Myth of evolution and new drug discovery

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rossum said:
Here you are in error. Evolution is a population phenomenon, and we would arrive at a small population of ancestors, not a single pair. The smallest scientific estimate I have seen for the minimum human population is 1,000 breeding pairs, though most estimates are much closer to a minimum of 10,000 breeding pairs.

Each of us carries two copies of (almost) every gene. Some genes are different in the population - some have a version (allele) for blue eyes while other have a version for brown eyes. If there are 100 variants of a gene then there must have been at least 50 breeding individuals (at two copies per individual) alive to carry all those copies and pass them on.

Given known mutation rates, the known number of different versions of each gene, and the known number of those versions we share with chimpanzees we can make estimates of the minimum human population size. As I said, the minimum estimate I have seen is 1,000 breeding pairs - 2,000 individuals of breeding age plus however many too young or too old to breed. The human population was never as low as two.

It is possible that our ancestors’ population was smaller earlier, but that would have been before we diverged from the chimpanzees and so the animals involved would not yet have been human.

rossum
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I’m traveling and it so happens I have found a granny-friendly computer. What I really don’t understand is Where did the 1,000 men and 1,000 women come from? And why does the gene studies stop at 1,000 or 10,000 breeding pairs. If these breaders were truly human in that they carry the correct genes, they had to have parents, didn’t they?

If the smaller human population were before divergence from chimpanzees, they wouldn’t have been truly human or as you suggest they were animals. What turns these animals into humans? And does not turn the remaining part of the common ancestor into humans? If there were lots of common ancestors doing the split for humans, why are humans the same everywhere?

This brings me to another question. Given the variety and locations of apes, were there different common ancestors for them and where were they?

And if humans were really human, what would prevent them from overriding the factors which normally cause a reduced population in the first place?

Evolution is fine for me. It makes sense regarding plants, bugs, birds, and brute animals. Because of the unity of creation, I can understand that the human body could have evolved from matter similar to the chimp cousins.

But something is not making sense when evolution is applied to the actual nature of human beings which is obviously different from the nature of chimps. Human nature being different from brute animals makes me wonder how evolutionary theory is limited.

Humans have gone beyond any other species. Why?

My apology for unloading all my questions at one time. Watching the activity from an airport window is convincing evidence, at least to me, that humans, being so unique, must have a different path than brute animals.

Blessings,
granny
 
grannymh said:
I’m traveling and it so happens I have found a granny-friendly computer. What I really don’t understand is Where did the 1,000 men and 1,000 women come from?
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Granny, they were the children of their parents.
 
buffalo said:
Wow - these esteemed individuals have never heard of this? Either they have a priori rejected it and removed it from their mind or it was filtered out of their training. This simply amazes me and speaks volumes about the science establishment.
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buffalo, does it equally amaze you that there is a paucity of references to the Tooth Fairy in journal articles on dentistry? Does that also speak volumes about the dental science establishment?

Or could there be another factor? That "ID “science” is neither more nor less compelling than “Tooth Fairy science”?

StAnastasia
 
grannymh said:
Watching the activity from an airport window is convincing evidence, at least to me, that humans, being so unique, must have a different path than brute animals.Blessings,granny
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What is a “brute animal”?
 
StAnastasia said:
buffalo, does it equally amaze you that there is a paucity of references to the Tooth Fairy in journal articles on dentistry? Does that also speak volumes about the dental science establishment?

Or could there be another factor? That "ID “science” is neither more nor less compelling than “Tooth Fairy science”?

StAnastasia
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The universe being intelligible is the very basis for science, so yes ID is more compelling. That is an advantage Catholics have, eliminating pseudoscience such as the tooth fairy, astrology etc…(plus Revelation told us so) Each is or was subject to the test and ID will stand or fall. It is good to explore it and make a case for it. It is very compelling in that it follows from things Catholics know:

God
God created
God sustains
God is intelligent
Universe is intelligible
We recognize design when we see it
Recognizing means it was cognized.

So it flows that ID exists. The question is can it be formulated scientifically or will it remain in the domain of philosophy. I think it is worth the effort to see. Perhaps we will never be able to formulize it in the same way we cannot lay God out on a lab table and dissect Him. But we do know He exists.

It is a mistake to have this possible gap be automatically filled by evolution.

I reject your comparisons of ID to the tooth fairy and other such nonsense.

Make your argument as to there is no design in the universe.
 
hecd2 said:
I am not being deliberately obtuse here - I really am not sure what you are driving at.
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I just re-read my rather vague post – it does not express clearly what I had in mind. I’ll have to do a re-write. At least you posted some good info for me to consider for now. Thanks.
 
hecd2 said:
Let me try lay out how an extreme founder event can happen and what that means for what we would see in the genome. We start with a stable diploid population with effective population size, say, 10,000 (the census population size could be much larger and could be in the millions). Saving identical twins, each genome is unique to an individual, and it is made up of a unique combination of different alleles. The genetic diversity at each locus (ie, how many different forms of that gene, ie alleles, exist in the population) can vary from one in an extremely conserved gene to several hundred or a thousand different variants at a highly polymorphic locus. The degree of heterozygosity (ie the fraction of loci that have two different alleles) is characteristic of an effective population of 10,000 (which in the neutral case, for a mutation rate of ~10^-6 would be about 0.04). Now, two breeding individuals become isolated (say by being carried to an island where there are no other members of the same species) and form a new population. Because of random sampling the population will have allele frequencies which are uncharacteristic of the original population. The population will have reduced genetic diversity (no more than a maximum of four alleles can be present at any locus) and reduced heterozygosity. Both diversity and heterozygosity will continue to be reduced in succeeding generations because in small in-breeding populations, alleles drift more rapidly to extinction or fixation, and the march to homozygosity is rapid. The population might carry a number of high frequency deleterious alleles. Subsequent population expansion along with mutations will result in an overabundance of rare alleles. These signatures of the extreme population bottleneck (reduced diversity and heterozygosity and an overabundance of common deleterious alleles and rare alleles) will continue to be observable in the genome of the population for tens of thousands of generations after the bottleneck until heterozygosity, diversity and the abundance of rare alleles is restored by mutational variation and random mating. Finally, neutral and deleterious alleles will coalesce at or after the bottleneck and we would not observe ancient alleles or haplotypes which have coalescence dates long before the bottleneck.

Alec
evolutionpages.com
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“These signatures of the extreme population bottleneck (reduced diversity and heterozygosity and an overabundance of common deleterious alleles and rare alleles) will continue to be observable in the genome of the population for tens of thousands of generations after the bottleneck until heterozygosity, diversity and the abundance of rare alleles is restored by mutational variation and random mating. Finally, neutral and deleterious alleles will coalesce at or after the bottleneck and we would not observe ancient alleles or haplotypes which have coalescence dates long before the bottleneck.”

Every time I try to understand genetics research, I get this feeling that there is some information missing. Pardon me, but I get the feeling that the theories are being backed by some research and a lot of theory or guesswork. For example,
how can something be observed in the genome for tens of thousands of generations?
When the abundance of rare alleles are restored, how is the final timing determined? And when does one observe ancient alleles or haplotypes which have coalescence dates long before the bottleneck? And if the bottleneck was actually the beginning of a population, there wouldn’t be ancient alleles before it was existing.

Blessings,
granny

All human beings are worthy of profound respect.
 
grannymh said:
But something is not making sense when evolution is applied to the actual nature of human beings which is obviously different from the nature of chimps. Human nature being different from brute animals makes me wonder how evolutionary theory is limited.

Humans have gone beyond any other species. Why?

My apology for unloading all my questions at one time. Watching the activity from an airport window is convincing evidence, at least to me, that humans, being so unique, must have a different path than brute animals.

Blessings,
granny
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Explanation of the normal evolutionary process has been over-extended in an attempt to make it account for human nature in its totality. Many even in Darwin’s day objected. This includes Wallace and Mivart. Lyell has serious concerns. ETC.

The real Darwinian revolution was that man was made into a “brute animal”. This was Darwin’s goal in his attack on what he called “the citadel”, the human mind.
 
buffalo said:
So it flows that ID exists. The question is can it be formulated scientifically or will it remain in the domain of philosophy.
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Well, so far ID proponents have not succeeded in demonstrating instances of “intelligent design” that cannot be accounted for just as well by evolution. Perhaps that’s why ID is not cited in scientific journals. Similarly, dental scientists have found no instances of tooth loss that need to be accounted for by appeal to the tooth fairy. Thus, no references in dental literature to this fairy.
 
StAnastasia said:
Well, so far ID proponents have not succeeded in demonstrating instances of “intelligent design” that cannot be accounted for just as well by evolution. Perhaps that’s why ID is not cited in scientific journals. Similarly, dental scientists have found no instances of tooth loss that need to be accounted for by appeal to the tooth fairy. Thus, no references in dental literature to this fairy.
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I am not even close to being convinced the language of DNA is accounted for by evolution. Since the most primitive cells contain this powerful super adaptable language it was there in the beginning of life. Perhaps the big bang of biology.
 
buffalo said:
Brutes - any other animal than humans which are unique in that we possess an immortal soul.
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“Brute” and “non-brute” is an imaginary distinction. Humans and animals sprout as branches on the same evolutionary bush.
 
buffalo said:
I am not even close to being convinced the language of DNA is accounted for by evolution. Since the most primitive cells contain this powerful super adaptable language it was there in the beginning of life. Perhaps the big bang of biology.
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Isn’t that the argument form ignorance? “I can’t imagine it, so it must not be possible.”
 
buffalo said:
I am not even close to being convinced the language of DNA is accounted for by evolution. Since the most primitive cells contain this powerful super adaptable language it was there in the beginning of life. Perhaps the big bang of biology.
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How complex was DNA in the most primitive cells? How much information did it contain? Are you hypothesizing that all DNA was “front-loaded” in primitive cells?
 
StAnastasia said:
“Brute” and “non-brute” is an imaginary distinction. Humans and animals sprout as branches on the same evolutionary bush.
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Then you again deny a dogma of the Church that humans alone possess an immortal soul and are unique. Does your Bishop agree with this heresy? Does he know you teach it?

Can you cite a Magisterial document supporting your position?

But you already know you cannot

Cruelty to Animals

DID WOMAN EVOLVE FROM THE BEASTS?
A DEFENSE OF TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC DOCTRINE

Rev. Brian W. Harrison, O.S., M.A., S.T.D.
Associate Professor of Theology,

Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico

.
 
itinerant1 said:
How complex was DNA in the most primitive cells? How much information did it contain? Are you hypothesizing that all DNA was “front-loaded” in primitive cells?
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Yes.

I call this Idvolution - God breathed the DNA language into some basic kinds. From there we can account for all the diversity of life. As time has gone on information has been lost (although DNA has built in mechanisms to resist this). We have LGT and HGT and deleterious mutations.

**THE ARROW POINTS DOWN:
THE ROLE OF INFORMATION IN BIOLOGY
**B****y
Dr. Maciej Giertych
 
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