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Author Topic:   Can the standard "Young Earth Creationist" model be falsified by genetics alone?
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


(2)
Message 1 of 161 (696219)
04-12-2013 1:23 PM


The Y-chromosome falsification.
Most YECs adhere to a model which has the origin of the biosphere at about 6,500 years ago, with a world wide flood at about 4,500 ya. Important to this topic is that, in this model, humans descend from an original pair at 6,500 ya, and go through a flood bottleneck with an effective size of 6 people (Noah's three sons and their wives) at 4,500 ya.
I will show that modern humans have far too much genetic diversity for this model to be correct. We will look at Y-chromosome diversity and mitochondrial diversity amongst other things, and compare what is known about mutation rates to the proposed time scale.
In addition, we can look at other animals which would have required the Ark to survive the flood, and therefore should also show the symptoms of recent tight bottlenecking in their genomes.
Participants, please be prepared to read a few interesting contemporary research papers which I'll bring up in the first few posts.
For a start, here's a thirteen generation pedigree study which gives us some idea of the human Y-chromosome base substitution rate.
Human Y Chromosome Base-Substitution Mutation Rate Measured by Direct Sequencing
And this should give you some idea of modern diversity on the Y-chromosome.
A calibrated human Y-chromosomal phylogeny based on resequencing
The first paper gives us a point mutation rate of 4 in 13 generations, or approximately 1 for every three generations, on the 1/5 of the non-recombining area of the Y-chromosome (which is ~95% of the total chromosome). The Y-chromosome is inherited from father to son, so, in the young earth scenario, we all have the Y-chromosome of Noah, with the only difference being the mutations that have occured since. The one in three substitution rate puts us all about 60 mutations away from Noah on this 1/5, as 4,500 years equals about 180 generations. That would be about 300 for the entire chromosome.
The second paper searches areas of the Y-chromosome that comprise about one fifth of its total in 36 individuals, and comes out with far too many variations to fit the "Noah" scenario (and far too many to fit the 6,500 year Adam scenario). In fact, we can infer about 5,600 mutations between modern individuals and the common Y ancestor, making him around 20 times older than the Noah of YEC myth.
Mods: Biological Evolution please.
Edited by bluegenes, : took out extra word
Edited by bluegenes, : Added explanation of links at Admin's request.
Edited by bluegenes, : corrected miscalculations due to misreading a paper.

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Admin
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Message 2 of 161 (696220)
04-13-2013 8:20 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by bluegenes
04-12-2013 1:23 PM


For each link you should explain the point it makes relative to the thread's topic.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

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bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 3 of 161 (696221)
04-13-2013 12:08 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by Admin
04-13-2013 8:20 AM


O.P. edited.
O.P. edited to explain relevance of links, and YEC model effectively falsified.

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Admin
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Message 4 of 161 (696223)
04-13-2013 3:46 PM


Thread Copied from Proposed New Topics Forum

  
jar
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Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


(1)
Message 5 of 161 (696225)
04-13-2013 4:27 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by bluegenes
04-12-2013 1:23 PM


Re: The Y-chromosome falsification.
Not only does genetics falsify a young earth, it also falsifies the Biblical Flood myth, the Garden of Eden and the bullshit of the Super Genome.
Young Earth, Biblical Creationism and the Biblical Flood have all been totally refuted so many times by so many different areas of evidence that they deserve nothing more than laughter and derision.
Edited by jar, : appalin spallin

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 6 of 161 (696230)
04-13-2013 5:59 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by jar
04-13-2013 4:27 PM


Re: The Y-chromosome falsification.
Not only does genetics falsify a young earth...
Well, that was surely a quick thread. I thought we were going to have to sit through a bunch of evidence and logic.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree; ‘That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heaven goes.’ Galileo Galilei 1615.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

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bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 7 of 161 (696235)
04-13-2013 7:00 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by NoNukes
04-13-2013 5:59 PM


Re: The Y-chromosome falsification.
NoNukes writes:
I thought we were going to have to sit through a bunch of evidence and logic.
Me too. Although it's true that the two papers in the O.P. do actually combine to make a reasonable falsification of the standard YEC model, I hardly expect the YECs to agree with that conclusion.
Speaking of evidence, here's a very interesting new discovery concerning the Y-chromosome that makes things even worse for the YECs.
Abstract
Article based on paper
This is the discovery that the Y-chromosome thought to have gone to fixation in our ancestral lineage is not the only one existing today. It means that the flood couldn't have happened more recently than about 330,000* years ago, and, interestingly, Noah wasn't even a modern human.
He would have had a simple stone tool kit, and he did damned well to build the Ark, IMO!
*Actually, 237-581 kya is the 95% confidence interval according to the abstract.
Edited by bluegenes, : Added the confidence interval

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bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


(1)
Message 8 of 161 (696796)
04-18-2013 4:53 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by bluegenes
04-12-2013 1:23 PM


Re: The Y-chromosome falsification.
To simplify the point I was making about the Y-chromosome in the O.P., here's a chart from the paper. It shows a human Y-chromosomal phylogeny made from non-repeated areas of the Y-chromosome which comprise about one fifth of its total non-recombining region (the region that stays the same from father to son excepting when there's a mutation in the generation transfer), and has the numbers of mutations down each lineage marked. That makes it easy to clarify my point.
At the mutation rate I was using as an estimate (based on a pedigree analysis), point mutations should average about one in fifteen generations on this area. If you look at the bottom right of the chart, you can see that there are 8 individuals from the same family - grandfather, father and six sons. That equals 7 generational transfers, and there are no mutations on these seven, which is in keeping with my rate. However, to make the point, let's assume a high average rate of 1 mutation in 7 generational transfers for this area of the chromosome. A high mutation rate is to the advantage of the YECs.
We can see that mutation rates vary down different lineages, which can be to do both with varying tendency to mutate and varying generation times.
Straight away we can see that the individual at the top is 285 mutations away from the common "Y" ancestor which, at our rate, would be 1995 generations and about 49,875 years. At a more likely lower rate, the paper itself comes up with ~101,000 to 115,000 years!
An important point for the YECs is that the researchers' estimated rate is in keeping with the pedigree study I linked to in the O.P. - they also cite it in the paper, and the pedigree paper states that their results are compatible with those derived from human chimp comparisons. Pedigree studies within humans take away the YEC argument that we're assuming common ancestry.
Even being generous to the YEC model with a maximum likely mutation rate, we can see that Y-chromosome data easily falsifies the Noah at 4,500 ya and Adam at 6,500 ya model.
Edited by bluegenes, : sin tax

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jbozz21
Member (Idle past 3978 days)
Posts: 46
From: Provo, UT
Joined: 04-19-2013


Message 9 of 161 (696986)
04-20-2013 1:42 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by bluegenes
04-18-2013 4:53 PM


Re: The Y-chromosome falsification.
I looked at the studies and they talk way over my head. I have not gone through genetics yet so I really have no clue what they are saying. All I really understand is that between these two studies, there are way too much genetic mutation diversity on the Y Chromosome to suggest that there was a bottle neck at the time of Noah, that the Bible suggests. When you say stuff like this it takes a lot of faith in you and the people that did these studies to actually believe what you are telling me.
My real question is why should I trust these studies to be accurate, correctly set up, truthful and unbiased?
Edited by jbozz21, : grammatical errors

"all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and call things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator." -Alma 30:44
"And behold, all things have their likeness, and all things are created and made to bear record of me, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me." Moses 6: 63

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Dr Adequate
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Posts: 16113
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(2)
Message 10 of 161 (696988)
04-20-2013 2:02 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by jbozz21
04-20-2013 1:42 AM


Re: The Y-chromosome falsification.
My real question is why should I trust these studies to be accurate, correctly set up, truthful and unbiased?
Well if they weren't then someone else could find out by looking at more Y chromosomes, it's not like one group of scientists keeps all the Y chromosomes in the world in a box and won't let anyone else look inside.
If creationists in particular are worried that maybe scientists are pulling the wool over their eyes, they could take some of the money they use for propaganda purposes and use it instead to do some actual scientific research by taking a look at the Y chromosomes themselves.

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New Cat's Eye
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Message 11 of 161 (696991)
04-20-2013 3:09 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by jbozz21
04-20-2013 1:42 AM


Re: The Y-chromosome falsification.
My real question is why should I trust these studies to be accurate, correctly set up, truthful and unbiased?
Because you have no real reason to suggest otherwise.

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bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


(2)
Message 12 of 161 (696997)
04-20-2013 4:01 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by jbozz21
04-20-2013 1:42 AM


Re: The Y-chromosome falsification.
jbozz21 writes:
My real question is why should I trust these studies to be accurate, correctly set up, truthful and unbiased?
The observations are repeatable.
jbozz21 writes:
I looked at the studies and they talk way over my head. I have not gone through genetics yet so I really have no clue what they are saying.
Well, if you want to question the experts, the best thing to do would be to "go through genetics" to at least some extent.

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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 13 of 161 (697019)
04-20-2013 12:38 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by jbozz21
04-20-2013 1:42 AM


Re: The Y-chromosome falsification.
When you say stuff like this it takes a lot of faith in you and the people that did these studies to actually believe what you are telling me.
Nonsense, it takes no faith at all.
My real question is why should I trust these studies to be accurate, correctly set up, truthful and unbiased?
You shouldn't. You should learn enough to examine the evidence yourself.
But the first step is to learn what the scientific method is.
Since is based on doubt and questioning. Results are published as well as methods and presented so that other scientists can test the process.
When it comes to the Biblical Flood though hundreds of thousands of similar tests have been performed over at least 150 years and every single one of those hundreds of thousands of tests in every different area has shown that the Biblical Flood never happened.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

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Coyote
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Posts: 6117
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(1)
Message 14 of 161 (697021)
04-20-2013 12:48 PM


Another example
The global flood is generally placed around 4,350 years ago by biblical scholars.
We have examples of Native American mtDNA types that are the same both before and after that date.
At On Your Knees Cave in southern Alaska a skeleton was dated to 10,300 years ago, and a rare mtDNA type was found. This is D4h3.
In a publication a couple of years back, it was noted that 47 living individuals had been found with that same haplotype. They were found along the west coasts of North and South America.
If a flood had occurred that haplotype would have been wiped out and replaced by Near Eastern mtDNA types.
That this didn't happen is another example of genetics disproving the YEC flood belief.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 15 of 161 (697027)
04-20-2013 1:57 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by jbozz21
04-20-2013 1:42 AM


Re: The Y-chromosome falsification.
My real question is why should I trust these studies to be accurate, correctly set up, truthful and unbiased?
You would probably need to be able to do some self verification. But by your own admission, you are utterly incapable of doing so. You cannot then reach the same conclusion that bluegenes has reached.
Of course none of that will be any kind of meaningful assessment of whether the science is correct. But you can pretend otherwise.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree; ‘That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heaven goes.’ Galileo Galilei 1615.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

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