Posted on 06/25/2014 8:10:58 AM PDT by fishtank
Chimp DNA Mutation Study--Selective Yet Surprising
by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D. *
A popular evolutionary belief is that humans and chimps shared a common ancestor 2 to 6 million years ago. Apparently, evolutionists still aren't too sure of their own theory: now they've more than doubled that timeline.
Scientists just published a study describing chimp DNA mutation rates and compared a number of cherry-picked genomic regions to human—and this research doubled their evolutionary timeline.1 However, the selective data did not account for the vast chasm of documented genome differences that were not included in the analyses.
Heritable mutations are the rare changes that occur in DNA during the process of making egg cells in females and sperm in males, known as the germ line. Scientists believe that by determining the rate of mutations in the germ line, they can predict when evolutionary events occurred in the past. In this recent study, they sequenced the germ line genomes of nine different chimpanzees in a three-generation pedigree (family).
The researchers then compared selected DNA segments between chimpanzee and human that were highly similar, omitting the many non-similar regions. They state, "In the intersection of the autosomal genome accessible in this study and regions where human and chimpanzee genomes can be aligned with high confidence, the rate is slightly lower (0.45 × 10−9 bp−1 year−1) and the level of divergence is 1.2%...implying an average time to the most common ancestor of 13 million years [page 1274, emphasis added]."1 There are basically two notable points from this summary statement that I will address.
(Excerpt) Read more at icr.org ...
It isn’t anywhere that easy. In fact, it reaches into the realm of stupefying complexity.
For example, in the modern world there is an abundance of “auto-immune” diseases, from asthma to arthritis, quite a list. And the current theory is that, to a great extent, these cases of our immune systems attacking our own bodies may lie in the *absence* of the parasites that used to afflict us.
That is, living better without parasites has confused our immune systems, so it assumes it just cannot see the parasites and attacks us as if they were there.
And this may have been the case going way back. While the royalty of ancient Egypt, for example, were known to have suffered from arthritis, most of the common people did not.
***Very few of the great scientific minds going back through the centuries excluded a deity up until the 20th century. Didn’t seem to have hampered them.***
Absolutely correct, Regulator. They understood that a Creator was the best way to make sense of the universe and our existence. What is going on today is counter-intuitive..... and those of us who hold to that view are routinely marginalized.
Ad Hominems are much easier than dealing with arguments.
Good Yarn.... and Ron Popeil is an alien?..
Shazbat...
“All of science is based on an assumption. That there is a natural explanation for everything. This is not testable nor is it knowable.”
Natural explanations are the only thing that are testable.
ahhh, so the munchers went extinct because...,oh well that’s just a detail, and then the immune system evolved to continue killing off it’s host in the little beastie’s place. but all that must confer a reproductive advantage on the host because these auto-immune diseases are positively rampant.
stupifying indeed.
Most of the scientists who made the discoveries that bring a literal reading of Biblical creation into question were quite religious. A large segment of society, scientists included, fail to understand that values and codes of behavior come from beliefs - faith which cannot be derived scientifically. You have to have faith and science has no place in that.
***Natural explanations are the only thing that are testable.***
Very true.
What you can’t test is that there is a natural explanation for everything. That is simply not knowable and in fact flies in the face (in some instances) of natural law.
A few examples:
1. The Law of the Conservation of Matter states (my own words) that by natural processes, matter can neither be created or destroyed, although it can change form. That begs the question: If it can’t be created or destroyed by natural processes, where did it come from? It must have been ordained from outside of nature (Supernaturally).
2. The Law of Cause and Effect (Causality) says that for every effect there must be a pre-existent cause that is greater than the effect. Since you can’t have an infinite number of causes (in a universe that had a beginning) the first cause must have come from outside of nature (again Supernaturally).
I can give you other examples but I think I’ll just rest on those two.
God of the gaps fallacy.
“where did it come from? It must have been ordained from outside of nature (Supernaturally).”
Maybe a better answer is that we don’t know yet.
Over time people have thought just about everything that wasn’t obvious was supernatural. The lost is almost endless (rain, heat, drought, disease, tornadoes, lightning, earthquakes, landslides, eclipses, the moon, comets etc, etc). Thanks to the efforts of science we now have reasonable, non-supernatural answers to an enormous percentage of those things. What makes you think we won’t eventually get some answers to the things that remain?
***God of the gaps fallacy.***
Standard response, Fuzz. You’ve made my point. Naturalists (read: evolutionists) who believe only in nature have to ignore the laws of nature to believe what they believe.
If your keys are in the kitchen and you refuse to look there you’re never going to find them.
In other words...... Nothing in the gaps fallacy.
There’s a reason why these Darwinists are so obsessed with proving that human DNA and chimpanzee DNA are similar (never mind that they are completely different barmaids).
If they are they can relax, the case was proven 10 years ago.
Astronomy was what did me in, as far as accepting modern evolutionary dogma at face value as being virtually factual, I wasn’t even particularly Christian at the time. Edwin Hubble. He admitted avoiding certain avenues of inquiry and stonewalling certain conclusions, because it would lead to the “horror” of validating certain religious precepts. That’s the case across practically every scientific endeavor now. Rather than “god of the gaps,” it’s now “If it could lead to God, then there’s a gap.”
“Naturalists (read: evolutionists) who believe only in nature have to ignore the laws of nature to believe what they believe.”
It’s what is testable and provable, not what one believes.
Hi Natufian.
***Maybe a better answer is that we don’t know yet.***
The complete sentence would be: Maybe a better answer is that we don’t know yet but we are only willing to consider one possibility.... that it occurred naturally.
***Over time people have thought just about everything that wasn’t obvious was supernatural. The lost is almost endless (rain, heat, drought, disease, tornadoes, lightning, earthquakes, landslides, eclipses, the moon, comets etc, etc).***
None of those things violate natural law, they are part of nature. The two examples that I gave (and there are others) do.
***It’s what is testable and provable, not what one believes.***
I have a very simple point, Fuzz. You BELIEVE that there are natural answers for everything. This is philosophical.. it cannot be tested.
Because naturalism is your philosophical underpinning you are not willing to entertain alternative explanations even though the laws of nature themselves refute that philosophy.
You’re standing on that ground, Fuzz. You have every right to do that, just understand that it is philosophical.
“The complete sentence would be: Maybe a better answer is that we don’t know yet but we are only willing to consider one possibility.... that it occurred naturally.”
The scientific method only has tools that can deal with the natural. How do you propose that science investigates the supernatural? What would such an experiment look like, how would the results be demonstrated?
“None of those things violate natural law, they are part of nature. The two examples that I gave (and there are others) do.”
Scientific laws are valid until evidence of sufficient weight is brought to light that requires them to be re-evaluated.
The point I was making is that all of those things were considered at one time to be supernatural. The reason you class them as being part of ‘natural law’ is that science has shown them to be so. So again, what makes you think that the things you consider now to be likely of supernatural origin won’t at some point to also be shown to be part of natural law?
It does however exclude any kind of intelligence or creator from the process.....
I don’t. The big bang and evolution had a Clockmaker and a Plan Designer. God. And the Bible is his guide-book for humans. That thinking does not exclude God. In fact the laws of evolution and physics are so complicated they could never have been developed without a Grand Designer who keeps everything running.
“You BELIEVE that there are natural answers for everything. This is philosophical.. it cannot be tested.”
No. I know that there are no tests for supernatural phenomena. We both agree that natural explanations are the only ones that can be tested. Therefore science can only be tasked with testing natural explanations.
“Because naturalism is your philosophical underpinning you are not willing to entertain alternative explanations even though the laws of nature themselves refute that philosophy.”
It’s not what I personally am willing or able to entertain, but what can be tested and proven to be correct. The supernatural explanations you are willing to accept are philosophical. Not having a scientific testable explanation is not a philosophical argument. It’s merely saying that we don’t know.
And yet share many of the same licensed patents or now-public domain technologies.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.