Posted on 06/01/2017 6:17:48 PM PDT by lasereye
The Bible describes humans as being created in the image of God—the pinnacle of His creation. In contrast, those who embrace the presupposition of naturalistic origins have put much effort and even monkey business into a propaganda crusade to claim a bestial origin for man.
The idea that humans evolved from an ape-like creature was first widely promoted by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in the early 1800s and later by Charles Darwin in his 1871 book The Descent of Man—published 12 years after his acclaimed evolutionary treatise On the Origin of Species. Thomas Huxley, a friend of Darwin, also did much to popularize this idea. Since then, the secular scientific community has promulgated the still-hypothetical idea of human evolution as an established fact.1
After the 150-plus years since Darwin’s famous publication, we still have no fossil evidence demonstrating human evolution. Darwin believed such fossils would eventually be found, but that has simply not been the case. The following quotes from evolutionists themselves accurately sum up the current state of affairs regarding the fossil record and its wholesale lack of support for human evolution.
The evolutionary events that led to the origin of the Homo lineage are an enduring puzzle in paleoanthropology, chiefly because the fossil record from between 3 million and 2 million years ago is frustratingly sparse, especially in eastern Africa.2
But with so little evidence to go on, the origin of our genus has remained as mysterious as ever.3
The origin of our own genus remains frustratingly unclear.4
The Evolution of Human-Chimp DNA Research
Although paleontological evidence has been lacking, in more recent times evidence supporting human evolution was thought to have been found in the DNA of living apes and humans. This article will evaluate the popular myth of human-chimpanzee DNA similarity along with recent research showing that a broad and unbridgeable chasm exists between the human and chimpanzee genomes.
DNA is a double-stranded molecule that under certain conditions can be denatured—i.e., “unzipped” to make it single-stranded—and then allowed to zip back up. During the initial stages of DNA science in the early 1970s, very crude and indirect techniques were utilized to unzip mixtures of human and chimpanzee DNA, which were then monitored to see how fast they would zip back up compared to unmixed samples.5 Based on these studies, it was declared that human and chimpanzee DNA was 98.5% similar. But only the most similar protein-coding regions of the genome (called single-copy DNA) were compared, which is an extremely small portion—less than 3%—of the total genome. Also, it was later discovered by an evolutionary colleague that the authors of these studies had manipulated the data to make the chimpanzee DNA appear more similar to human than it really was.6 These initial studies not only established a fraudulent gold standard of 98.5% DNA similarity between humans and chimps but also the shady practice of cherry-picking only the most similar data. The idea of nearly identical human-chimp DNA similarity was born and used to bolster the myth of human evolution, something that the lack of fossil evidence was unable to accomplish.
As DNA sequencing became more advanced, scientists were able to compare the actual order of DNA bases (nucleotides) between DNA sequences from different creatures. This was done in a process in which similar DNA segments could be directly matched up or aligned. The differences were then calculated.
Little progress was made in comparing large regions of DNA between chimpanzees and humans until the genomics revolution in the 21st century with its emphasis on developing new technologies to sequence the human genome. Between 2002 and 2005, a variety of reports was published that on the surface seemed to support the 98.5% DNA similarity myth.
However, a careful analysis of these publications reported by this author showed that the researchers were only including data on the most highly aligning sequences and omitting gaps and regions that did not align.5 Once again, we had the same old problem of cherry-picking the data that support evolution while ignoring everything else. However, at least three of these papers described the amount of non-similar data that was thrown out. When those missing data were included in the original numbers, an overall DNA similarity between humans and chimpanzees was only about 81 to 87%, depending on the paper!
Determining DNA similarity between humans and chimpanzees isn’t a trivial task. One of the main problems is that the current chimpanzee genome wasn’t constructed based on its own merits. When DNA is sequenced, it’s produced in millions of small pieces that must be “stitched” together with powerful computers.
In large mammalian genomes like the chimpanzee, this isn’t easy, especially since very few genetic resources exist to aid the effort compared to those available for the human genome project. Because of this resource issue, a limited budget, and a healthy dose of evolutionary bias, the chimpanzee genome was put together using the human genome as a guide or scaffold onto which the little DNA sequence snippets were organized and stitched together.7 Therefore, the current chimpanzee genome appears much more human-like than it really is. In fact, a recent study by this author showed that individual raw chimpanzee DNA sequences that had poor similarity to human sequences aligned very poorly (if at all) onto the chimpanzee genome that had been assembled using the human genome as a framework.8 This is a dramatic illustration that it is not an authentic representation of the actual chimpanzee genome.
Another serious problem with the chimpanzee genome is that it appears to contain significant levels of human DNA contamination. When DNA samples are prepared in the laboratory for sequencing, it’s common to have DNA from human lab workers get into the samples. Several secular studies show that many non-primate DNA sequence databases contain significant levels of human DNA.9,10
A recent study by this author shows that a little over half of the data sets used to construct the chimpanzee genome contain significantly higher levels of human DNA than the others.8 These data sets with apparent high levels of human DNA contamination were the ones utilized during the first phase of the project that led to the famous 2005 chimpanzee genome publication.11 The data sets produced after this were added on top of the ones in the initial assembly. So, not only was the chimpanzee genome assembled using the human genome as a scaffold, but research indicates that it was constructed with significant levels of contaminating human DNA. This would explain why raw unassembled chimpanzee DNA sequences are difficult to align onto the chimpanzee genome with high accuracy; it’s because it’s considerably more human-like than it should be.
So, how similar is chimpanzee DNA to human? My research indicates that raw chimpanzee DNA sequences from data sets with significantly lower levels of human DNA contamination are on average about 85% identical in their DNA sequence when aligned onto the human genome. Therefore, based on the most recent, unbiased, and comprehensive research, chimpanzee DNA is no more than 85% similar to human.
What Does 85% DNA Similarity Mean?
So, what does 85% DNA similarity really mean? First of all, it’s important to note that for human evolution to seem plausible, a DNA similarity of 99% is required. This is based on known current mutation rates in humans and an alleged splitting of humans from a common ancestor with chimpanzees about three to six million years ago. This length of time is a mere second on the evolutionary timescale. Any level of similarity much less than 99% is evolutionarily impossible. This is why evolutionists rely on all sorts of monkey business when it comes to comparing human and chimpanzee DNA—they must achieve a figure close to 99% or their model collapses.
So, what if humans and chimpanzees are only about 85% similar in their DNA? Isn’t this pretty close, too, even if it puts evolution out of the picture? In reality, this level of similarity is exactly what one would expect from a creation perspective because of certain basic similarities in overall body plans and cellular physiology between humans and chimpanzees. After all, DNA is not called the genetic code for nothing. Just as different software programs on a computer have similar sections of code because they perform similar functions, the same similarity exists between different creatures in certain sections of their genomes. This is not evidence that one evolved from another but rather that both creatures were engineered along similar basic principles. DNA similarities between different creatures are evidence of common engineered design, and the fact that the differences in these DNA sequences are unexplainable by alleged evolutionary processes is also strong evidence of design.
The Bible says that every living thing was created according to its kind. This fits the clear, observable boundaries we see in nature between types of creatures, as well as the distinct boundaries researchers find in genomes as DNA sequencing science progresses.
In regard to humans, we are not only a distinctly different kind compared to chimpanzees and other apes, but we are also the one part of creation that stands out above all other living forms because the Bible states, “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27).
Not only is evolution a false paradigm lacking scientific support, it also directly attacks one of the key paradigms of the Bible. Humanity’s unique creation in God’s image is foundational to why Jesus Christ came to redeem us. Man became corrupt through sin from his original created state—he did not evolve that way from an ape.
References
* Dr. Tomkins is Director of Life Sciences at the Institute for Creation Research and earned his Ph.D. in genetics from Clemson University, where he worked as a research technician in a plant breeding/genetics program. After receiving his Ph.D., he worked at a genomics institute and became a faculty member in the Department of Genetics and Biochemistry at Clemson.
Agreed, thanks again for a great post, much appreciated.
i spelled it out ot you in my previous posts- knock yerself out rereading them- You can feign innocence all you like- noone is falling for it- typical liberal tactic-
[[If there were an ignore function, I would just ignore you now.]]
awww don’t go away mad-
[[Do not expect me to answer any more of your posts.]]
As if
Hey man did tyou read the link i posted that cited several ‘secular studies’ of human chimp similarities? It looks like the different studies came up with different results- some as low as 81% (I think one was even lower- I basically just skimmed the article) Some were 95% one was 98%
What would you say would be closer to the truth?
http://creation.com/human-chimp-dna-similarity-re-evaluated
If you’d rather not wade through it that’s fine-
This article came out when I was in Grad school and it was a game-changer for me.
Nature. 1987 Sep 3-9;329(6134):75-9.
An intronless gene encoding a potential member of the family of receptors coupled to guanine nucleotide regulatory proteins.
Kobilka BK, Frielle T, Collins S, Yang-Feng T, Kobilka TS, Francke U, Lefkowitz RJ, Caron MG.
Abstract
Plasma membrane receptors for hormones, drugs, neurotransmitters and sensory stimuli are coupled to guanine nucleotide regulatory proteins. Recent cloning of the genes and/or cDNAs for several of these receptors including the visual pigment rhodopsin, the adenylate-cyclase stimulatory beta-adrenergic receptor and two subtypes of muscarinic cholinergic receptors has suggested that these are homologous proteins with several conserved structural and functional features. Whereas the rhodopsin gene consists of five exons interrupted by four introns, surprisingly the human and hamster beta-adrenergic receptor genes contain no introns in either their coding or untranslated sequences. We have cloned and sequenced a DNA fragment in the human genome which cross-hybridizes with a full-length beta 2-adrenergic receptor probe at reduced stringency. Like the beta 2-adrenergic receptor this gene appears to be intronless, containing an uninterrupted long open reading frame which encodes a putative protein with all the expected structural features of a G-protein-coupled receptor.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3041227
Lefkowitz has since won the Nobel Prize, quite deservedly.
[[So I will try to walk you through the most recent findings in the amazing world of nucleic acids and the key importance of non-coding DNA.]]
This is exactly why i asked exdemmom what % of the genes were to be discounted and what % similarity this would wind up being between chimps and humans- i got no answer- She caled the author of the original article a liar- deceiver or soem such ridiculing comment- psuedoscience was another big bash- but when asked she couldn’t brign herself to answer the question
[[This is great stuff and reflects how intricate, multifunctional and complex DNA is.]]
That’s what i was wondering- how much of the ‘irrelevant’ coding was actually relevant, or even species specific- I noted she was careful to say “”Little” to “None” function- one of the sites i listed stated that when they come up with the 98% figure they do so throwing out important coding- granted, all may not be essential, but I’m sure some was more essential than others but still thrown out- which again is why i asked for a guesstimate on how much actual ‘irrelevant’ coding we’re actually talking about?
Except that you don't have infinite time or infinite monkeys. If you decide every atom in the universe is a monkey/typewriter combination and use the age of the universe, you get...nothing.
Information does not arise from random processes, and the information in the simplest organism is vastly more complicated than Shakespeare's works. If life (or even the universe itself) is a result of random chance, it isn't a cosmic miracle, it is a series of cosmic miracles, piled one after the other in a sequence that boggles the imagination.
B$ you want them taught disbelief but it won't matter in any case they will soon enough will be required to learn Shari.
Sure, 97% of "scientists" will say that it's warmer today than it was at some time in the past -- for example, in January. But the full throated Leftist One World Big Government socialist agenda is not approved by 97% of anybody regardless of how often AlGore claims otherwise.You don't know where it came from, likely because none of your scientific journals have told you, since they are complicit in creating that lie.
You are the one that keeps interjecting God in this discussion, I only mentioned Him in an attempt to show that you do not have to believe in God to believe evolutionist are bigger fibbers than most fisherman.
It’s all essential. This paragraph from the Smithsonian describes the issue well
—
Geneticists have come up with a variety of ways of calculating the percentages, which give different impressions about how similar chimpanzees and humans are. The 1.2% chimp-human distinction, for example, involves a measurement of only substitutions in the base building blocks of those genes that chimpanzees and humans share. A comparison of the entire genome, however, indicates that segments of DNA have also been deleted, duplicated over and over, or inserted from one part of the genome into another. When these differences are counted, there is an additional 4 to 5% distinction between the human and chimpanzee genomes.
—
In other words the regions shared between the species are 98% or more on average.
But human have sequences chinos don’t have and vice versa. So the overall identity or similarity is 95% or so. The original press release from NIH in 2005 states 96%.
This includes the extra/missing regions that ExDemMom criticized the author for including.
This author is saying that the 95-96% figure is higher, in his opinion, than it actually is and better characterization of the Chimp sequence would show this.
He could be correct, or not, but it would be difficult to determine and the Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium isn’t going to spend resources on a review.
The original 2005 article is here.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v437/n7055/full/nature04072.html
This author argues for a large margin of error and the probability of a lesser identity percent based on certain technical aspects described in the article, e.g.
“The observable insertions fall into two classes: (1) ‘completely covered’ insertions, occurring within continuous sequence in both species; and (2) ‘incompletely covered’ insertions, occurring within sequence containing one or more gaps in the chimpanzee, but revealed by a clear discrepancy between the species in sequence length. Different methods are needed for reliable identification of modest-sized insertions (1 base to 15kb) and large insertions (> 15kb), with the latter only being reliably identifiable in the human genome (see Supplementary Information ‘Genome evolution’).”
Which means not all the sequences are accounted for, and also that only 94% of the Chimp genome was sequenced:
“The draft genome assembly—generated from ~3.6-fold sequence redundancy of the autosomes and ~1.8-fold redundancy of both sex chromosomes—covers ~94% of the chimpanzee genome with >98% of the sequence in high-quality bases.”
Since this report I am not sure how many blanks have been filled in or what more analysis or publications have been done.
No, I want your children taught your beliefs in your church.
I don't want your children taught government religion in government schools.
How can that not be clear?
itsahoot: "You don't know where it came from, likely because none of your scientific journals have told you..."
More important, I don't care where it came from because I consider it bogus.
Was that not clear, do you have a problem with reading comprehension?
itsahoot: "You are the one that keeps interjecting God in this discussion, I only mentioned Him in an attempt to show that you do not have to believe in God to believe evolutionist are bigger fibbers than most fisherman."
So, itsahoot you don't mention God because you believe in Him, but since I mentioned God that means I don't believe?
Have you had the wiring in your brain checked recently?
Seriously, what's wrong with you?
If you think evolution theory is just one huge pack of lies, well then we disagree.
Versus your quote from Smithsonian magazine (where you omitted a citation): "Geneticists have come up with a variety of ways of calculating the percentages, which give different impressions about how similar chimpanzees and humans are. The 1.2% chimp-human distinction, for example, involves a measurement of only substitutions in the base building blocks of those genes that chimpanzees and humans share. A comparison of the entire genome, however, indicates that segments of DNA have also been deleted, duplicated over and over, or inserted from one part of the genome into another. When these differences are counted, there is an additional 4 to 5% distinction between the human and chimpanzee genomes."
Of course, the major differences here are that I was not quoting any source while you were copy/pasting, and I understand and discuss the significance and implications of the information, and you have not offered any kind of explanation of how the information fails to support or even contradicts theory.
Far from invalidating any aspect of the theory of evolution, the fact that coding regions within two similar species are more similar than the non-coding regions is a direct consequence of evolutionary processes, and can be predicted by one who has a fundamental understanding of evolutionary theory.
The same can be said for the fact that intronless genes have been identified in eukaryotes. Most genes in bacteria have no introns--again, a consequence of evolutionary processes, not a "disproof" of the theory of evolution. (It is a consequence because bacteria are small and have high energy requirements; bacteria that do not shed useless DNA have a survival disadvantage compared to bacteria that do get rid of the junk. Eukaryotes do not have that energy disadvantage, so can continue to carry huge genomes, even when the bulk of the genome is non-coding.)
Oh, and I should point out here that I didn't bring up the term "junk DNA," you did--I only talked about coding and non-coding DNA.
Now, while you are on this spree of posting all kinds of molecular biology trivia, you have not provided any indication of understanding the biological implications of the trivia facts, or their relevance within the theoretical framework. The identification of a handful of intronless genes in eukaryotes does not change the fact that well over 99% of eukaryotic genes consist primarily of introns that are discarded during mRNA processing. I will also point out that the fact that histone genes have no poly(A) tail when virtually every other gene does is an interesting fact, but has no bearing on the validity of evolutionary theory.
Instead of throwing out an endless stream of trivia that does not address the theoretical framework of evolution at all (but is actually quite consistent with the theory, although you don't seem to grasp that fact), why don't you try to develop testable hypotheses that would be consistent with a theory of a one-time creation event that occurred ~6,000 years ago at a single geographic location? Surely, if such a singular event happened and all life on earth exists because of it, a whole slew of testable hypotheses can be generated and tested. Where are the researchers developing and testing those hypotheses? I have yet to see any--at most, there is a random (and exceedingly rare) scientist who discovers that being paid to "debunk" established scientific facts, methodology, and so forth is more lucrative than working in the field. But there is no genuine research going on in "creation science." Could it be because any testable hypothesis that could be generated is quickly rejected because the evidence does not support it?
Thank you for explaining that- and pointing out not all sequences are accounted for in those articles- I’ll check otu those links you posted- see if i can make heads or tails of them- probably not-
[[It’s all essential.]]
What i meant was that exdemmom was complaining that ‘basic’ sequences like the redundancy within coding and non coding shouldn’t be counted or included in comparisons-
The multiverse faith... No proof... So it is faith in science...
But yet even in that faith... it can’t explain where all this matter came from... It just was...
Should correct to say NOT random chance...
“...and you have not offered any kind of explanation of how the information fails to support or even contradicts theory.”
You’re barking up the wrong tree.
Nope never did I think evolution was a pack of lies, I just think the point should be proved with honest science not atheistic B$.
I don't think you do not believe in God, I just don't see how your position enhances faith. I don't think creationists should make up cr@p to prove evolution is wrong and I don't think science should either, because it isn't really science, it is opinion based on evidence just not all the evidence.
“you have inadvertently posted an article that supports what I said several posts ago.”
No one disagreed that coding regions have greater homology among species than non-coding regions.
This of course was not a prediction under the modern synthesis - that genes would be so similar and essentially interchangeable among species. It was felt genes would be species-specific and differences in genes among spices would account for for their differences.
What genomics has shown is that the important regions of the genome for organismal specificity in eukaryotes is in the non-coding regions that regulate chromatin remodeling and gene expression.
“None, because it’s science and science, by definition, only covers natural causes for natural processes.”
Yes. Exactly.
But many atheists and liberals don’t seem to understand this and think science disproves religion.
Examples are Richard Dawkins, Bill Nye, etc...
Stephen Gould, an atheist and Marxist, did understand this and said science doesn’t and can’t address God Richard Dawkins was furious at him for saying that. My respect for Gould increased a lot when I learned he had made this point.
This belief that science negates God is part of the politicalization of science and it is harming science. The so-called March for Science is a prime example of the Politicalization of Science.
[[What genomics has shown is that the important regions of the genome for organismal specificity in eukaryotes is in the non-coding regions that regulate chromatin remodeling and gene expression.]]
Is this a fancy way of saying that non coding areas are indeed unique and species specific? IF that is the case, then why in the world wouldn’t the non coding areas be taken into account when comparing two separate species?
“Is this a fancy way of saying that non coding areas are indeed unique and species specific? IF that is the case, then why in the world wouldn’t the non coding areas be taken into account when comparing two separate species?”
Non-coding regions are taken in to account when comparing genomes
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