That’s because no one yet knows everything that can possibly be known about biology, so surprises are inevitable.
Creationism, OTOH, is not a science and makes no predictions about what observations might be made. Plus creationists don’t really understand the observations that HAVE been made. So surprise in not an emotion they are likely to acknowledge.
Not if you could achieve the same effect with only millions.
If you mean unique to it as something you can’t invent an ad-hoc rationalization for (but you haven’t actually predicted, before it was observed, with a model of creationism) then there is no such thing. I’d say a consistent nested hierarchy and differences between species looking like the products of accumulations of mutations, but you will just invent explanations for those after the fact. Even though those explanations don’t make any sense (still haven’t actually seen any good creationist explanations for the consistent nested hierarchy, nor differences between species conforming to substitution bias, for example.)
Why will it? God can create an infinite amount of matter and energy should he so choose. Your rationalization makes no sense. No, “creation itself” doesn’t have to be limited. God cannot run out of space with which to put galaxies into, he can’t run out of phosphorous with which to create the backbone of DNA, and he can’t run out of planets to put species on.
The world could have been an infinitely large flat plane with mountains, with an infinitely deep underground, and infinite sky above it, and infinite numbers of enormous oceans, rivers, lakes, species, etc. extending endlessly in all directions, instead of the tiny surface of a small rocky sphere suspended in a vacuum.
I find that time and again, theists really underestimate their God when it comes to imagining what could have been but isn’t.
You disagree that those reconstructed ancestral states are historical realities, that the phylogenies used to infer them represent real histories, that the genetic differences between species you don’t think share common descent are the products of accumulated mutations, that natural selection even works at all (forgot about Sanfords genetic entropy did you?) etc. etc.
I would not expect gene regulation to be so binary. Sure there is more than just amino acids involved. Homeostasis is required developmentally and physiologically, and has been for all those millions of years. There are distinctive aspects of human developmental neurology that are regulatory and temporal. There is always going to be variation and selection on degree and timing of gene regulation. Social app users swipe left all the time because they are unimpressed with someone’s gene regulation.
So much so, that YEC does not allow anywhere near enough time for the change they agree with. Beyond that, there is the record of epochs of change they summarily dismiss altogether.
Exactly. Not only is IDcreationism pseudoscience, it is bad theology, because it turns the omnipotent Judeo-Christian God into a tinkerer obsessed with reuse at the expense of invention.
So God should not have designed similarity in sequences which allows experiments on mice to understand genomic basis of human diseases because he should design everything absolutely differently, which no human artist or engineer every does?
I honestly don’t know what you’re trying to say here.
I don’t see how we know this is the case without testing every one.
So you think these deleted sequences let the protein be expressed in brain tissue, for example, when it had only been expressed other places?
An aside, last week I did think of another theological possibility: If some regulation turns down awareness in animal brains, possibly God initiated that change at the fall to reduce animal suffering, as they are a theologically dependent but not morally responsible group.
It seems to me that random sampling should be sufficient. You shouldn’t have to confirm every single case if you have consistent data from a reasonable sample.
Based on what the paper says, I expect the protein to be expressed to a greater degree in brain tissue in humans than in other mammals. It’s not a question of expression vs. no expression, even in a particular tissue.
Well, it’s certainly silly enough to be theological. And it does explain why snakes used to be able to talk. One practical problem is that without that suffering and death no ecosystem can function. The world before the fall must have required constant tinkering to prevent ecological collapse. But of course God can be supposed to have done anything you like in the past, as convenient to your whim. And he could have made it look like anything else. That’s the problem with theology: not susceptible to evidence.
Just that there is and always has been up regulation and down regulation of genes in response to what is advantageous at the time, and this is true for humans and animals.
God created mice with genes somewhat similar to humans, so that humans can do experiments on mice to understand how human biology works? Does that extend to primates, should we do experiments on chimps and gorillas too?
Why is there a nested hierarchy of increasing genetically dissimilar organisms to humans? We are supposed to learn less and less about ourselves from increasingly different organisms?
That makes no sense. If that was God’s plan, He would have made most genes and proteins identical, not similar. As a general rule with exceptions, human transgenes rescue most most mutants, indicating functional identity. Why would God make us sort through them to figure this out?
Still bad theology.
Ok, but again, as I was saying before, it’s hard to imagine any kind of scenario whereby these sequences would be conserved by selection. It means their loss conferred a disadvantage in the brain ONLY until it came to a human population. What else do we know about selection when it comes to brain tissue. Anything?
Why is it hard to imagine? Different species need different anatomy and so need different expression patterns. Brains are expensive in terms of energy to operate, so an animal that doesn’t need an overgrown brain would not gain advantage by having one.
“Need” different anatomy? That phrase doesn’t seem to comport with evolution.
What exactly about walking upright means we “need” an overgrown brain? And then why do we sleep less than animals if all this requires more energy?
I’ll hazard an educated guess. A large brain requires more energy even when sleeping, so sleeping more to save energy doesn’t have much benefit.
Admittedly it’s a metaphor, but you should be able to understand it. Species “need” whatever features adapt them to their environments. Birds need wing, fish need fins, moles need shovels.
Nothing, as far as I know. It’s for thinking, and there are various theories about what parts of thinking made brain expansion advantageous. Possibly tool use, possibly social interaction. But there must be something to make a big brain advantageous that outweighs the disadvantage of that increased energy cost.
Less than “animals”? That’s a big group, some of which sleep more than humans and some less. Nor does sleeping have much to do with energy. Anyway, the fact that brains require lots of energy is not in doubt, so there’s no reason to be dubious. You could probably even google it. I see that your brain is 2% of your body mass and consumes 20% of your energy (meaning ATP, more or less).
“Must.”
Or…there is another explanation about unique characteristics that doesn’t involve advantage, so actually…there mustn’t.
If all humans in all environments don’t have these sequences and all animals in all environments have them then selection is not an explanation at all.
No. If there was no advantage to having a big brain, they would go extinct. And yet they don’t.
The brain spends energy. A lot. That requires food. A lot. Which doesn’t magically just fall our of the sky. Most animals have to work to get any. A lot. Work (and food) which they could be spending doing other stuff, like making more offspring or otherwise better securing their own survival.
This isn’t something that can be rationally disputed. The animals who have bigger brains than animals with smaller brains must, really, logically, physically, and unavoidably, must be getting something back from that. Or those among them in their populations that had smaller brains would outcompete them in short order. Because they’d be spending less of their work, and therefore food, burning it away in that fatty tissue you are suggesting does nothing for them.
It’s fatuous on it’s face. On the level of saying plants make leaves to obtain energy from sunlight but it’s not advantageous.
Please elaborate. If all humans in all environments don’t have which sequences that do what?
You’re implying something, but you need to make it clear. No need to be so coy. Unless you’re ashamed of what it would be if you actually came out with it?
This is not something you appear to understand. Humans have these deletions because they were fixed in our common ancestral population, by selection. They were never lost in any descendant population because despite all the varying environments in which we live, having a big brain has always been advantageous. Or do you know an environment in which it pays to be stupid?
Of course not all animals have all the sequences at all.
You seem to conflating advantage with function. In the sense of advantage I’m referring to, it requires a comparison to another organism to explain why the function is beneficial – exactly because we are talking about selection. I’m saying it’s unscientific to assume there can be no other explanation than selection.
Think about your assumptions within this statement. I don’t agree with them. If you think within my paradigm here, you could possibly better refute what I’m saying.
It seems that in the evolutionary paradigm, selection works more powerfully on body size than brain size. Study shows how mammals evolved to have bigger brains | Natural History Museum.