My overall view from this boards.

^ Brocolli, cauliflower, cabbage and mustard looks as different as lions and tigers to me.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 09-10-2002]

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
I am very happy to define the 'first' hemoglobin. From your point of view it is the hemoglobin in the first organism in the evoltuionary progression that has hemoglobin.

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Do you realize how meaningless this statement is? Congratulations!!! You've made a bunch of words say nothing at all.

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From our point of view it would be the hemoglobin in the organism with the least complexity. Much the same actually.

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Hang on, now. You've just equated 'evolutionary progression' with 'complexity'Does this also mean that you know how to calculate complexity?

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But in your scenario the hemoglobin requires a natural explanation.

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Oh wow, imagine that!In your scenario, you get to make things up when you don't know the answer.

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It is in one organism and not in the previous (extant) anscestor or ansecestral relative and yet the rest of the genomic sequence nicely lines up between these similar kinds (eg man and ape).

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I think you know that you'd have to sequence the ancestral species prior to the split to come up with hard evidence.This is double-talk, TB. It sounds reasonable, but it misrepresents the nature of nature.Do you realize that you spell poorly when you are scrambling to protect your myth? [quote][b]But what we ask is where did the first member of each family come from - eg the first insulin, or the first globin?[/quote][/b]Good question, but it didn't just pop up from nowhere. It is just chemistry. Wait!!! You think it did pop up from nowhere. Might as well shut down the labs.

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You can't find the hints of where these genes came from in the genomic sequence databases. I'm not kidding. If you could there would be no creationists who were also scientists.

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Right, because creationists have to stay one step ahead of hard data.------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com[This message has been edited by John, 09-11-2002]

^ Why not just give your scientific reason (that the hints have drifted away) rather than be so shirty John? Given the 'conservation' of much of the genome including introns I would expect the hints to be visible in many cases. Many of your comments are plain rude and illogical. There is nothing wrong with my definition of the 'first' hemoglobin for example.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 09-11-2002]

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
SLPx

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In kind variation is extremely well understood. We all know exactly how the Galapogos finch beaks changed shapes. I know you know that. Go to Medline and check out the protein sequence variations from finch to finch. It's variation of existing genes.

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What about brocoli, cabbage, cauliflower and mustard. They all have the same genome - they're all mustard actually! If you select for leaves or stems or flowers you end up with these varities. Not a single evoltuionist suggests that new genes arose during the hundreds of years that agriculturalists bred these varities. It is a mix of hybridization and selection.

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Hmmm thats funny...if I look at broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and mustard I do not see identical genomes! I see related genomes which are more similar to each other than to a pine tree genome. If I look at elephant DNA it is more similar to human DNA than to that of any species of iguana. Elephants and humans last common ancestor lived about 65 million years ago..hardly microevolution.As to your thoery that hemoglobin came "out of thin air" LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now you are going to propose the experiments to test this? Perhaps some hot air (creationists have plenty) and throw in a bacteria and voila! A new gene for comedy....Please read a book on evolution TB...your lack of knowledge on this subject is really sad.

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
^ Why not just give your scientific reason (that the hints have drifted away) rather than be so shirty John? Given the 'conservation' of much of the genome including introns I would expect the hints to be visible in many cases. Many of your comments are plain rude and illogical. There is nothing wrong with my definition of the 'first' hemoglobin for example.

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Actually, I have a few serious questions for you TB
1) what is a "kind". Why do you feel you need to make up a spurious definition to replace species and sub-species?
2) Why do you accept microevolution but cannot extrapolate to larger changes over time? Do you also believe that mountains appear spontaneously or take long periods of time to develope?
3) You still never answered my questions about protein families. What evidence do you have that ALL proteins exist as families? Also, do you know what exon shuffling is? I imagine you don't if you think that new genes must come from thin air.
4) Where do introns come from?
5) Do you know how retroelements contribute to micro and macro evolution?
6) As to variation in the Galapagos finches beaks...what was the original state? Did the first finch that diverged just pop into existence or are finches related to other birds? You claim that plants all have the same genome so why do finches have variation?
7) Do you believe that genotype is separate from phenotype. Do yo believe you are genetically identical to your parents and are they genetically identical?

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You claimed earlier in this thread to "speak the language of a molecular evolutionist" however, you have some fundamental flaws in your knowledge of the field as no molecular evolutionist would talk about genes appearing out of thin air or created kinds.

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[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 09-11-2002]

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
^ Brocolli, cauliflower, cabbage and mustard looks as different as lions and tigers to me.

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[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 09-10-2002]

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Relevance?I am still waiting for a creationist explanation for the data patters seen here:http://www2.norwich.edu/spage/alignmentgam.htm

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Originally posted by Luis_H:
I'm new here. For the past month or so I've just been reading and not posting.

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When I first got here I though it that both sides of this issue would be on an even deadlock, but to my surprise it isn't like that. Evolutionist seem to have the upper hand here.

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Every time an issue is presented to creationist, they respond well, at the beginning. However, when evolutionist start discussing the issue with a lot of detail, creationist back off. Maybe they don't all the facts, or maybe, and this I think is the case, there is little or no facts to discuss. However when creationist present a piece of evidence that helps their cause, there's always like 3 or 4 EVOs countering with very good points. Not just at the beginning, but throughout the entire post.

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In conclusion, I think creationist keep arguing this issue to prove to themselves that they haven't wasted the vast majority of their life believing in something that is not real. The issue IMHO has already been won by the evolution side. Creationist can keep on arguing, but they're just grabbing straws.

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Darwin's theory has helped us so much. Especially in medical science. I don't where we, as a human race, would be if the theory of natural selection hadn't been applied to medicine.

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But I think this theory can help us even more. If everybody believed in it, it would certainly change most people's perspective of themselves in this world. I'm sure most would come to the conclusion that I have: We belong to this world, this world does not belong to us like religion would have you belive. Maybe if most people felt like this, we wouldn't have all the environmental problems we have now. The U.S. certainly wouldn't have any problems with the middle east since religion would be irrelevant.

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As an attempt at guidance, I am quoting the initial message of this topic. Is there a better place for where the discussion has turned to?Adminnemooseus[This message has been edited by minnemooseus, 09-11-2002]

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
^ Why not just give your scientific reason (that the hints have drifted away) rather than be so shirty John?

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Because I have been round and round with you about this, and becasue I am a very very bad boy. Mammuthus has posted some specific questions for you. These are much the same questions I have asked on several occasions. Lets just go from there.Where have the hints gone? Its called time, TB. Millions of years of it, hundreds of millions. On top of that, one mutation can radically alter a molecule. Tracing that change could be a formidable task, but difficult does not make it impossible, or false.

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Many of your comments are plain rude and illogical.

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Rude, yes. But not illogical. For example....

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There is nothing wrong with my definition of the 'first' hemoglobin for example.

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Your definition is tautalogical-- the definition says no more than the phrase defined. Hence, meaningless.------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com

MammuthusGiven that those varities of wild mutard were generated by selective breeding their genomes would be related by differntial gene losses. No evoltuionist would calim that ne wgenes evolved during those centuries of slelctive breeding. There is a universe of difference between genomic gain vs loss.The experiment I prpose to test the idea of 'out of thin air' is continued genome sequencing. If actually seeing creaiton played out is all that will satisfy you that is just too bad. Maybe it is our consciences that God expects us to really find these answers from.

MammuthusQuick answers:1) A kind is approximately at the family level. Future genome seqeuncing may even back this up in detail in the future as a naturally emerging concept from the data.2) Micro works on existing genes and maintains their basic funciton. Macro needs new genes. they are quite different. Why do jump from micro to macro so readily?3) That proteins exist in families is well known becasue you can do a BLAST search on any protein in humans and you will get human hits! Sure some families are very small. Exon shiffling is fine with me. You show me how the first hemoglobin arrived this way.4) For us God created introns. They, and via RNA splicing, are a way of getting more than one protein from a gene.5) I have no problem with retroviruses or any sort of horizontal transfer. If you insist on calling it macroevoltuion then I believe in macrevoltuion.6) The original state of finches was a created pair, or a few sets of pairs, presumably. Microevoltuion and hybridisaiton generated the observed variation. Where did I state that all plants have the same genome? No-one on Earth believes that.7) Genotype dictates phenotype ultimately deterministically. My genes are comprised of a mix of my parents' genes. What are you getting at?I try to "speak the language of a molecular evolutionist" but I am actually a strcutural biologist. Some of my work impinges on molecaulr evoltuion, I lecture on molecualr evoltuion but yes, I am not an expert on it. And it is easily possible to talk of 'genes coming out of thin air' whilst believing in microevoltuion.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 09-11-2002]

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
Given that those varities of wild mutard ...

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A Freudian slip? :-)

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
1) A kind is approximately at the family level. Future genome seqeuncing may even back this up in detail in the future as a naturally emerging concept from the data.

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So what is a "family", then? And in what way does a "kind" and a "family" differ?[B][QUOTE]Genotype dictates phenotype ultimately deterministically.[/B][/QUOTE]You think so? Epigenetic processes have no part to play in phenotypes?

^'Kind' could be exactly identical with families. Who knows? We'll see. From our point of view we expect it to be easy to identify ultimately from genomes but it may be obscured by issues of loss vs gain.Genotype does dictate phenotype to an extremely large extent - consider identical twins. Of course there are epigenetic influences - environemnt etc but they really are minimal in terms of what your face will look like for example.

So TB: If "kind" is exactly identical to family, are mongooses and civets the same kind? Are antelope, cows, sheep, wildebeest, impala and goats the same kind? Are tigers, snow leopards, lions, cheetahs, margay, puma, jaguar and domestic cats the same kind? ? Even less obviously, are all carnivorous plants the same kind? No creationist yet spawned has been able to provide an operational definition or a replicatable method of determining what constitutes a kind.Further to your contention, I'd appreciate it if you would answer the question I've posed twice now: what gene families specifically differentiate between kinds? IOW, what family (or families) represents the alleged taxic discontinuity? What is the specific gene family that separates Felidae from Canidae, for example? To be able to show evidence for your argument, you need to cite specifics. In addition, no member of this family — no gene — can be shared between kinds or the whole thing falls apart. If you can’t provide specifics, all you're doing is handwaving: you believe there’s a difference, but have nothing to back up your contention.[This message has been edited by Quetzal, 09-12-2002]

Hi TB,
Thanks for answering my questions...I wish Peter Borger would be as forthcoming as you. It would make debate possible.

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
Mammuthus

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Quick answers:

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1) A kind is approximately at the family level. Future genome seqeuncing may even back this up in detail in the future as a naturally emerging concept from the data.

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If a kind is approximately a family...why bother with kinds and stick to appropriate terminology? As Quetzal has asked...do you think sheep and cows are the same kind? What about goats and sheep? What about musk ox, goats, and sheep? Sub-kinds...genera-kinds? My point being, there is already a terminology in existence that clearly demonstrates associations and at what level without resorting to a new completely ambigious term.

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2) Micro works on existing genes and maintains their basic funciton. Macro needs new genes. they are quite different. Why do jump from micro to macro so readily?

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Wrong. Mutations in promoters of EXISTING genes can also lead to macro evolution. In addition there are loss of genes during speciation i.e. humans have lost a gene present in chimps, elephants, etc.

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Varki A.
Loss of N-glycolylneuraminic acid in humans: Mechanisms, consequences, and implications for hominid evolution.
Am J Phys Anthropol. 2001;Suppl 33:54-69.

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see also

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Chou HH, Hayakawa T, Diaz S, Krings M, Indriati E, Leakey M, Paabo S, Satta Y, Takahata N, Varki A.
Inactivation of CMP-N-acetylneuraminic acid hydroxylase occurred prior to brain expansion during human evolution.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2002 Sep 3;99(18):11736-11741.

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chimps have the same genes and "protein families" as we do (except the above mentioned example where they have more genes)and yet they develop differently...this is not due to more or less genes but differences in gene expression caused by random mutation and selection in developmental gene control. Experimental data pointing to this can also be found here

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Enard W, Khaitovich P, Klose J, Zollner S, Heissig F, Giavalisco P, Nieselt-Struwe K, Muchmore E, Varki A, Ravid R, Doxiadis GM, Bontrop RE, Paabo S. Science. 2002 Apr 12;296(5566):340-3.
Intra- and interspecific variation in primate gene expression patterns.

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3) That proteins exist in families is well known becasue you can do a BLAST search on any protein in humans and you will get human hits! Sure some families are very small. Exon shiffling is fine with me. You show me how the first hemoglobin arrived this way.

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I am not sure what you are getting at here TB.....the human genome is sequenced so if I BLAST search with a human sequence I will of course get hits. Please clarify and I will answer this part further

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4) For us God created introns. They, and via RNA splicing, are a way of getting more than one protein from a gene.

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Explain then whether introns came in early or late in history (evolution). Why do some organisms not have introns or few? What is the experimental evidence or testable hypothesis that god created introns?

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5) I have no problem with retroviruses or any sort of horizontal transfer. If you insist on calling it macroevoltuion then I believe in macrevoltuion.

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My point was more in line that you can have random mutations all over the place and not hit a critical gene. Also, that parts of the genome (most actually) is composed of genetic parasites (Alu's, HERVs) so that increase in size does not correlate with increased organismic complexity. We are just more heavily genetically polluted than say fugu for example.

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6) The original state of finches was a created pair, or a few sets of pairs, presumably. Microevoltuion and hybridisaiton generated the observed variation. Where did I state that all plants have the same genome? No-one on Earth believes that.

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What is the evidence that the first finches were created? Do you believe finches are not related to other birds such that they could have descended from an ancestral finch population that made it to the Galapagos?

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7) Genotype dictates phenotype ultimately deterministically. My genes are comprised of a mix of my parents' genes. What are you getting at?

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I was referring to your comment about broccoli, mustard etc being genomically the same. Genotypes do not necessariyl dictate phenotype deterministically...ever hear of genomic imprinting?

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I try to "speak the language of a molecular evolutionist" but I am actually a strcutural biologist. Some of my work impinges on molecaulr evoltuion, I lecture on molecualr evoltuion but yes, I am not an expert on it.

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Thank you for being candid about your background. And yes, structural biology will overlap with molecular evolution. However, before you deny macroevolution, don't you think you should become an expert in it?

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And it is easily possible to talk of 'genes coming out of thin air' whilst believing in microevoltuion.

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However, it is not science to "believe" that genes pop out of thin air.

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Cheers, Mammuthus

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[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 09-11-2002]

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