Adding information to the genome.

The material I found suggested the similarity was in the order of 35-40%. Hardly "substantial" when you consider human and mouse DNA is 92% similar.The calcium-binding lysozyme that's so strikingly similar to -lactalbumin isn't present in humans, is it? So it has to be a case of gene duplication followed by "whoops, we've lost one".All in all, not a great example of growing the genome through gene duplication.Edited by Kaichos Man, : No reason given.

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"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

Oh, don't be so self-deprecating, Briterican. Adding nothing to the discussion never stopped Doctor Adequate...

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"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

It is when the point is adding information to the genome. Losing one gene and gaining another puts you back at even.Incidentally, some of the research suggested the a-lactalbumin gene evolved from Ca++ lysozyme, but most of it suggested they both evolved from a 'common ancestor' gene. Can you cast any light on this?

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"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

You learn something new every day. While I don't doubt that what yousay is true, there are significant "ultraconserved" areas of identical sequence between humans and mice aren't there? (Not suggesting they are anything like the order of 92%, but it's interesting).

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"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

You, and Mr Jack, and RADZ, fail to see the point of the humour. It's not that Darwin got it wrong. It's that this scientist decided to make an editorial point about the theory and used, as it turned out, a very poor example to do so.I don't know if you're old enough to have been exposed to Monty Python, but it's in the same vein as:"They said I was mad to build a castle in a swamp, but I built it anyway- just to show them!...it sank into the swamp...

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"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

"Appears to be". Uh-huh. Oh good. Cogent. We can relax. What, no "Once upon a time, long, long ago"? Oh dear, an hypothesis. Let's hope it's cogent. Oh dear. He's got the proto-mammal suckling an egg on her hair follicle. Cogency alert! Amazing! 200 million year old fossils, and not only can they tell that they secreted stuff, they even know what was in it! Hmm. You know, I'm starting to like Darwin's version more and more... I did. Immensely.

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"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

No. I'm saying that if information is added, and other information is taken away simultaneously, then there's no nett increase in information. No. See above.

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"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

No, it's standard evolution style. It would be an embarrassment to any other field of science.

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"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

So Darwin was right? And the evolutionist scientist I quoted was wrong? And must therefore, logically, argue against common ancestry for those marine mammals. What fossil records "suggest" is that caseins were present. That they were present in mammary secretion is pure conjecture, or to use your own words: But don't worry. It'll soon turn up in a biology textbook near you as "fact". Yeah. Ain't it the truth.

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"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

RADZ, let's discuss reality.The reality is that some scientists examined some fossils purported to be 200 million years old. From their examination, they deduced the following:1. The creatures were too young to feed themselves.2. The bone and tooth structures suggested an abundance of calcium.3. The abundance of calcium suggested the presence of caseins.4. The presence of caseins suggested mammary secretion.This is the reality. Now let's ask a few questions.In deciding whether a creature is old enough to feed itself, size is not an issue. The smallest herbivor can graze, the smallest carnivore can hunt small prey. The main consideration (particularly in a fossil) must be the development of teeth and bones. Given that these creatures had well-developed teeth and bones, why did the scientists decide they were too young to feed themselves?Well developed teeth and bones certainly suggest an abundant supply of calcium, but why does it need to be in the form of caseins? A lot of eggs are primarily composed of calcium, after all. If calcium can be used to build the egg, why not the teeth and bones of the creature inside? Baby crocodiles don't recieve caseins from mammary secretion. Do they exhibit underdeveloped teeth and bones?Now you may ask why trained scientists would draw the far-fetched conclusion of "mammary secretion" based on such dubious evidence. But to do so is to fail to understand the evolutionary paradigm.The theory must be supported and explained. Lactation exists, therefore it must have evolved. It is the duty of every scientist to explain how evolution took place.That's why in evolution, unlike any other field of science, alternative hypotheses are discarded solely on the basis that they don't support the theory. The theory validates the facts, not vice versa. If the facts are at variance to the theory, then they can't be facts. There is no better example of this than the 110 years during which the ToE was soundly falsified by the fossil record, until Gould and Eldredge came up with the theory of Punctuated Equilibrium.Whether you agree with punctuated equilibrium or not isn't the point. Why wasn't the theory dropped during those 110 years?Because faith hangs on. And make no mistake about it, atheism is a faith.

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"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

Dear me. Perhaps you should hear it from someone else:"The concept of organic evolution is very highly prized by biologists, for many of whom it is an object of genuinely religious devotion, because they regard it as a supreme integrative principle. This is probably the reason why severe methodological criticism employed in other departments of biology has not yet been brought to bear on evolutionary speculation."

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Conklin, Edwin G. (Professor of Biology , Princeton University)

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"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

Agreed, and I apologise. Suffice it to say that while not all evolutionists are atheists, it's a safe bet that all atheists are evolutionists. We know little about cynodontia's diet (that isn't conjecture, no matter how reasonable) and even less about their eating capacity and metabolism. All we know is that the juveniles were well supplied with calcium. Comparison with earlier "relatives" or contemporary homologs is not valid, as we see wide variety in diets/eating capacities/metabolisms in closely related species today. Why? It's very simple logic. If the presence of disaccharide lactose argues for common ancestory, then its absence must, ipso facto, argue against it. Therefore if the author wanted to argue for common ancestory, he chose a pretty weak premise on which to do so. The 110 years during which evolutionists retained the ToE while knowing that the fossil record comprehensively contradicted the theory is probably history's best example of cognitive dissonance. If you are trying to change the subject, you don't write: What is this sentence if not an attempt to keep the discussion on topic?Look, I obviously haven't made my point clear. I understand that evolution is dealing with events that happened a long time ago, and for which scant physical evidence now exists. I understand that because of these limitations, in most instances inference is the best scientists can hope for, and for that reason they must phrase their hypotheses in appropriatly careful language.What I object to is the fact that many scientists are treating the difficulties incumbent in studying the deep past as a license to make any claim they like, and present it as "evidence".For example, your authors use phrases like: "records suggest that...", and "is likely to be similar to..."and yet you are perfectly comfortable in asserting: Not a suggestion. Not a likelihood. A fact.

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"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

No other field of science is based on a fundamental theory that is unrepeatable, unfalsifiable and therefore unscientific. An addition of information is an increase in information. A change in information isn't. That isn't to say it (a change)can't result in an adaptive advantage, but this thread is specifically about the increase in the size of the functional, non-redundant genome over billions of years.

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"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

And you can prove it by naming an atheist who doesn't believe in evolution? Absolutely not. That would be just as absurd as arguing that marine mammals are related to other mammals based on one milk protein. Which is what the author was attempting. Okay, let's try a completely different tack. Let's say that Cynodonts did lactate and supply their young with caseins.What's to say Cynodonts weren't mammals? As far as I can tell from the research (correct me if I'm wrong) we can't even prove they laid eggs. They had a couple of extra bones in their jaw. Does that mean they weren't mammals? Are there rules a mammal has to abide by in order to be a mammal?For example, can a mammal be egg-laying? Can a mammal be poisonous?The Platypus is both.If Cynodontia were mammals, all arguments about their evolution of lactation become moot.Edited by Kaichos Man, : typo

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"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

Motoo Kimura stated that his Neutral Theory showed the "great majority" of evolution at the molecular level was caused by genetic drift and not natural selection. You don't regard this as a major revision? Which ones in particular? Isaac Newton? John Sanford? Simon Conway Morris? And so he should! I bet you've never even heard of it...Edited by Kaichos Man, : No reason given.

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"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin