is a poor explanation as it is highly improbable that this would happen as a random occurrence so the explanation is based on circular reasoning. Common descent is true therefor…

Your identical criteria is an arbitrary assertion. This pattern is evidence of a hierarchal structure generated by design.

@colewd

Everything depends on HOW they are identical.

If the amino acid sequences are different… there is NOTHING that indicates the “cherry picking” that Special Creation calls for as its hallmark.

Different sequences doing the same function is CONGRUENT evolution.

Hi George
Thanks for the discussion. Here is the original paper the chart came from. I looks like about 50% of the genes are identical and the others have high sequence identity.
https://dx.doi.org/10.1038%2Fnature12111

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@colewd

Here is a definition useful for that article:

What is the major difference between a Paralogous and an orthologous gene?

Orthologous and paralogous genes are two types of homologous genes , that is, genes that arise from a common DNA ancestral sequence. Orthologous genes diverged after a speciation event, while paralogous genes diverge from one another within a species.**

So… two points:

ONE:
These genes you want to call identical are in fact DIFFERENT.

They are different from each other in that they each reflect changes since tetrapods separated from fish… which would be VERY strange if they were actually both made 6000 years ago!

TWO:
The article doesnt say that these Orthologous Genes arent found anywhere else. But zebra fish are easy to work with and so they started to thoroughly probe the genetics of zebra fish.

Scientists EXPECT to find similar orthologs in every creature from fish to mammals.

So… the experiment you thought disproves Common Descent actually CONFIRMS common descent.

I think @swamidass would confirm my general assessment… even uf i am wrong on some specifics.

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No, they don’t speak about incomplete lineage sorting because that would not fit the pattern for this ERV. You see, even incomplete lineage sorting actually requires a particular pattern of evidence. You really, REALLY need to go read that article I linked. It can’t just be invoked in ad-hoc fashion to explain away the failure of a particular set of loci at corroborating an established phylogeny.

In the paper you referenced, because of a rather low percentage of overlap in insertion sites of this ERV, it is simply inferred to have infected the different lineages where it is found, independently. That doesn’t prove the accepted phylogeny wrong. You really really need to read the articles people link for you, and the papers you yourself quote.

No, the claim is that SOME of them are evidence for common descent, and some of them aren’t. Not all the evidence present at the scene of a crime will point to a particular perpetrator. That doesn’t mean it is evidence AGAINST a particular perpetrator.

There’s a difference between not being evidence FOR common descent, and actually being evidence AGAINST common descent. Assuming you have siblings, to pick an example, you and your siblings probably share some traits which could be only be meaningfully explained by your common descent from your parents (it could be a set of shared identical mutations inherited from your parents). That set of shared mutations only makes sense as the result of common descent. You inherited them from your parents.

But you also have some traits you have acquired following conception. Mutations can have happened in your germlines independently, subsequently to your conception. That means you have, besides the shared set of mutations you both inherited, an independent sets of mutations that have happened to you following your individual conceptions. Are those independent sets of mutations evidence AGAINST your shared relationship? Obviously not.

In the same way there are ERV insertions which are evidence FOR common descent, and ERV insertions which, while they are not evidence FOR common descent, they are also not evidence AGAINST common descent. Because they were merely acquired independently. The paper you cites gives an example of such a set of independently acquired ERV insertions.

So to sum up: There are SOME insertions of ERVs which can only be rationally explained by common descent. SOME, not all. The claim was never that any and all ERV insertions will constitute evidence for common descent. Some don’t constitute evidence for common descent. Just like some mutations don’t constitute evidence for common descent.

To actually have evidence AGAINST common descent, independent phylogenies would have to systematically and overwhelmingly fail to converge on a statistically significantly similar branching topology. There should be NO consilience of independent phylogenies at all. THAT would be evidence against common descent.

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Multiple individuals have been trying to explain that figure to Bill Cole or the better part of 2 years now. Considering how simple it actually is, my fear is it can’t be done.

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This is the key for @scd’s consumption.

You need a pattern that defeats the first pattern.

And all @Scd does is cherry pick the unusaul exceptions and says: “see?!”

@Rumraket, frustrating for everyone else.

:slightly_smiling_face:

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Why do need to create a straw-man? It is your claim they need to be identical.

You then invoke a young earth position which is another straw-man.

At the end of the day we have evidence that contradicts common descent. Does it mean common descent is false, no. It does mean that there is a real debate about its legitimacy as a claim and it is miles away from a fact.

These multiple individuals like to reason in a circle.

@colewd

No… at the end of the day… we have someone who doesn’t understand the meaning of the vocabulary they are using.

Orthologous genes are genes that have “traceable differences” from each other … traceable to the transmission of the originally identical genes that were divided up when two branches of the animal kingdom went their separate ways.

But even this isn’t the important part. The important part is the article talks about the comparison of sets of genes in fish and humans… without making ANY statement that nobody else has these genes. And without making such a statement, the “laws of evolution” have not been broken.

Now… let’s look at the graphic on Orthologue genes:

image

Now, this should be easy… it’s a Venn diagram… we learned about those in junior high!

The Zebrafish has 3,634 genes, not traceable to Chickens, Mice or Humans.
But then it gets a little challenging:

10,660 Zebrafish genes can be traced to all four species! Wow… that’s a LOT!

Plus: another 2,059 + 73 + 105 shared by humans traceable to the common ancestors shared with Zebrafish; where 2,059 is not shared with mice or chickens; but 2,059 are also shared with mice (but not chickens) and
105 are also shared with chickens (but not mice).

I’m not going to quote every statistic… that would become numbing. But this diagram practically SCREAMS continuity between one kind of animal and another !!! 10,660 orthologue genes shared by FOUR different kinds of animals! - - this is not surprising if they all ultimately come from the same animal stock, 400 million years ago!

The point of Orthologue genes is that their differences can be explained as due to the unique history of each branch - - first separating between fish and the creature that would eventually populate dry land!

So, how would you explain ANY genetic drift or subtle changes if all these creatures were created 6000 years ago? Why are they slightly different in each group … but recognizeable in their function?

This is a PERFECT FIT with reconciling to the principle of Common Ancestry… but completely inexplicable if God was making everything in one week. It’s almost as if he is TRYING to convince you of Evolution!

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Let’s put that aside for now, and look at my original list:

So… forget the word “identical” at the moment. Let’s look at my original statement:

Do you understand the logic here? We are looking for genes that SUPPOSEDLY are shared because they came from common ancestors… but for some reason… there is NO EVIDENCE that the gene in question ever existed anywhere except in Bats and Humans, or in Jellyfish and Dragon flies.

Do you see what I’m describing here? Only GOD would be able to arbitrarily choose a gene from group … and then use it again in an entirely different group. THAT is evidence against Common Descent.

If you don’t find a PATTERN of genes that skip over millions of years of evolution… then you aren’t disproving Common Descent.

If you don’t understand my explanation… and you haven’t understood similar explanations for all the others here… I think you need to get out of Evolution-critique business. The only way to successfully refute Evolution is to, at the very least, UNDERSTAND Evolution!

I think this Venn diagram may be doing exactly what you are saying. Can you clearly tell me that genes specific to zebra fish and humans are not? This is the data we are looking at. The resolution maybe in finding more data that shows their detailed evolutionary path but short of that there are two species that share those genes separated by deep evolutionary time.

BTW Ewerts dependency graph shows 100 genes shared uniquely with humans and monkeys but not chimps.

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@colewd

You write: “BTW Ewerts dependency graph shows 100 genes shared uniquely by humans and rats.”

You almost certainly have mis-read the sentence or a whole paragraph. If the study is about Rats and Humans, that’s how they would write it. How could they possibly know, at this early stage of genetic research, that no other mammals have that gene? You are LEAPING to the desired conclusion… but that’s probably not what they intended the sentence to sound like.

You write: "I think this Venn diagram may be doing exactly what you are saying. Can you clearly tell me that genes specific to zebra fish and humans are not? "
You mean, are NOT related to any other animal in the world… I hope you didn’t mean it that way. They list FOUR animals. The whole Venn diagram is about just those FOUR… and in the footnotes, they probably mean a SPECIFIC kind of CHICKEN and a SPECIFIC kind of mouse.

Wooo boy… Imagine trying to determine that thousands and thousands of genes are found only in jelly fish and humans… how on earth would we know that without a George Jetson Time Machine?

@colewd

But I’ll pause here… WHAT kind of genes? Orthologue genes?

We just saw a venn diagram with all sorts of relationships like that!

I think maybe you are a dangerous man to take “paraphrased research” from … you don’t seem to be sensitive to the scientific import of the terms.

For example, we traded a few posts on “identical”… “identical” what?

And when I finally saw the article, the term “Orthologous” just about gave me a concussion!!!

Any science dictionary would have told you that Orthologue genes are DIFFERENT … but DIFFERENT in an understandable way… based on COMMON DESCENT.

So if you want me to be impressed with EWERTS… you are gonna have to provide the quote, or the link, or something for us to look at together.

Do you see the circular reasoning in this statement?

Ewerts data is a first cut and incomplete as is the Venn diagram but it shows contradiction to the theory .doi:10.5048/BIO-C.2018.3.

If it isn’t a link … how do I get to it? Or is your point is that we don’t have to bother?