How will creationists react to the first human-chimp hybrid?

No, of course not.But let's add in remarkable DNA similarity, down to containing not only the same functions, but also the same mistakes, and ERV sequences.And finally, let us add in (yet to be proved) interfertility.If you are going to claim non-relatedness at this point, then you really are desperately clutching at straws.I repeat...name a pair of interfertile creatures that are not intimately related (either through recent evolutionary common-ancestor, or through micro-evolutionary change within the relevant kind subsequent to the original progenitor pair leaving the ark)

Well, actually, it doesn't depend upon how you determine mutation rates as much as how accurately. Analyses based upon evidence yield an age for Mitochondrial Eve greater than a hundred thousand years. An age of 6000 years isn't based upon evidence but upon the Bible and so is not scientific. Yes, that's what the evidence tells us. Your instincts are good, because the light wave *is* stretching along with the expansion of space. The wavelengths of light arriving from distant galaxies are stretched longer causing a corresponding reduction in frequency toward the red. This is the infamous red shift. There are two contributors to red shift. One is the recession speed of the galaxy at the time the light was emitted. The other is the amount of stretching of the intervening space since the light was originally emitted. All cosmological evidence points to a very ancient universe. The Answers in Genesis folks do not do science and do not have independent data concerning mutation rates. That is correct. Except in a general sense, Mitochondrial Eve has nothing to do with the evolutionary relationship between humans and chimps. You're mixing two different issues, and one of them has nothing to do with the discussion. There is no scientific claim concerning whether the human genome contains more or less information than the chimp genome, so we can just leave that issue aside.This leaves your question about how, if chimps and humans share a common ancestor, that chimps have 24 chromosome pairs while humans have only 23. The answer is that human chromosome pair 2 is a fusion of two chromosome pairs found in chimps. This means that the common ancestor had 24 chromosome pairs. At some point this ancestral line broke into two separate lines, and in one of these lines two different chromosome pairs fused into one at some point in time, and today that is human chromosome pair 2.The information we're teasing out of human/chimp genetic evidence is providing an increasingly complex story of our evolutionary history. It appears the ancestral lines separated and recombined at least twice. But your story isn't supported by evidence and so isn't scientific, and once you mention God you reveal the religious foundation of your position. This statement is not based upon any evidence. The basic principles of genetics demonstrate quite clearly that mutations can both increase and decrease information. The analogy to God is drawn from the Bible and isn't science, but when stated this way it does seem repugnant. But where should we draw the line with genetic modification? It would be the height of perversity not to use a genetic cure for cystic fibrosis or Down's Syndrome, and that places us on the slippery slope.--Percy

No, it doesn't actually. "Mitochondrial Eve" is the result of a mathematical population genetics model called "Coalescent Theory". (You can find a reasonably clear introduction here). To grossly oversimplify, coalescence traces genetic lineages back in time from the present (unlike many pop gen models which take a present population and project changes in genetic composition into the future), to a point where different genetic lineages come together - the "coalescence", or "most recent common matrilineal ancestor". Coalescence of mtDNA lineages, operating only through the female (matrilineal) line, does NOT mean there was only one woman alive at that point. It means that all of her other female contemporaries either were also the ancestors of all modern humans (because the carried the same mutations) or left no current descendants. The coalescence of "her" (actually better said "their") mtDNA lineage comes in at around 140,000-200,000 years ago (see, for instance, Cann RL, Stoneking M and Wilson AC, 1987, "Mitochondrial DNA and human evolution", Nature 325:31-36).The point of all this is: don't get too wrapped up in a name. Scientists can be as unfortunately whimsical in their "popularized names" as anybody else. Naming the mtDNA "most recent common matrilineal ancestor" "Eve" was simply whimsy, and not intended to be related in any way shape or form to the Biblical "Eve".

Doesn't it mean that she left "no currant descendants" through an unbroken mother to daughter line? She may well have descendants alive but there may have been a generation of all males between her and us. Correto?I was explaining the mtDNA Eve and Y Adam to friends awhile ago and this question came to mind:Is there an initial population size where, over enough time, you MUST get down to a single Y ancestor and singe mtDNA ancestor showing in the resultant population? In other words, is this result just what you would expect if the human (for example) population stays not "too" large for long enough?I see this happening by pure chance as once a line happens to encounter an all male (for the mtDNA) generation it is gone and over time we would expect the number of threads of mtDNA to dwindle.Has there been any pop. gen work on this?

"Eve" is the one that did leave descendants. Her contemporaries that didn't have the particular neutral mutation patterns in their mtDNA that we see today are the ones that didn't. And yes, there could very well have been a "break" in the non-Eve lineages where only males were produced. The .pdf I referenced has a couple of nice diagrams showing how this could happen. Not really. I'm not expert at this (pop gen was my second worst course in school, and I have attemptd faithfully to avoid it since), but my understanding is that initial population size doesn't matter - eventually every lineage will coalesce. Remember, we're tracing polymorphisms back in time from current populations. Additionally, it doesn't matter much what the size of the sample of modern populations is - the statistical variance based on sample size, which is usually 1/n, is only 1/logn with coalescent theory (don't ask me why). So either way you look at it, population size doesn't matter. Yeah. The whole concept arose out of pop gen attempts to model random drift. Tons. Here's a good review: Rosenberg NA and Nordborg M, 2002, Geneological trees, coalescent theory, and the analysis of genetic polymorphisms, Nature Reviews 3:380-390. That review covers most of the studies up to that point (2002).

Pronoun antecedent problems here. My "she" was the one who left her mtDNA in no descendents. A point of clarification might be good here:
While "Eve: maybe the only one whose mtDNA got through that does NOT mean that many other women don't have descendants alive today. In fact, I may be related to half (or more ) of ALL humans alive 100,000 years ago. Nao? The "tracing back from current" leaves me with a bit of room for confusion.Are you saying "initial" == current population size doesn't matter? That makes sense to me.When I said "initial" I meant the population at sometime in the past. Specifically the time of mtDNA Eve or Y Adam. Does that also not matter? It seems to me that it must matter. At least if it was larger then I must have more time before the lineages coalesce. Obviously a population of 20 million during Roman times will not have coalesced under most circumstances by now. But a population of 1,000 may well be almost sure to have.BTW: I'm about half way through "Adam's Curse" by Bryan Sykes. It is an excellent read (that is easy) and full of interesting tidbits.Thanks for the site. I'll have a peek to avoid any more silly questions.

Yes to both. One of the sort of really counterintuitive parts of coalescent theory is that neither the initial (past) nor modern sample size matters for the calculations beyond a certain point (which I can't remember). In fact, the most recent female common ancestor of all living humans (from all genetic lineages male and female) lived around 10,000 years ago, and the most recent common ancestor period of all modern humans coalesces to around 3000 years ago. So yeah - we're all related. How's it going, cuz? Now you see why I gave up on pop gen.

The answers from genesis folk are quoting a review in Science Research News. The Parson team was stunned to find 1 mutation every 40 generations.They expected to find 1 mutation every 600 generations but found science supporting creationists young earth despite the special pleadings of the evolutionists.These modern day mutation rates are encouraging to the creationists and understandably discouraging to the evolutionist.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++The review in Science’s ”Research News’ goes still further about Eve’s date, saying that ”using the new clock, she would be a mere 6000 years old.’ The article says about one of the teams of scientists (the Parsons team5) that ”evolutionary studies led them to expect about one mutation in 600 generations ... they were “stunned” to find 10 base-pair changes, which gave them a rate of one mutation every 40 generations.’4Evolutionists have tried to evade the force of these results by countering that the high mutation rate only occurs in certain stretches of DNA called ”hot spots’ and/or that the high (observed) rate causes back mutations which ”erase’ the effects of this high rate. Therefore, conveniently, the rate is assumed to be high over a short timespan, but effectively low over a long timespan. However, this is special pleading to get out of a difficulty, and the burden of proof is on evolutionists to sustain the vast ages for ”Eve’ in the face of these documented, modern-day mutation rates. These are indeed encouraging results for creationists. Missing Link | Answers in Genesis

Please try to stay on topic.The topic has to do with human/chimp hybrids, not with mitochondrial DNA.

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There seems to be some concern on the part of board moderation that this thread is drifting off-topic. I can see valid arguments for making such a case, so I'll make my reply very short.Answers in Genesis is making rather obvious misinterpretations of the cited papers, particularly Parsons' work. You can find the correct information at CB621.1: Young mitochondrial Eve.--Percy

We'll at least we agree that a chimp/ape has no mitochondrial eve dna not that at some point some intelligent designer might manipulate genes to create some kind of abomination. Its enough that women have been granted equal rights but chimps?P.S. You all seem like you want to put the universe in a bottle and say the space inside the bottle increases but not the bottle. Like some are petitioning the courts to grant chimps equal rights. Is the world gone mad or going mad or what, etc... The courts should not of even heard the case that they did shows how far animal right groups are willing to go to have the chimp declared a person.I mean you create some abomination then some will be petitioning the courts for equal rights.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++There remain many significant differences between human and chimpanzee DNAalleged fusion of two chromosomes to make human chromosome 2
differences in telomere length between humans and apes
chromosomal inversions
differences in repetitive DNA elements
In conclusion, the Patterson study does little to explain the molecular data. Even from an evolutionary perspective there are more plausible alternative explanations than hybridization events. Nor does the study significantly challenge the creationist assertion that humans and chimpanzees never shared a common ancestor. It does, however, demonstrate the incredible lengths to which evolutionists must go to rebuff the truth: humans and chimpanzees are now, and have always been, two different kinds. Chimp-Human Hybridization: Two of a Kind or Two Different Kinds? | Answers in Genesis Chimps Are Not People, Austrian Court Rules, Group Says”The Supreme Court of Austria has ruled that a chimpanzee cannot be legally declared a person, reports the Associated Press. But for how long? News to Note, January 19, 2008 | Answers in Genesis

This is off-topic, so I'll be very brief: As far as science can tell at the current time, nothing restricts the size of universe. Science makes no claim that space is increasing while the volume of the universe remains the same. The universe is expanding, and the rate of expansion is increasing.--Percy

You could look at it all like chimps and humans like two galaxies inside a jar that are said not moving yet while the space between them is said to be increasing.You see this in like kind species genes mutate as generations increase. When like kind gene pools are separated they eventually start having problems interbreeding.Ring species comes to mind where the mutations of the genes like in two sea gulls gene pools separated over time they can not interbreed because of the increase in mutations separating the two gene pools.What I'm saying there is more than just one fused chromosome and different genetic information between chimps and humans. As time increases so do the mutations to all the genes ensuring only like kind creatures multiply. Edited by johnfolton, : No reason given.

The only thing that could make me seriously believe that chimps and humans are from the same descent are shared mistakes. Because similarities are specious for the sole reason that it does not prove relatedness. However, the same genetic mistakes would seriously bring in to question the relatedness of one organism from another. A pair of infertile creature that are NOT intimately related? All of them...Did you mean a creature that is related to another, but the progeny is infertile? Like a mule?I don't understand the question. Can you expound?

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“There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the 'wisdom' of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to objective reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique; and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious" -C.S. Lewis

interfertile: can succesfully breed with each other.Edited by DrJones*, : No reason given.

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soon I discovered that this rock thing was true
Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil
Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet
All of a sudden i found myself in love with the world
And so there was only one thing I could do
Was ding a ding dang my dang along ling long - Jesus Built my Hotrod Ministry
Live every week like it's Shark Week! - Tracey Jordan
Just a monkey in a long line of kings. - Matthew Good
If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist! - Get Your War On
*not an actual doctor