"The Origin of Specious Nonsense"

Sarky

Not when they ignore well written counterpoints and then keep claiming nobody made such a point. You constantly run from evidence, and then claim nobody any. Your claims hinge on being able to tackle posts like oldrnwisr's. When you ignore or run from them, it's a clear indication that you CAN'T tackle them.

You brought this scrutiny on yourself with your outlandish claims and globe dismissals of the very things you challenged us to provide. You don't get to silently disagree or whine about it until you've DEALT with it. We've all backed up our claims while showing you the flaws in yours. Not once have you managed to do the same. Not even once. In seven years, that's a lousy track record.

Respond to oldrnwisr's posts, or admit that you can't. Those are the only choices that won't paint you as dishonest and/or incompetent.

J C

koth wrote: »

maybe you should raise your standard of posts to that of oldrnwrs then. maybe people would be more receptive then

Always willing to learn.:)

koth wrote: »

you have been thanked on this thread. and people have been plenty courteous to you, sadly the same can't be said of you. it's discourteous to state that you won't waste your time on well thought out posts if the are too long.

When it comes down to defending my good name ... and the good name of my fellow Creationists ... I'll choose to defend my good name anytime ... over answering anybodies posts, including oldrnwsr's.

koth wrote: »

hope you have an excellent Paddys day, JC:)

Thanks Koth ... hope you enjoy the secular (and possibly even some of the religious) dimensions to it as well.:)

J C

Sarky wrote: »

Not when they ignore well written counterpoints and then keep claiming nobody made such a point. You constantly run from evidence, and then claim nobody any. Your claims hinge on being able to tackle posts like oldrnwisr's. When you ignore or run from them, it's a clear indication that you CAN'T tackle them.

You brought this scrutiny on yourself with your outlandish claims and globe dismissals of the very things you challenged us to provide. You don't get to silently disagree or whine about it until you've DEALT with it. We've all backed up our claims while showing you the flaws in yours. Not once have you managed to do the same. Not even once. In seven years, that's a lousy track record.

Respond to oldrnwisr's posts, or admit that you can't. Those are the only choices that won't paint you as dishonest and/or incompetent.

I'll respond to oldrnwisr's posts if ye guys promise to concentrate on the facts, evidence and interpretation of the evidence for/against Creation/Evolution ... and leave the ad hominem stuff out of the debate.
... or better still leave the debate between oldrnwisr and myself.

... if ye respect oldrnwisr as much as ye claim to!!!

Fortyniner

Just address oldrnwiser's posts, JC. We're all waiting.

No preconditions, just make your case.....

J C

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Seems that some of JC's pals at ICR have scratched their heads trying to understand the paper above and come up with this feeble-minded crap:

Gorilla Genome is bad news for Evolution

The data indicates that no coherent model of primate evolution can be achieved - and thus there never was a 'common ancestor' of Primates ... other than perhaps the God who Created them!!!.


I'll let ICR speak for themselves on this one:-
Quote:-
Gorilla Genome Is Bad News for Evolution
by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D.
Evolutionists have long maintained that modern primate species (including, in their view, humans) are branches on an evolutionary tree that lead back to a common ancestor. But the recent news of the published genome sequence for the gorilla in the journal Nature adds more solid data to the growing problem facing the current model of primate evolution.1

This problem is related to a biological paradigm called independent lineage sorting. To illustrate this concept among humans and primates, some segments of human DNA seem more related to gorilla DNA than chimpanzee DNA, and vice versa. This well-established fact produces different evolutionary trees for humans with various primates, depending on the DNA sequence being analyzed.

In a significant number of cases, evolutionary trees based on DNA sequences show that humans are more closely related to gorillas or orangutans than chimpanzees—again, all depending on which DNA fragment is used for the analysis. The overall outcome is that no clear path of common ancestry between humans and various primates exists, so no coherent model of primate evolution can be achieved.

The recent release of the gorilla genome spectacularly highlights this evolutionary quandary. According to the Nature study, "in 30% of the genome, gorilla is closer to human or chimpanzee than the latter are to each other."1

Of course, independent lineage sorting and the problems it presents for evolutionists are nothing new. It existed before the days of DNA sequencing in regards to mosaics of morphological traits, and it now exists in light of each new genome sequence discovery.

One of the first papers to expose this problem in the area of primate evolution was published in 2007 by the Center for Integrative Bioinformatics of Vienna's Ingo Ebersberger and his colleagues. They wrote:

Thus, in two-thirds of the cases, a genealogy results in which humans and chimpanzees are not each other's closest genetic relatives. The corresponding genealogies are incongruent with the species tree. In concordance with the experimental evidences, this implies that there is no such thing as a unique evolutionary history of the human genome. Rather, it resembles a patchwork of individual regions following their own genealogy.2

It is noteworthy that both the recent gorilla paper and Ebersberger's report utilize highly filtered data in which repetitive DNA (which comprises a significant portion of the genome) is masked and omitted, homologous (similar) regions are pre-selected, and sequence gaps are omitted. Both papers cited here explicitly state this. After this initial level of data selection, a methodology called multiple sequence alignment lines up the DNA segments between multiple organisms and the data is parsed into evolutionary trees.

Therefore, the data are always carefully prepared and selected for optimal tree development and should be full of evolution-favorable DNA sequences. Nevertheless, despite all of the data manipulation to make it more conducive to an evolutionary outcome, the picture that always emerges is a unique mosaic pattern of DNA between the various genomes being compared.

These results continue to clearly support a Genesis-based biblical view of unique created kinds and mankind being created in the image of God.

References

Scally, A. et al. 2012. Insights into hominid evolution from the gorilla genome sequence. Nature. 483 (7388): 169-175.
Ebersberger, I. et al. 2007. Mapping Human Genetic Ancestry. Molecular Biology and Evolution. 24 (10): 2266-2276.
* Dr. Tomkins is Research Associate at the Institute for Creation Research and received his Ph.D. in Genetics from Clemson University.

Article posted on March 9, 2012.

RichieC

These results continue to clearly support a Genesis-based biblical view of unique created kinds and mankind being created in the image of God.

Oh dear oh dear..

oldrnwisr

Firstly and most importantly I would like to sincerely thank everyone who responded so positively to my last post. It was something that I was a bit hesitant about posting because it's hard to do justice to a subject like cladistics over a timeline that large but the response has been very heartening.


As for JC's latest excretion ...

J C wrote: »

The data indicates that no coherent model of primate evolution can be achieved - and thus there never was a 'common ancestor' of Primates ... other than perhaps the God who Created them!!

Before I get into details, some general points. I already posted a link to the ICR article in my post so that anyone interested could read it for themselves. Cutting and pasting the entire article into your post while highlighting some random sentence fragments doesn't add anything to the discussion. Anyone else could do the same. You made no comment except for the one above about the content of the ICR article.
I also posted a link to PZ Myer's analysis of the ICR article which you also failed to comment on (probably because you couldn't be bothered to read it). In fact commenting on PZ's article would have been infinitely more useful to this discussion than the ICR one.

Now on to the matters of detail.

First of all before we get started I think it's important to repost the Hominoidea cladogram since it's going to be important to understand what incomplete lineage sorting (ILS) actually helps us to understand.




Now, firstly, our current best estimates for the timeline of the divergences in the hominoidea line is that Hylobatidae (gibbons) split from Hominidae about 18 mya, with the Homininae/Ponginae split happening c. 14 mya, the Hominini/Gorillini split c. 7 mya and the Homo/Pan split about 3-5 mya.

Secondly, we have through genetic analysis determined how closely related we are to other members of the superfamily Hominoidea. So, taking the divergence in the Y chromsome as an example we can see that there is 1.68% difference between humans and chimps, 2.33% difference between humans and gorillas and 5.63% difference between humans and orangutans. Taking an average of these divergences in the genomic sequences is what gives the values reported in the popular media like this:

Chimps, Humans 96 percent the same, gene study finds

An average value is handy and looks great in a glossy mag like Nat Geo but is of little practical value in determining the evolutionary relationships with other apes. That is where ILS comes in. ILS is a detailed examination of the entire genomic sequence of two given specimens looking for points of commonality.

Let's look at it this way. Imagine our most recent common ancestor (MRCA) has a certain gene which has four alleles. These alleles are the result of a mutational difference in DNA copying. As these alleles are inherited by subsequent generations they are each subject to new mutations such that many generations down the line each allele looks quite different from the others. Quantifying exactly how different each of these alleles are can help us to understand when each of the groups split from each other.



In the image above, the blue and green alleles are more closely related to each other than either are to the red and orange alleles. This indicates where a divergence occurred. By repeating this kind of analysis throughout the entire genome, it allows us to build a diagram showing how any gene differs between two species. In so doing, those gene sequences in humans which share a closer relationship with gorillas as detailed in the Nature paper, allow us to more precisely determine the timeline of the split between gorillas and humans/chimps.

There are some really interesting papers on this subject which provide a fascinating insight into human evolution which I recommend that you attempt to digest (although from your recent behaviour I think that possibility is small).

In summary, ILS is an exceptionally powerful tool which helps us to understand with greater detail the history of our own evolution. The insights provided by ILS are, contrary to the ICR's analysis, far more damaging to the claims of creationism than they are to evolution. Why?

1. ILS reinforces existing converging evidence regarding the common ancestry of humans and apes by examining the degree to which common genes have changed over time.
2. Population analysis of hominoid genomic sequences using ILS have determined that the population size of our MRCA lies between 52,000 and 96,000 and not 2 as creationists claim.
3. ILS details the timeline of genetic differences showing a slow and steady sequence of differences and not an independent lineage predicted by creationism.
4. Finally, and most obviously, these changes are documented over the last (in this case) 7 million years and not 6000.

Research papers:

Genomic Divergences between Humans and Other Hominoids and the Effective Population Size of the Common Ancestor of Humans and Chimpanzees


Insights into hominid evolution from the gorilla genome sequence


Ancestral Population Genomics: The Coalescent Hidden Markov
Model Approach


Incomplete lineage sorting patterns among human,
chimpanzee, and orangutan suggest recent orangutan
speciation and widespread selection


Primer on ILS:

Understanding Evolution: Speciation and Incomplete Lineage Sorting


Pharyngula article (again):

A tiny bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing

J C

Because oldrnwisr's post is long and detailed I will use the convention of writing my comments/answers in blue ... otherwise my answer will take up a whole page.

wrote:

Originally Posted by J C
Could I ask for evidence for how we all evolved from a worm.


oldrnwisr
Sure. No problem.
Thanks.

You seem to think, JC, that this hasn't already been posted by multiple posters on multiple occasions but since you insist on responding with this mindless reference to W2M evolution I'm going to deal with it because it's getting on my f*cking nerves.
... it hasn't been addressed ... but I thank you for addressing it.

The article that koth posted refers to a recent discovery of a specimen of one of the earliest chordate species, Pikaia gracilens. P. gracilens is thought to date to approx. 530 mya. As a primitive chordate it developed a notocord, a proto-spinal cord running the length of it's body which it retained throughout it's life (as opposed to other species who only retained a notocord for a short period). It was first discovered and described in 1911. This is a picture of the little fella as recovered from the Burgess Shale:



and how he would have looked in his Sunday best:


OK ... so here is a fossil and artists impression of this particular worm-like creature ... that was fossilised in Noahs Flood 6,000 +/- 1,000 yrs BP.
Now, chordates are a subgroup of deuterostomia (to which we belong, obviously), a group characterised by the anal end of the digestive tract opening before the mouth during development. Chordata is distinct from the other branches of deuterostomia, namely echinodermata and hemichordata because of the development of a persistent spinal cord for at least some portion of its life.
... and there were many radically different chordates Created during Creation Week ... along with creatures that are classified as echinodermata and hemichordata.

Now that I have explained who P. gracilens is and how it fits within chordata and chordata within deuterostomia, now we can see how the ongoing divergence of features leads us from chordata through a gradual filtering process to reach homo sapiens.

Chordata is split between tunicata (previously known as urochordata), hemichordata and craniata. The differentiation is the degree to which the notocord is retained throughout the life of the organism. Craniata, the subset of chordata whose brain is enclosed inside a skull is the one of interest to us.
These are just a classification keys for identifying / describing / classifying organisms by their common physical characteristics ... and not some kind of Evolutionary sequence.

Craniata is then divided between vertebrata and myxini or hagfish. Here we see the increasing development of calcified tissue being realised through the introduction of a vertebral column, a bony support structure for the spinal cord.
Yet an other classifcation diagram ... but no proof that these organisms share a common ancestry.

Vertebrata continues the development of calcified tissue and is split into many subgroups: Conodonta, Cephalaspidomorphi, Hyperoartia, Pteraspidomorphi and finally and most importantly, Gnathostomata. This is important since it marks the first appearance of David Coulthard the jawbone. Gnathostomata first appears in the Ordovician period approx. 450 mya and as a group includes 99% of all the vertebrates alive today.
Again your interpretation that "Vertebrata continues the development of calcified tissue" (within the fossil record) is the imposition of your Evolutionist worldview on the fossil record ... an at least equally logical conclusion is that it is a record of catastrophic burial of different contemporaneous creatures ... with different characteristics ... just like living creatures today have calcified tissue in their bones ... and 'soft-bodied' creatures that are also alive today don't .

The next major difference we see emerging is between cartilagenous and calcified skeletons. Here, gnathostomata splits between placodermi, chondrichthyes and teleostomi. Teleostomi, the group to which we belong, is distinguished by the development of a bony skeleton and an operculum (the structure in a fish which covers the gills).

Next we move on to the divisions in teleostomi between acanthodii and osteichthyes. Osteichthyes are differentiated from acanthodii by their increasing development of a bony skeleton including cranium, pelvic girdle and dermal bones while acanthodii retained a skeleton comprised of a bony infrastrucutre supported by cartilage. Also osteichthyes lacked the placoid scales seen in acanthodii.
There are living examples of most these Classes alive today ... and they appear to an objective observer to be totally distinct creatures ... with no identifiable intermediates between them ... indicating that they are examples of Created Kinds.


From here osteichthyes splits between acinopterygii and sarcopterygii. The key difference here is the diverging fin development between the ray-finned fishes (acinopterygii) and the lobe-finned fishes (sarcopterygii). The ray-finned fishes can be seen in modern fish like the herring or bluefin tuna. The lobe-finned fishes show the start of the development of proto-limbs and lungs which would lead to the development of all four-limbed creatures (including us).
Once again your interpretation is loaded with Evolutionary assumptions ... but no evidence that any of these creatures evolved into each other over millions of years ... indeed the fossil evidence is that they were contemporaneous with each other ... and were largely fossilised in a single worldwide water-based mass extinction event.

The next major development is the transition that is now (i.e. 345 mya) occurring as previously aquatic creatures move on to land. Of interest to us here is an offshoot of sarcopterygii called stegocephalia where the lobed fins of sarcopterygii have begun to develop digits on the end of the fins along with further development of the limbs themselves and an increased development of lungs at the expense of gills. Another subset of stegocephalia is tetrapoda, four-limbed land-based air-breathing creatures with a fully adapted quadripedal skeleton.

Tetrapoda is one of the most important developments after gnathostomata since it is one of the most easily recognisable supergroups to which we belong and includes most of the animals that are familiar with. However, before we move on, I want to include a cladogram so we have a visual representation of what we've covered so far.




The most pronounced divergence within tetrapoda occurs in the split between amphibia and amniota. Here the difference between the groups is developmental rather than morphological as we have seen previously, specifically in the emergence of the amnion or placenta to protect the young in the now (300 mya) rapidly changing environment.
... once again you are making evolutionist assumptions that these dead creature were fossilised over millions of years ... when the evidence is that they were fossilised instanteously ... and certainly within weeks/months of death such is the perfection of the preservation of their bodies.

As we move on through the development of amniota we return to morphological differences as a means to distinguish between the groups. In particular, the primary split in amniota between synapsida and sauropsida. The key feature here is the temporal fenestrae or, more correctly, the number of temporal fenestrae (the openings in the skull). Synapsids have just one pair of fenestrae while sauropsids are split between anapsids (e.g. turtles) which have none and diapsids (e.g. crocodiles, lizards, snakes) which have two. This is also where we part company with, among other groups, birds and dinosaurs.
This is not 'where we part company with birds and dinsaurs' ... this is where different designs were employed in creating Turtles, Crocodies, Birds and Mammals.
As we move from synapsids towards our next major milestone, mammalia, the distinguishing characteristics between sister groups tend to be the result of ever increasing refinements of key features such as the brain and the skeleton as well as other changes related to diet and environment.

Synapsids split into eupelycosauria and caseasauria. Eupelycosauria then splits into edaphosauridae and sphenacodontia with sphenacodontia further splitting into sphenacodontidae and therapsida. The main change within this set of divergences is related to the development of dentition and associated changes in the skeleton and musculature.
Once again your conclusions are deeply coloured by your Evolutionist assumptions ... and your claims of 'divergences' is just wishful thinking based on an examination of the Flood Burial Record that is the so-called 'Fossil Record'.
Therapsids represent another important milestone on the road to mammals and eventually humans. Many of the characteristics that we tend to think of as unique to mammals originated here. These include body-wide hair follicles, lactation and new posture orientations.

Continuing with the development of skeleton and dentition refinements we can see that therapsida splits between eutherapsida and biarmosuchia. Eutherapsida then splits between neotherapsida and dinocephalia. Neotherapsida splits into theriodontia and anomodontia. Then, theriodontia diverges between eutheriodontia and gorgonopsia. It is interesting to note that each fork in the road can lead to an entirely different lineage being traced as we saw earlier in the split between amphibia and amniota, although here, each of the alternate branches biarmosuchia, dinocephalia, anomodontia and gorgonopsia are all extinct with no modern examples.

Following on from eutheriodontia we can see it splits between cynodontia and therocephalia. Cynodontia is another minor milestone since it sees the development of canine teeth among the improving dentiary features. This is especially important for tucking into a nice rib-eye. Cynodontia then splits into dviniidae, procynosuchidae and epicynodontia. Epicynodontia then splits between thrinaxodon and eucynodontia. Eucynodontia then splits into cynognathus and probainognathia. Then around 170 mya we see the emergence of mammaliaformes the progenitor of modern mammals as probainognathia diverges between tritheledontidae, chiniquodontidae and mammaliaformes.

Before we move on to the last leg of the journey from mammals to humans here's another cladogram so no-one loses their place.
Yet another evolutionist assumption based on the belief that evolution over millions of years happened in the first place ... and therefore circular reasoning being employed.




The first major divergence following the emergence of mammals is that between monotremata and theriiformes (theria). It is here where we part company with modern mammals such as the platypus and echidna. The difference here is that monotremes give birth to their young as eggs while theria give birth to live young. Theria is then further divided between metatheria (marsupials) and eutheria (placentals).

Eutheria then splits between epitheria and xenartha with one of the key distinguishing features being the development of external testicles (in males obviously). Here we part company with armadillos, sloths and anteaters.
... so armadillos, sloths and anteaters have internal testicles ... and other mammmals have external ones ... sounds like separate creation to me ... and not something that spontaneous Evolution did ... because whether they are in or out doesn't seem to confer any particular adavantage as evidence by the survival of both types of creature ... while having them neither in or out or a mix-up between in and out usually results in all kinds of nasty complications ... which would likely kill or make sterile any intermediates thereby ruling out the so-called 'split' or 'divergence' that you are talking about.


The next important division is between euarchontoglires and laurasiatheria. This is one of the first examples of a split based on genetic evidence and as a result, here, we part company with giraffes, shrews, hedgehogs, pangolins, whales and bats.

Next euarchontoglires, around 90 mya split into glires and euarchonta. Euarchonta ("true ancestors") is then split between primatomorpha, dermoptera and scandentia. Here we lose treeshrews and colugos and we see an increasing development toward the kind of creature that we would begin to recognise as our distant ancestor.

Finally around 85 mya we see the split in primatomorpha between primates and the now extinct pleisadapiformes. Given the considerable volume that has been posted about primates on thread recently I think I'll leave it there. Finally one last cladogram (from the Ancestor's tale) to recap the relationships between modern mammals.




So you can see JC, that we can trace our lineage from worms to man and we have a mountain of evidence from fossils, genetics and a multitude of other fields to support it.
What I see is a whole series of different contemporaneous creatures classified on the basis of increasing complexity at the time of Noah's Flood ... just like anybody could do with the array of different contemporaneous creatures that are alive today.
The great thing about this is that we can use this lineage to build up an increasing set of characteristics which we can use to define a particular term. For example, we can describe craniates as a metazoic, nucleic, bilaterally symmetrical deuterostome coelamate with a spinal chord and a brain encased in a skull. As we move down through time towards the present we keep adding features so that by the time we get to primates we have a more precise and robust definition. We can define primates as:
... but all these terms describe different distinguishing characteristics of creatures that are alive today ... so why do you think that it is a historical series over millions of years?
"[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]gill-less, organic RNA/DNA protein-based, metabolic, metazoic, nucleic, diploid, bilaterally-symmetrical, endothermic, digestive, tryploblast, opisthokont, deuterostome coelemate with a spinal chord and 12 cranial nerves connecting to a limbic system in an enlarged cerebrial cortex with a reduced olfactory region inside a jawed-skull with specialized teeth including canines and premolars, forward-oriented fully-enclosed optical orbits, and a single temporal fenestra, -attached to a vertebrate hind-leg dominant tetrapoidal skeleton with a sacral pelvis, clavical, and wrist & ankle bones; and having lungs, tear ducts, body-wide hair follicles, lactal mammaries, opposable thumbs, and keratinized dermis with chitinous nails on all five digits on all four extremities, in addition to an embryonic development in amniotic fluid, leading to a placental birth and highly social lifestyle."

You can even get have it on a t-shirt if you want.
I must go out and buy one ... it's a good reminder of the amazing CFSI diversity created during Creation Week!!!

My apologies to anyone who thinks this explanation is a little light on detail, well, because it is. Tracing over 500 mya of our ancestry is no small task and any description must be necessarily summary in detail.
No need to apologise ... trying to find a continuum defeated Darwin ... because that's not how it actually happened!!!
Quote:-
Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely-graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. (The Origin of Species).

I have included as many wiki links as I could find so that anyone interested in finding out more (obviously not JC) can do some further reading. I would also recommend the Tree of Life Project as an excellent taxonomic resource.

Had a look ... well presented information.
... suggest that you also look here
[/FONT]

.

Evade

JC, if the World (or is it Universe or just life?) was magicked in to existence around 6000 years ago how do you explain anything that has been radiocarbon dated to before that time?

J C

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Before I get into details, some general points. I already posted a link to the ICR article in my post so that anyone interested could read it for themselves. Cutting and pasting the entire article into your post while highlighting some random sentence fragments doesn't add anything to the discussion. Anyone else could do the same. You made no comment except for the one above about the content of the ICR article.
I also posted a link to PZ Myer's analysis of the ICR article which you also failed to comment on (probably because you couldn't be bothered to read it). In fact commenting on PZ's article would have been infinitely more useful to this discussion than the ICR one.

OK lets have a look at PZ's Article then ... my comments in blue:-

Tiny bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing
Category: Creationism • Evolution • Genetics • Science
Posted on: March 11, 2012 10:57 AM, by PZ Myers

Good news! The gorilla genome sequence was published in Nature last week, and adds to our body of knowledge about primate evolution. Here's the abstract:
Good News indeed.
Gorillas are humans' closest living relatives after chimpanzees, and are of comparable importance for the study of human origins and evolution. Here we present the assembly and analysis of a genome sequence for the western lowland gorilla, and compare the whole genomes of all extant great ape genera. We propose a synthesis of genetic and fossil evidence consistent with placing the human-chimpanzee and human-chimpanzee-gorilla speciation events at approximately 6 and 10 million years ago. In 30% of the genome, gorilla is closer to human or chimpanzee than the latter are to each other; this is rarer around coding genes, indicating pervasive selection throughout great ape evolution, and has functional consequences in gene expression.
... if Human evolution occurred from a common ancestor ... and the divergence sequence was Gorillas-Chimpanzees-Humans we wouldn't expect that 30% of the Gorilla genome to be closer to Human or chimpanzee than the latter are to each other. We would expect Human and Chimpanzee sequences to be closer to each other than Gorilla practically everywhere.
A comparison of protein coding genes reveals approximately 500 genes showing accelerated evolution on each of the gorilla, human and chimpanzee lineages, and evidence for parallel acceleration, particularly of genes involved in hearing. We also compare the western and eastern gorilla species, estimating an average sequence divergence time 1.75 million years ago, but with evidence for more recent genetic exchange and a population bottleneck in the eastern species. The use of the genome sequence in these and future analyses will promote a deeper understanding of great ape biology and evolution.
The so-called 'evidence for parallel acceleration' is a doomed attempt at trying to reconcile the irreconcilable ... namely to explain how Gorillas are closer genetically with species that supposedly diverged after the Gorilla.
I've highlighted one phrase in that abstract because, surprise surprise, creationists read the paper and that was the only thing they saw, and in either dumb incomprehension or malicious distortion, took an article titled "Insights into hominid evolution from the gorilla genome sequence" and twisted it into a bumbling mess of lies titled "Gorilla Genome Is Bad News for Evolution". They treat a phenomenon called Independent Lineage Sorting (ILS) as an obstacle to evolution rather than an expected outcome.
Independent Lineage Sorting is indeed an obstacle to an evolutionary explantion for Primate sequences ... it shouldn't result in any distortion of the expected sequential divergence ... and thus doesn't explain the fact that Primate sequences are all over the place and not following expected divergence data lines.
Independent lineage sorting and the problems it presents for evolutionists are nothing new. This problem existed before DNA sequencing was available as unexpected mosaics of morphological traits - and it now turning up in the genome sequences themselves as they are determined.

This problem is related to a biological paradigm called independent lineage sorting. To illustrate this concept among humans and primates, some segments of human DNA seem more related to gorilla DNA than chimpanzee DNA, and vice versa. This well-established fact produces different evolutionary trees for humans with various primates, depending on the DNA sequence being analyzed.
If there are different Evolutionary Trees depending on the DNA sequence being analyzed this indicates a serious flaw in the theory underpinning the Trees ... i.e. the supposed divergence of the Gorilla, Chimpanzee and Human lineages from a common ancestor.
On the other hand, this evidence is consistent with the use of common design sequences for homologous structures in different species.

In a significant number of cases, evolutionary trees based on DNA sequences show that humans are more closely related to gorillas or orangutans than chimpanzees--again, all depending on which DNA fragment is used for the analysis. The overall outcome is that no clear path of common ancestry between humans and various primates exists, so no coherent model of primate evolution can be achieved.
The reason that the data is supporting no coherent model of primate evolution ... is because so-called primate evolution never happened. If it did happen there should be coherent evidence that it did.

The recent release of the gorilla genome spectacularly highlights this evolutionary quandary. According to the Nature study, "in 30% of the genome, gorilla is closer to human or chimpanzee than the latter are to each other."
When you compare the genomic sequences of three related species, such as the human, chimp, and gorilla, you'll typically find from an average that a pattern of relatedness is revealed: humans and chimps are closer to each other than they are to gorillas, indicating a more recent divergence between humans and chimps than between humans and gorillas. However, that's an average result: if you compare them base by base, you'll find genes and regions of the chromosomes in which the gorilla sequence is more similar to the human sequence than to the chimpanzee sequence; if you looked at only that gene, you'd conclude that humans and gorillas were closer cousins, and chimpanzees were more distant.

None of this is consistent with any coherent evolutionary timeline ... and the reverse is equally problematical i.e. the evidence is also incoherent with the hypothesis that Gorillas diverged after Chimanzees.

Is ILS a problem? It complicates the analysis of sequences for sure (although it also can be used as a probe to look at evolution). But it's not a problem that calls evolution into question; to the contrary, it's an expected phenomenon.

Here's why. This diagram illustrates the simplistic, naïve expectation you might have.


The outline of the tree illustrates the average pattern of sequence similarity, with the conclusion that humans (H) and chimpanzees (C) diverged more recently than humans/chimps and gorillas (G), which diverged more recently than humans/chimps/gorillas and orangutans (O). The solid line inside the outline illustrates the history of a single gene, drawn in black to represent the ancestral state, and then drawn in blue at the time humans and chimps diverged.

This is a gene that acquired its unique differences in the two lineages at the time of the human-chimpanzee split. It fits perfectly with the average pattern.

But just ask yourself: how likely is that? There are tens of thousands of genes in each of these species. Do you really think all the differences popped into existence simultaneously, at one instant when two populations of our last common ancestor discretely and completely separated? Of course not: you'd have to be a creationist to believe in something that stupid.
... the differences should match the supposed divergence ... and there certainly shouldn't be closer sequences after the divergence point.
Here's another possibility. Speciation wasn't instantaneous, but a matter of multiple populations existing in parallel, with changes in genes appearing in different subsets at different times, spread out over long periods of time. So sometimes a mutation unique to one extant lineage appeared long before the split, and was just sorted at the time of separation into one lineage or the other.
This is Special Pleading of one type (that thousands of genes changed at the point of divergence) with Special Pleading of another type (that speciation involved multiple populations living in parallel) yet speciation by definition involves the inability to continue cross-breeding.
In this case, comparison of the gene in question would give the same qualitative answer — humans and chimps are most closely related — but a different quantitative difference in the time of divergence. But as you can see, it requires nothing weird or unexplainable or contradictory to evolutionary theory: you just have to appreciate the population nature of evolution.
You also need to turn the definition of speciation on its head ... as well as abandoning the sequential divergence idea as well ... and you still end up being unable to expain the data in any manner that is coherent with supposed Human Evolution.
We can go further: different forms of the genes can be sorted into different lineages entirely by chance.


In these cases, we have two different forms of a gene that arose in ancestral population, ancestral to humans, chimps, and gorillas. By drift, one form was lost in the gorilla lineage, but both forms continue to be found in the ancestral manpanzee population; at the time of human/chimp divergence, these gene forms were sorted into different lineages. By chance, these will show either a closer relationship between humans and gorillas or chimpanzees and gorillas.
... this is special pleading of an extraordinary degree ... not only has precise genes to be lost in the gorilla lineage ... but the same precise genes must be lost completely in the Human and or chimpanzee lineages ... but not lost in both the Human and or chimpanzee lineages
... what are the chances!!

And the likelihood of HC2, HG, and CG above are equally probable!

So the creationist argument against evolution on the basis of independent lineage sorting is very, very silly. The only way you would fail to see ILS is if every genetic difference between two species emerged simultaneously, in lockstep, in one grand swoop. That is, the observation of ILS contradicts creationism, not evolution.

The authors of the Nature paper were well aware of this, and even illustrated it in their first figure.


Phylogeny of the great ape family, showing the speciation of human (H), chimpanzee (C), gorilla (G) and orang-utan (O). Horizontal lines indicate speciation times within the hominine subfamily and the sequence divergence time between human and orang-utan. Interior grey lines illustrate an example of incomplete lineage sorting at a particular genetic locus--in this case (((C, G), H), O) rather than (((H, C), G), O). Below are mean nucleotide divergences between human and the other great apes from the EPO alignment.
We can measure the average genetic distance between the species (the percentages at the bottom of the figure), but we can still see individual genes (the gray line) that branched at different points in their history. This is simply not a problem for evolutionary theory; once again, the creationists rely on their proponents having a foolishly cartoonish version of evolution in their heads in order to raise a false objection.
If the sequence divergence time is in conflict with the average genetic distance between a large % of genes something is seriously wrong ... and it is indicative that the theory of Human Evolution is what is wrong!!!
... and no amount of talking around the issue is going to get over this bald fact.

J C

Evade wrote: »

JC, if the World (or is it Universe or just life?) was magicked in to existence around 6000 years ago how do you explain anything that has been radiocarbon dated to before that time?

Creation could be as long ago as 10,000 years.
... and interestingly our written history starts about 6,000 years ago.

... pretty bizzarre if we have been around for millions of years.

Sarky

So your full detailed response is to rehash and selectively quote all the crap you've posted before despite its having been torn apart long ago?

Is that really the best you can do? Really? I suppose life is too short to back up your ridiculous claims with evidence?

And then you whinge about people not respecting your views? Ha!

J C

RichieC wrote: »

Oh dear oh dear..

I just knew that this would make a lasting impression on you!!:)

J C

Sarky wrote: »

So your full detailed response is to rehash and selectively quote all the crap you've posted before despite its having been torn apart long ago?

Is that really the best you can do? Really? I suppose life is too short to back up your ridiculous claims with evidence?

And then you whinge about people not respecting your views? Ha!

Less Ad Hominem comments ... and more concentration on the evidence for Human Evolution ... or the lack thereof ... please.

... or perhaps leave it to oldrnwisr ... who does seem to be older and wiser!!!:)

Evade

J C wrote: »

Creation could be as long ago as 10,000 years.

My point still stands. How do you explain anything radiocarbon dated to before 8000BCE?

J C wrote: »

... and interestingly our written history starts about 6,000 years ago.

... pretty bizzarre if we have been around for millions of years.

My memory only goes back about 23 years, does that mean the world didn't exist before I can recall it's existence?

J C

Evade wrote: »

My point still stands. How do you explain anything radiocarbon dated to before 8000BCE?

There isn't anything that has been reliably radiocarbon dated before about 10,000 BP.

Evade wrote: »

My memory only goes back about 23 years, does that mean the world didn't exist before I can recall it's existence?

That is why Humans have always had writing ... but it only goes back a few thousand years.

King Mob

J C wrote: »

There isn't anything that has been reliably radiocarbon dated before about 10,000 BP.

Course I'm sure you are aware of the other forms of radiometric dating JC...

Delirium

JC, can you please define CFSI as you mention it in the response to oldrnwsr? And I'm begging you to please not define each individual word, as I'm trying to get to grips with your post above.

Also, why are you using a biblical story to counter scientific arguments? And if you're using the Noah story, then you can only mean the creator is the Christian god otherwise the Noah story doesn't support your argument.

You've also made the point that why should we presume that animals that exist today are a result of mutation that happened over time? But you yourself support such an idea, albeit with limitations to suit your creationist narrative. by this I mean that all lions, tigers, panthers, pumas, cheetahs and all variety of house-cat evolved from one pair of cat (i.e. the original mating pair of the "Cat Kind"). Aside from your religious convictions, what reason have you to presume that evolution didn't happen on a larger scale than what you suggest?

Evade

J C wrote: »

There isn't anything that has been reliably radiocarbon dated before about 10,000 BP.

That is why Humans have always had writing ... but it only goes back a few thousand years.

What about the Chauvet Cave?

Delirium

J C wrote: »

There isn't anything that has been reliably radiocarbon dated before about 10,000 BP.

Not so according to this article. The oldest discovered fossils are microfossils that are dated at 3.4 billion years old

Evade

J C wrote: »

Creation could be as long ago as 10,000 years.
... and interestingly our written history starts about 6,000 years ago.

... pretty bizzarre if we have been around for millions of years.

J C wrote: »

That is why Humans have always had writing ... but it only goes back a few thousand years.

There's as much as a 4000 year discrepancy there, care to explain?

J C

koth wrote: »

JC, can you please define CFSI as you mention it in the response to oldrnwsr? And I'm begging you to please not define each individual word, as I'm trying to get to grips with your post above.

Also, why are you using a biblical story to counter scientific arguments? And if you're using the Noah story, then you can only mean the creator is the Christian god otherwise the Noah story doesn't support your argument.

You've also made the point that why should we presume that animals that exist today are a result of mutation that happened over time? But you yourself support such an idea, albeit with limitations to suit your creationist narrative. by this I mean that all lions, tigers, panthers, pumas, cheetahs and all variety of house-cat evolved from one pair of cat (i.e. the original mating pair of the "Cat Kind"). Aside from your religious convictions, what reason have you to presume that evolution didn't happen on a larger scale than what you suggest?

Evolution (at any scale) can only proceed on the basis of the CFSI component of the population involved ... and the CFSI is always the result of an ultimate intelligent input or manipulation.
'Evolution' isn't confined within Kinds ... it proceeds via genetic engineering with the artificial transfer of CFSI right across different Kinds.

It is therefore entirely possible that an advanced civilisation (of some type of Alien) was responsible for the Creation of Humans. Whether this was how it happened ... or it was the God of the Bible who did it is a matter of Faith.
... but the God of the Bible is ultimately the superior explanation ... because the Alien Hypothesis begs the question as to who 'engineered' / Created the Aliens?
... while an omnipotent and transcendent God has the capacity to Create without any need for further agents to be involved in His Creation.
I accept that we have left science at this point ... and entered philosophy/theology and the faith realm.

J C

Evade wrote: »

There's as much as a 4000 year discrepancy there, care to explain?

The disruption/destruction caused by the Flood to ante-diluvian writings is the most likely explantion.

J C

wrote:

Originally Posted by J C
There isn't anything that has been reliably radiocarbon dated before about 10,000 BP.

koth
Not so according to this article. The oldest discovered fossils are microfossils that are dated at 3.4 billion years old

These certainly weren't dated using radiocarbon techniques!!!

J C

Evade wrote: »

What about the Chauvet Cave?

I think that you'll find the answer here.

Evade

King Mob wrote: »

Course I'm sure you are aware of the other forms of radiometric dating JC...

koth wrote: »

Not so according to this article. The oldest discovered fossils are microfossils that are dated at 3.4 billion years old

J C wrote: »

These certainly weren't dated using radiocarbon techniques!!!

Pretty self explanatory.

J C wrote: »

The disruption/destruction caused by the Flood to ante-diluvian writings is the most likely explantion.

Right, and where's your scientific evidence for such an event fairy tale?

Evade

J C wrote: »

I think that you'll find the answer here.

I got as far as

Creationist Drivel Site wrote:

When a scientist’s interpretation of data does not match the clear meaning of the text in the Bible, we should never reinterpret the Bible.

And you wonder why people question your scientific method?

Delirium

J C wrote: »

Evolution (at any scale) can only proceed on the basis of the CFSI component of the population involved ... and the CFSI is always the result of an ultimate intelligent input or manipulation.
'Evolution' isn't confined within Kinds ... it proceeds via genetic engineering with the artificial transfer of CFSI right across different Kinds.

You haven't defined CFSI so that argument currently has no merit, as CFSI is nowhere in any documentation relating to evolution. And if evolution isn't confined to Kinds, then why is evolution not a valid explanation if evolution can happen across Kinds?

It is therefore entirely possible that an advanced civilisation (of some type of Alien) was responsible for the Creation of Humans. Whether this was how it happened ... or it was the God of the Bible who did it is a matter of Faith.

But if it was aliens then God didn't do it, and it means using the Noah story to argue against evolution makes even less sense.

... but the God of the Bible is ultimately the superior explanation ... because the Alien Hypothesis begs the question as to who 'engineered' / Created the Aliens?

And that also means that someone has to answer who 'engineered'/created God of the bible

... while an omnipotent and transcendent God has the capacity to Create without any need for further agents to be involved in His Creation.

And thus your own creationism idea falls foul of your own 'everything needs a creator' argument. Adding in clauses to suit creationism is hypocritical.

At least evolution has a consistency to how things work.

shizz

J C wrote: »

... because the Alien Hypothesis begs the question as to who 'engineered' / Created the Aliens?

So to does the God Hypothesis.

J C

Evade wrote: »

I got as far as

"When a scientist’s interpretation of data does not match the clear meaning of the text in the Bible, we should never reinterpret the Bible."

And you wonder why people question your scientific method?

Didn't see that myself ...

... but it's good advice ... and makes a pleasant change from the secular equivalent ... which boils down to 'all phenomena must be explicable by non-supernatural means' ...
... or 'we are here ... so we must have got here via purely materialistic means'.

These are all faith-based paradigms - that close out other possibilities.

As a Creation Scientist ... I would report something ... even if it conflicted with the Bible ... and Ken Ham would then have to make of it as he might.