Posted on 05/29/2007 9:46:38 AM PDT by ASA Vet
June 4, 2007 issue - It last happened about 3.6 billion years ago. a tiny living cell emerged from the dust of the Earth. It replicated itself, and its progeny replicated themselves, and so on, with genetic twists and turns down through billions of generations. Today every living organism—every person, plant, animal and microbe—can trace its heritage back to that first cell.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
There is no denial on my part. Show me scientific evidence, especially new scientific evidence, and I'll be *thrilled* by the advance of Man's knowledge.
One wonders, however, if the converse is true for you. For that matter, one wonders if you'll have the intellectual honesty to admit that you are implying my point above: that no such genetic evidence (in "Fishes") is currently possessed by Science.
What do you mean? We have many genetic similarities tying together the immune systems of all vertebrates.
You’re going off of a few unnamed genes from data that hasn’t even been published. I wonder you can make such dogmatic claims when the information isn’t even at hand.
It's roughly accurate but insufficiently detailed, leaving out many groups, as I'm sure you ought to recognize but apparently don't.
To get to Mammals on that diagram, you must first go through "Fishes."
You've identified no other Evolutionary path to the contrary, by the way (nor can you).
Apparently you don't understand forks.
I'll try to explain again. Fish evolved. Fish split into several groups. One group of fish split into two other groups. One of these groups split off the tetrapods. The other group, which is not in line with the tetrapods, produced the ray-finned fish whose genes this man is talking about.
If you want to have a better chance at finding out the genetics of the tetrapodian fish ancestor, you'll need to look at the lobe-finned fishes, as I already explained in a prior post. Again, as I already explained, we share genetic features with the lobe-finned fishes that are not present in the more derived ray-finned fishes (which, again, we are not descended from).
Therefore (once more) your objection is irrelevant.
That’s incorrect. No Fish from any “branch” or at any Age has the same immune genes as both ancient coral and modern Man share, per our existing evidence in hand.
"For that matter, one wonders if you'll have the intellectual honesty to admit that you are implying my point above: that no such genetic evidence (in "Fishes") is currently possessed by Science."
As I mentioned before, Hox gene expression shared by lobe-finned fish and tetrapods support our relationship (which is supported by so many other lines of evidence), and the differential expression of these in ray-finned fishes supports their being a side-group not in our direct line of descent.
Now you may cling to the futile hope "Perhaps these genes will be mysteriously missing in lobe-finned fishes!" and act as though the fact that we haven't looked for them yet means evolution is false, but when we do find them I hope you won't be too disappointed.
I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, but now that I look at this more closely, where does it say these genes were found to be missing in fish? I read the article they published in Biology Genetics and they were studying Toll-like receptors, which are most certainly present in bony fish. Perhaps they might be missing a particular receptor, but the class is still present. Can you provide a source?
Whee! Genome Biology. Paper is here.
That's incorrect. There is no "evolutionary" relationship in gene skipping. Ancient Coral share immune genes with Modern Man...for Evolutionary Theory to have a shot at potential correctness, there would have to be evidence of those same immune genes in some Fish of some Age or "branch."
But there is no such evidence. Fish don't have those immune genes now, and don't appear to have ever had them in the past...per the evidence in hand today.
Ah, how quaint. You display "hope" that one day we'll find your missing genes.
That's a nice display of blind faith, but that's not science.
Science itself, however, shows us no such immune genes in Fish.
...not in any "branch" of fish...not in Fish of any Age no matter how distant in the past one goes.
But guided by blind faith and hope, you cling to the obsolete wish that one day your pot of genetic gold will be found in Fish.
Won't happen.
As I said, please give a source. The blurb mentioned earlier did not say these genes were not found in fish, neither did the research paper published. I'm quite sure you must have noticed my request, I'm inclined to think you're avoiding it.
The entire puffer fish genome sequence is here: www.fugubase.org
Ancient Coral and Modern Man share immune genes. Evolutionists claim that Fish species are intermediate between ancient Coral and Modern Man...yet no known Fish (see puffer fish example above) has those immune genes.
That's DNA code skipping. That's the death blow to Evolutionary Theory because genes skipping intermediate species are incompatible with gradual biological sequential changes.
Now, why don't you go provide something. I'm growing perturbed at your uneding demands for me to go do your homework for you. Post some sources that back up what you claim for a change.
Let's try to analyze this. You say:
I pointed out one glaring flaw with your argument already--the line of human descend did not go through ray-finned fish! The first ray-finned fish was our evolutionary cousin, not our evolutionary grandfather. Therefore any secondary modifications in ray-finned fish, such as the different gene expression patterns of Hox genes in ray-finned fish forelimbs, do not have any bearing on tetrapod evolution.
The second major flaw is a more subtle assumption. You are truly saying:
The problem here is that you don't know which genes are present in each and which genes are missing. You're making an ungrounded assumption that the missing genes in fish are present in corals. As a matter of fact I went through the major Toll-like receptors mentioned in the paper and everyone one of them is present in the ray-finned fish, and thus present in the lobe-finned fish and throughout our lineage as well.
The reason that ray-finned fish do not have some immune genes that we have is because there was considerable innovation in the immune system in mammalian evolution. These new immune genes are not shared by fish nor coral.
The flaw is glaring, but it is in your rebuttal, not in my argument.
My argument isn't limited to "ray-finned fish." That's your red herring.
My argument encompasses *all* fish from all Ages and all Branches. It's complete and unlimited.
Coral and humans do share immune genes, it's the Fish that are missing some of those genes.
You seem to be having difficulty understanding. Let’s make it simple: List the genes that coral and humans share, but fish do not.
Gee, yet another request from you for me to do your homework for you. Wait, let me guess, after I list the above, you’ll demand yet more from me...and on and on...all without providing the first source of your own to back up your wild-eyed counter-claims.
Hey, I’ve got a better idea Mr. I’ve-reviewed-all-Fish-Genes Man...post a sourced link to a problem that you’ve identified in what I’ve said, or post a link that supports one of your own claims, and *then* I’ll reciprocate.
Fair is fair. Show good faith and I’ll do the same, but I’m not going to play the “answer all of my questions with sources” game if you aren’t doing the same.
So I’ll make it simple for *you*: list one immunity gene that is shared by fish, humans, and coral.
You know I already gave you this information.
Genes in coral (by no means exhaustive, just some of the most important ones):
Corresponding genes in fish (again, by no means exhaustive):
Corresponding genes in humans (again, by no means exhaustive):
I must have missed your source for TLR4-mediated endotoxin recognition and signaling in Fish (though I admit that you can point to most/all other TLR functions)...
TLR4 is present in most ray-finned fish but may be absent from the pufferfish, which has a drastically streamed-down genome (it has removed most transposable elements and some genes--its shortness made it an attractive target for sequencing). It is thought that TLR4 may have another purpose in fish, since it does not appear to respond to endotoxin stimulus in the same fashion as in mammals. (Iliev, D. B.; Roach, J. C.; Mackenzie, S.; Planas, J. V.; Goetz, F. W. "Endotoxin recognition: In fish or not in fish?" FEBS Letters 2006, 579, 6519.)
This is something that is seen often throughout evolution--a gene used for one purpose eventually takes on a new one. We see the same thing with olfactory genes, many of which are expressed in sperm cells and probably used for chemotaxis.
Additionally, TLR4 is not present in corals, which contain an ancestral TLR prior to radiation into the chordate TLR family.
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