Chimpanzee-human genetic gap

I don't know if this topic has slipped from memory due to other concerns, if you are going to get back to it when you have more time, or if you have lost interest. I would like to reiterate my desire to come to as much agreement as we can do. This thread works in conjunction with Message 162. The basic fundamental question that we need to get a clear answer on is:

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But does the DNA evidence support the following conclusions, assuming all species share a common ancester:
a) That chimpanzees are the closest related species to humans, and share the most recent common ancestor?

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b) That said recent common ancestor existed about 5 million years ago?

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'Yes, but...' is a good answer.
'No, because' is fine.
'Why would we assume macroevolution true unless there is no evidence?' is not an answer.The purpose of this thread has become 'What does the chimpanzee-human gap mean?'. If we assume the Bible is literally true so that all species do not share a common ancestor then what does this gap mean? Common designer? OK, we can test the validity of that conclusion.However, if we assume the science is good and that all species do share a common ancestor then what does this gap mean? I say that in this case the c/h genetic gap would indicate that humans and chimpanzees are the closest related.Maybe the word assumption is where we fall over? Perhaps it would be better to put it in terms of premises?

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Premise 1: All species share a common ancestor
P2: The more similar the DNA, the closer the relationship
Observation: Of all species, the chimpanzee's DNA is most similar to human DNA
Conclusion: Chimpanzees are the closes relative of humans, and thus share the most recent common ancestor.
Without commenting on the validity of the premises, do you agree with this simple logic?

Thank you, sometimes it pays to try approaching a topic from another angle. OK, good, we have agreement here. The next question would be something like the following:'Is there another way to examine possible relatedness, assuming common ancestry?'I say that morphology/cladistics is another method we can use to judge relatedness...unique traits would help classify species so that the species that share the most unique traits would be more closely related. If common ancestry is true, I believe that this method should give us good clues as to which modern organisms are most related.Do you agree that morphology can give us these clues, if common ancestry were true?I believe that this might be where the stumbling block rears its head.

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In answer to your questions (I don't want to ask you questions and avoid yours, that would be bad form ) It depends on what you'd call valid. I don't think there is a valid reason to assume Genesis is not true concerning origins...I think that would be insulting to the millions of people that have accepted, and continue to accept it as true.However, I'd say that are good reasons to critically reject the biblical hypothesis, no need to repeat them now, I'm sure you've heard them before. To say there are not good reasons to critically reject biblical hypothesis would likewise be insulting the millions of people that have done so. I don't want to get too much into this right now, I discussed it before. It isn't the size of the gap, but the relative sizes of the gaps that would serve as falsification of common ancestry. One gap is not sufficient to conclude positively or negatively for common ancestry. A good question, and the heart of the EvC debate. Probably too wide a scope to succintly answer. I guess it basically depends on what your philosophy is, and how it defines evidence etc. I don't think this follows. Hinduism changes hearts and lives, Buddhism does, Christianity does and pantheism does. They all have contradictory statements about origins.

Hi Ray, I thought I'd see if you're still interested in the topic - I appreciate its been over a week now so if you have lost interest its no problem.The central gist of my latest post was'Is there another way to examine possible relatedness, assuming common ancestry?'It is my contention that there is another way to examine relatedness with our assumption. If our assumption was right, we'd expect closely related species to look more similar than less closely related species. I know there are issues with convergent evolution, which we can discuss some other time, but to keep it simple, lets ignore that.If we assume common ancestry we should be able to detect relatedness through the use of morphology/cladistics. Agreed?

I guess I was right. I understand everything you listed Ray. Its perfectly simple and entirely irrelevant. After 750 posts in an EvC forum, you'd think I'd have a rough idea on the basics of the debate wouldn't you? We aren't debating what the debate is about. We are trying to agree what each 'side's' conclusion is regarding the chimpanzee-human genetic gap. Speciation is not in dispute. Macroevolution is in dispute in these fora. However, that is not in debate in this thread, not yet anyway. The first thing we need to find agreement on is the meaning of the chimpanzee human genetic gap. THAT is what is in debate. As we agreed in Message 171: At this point there is no debate about 'macroevolution'. We are examining what it means to evolutionists. As such we start with our assumption that all species share a common ancestor. Given this assumption we should be able to learn of relatedness by shared characteristics. A fairly simple idea.Do you agree that IF all species were related THEN we should be able to detected relatedness based on cladistics.I think the stumbling block is here because you might see where this is going. I hope this isn't the case, and I'm just being a cynic. Trust me, if I manage to get agreement on the cladistics issue I will show you how this issue is dealt with.

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Premise 1: All species share a common ancestor
P2: The more shared characteristics the closer the relationship
Observation: Of all species, the high ape shares most characteristics with humans
Conclusion: High apes are the closes relative of humans, and thus share the most recent common ancestor.This message has been edited by Modulous, Sat, 28-January-2006 02:37 PM

I see that you have examined my mind and have come to an infallible conclusion as to what I get. I 'get' that evolution and creationism are essentially two opposite views. That was basically all you posted, if you want to add anymore views on the EvC debate, a new topic is probably called for. This thread is very narrowly focussed. We've covered this, relative gaps. See Message 129 for further details:

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We share 3,996,000,000 years of similarity and only 4,000,000 years of dissimilarity (in the context of years that's 99.9% closeness)...It's a bit like saying brachiosaurus wasn't large because the blue whale is much larger.

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Ray, there are two points of view about what the Chimp-Human DNA gap means. We have previously agreed that this is what we are talking about. See Message 171. So far the creationist's side is 'common designer'. On the evos side we have 'if common ancestry then chimpanzees are the most related'.Now to continue developing the evo argument, we need to discuss cladistics. I want to discuss the chimp-human thing. I really don't want to discuss your opinion on what you think my beliefs/motivations whatever are. I'm only interested in exploring what the human-chimp DNA gap means to the two sides of the debate. I can't believe we have to go over this again Ray.Assumption: All species share a common ancestor
Conclusion: Chimpanzees are the most closely relatedThe assumption does not predetermine the conclusion one bit, not at all. Any species could end up being the most closely related DNA wise. I've gone over this before, rather than making the assertion, why not show a logical progression how the assumption can lead to inevitably to the conclusion with no other considerations (ie without considering the DNA evidence) If you're response is 'I agree that cladistics can be used to detect relatedness between species given assumptions and this is not in dispute' then that is great. We can get to the core of the argument.

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Assumption: All species share a common ancestor.DNA evidence -> Chimpanzees are most closesly related
Cladistics -> Chimpanzees are most closely relatedOK, so where do we go from here? There are three possible reasons why Chimps crop up as the most closely related based on two independent lines of enquiry:1. Chimpanzees ARE the most related to humans
2. The creator made them that way
3. CoincidenceCan we agree that we are basically left with these options (I'm sure other options can be concocted, but these are the core ones under dispute)?

I'm not responding to a lot of your post because it is either points that have already been addressed or which are too broad to cover right now. I did read them, though. OK, coincidence is far fetched so let's ignore it right now.We now have a test for common ancestry, should it exist. If common ancestry does exist this pattern should apply to all other organisms. As it turns out, this pattern of genetic difference and cladistics continues to an extraordinary degree. If common ancestry does not exist, this pattern will either not exist, or this pattern must have been deliberately engineered by the creator. This leaves some pretty hefty questions about the creator and its motiviations, which is more your area than mine.Common ancestry has been massively tested and has not been falsified. And that is what the genetic gap basically means to evolutionists. It is a way of showing two independent lines of investigation coming to the same conclusions. There is a further independent line of investigation, which confirms common ancestry to mindblowing levels. I've already discussed it, but it might take a long time going through it, so we can just leave it there.So, if you'd like, now the basics of the evolution position have been laid out, would you care to expand on the creationist's interpretation of the h/c genetic gap, possibly putting into context with the gaps of other organisms/cladistics etc.Take care Ray.

The debate accepted that 5 million years is an evolutionists figure, and it has accepted that the evolutionary time frame is 4 billion years. It has been established, and not refuted, that 5 million is 99.9% of 4 billion, and that makes it very close in time indeed...relative to the age of life on earth.But you are almost right when you say: It isn't very deceiving but it is not enough information. I compared the cytochrome b protien coding sequence in the DNA of various organisms. Here are the results I got for human comparisons:

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Human-Chimpanzee: 95.25%
Human-Marsupial Mouse: 76.46%
Human-Kangaroo: 75.93%
Human-Alligator: 64.91%

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This gives us an indication of evolutionary distances. Chimps are closer to us than mice than kangaroo than alligator, as predicted by the evolutionary model based on cladistics. This data is very simple, but it demonstrates the basic principle.