HGT doesn’t at all explain the chromosome fusion of Human Chromosome 2, nor, according to Dr. Fairbanks, whom I contacted after reading your article, does HGT have anything to do with the NANOG pseudogene family. (I’m waiting for his okay before I post his full response here.)
We have the DNA from the human genome and the chimpanzee genome right in front of us, and it gives us clear and compelling evidence from the record of mutations that have taken place in both genomes that humans and chimps share a common ancestry.
I hope the New Scientist will post his response as well.
Not particularly, but I would argue that the evidence we have that humans and chimps descended from a common ancestor is now greater than the evidence we have that Jesus rose from the dead.
If you don’t have the actual “beings” which preceeded chimps and/or humans (or their DNA), then what you have is a list of speculations of the sort “this could have possibly happened.” That’s all you have. You have no record of mutations that have taken place. You don’t even know what the starting point was.
All you’re demonstrating is that you’re utterly clueless as to how DNA replicates, nor do you understand how much information can be gleaned from comparing genomes.
So what you have is a bunch of “circumstantial evidence & maybe’s”, then building on the assumption (which is actually the thing you’re trying to prove) that random mutations + natural selection did it all somehow. It’s an interesting story, but it’s more creative fabrication than actual data.
Catholics have had their trust abused in various ways over the past 40 years. That’s one reason things are so bad in the Catholic community today.
This is a Catholic forum. Please do not insult Catholics.
You’re still not getting it. I’m basically saying that if you have evidence of a process having taken place, then you can’t say, “Oh, that was there to begin with,” because a copy doesn’t have the same “signature” as an original. Furthermore, if you have a copy in the same place in one genome as in another, you have to say that either (1) two copies took place, one in each genome, and weigh the probability of that, or (2) one copy took place in a common ancestor who passed the copy on to its two descendant genomes. When you realize how small the probability of #1 is – so small as to be impossible – then you have to accept the reality of #2.
Read Relics of Eden.
I can’t because there are none living anymore. All I can show you is the evidence that such a species did at one time exist. I would do this by showing you the DNA mutations that exist in both human and chimp genomes, figure up the probability that those copies happened independently in each genome, and when they turn out to be too ridiculously small to be worth considering, propose the only other explanation that makes any sense at all – the existence of a common ancestor to both species.
That path would be millions of steps long.
The probability would be 1:1, given that the evidence shows it did indeed happen. If it’s the “random” part you have an issue with, just say that God gave the process a million “nudges” and call it intelligent design.
Thank goodness your millions-of-years-long experiment is only optional! That was going to be a toughie!
Unless, of course, the Pope was wrong, right?
Nobody should have trouble believing that God can do things beyond scientific understanding. What is so bothersome is the idea that that God can do things beyond scientific understanding yet make it look like they happened according to natural processes that increasingly fall within the sphere of scientific understanding.
Saying the evidence for evolution is stronger than the evidence for the Resurrection isn’t an insult. We presently have no physical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead (unless you want to count the Shround of Turin, but good luck with that). We have no physical evidence how he rose, or even that he rose. All we have are eyewitness statements that he was alive, then he was dead, and then he was alive again. On the other hand, we have physical evidence in our genome that says, “Humans and chimps are descended from a common ancestor.” You can prick any human’s finger to get his/her DNA, prick any chimp’s finger to get its DNA, and make the comparisons showing this. You can’t do any such thing as regards the Resurrection. So, the evidence for evolution is greater than the evidence for the Resurrection. Not an insult; just plain fact.
But this all assumes that there was a common descendant which mutated into 2 (or more) separate paths - which is what you’re trying to prove. It’s one possible explanation based on speculation. But there is no proof.
If you don’t have the original DNA (which you admit), then how do you know that what you’re looking at is actually mutations (or even better, random mutations) based on that DNA? Answer: you don’t. You speculate that there was some original DNA from which both chimps and human DNA evolved. You are assuming the very thing you are trying to prove.
So make it easy. Certainly there must be SOME existing species which are alive today, A which evolved into B. Look at their DNA and come up with a mutation scenario and numbers. If you’re saying that e.g. from Lucy to modern humans involved millions of mutations, then I’d say that the populations weren’t large enough and there wasn’t enough time.
I thought we cleared this up before but maybe it was somebody else…
I do think that God gave it some nudges and call it Intelligent Design. I’m not sure about the million…but “some” for sure. But if evidence for evolution continues to be lacking, or in some cases actually go backwards, I reserve the option to change my mind and go with something else (which must be compatible with Church teaching).
Thank goodness for that conciliation.
Ironically, exactly the opposite is true. It is only when a scientist says, “God must have done something supernatural here,” that investigation ceases and human intelligence is abdicated.
Isn’t it Sherlock Holmes who said, “If you eliminate the impossible, then the possible, no matter how improbable, must be the truth”?
Again, it’s a matter of (1) knowing when a gene is a copy and not an original – something entirely possible due to the “signatures” left by DNA-copying processes – and (2) having enough genomes against which to make comparisons. So, in the case of primates who have pseudogenes which are identically broken and, furthermore, are located in the same place as a working copy of the gene in another primate genome, we know that one of two things must have happened: either the primates are all distinct species whose genes individually broke in the same way – the probability of such a thing happening being next to impossible – or the primates with the broken gene are the descendants of a common ancestor in which the breaking of the gene took place (and took place after that ancestor’s lineage had already split off from the lineage of the primate with the working gene).
No, because species are always mutating and are never genetically “static”. When a small breeding population breaks away from a larger general population and goes off somewhere to evolve into a new species over the next million years, the larger general population is also evolving over the course of that same million years. So, no matter where you might start in studying species, a million years from now you’re likely to wind up with a set of species totally different from what you started with, and each of these new species will have their own million years’ worth of mutational baggage.
Based on what? Consider how rare an occurrence it must be for two chromosomes to fuse into a working hybrid. Now consider that every member of the human race carries that hybrid chromosome in his/her DNA. The theory that mutations cannot spread throughout a population rapidly is difficult – some would say impossible, even – to maintain once you see the evidence of its having happened.
My point is that it makes no sense to use the probability of something’s happening as a justification for denying its having happened when it is already known to have happened. Let’s say that it turned out that the probability my parents would have named me Mike was one in a billion. Your bringing that up wouldn’t change the name on my driver’s license. The most you could say is, “Wow, that was one in a billion!”
Where you and I part ways, then, is in our respective levels of deference to Church teaching as it pertains to human origins and the origin of life. I start with the science, and when science has run out of possible options, then I’ll see what the Church has to say on the matter. You and Ed seem to start with what the Church says and force science into the constraints of Church teaching. I have no interest in doing that.
You do know that New Scientist is a popular science magazine not a serious research journal and that the article you “cited” is pure journalism? And in any case that the article in no way invalidates any of the overwhelming evidence that humans and chimpanzees descend from a common ancestor who lived about 6 million tears ago?
It’s amusing to see everyone arguing about the validity of science, yet everyone on this forum uses their computers, televisions, cell phones…
I am aware.