Chromosome 2
Yesterday, I was searching the Internet for possible answers to why the mythology of the ancient Sumerians was, in one very important respect, different from the mythology of ancient Egypt.
One thing led to another, and I came across something I had never known before: Chromosome 2.
We are told that the DNA of humans and chimps are 98. something % alike; we are not told that the haploid number of chromosomes in the genus Homo is one less than in other primates.
Apparently there was a random "mutation"---and it probably occurred in more than one individual---that caused the fusion of two chromosomes, resulting in the second largest chromosome in the cell structure of hominids.
Some implications of this occurrence are:
1. It gives credence to the "cladogenesis" theory of evolution: "Cladogenesis is the process by which a species splits into two distinct species, rather than one species gradually transforming into another."--Wikipedia
2. An abnormality associated with Chromosome 2 is synesthesia: "a neurological phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway." From here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthe...
3. Apply cladogenesis to rampant and legal abortion, and you have another reason it is illegal.
One thing led to another, and I came across something I had never known before: Chromosome 2.
We are told that the DNA of humans and chimps are 98. something % alike; we are not told that the haploid number of chromosomes in the genus Homo is one less than in other primates.
Apparently there was a random "mutation"---and it probably occurred in more than one individual---that caused the fusion of two chromosomes, resulting in the second largest chromosome in the cell structure of hominids.
Some implications of this occurrence are:
1. It gives credence to the "cladogenesis" theory of evolution: "Cladogenesis is the process by which a species splits into two distinct species, rather than one species gradually transforming into another."--Wikipedia
2. An abnormality associated with Chromosome 2 is synesthesia: "a neurological phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway." From here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthe...
3. Apply cladogenesis to rampant and legal abortion, and you have another reason it is illegal.
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Do you not believe in evolution, Dob? My reply has always been; How can you not believe in evolution?
Don't you think Dob's refutation of the validity of evolution is a pretty pi**poor argument for the legality of abortion?
An abnormality associated with Chromosome 2 is synesthesia: "a neurological phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway."
There are at least two implications here: a. Could this anomaly reflect human's (but not a chimp's) ability to conceptualize: "...the stimulation of one...cognitive pathway, leads to the involuntary stimulation of a second...cognitive pathway." and b. Could synesthesia occur if the two chromosomes were separate?
But that wasn't the purpose of this topic.
The presence of Chromosome 2 implies that even though 98.something % of human and chimp genes are alike (and what exactly does that mean: genes---are they talking about "codes" for enzyme production?) it is the position of those "genes/codes" that determine attributes of species, not their existence itself.
"studies are showing that [humans and chimps] are not as similar as many tend to believe";
the 1% statistic is a "truism [that] should be retired";
the 1% statistic is "more a hindrance for understanding than a help";
"the 1% difference wasn't the whole story";
"Researchers are finding that on top of the 1% distinction, chunks of missing DNA, extra genes, altered connections in gene networks, and the very structure of chromosomes confound any quantification of 'humanness' versus 'chimpness.'"
Indeed, due to the huge caveats in the 1% statistic, some scientists are suggesting that a better method of measuring human/chimp genetic differences might be counting individual gene copies. When this metric is employed, human and chimp DNA is over 5% different. But new findings in genetics show that gene-coding DNA might not even be the right place to seek differences between humans and chimps.
But there is a deeper question: (2) If humans and chimps were truly only 1% different at the genetic level, why should that demonstrate common ancestry?
similarities in key genetic sequences may be explained as a result of functional requirements and common design rather than mere common descent. We might reasonably ask the evolutionist why the 1% difference value is considered powerful evidence for Darwinian evolution, and at what point does the comparison cease to support Darwinian evolution? What about 2% different? 3%? 5%? 10%? Is there an objective metric for falsification here, or is PBS putting forth a fallacious argument for human / chimp common ancestry?
the truth is that the percent difference says nothing about whether humans and chimps share a common ancestor. The percent genetic similarity between humans and apes does not demonstrate Darwinian evolution.
“What it begins to suggest is that we’re looking at a ‘Lord of the Rings’-type world — that there were many hominid populations,” says Mark Thomas, an evolutionary geneticist at University College London who was at the meeting but was not involved in the work.
The first Neanderthal and the Denisovan genome sequences revolutionized the study of ancient human history, not least because they showed that these groups interbred with anatomically modern humans, contributing to the genetic diversity of many people alive today.
All humans whose ancestry originates outside of Africa owe about 2% of their genome to Neanderthals; and certain populations living in Oceania, such as Papua New Guineans and Australian Aboriginals, got about 4% of their DNA from interbreeding between their ancestors and Denisovans, who are named after the cave in Siberia’s Altai Mountains where they were discovered. The cave contains remains deposited there between 30,000 and 50,000 years ago.
Those conclusions however were based on low-quality genome sequences, riddled with errors and full of gaps, David Reich, an evolutionary geneticist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts said at the meeting. His team, in collaboration with Svante Pääbo at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have now produced much more complete versions of the Denisovan and Neanderthal genomes — matching the quality of contemporary human genomes. The high-quality Denisovan genome data and new Neanderthal genome both come from bones recovered from Denisova Cave.
The new Denisovan genome indicates that this enigmatic population got around: Reich said at the meeting that they interbred with Neanderthals and with the ancestors of human populations that now live in China and other parts of East Asia, in addition to Oceanic populations, as his team previously reported. Most surprisingly, Reich said, the new genomes indicate that Denisovans interbred with another extinct population of archaic humans that lived in Asia more than 30,000 years ago, which is neither human nor Neanderthal.
The meeting was abuzz with conjecture about the identity of this potentially new population of humans. “We don’t have the faintest idea,” says Chris Stringer, a paleoanthropologist at the London Natural History Museum, who was not involved in the work. He speculates that the population could be related to Homo heidelbergensis, a species that left Africa around half a million years ago and later gave rise to Neanderthals in Europe. “Perhaps it lived on in Asia as well,” Stringer says.
I have those same questions
The second is the mutation theory of genesis. The problems with this is that we see precisely zero examples of mutating genes in the world around us. If it happened for millions (or billions) of years as evolutionists claim, why did it stop? Why do we see nothing in the fossil record and nothing in present zoology? A far more likely conclusion is that it has never happened at all.
But of course she doesn't want to come forward with her objections.