Interesting, yes. Surprising, no. Was there some intended point in all that?
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Do you think common descent would require that all genes are present in all taxa? That doesnât make much sense, does it?
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The paper is finally up:
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no, but that is the problem- any genetic finding can fit with a common descent, and its not a good thing.
Not any genetic finding, but if you think any kind of biological theory would (or should) be capable of predicting the exact complement of genes in every taxa, then you have a severe misunderstanding of how science works.
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so what kind of genetic finding can falsify evolution?
I mean, there are lots of findings that would be extremely difficult to come up with an explanation for. For example, continuing the theme of gene loss/gain, if humans were found to share only 50% of their genes with chimpanzees (rather than the 99%+ we actually see), I would say that would have been a massive problem.
On the other hand, finding a couple of hundred genes that have been gained/lost between clades that diverged hundreds of millions of years ago is well with the bounds of possibility.
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why that is a problem? we can solve this situation with a massive gene loss\gain in the chimp\human lineage.
That would not be a credible rate of gene loss/gain. Hypotheses have to have some contact with the data. You could learn from that.
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depend on what do you mean by âcredible rateâ.
What do you mean by âcredible rateâ?
Do you think the loss of 10,000 genes and gain of another 10,000 genes is credible in just ~7 million years of divergence? Because I donât, and neither would any biologist.
can you show a calculation for why it will be near impossible to loss about 10,000 genes in about 7 million years?
Do you think thatâs necessary? While Iâm at it, should I also show a calculation for why I canât perform a standing long jump of 3.2 miles?
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no because we know that its impossible since the world record is about no more then 4 meters. with evolution on the other hand we cant show why its impossible, and therefore there is no reason to think that its indeed impossible.
Thatâs a double standard. You think the 3.2-mile long jump is impossible because itâs never been seen, yet you demand a mathematical proof that a rate a gene loss orders of magnitude greater than we have ever seen is impossible. Why the difference?
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Of course we can be sure itâs not possible, I was just hoping that we were on the same page about this being a fact. A new gene arising every 60 generations? In addition to another gene being lost in the same timeframe? And the new genes essentially replacing the functions of the old genes, but with distinctly different sequences? Sorry, no one is buying it.
I appreciate the point youâre trying to make about evolution being unfalsifiable because biology is more fuzzy than, say, physics, but youâre barking up the wrong tree. Because itâs a theory concerned with biology, and biology is inherently flexible, fuzzy, and messy, evolution isnât as strictly bound in terms of what is as isnât possible, not when compared to something like physics. However, the existence of wiggle room doesnât mean that literally everything is deemed to be possible.
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simple: there is no real limitation for the rate of gene loss when we are dealing with millions of years ( especially if we are adding natural selection). unless you can show me such a limit.
say that many of human genes became unnecessary or even disadvantage (about 10,000 of them). all we need is to remove them from the genome. since natural selection can be involve, and say that we only need a single deletion to delete a gene, we only need about 10,000 deletions. in 7 millions years we can get much more then that.