When they hold up under the least bit of examination.
You do understand that the engagement consists of showing exactly how his claims are nonsensical, right? There is no pressure for him to cave to. And the same sort of attention has been paid to your theories as to Jeanson’s.
That’s not quite right. We do have clues but we lack certain knowledge.
6 posts were merged into an existing topic: Jeanson is now finding a reason to ignore neanderthal DNA
Fair enough. How can we claim a single origin event when we lack certain knowledge especially when that lack of knowledge is significant?
A single origin is a possible model but should it be the only one considered at this point?
Quintessence of irony, the post.
That’s your misunderstanding.
Assuming common descent, we can project back to a single origin. But that’s a projection. There might never have been an actual single origin event. It seems more likely that the origin of life would have been messy with many varied chemical processes from which life eventually emerged. And there may never have been a clear boundary between what we would consider life and what we would consider non-life.
By the way, we are drifting far from the topic.
How does it fall apart?
When those theories start making testable hypotheses based on observable mechanisms.
He is testing a hypothesis. Is there a test that the older evolutionary root for humans is the right one?
Yes. ERV’s are that test.
If we share a deeper common ancestor with other primates then we should find the same retroviral insertions at the same position in each genome. Also, the presence and sequence of these endogenous retroviral insertions should match closely to the canonical primate phylogeny.
[moderator’s note: discussion of Jeanson and neanderthal DNA should be moved to that topic]
Literally thousands of such tests. Jeanson’s root requires that Africans have a ridiculously greater mutation rate than everyone else. It requires that Neandertals be ignored. It requires that non-human primates be ignored. It requires that all ancient DNA be ignored. It requires that the human fossil record and all other dating of prehistoric sites be ignored. Against that, we have a bogus test that relies on a false correlation between tree branches and population size.
Which is really a strange guiding principle, given that they accept that humans are vertebrates and mammals, for the obvious reasons that… ya know… we have a vertebral column and give live birth. Even if they don’t believe we share common ancestry with other apes, they should at least recognize that we are apes, since we possess all of the synapomorphies that distinguish apes from other living organisms.
You keep claiming this, but don’t explain why we should believe you, especially since you’re repeatedly making basic population genetics errors.
Jeanson is a wacko, or at least a liar. He makes so many basic errors that he knows are wrong (after all, he has a PhD from Harvard). And just because someone offers a testable hypothesis doesn’t mean they’re right. I can make the testable hypothesis that the moon is made of cheese and claim that it’s right, but that doesn’t make me right or honest, especially if I have a PhD in astrophysics. That’s basically what Jeanson is doing.
The genome sequence of Rickettsia prowazekii and the origin of mitochondria
FtsZ and the division of prokaryotic cells and organelles
Structure of the Chloroplast Ribosome: Novel Domains for Translation Regulation
Cardiolipin Membrane Domains in Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes
Porins in prokaryotes and eukaryotes: common themes and variations
Viral Eukaryogenesis: Was the Ancestor of the Nucleus a Complex DNA Virus?
Poxviruses and the Origin of the Eukaryotic Nucleus
Sex and the eukaryotic cell cycle is consistent with a viral ancestry for the eukaryotic nucleus
Assembly of a nucleus-like structure during viral replication in bacteria
Evidence supporting a viral origin of the eukaryotic nucleus
Asgard archaea illuminate the origin of eukaryotic cellular complexity
Would you like to rephrase your assertion about us having “no clue” as to the origin of eukaryotes?
Yes, they are rather inconsistent about that. Calling them “animals” also gives them conniptions. As if they think you need to photosynthesize to get into heaven.
Hi Andrew
Here are 3 major new innovations to single celled Eukaryotic cells over Prokaryotic cells.
The nuclear pore complex including a cell nucleus a gate that guards the nucleus.
The Spliceosome 200 protein macro machine that splices out RNA intron spacers
The Chromosome structure and the mass adoption of intron spacers
Where did the functional information come from to build these structures? I know there is almost no limit to the speculative papers you can cite.
This is why pretending that superimposible nested hierarchies are just vague similarities is a staple of IDcreationist rhetoric.
I think that they actively deceive their followers about basic biology.
That appears to be why Meyer, Dembski, and Wells tell the followers that peptidyl transferase is a protein while allegedly addressing the RNA World hypothesis.
Well we can’t time travel, so all we can do is phylogenetics, biochemistry, and modeling.
These things show that the nuclear pore complex has simpler prokaryotic homologues. That the spliceosome is essentially an extreme elaboration on the splicing machinery found in group II self-splicing introns. And finally that the archaeal host was invaded by group II introns from it’s alphaproteobacterial endosymbiont (in a process similar to how mitochondrial genes are still being transferred to the nucleus even today).
You, in turn, have nothing at all. Except the completely vacuous assertion that “it was designed”.
Jeanson who you are making ad hominem attacks against is building a model. Some of the criticisms are valid but he is doing real science.
You on the other hand are making claims without a testable model such as your ERV claims. You have not tested or cited a test that these are really randomly inserted ERV’s…
You are a young student and attacking the integrity of a Harvard PHD biologist. Saying he is liar says that you know his intent which you don’t. Why in the world would you do this on a public form? Where is the win here?
Ok we have solid common ground 
What we do have is a lot of new functional information.
And lots of evidence it evolved.
Oh, and no evidence that “minds” can somehow magically just know how to create it without having to do centuries of science and learning.