for TC

here is john boy's rebuttle to your arguments...

I'm gonna drop a couple lines of inquiry on this response for the sake of time (mine) and space (a lot of it was redundant or else went off-topic into areas that drifted farther than I want to go at the moment). FYI.

Quote
John Boy:
"The simple answer is "Yes". Written documents, C-14, all of 'em. Every trick in the book that archeologists and anthropologists use for establishing dates."

TrueCreation:
--Reference?

Let's not play this game, OK? It is a waste of time. This stuff is so BASIC that it hurts. These are all just common techniques used to date civilizations. Nothing even a little contraversial.

But...

'Traditional forms of archaeological dating have been strengthened immeasurably by the growth of an extraordinarily diverse range of scientific techniques that helps to demonstrate the truly multi-disciplinary nature of modern archaeology. Traditional methods have not been replaced, however. The definition of sequences by means of stratigraphic excavation remains the basis for observations about sites and for typological studies of artefacts. Scientific dating techniques add precision and allow specific hypotheses about the relationships of sites, regional cultures or forms of artefacts to be tested. (p. 129) Kevin Greene, Archaeology: an introduction, p. 129 (1995)
Chapter 4: Dating the Past

Here's another link. Archaeology Dating Techniques

Quote
--Also you should be weary on checking dates so precise by any dating method, as for instance, you will not get 2689 BC, but a date along the lines of 3000+/- 1000.

Those dates are NOT from C-14 alone, but also documents (Egyptians were very good about writing down things--not to mention building pyramids for their pharoahs and so forth) that talk about "The 10 year reign of So-and-So!", which are matched with other documents indicating events that can be corroberated with others, and so on. Also, some write about events that definitely can be dated, such as solar eclipses, lunar eclipses, and so on. Yes, things like that are really used to determine historical debates.

Also, C-14 is much more accurate than the 33% range you gave. According to a C-14 Dating lab, the standard error rate for 5,000 years is +/-65 years if I read the chart on "Standard Error" correctly.
Radio-Carbon Dating Options

Quote
John Boy:
"So, you're changing the dates of the Flood, now?"

TrueCreation:
--Nope, 2,400-2,600 BC.

OK, but you run into real historical problems. Some of the major pyramids were built BEFORE that date, DURING that date, and AFTER that date. No gap in Egyptian history (again, check out those names of Pharoahs. Do you think they just made those up and the times in which they reigned?

And there is that problem of repopulating the Earth, which might have taken a little time to do. No one told the Egyptians.

Quote
John Boy:
"How far back do you want to go? Egyptian culture was established about 9,000 years ago, give or take. That's quite a long ways from the 2,500 BCE for the flood you gave before. So, which is it? I think a percentage of error of +/- 50% is kinda high, don't ya think, for such a catastrophic, world-changing event--particularly against the total age of the Earth in YEC chronology?"

TrueCreation:
--Reference to the date and the means by obtaining the date?

Since you are sticking with your dates for the flood, I'll let this part drop for now, so it isn't necessary. We'll stick with what we got--I've chased my tail enough for now as it is.

Quote
John Boy:
"The lifespans talked about were within normal human bounds (and the Chinese had a strong affinity toward ancestor worship and reverence toward old-age at the time--so they would have had the motivation to greatly exaggerate the ages of their elderly but didn't really)."

TrueCreation:
--I don't think that the Chineese had access to genetics in that day to lengthen their life-span's.

I only include this part to state I was speaking of exaggerating in the literary sense, not literal sense.

Quote
John Boy:
"which would have happened immediately after the flood by your timeline (and I was being generous to start the building after the flood, even though, by your guesstimate, they were being built before, during, and after the dates you gave)."

TrueCreation:
--I set the date of the building of the pyraminds at about 150-300 years after the Flood.

Based upon what evidence, I wonder? Are you aware that there are also many OTHER pyramids built before the Great ones in Giza? Are you also aware they they are not covered with lots and lots of silt that would have been produced in a flood? Particularly one of a GLOBAL variety?

Quote
John Boy:
"Do you have ANY evidence to support your claims that can be independently verified? Just curious."

TrueCreation:
--If the initial quesiton on is the technique by which they used to obtain the dates of these civilizations are flawed, or insufficient, then that is evidence toward my part.

So that's a "No!", I take it?

By the way, "flawed, or insufficient" evidence on my part is in no way evidence "toward [your] part". If I am wrong it doesn't make you right. And verse vica. If I have to explain that to you, you are in more trouble than you think.

Quote
John Boy:
"OK, when was the Tower of Babel incident? We can run your idea through historical events of the time about that, as well and see how it compares."

TrueCreation:
--Building of the tower of babel would have been anywhere from 60-180 years after the Flood, in my opinion as I would argue. Also, Reference to the dating of the civilizations, as we arent going anywhere in this discussion untill I can obtain something that is relevant toward that question.

Somehow I doubt you're going anywhere even with the references. Such as the ones I already supplied on the previous page that happens to have the names and dates of pharoahs in Egypt (please look them up, if you wish). Now, unless you want to say that they just made it up, please do some of your own reading of archeology/anthropology books. Or at least give a little actual evidence as to why they are in error aside from "I don't believe it".

As for various dating methods, see above. Not to mention that Eygptians have many written records from before the time of the alledged flood that you give. So, written documents in addition to various dating techniques discussed above.

Quote
John Boy:
"I literally laughed out loud when I read this. Who's the one who is ignorant? Can you find an actual geneticist who says that "two of every kind" is enough to pertepuate a species/kind without going extinct?"

TrueCreation:
--Sure:

Haigh, J. and Maynard Smith, J., 1972. Population size and protein variation in man. Genetical Research 19:73–89.

Harkins, R.N., Stenzel, P. and Black, J.A. Noah’s haemoglobin. Nature 241:226.

Interesting. Did you actually read these papers yourself? If so, how did they specifically apply to "two of every kind" (and seven of others--5 of which were sacrificed) and 8 humans being enough to survive? I'd be interested in that.

Somehow I have the feeling you only copied those titles from this "Answers in Genesis" page without bothering to read them or learn what they actually have to say:

In the 1970s, Haigh and Maynard Smith investigated the variation in human haemoglobin and concluded that the human species must have gone through a population bottleneck in the recent past, if most of the variants are due to neutral mutations (that is, mutations not subject to selection).(4) Researchers at the University of Oregon Medical School pointed out that Noah’s flood would have provided such a bottleneck.(5) ...

(4) Haigh, J. and Maynard Smith, J., 1972. Population size and protein variation in man. Genetical Research 19:73–89. Return to text.

(5) Harkins, R.N., Stenzel, P. and Black, J.A. Noah’s haemoglobin. Nature 241:226. Return to text.

Y-Chromosome Adam?

Am I close?

Now, the first paper you gave me apparently has nothing to do with the topic on hand (other than it contains the word "bottleneck", I guess) about two of every kind being enough for genetic diversity not to lead to extinction.

As for the second paper, I tried and tried to find a reference to it. I couldn't find anything on the "Nature" homepage search and our on-line library catalogue doesn't have it available. However, you've piqued my interest. I will do an interlibrary loan and find the article myself and see what it has to say about the topic at hand. A single sentence summation from AiG does not give me great confidence. So, please allow me a couple weeks for this article to come in.

Quote
TrueCreation:
--And heres some more information on the Bottle-Neck and possible cause of genetic variation. Keep in mind Telomere and Telomerase Research.

[Edit for space]
This brief essay is meant solely as a stimulus to further thought, not as a precise model of events. However, it would seem that an explanation along these lines would be feasible, especially if several genes contributed to such longevity. For this scenario to work Noah's sons and their wives would have to have significant heterozygosity at the relevant gene loci. That this could well have been so is suggested by the age of Shem at death -600, considerably less than that of his father.

'Short-lived' alleles of the relevant genes may always have been present, which would mean that in the pre-Flood world, there would have always been some individuals (homozygous for such alleles) living drastically less than the ages recorded for the patriarchs. It may be that these individuals would not have been as short-lived as today, since they might still have had other longevity factors which were subsequently lost, by drift, entirely from the world population, in the first generation after the Flood. Such a loss may account for the major drop in the descendants of the Flood survivors, from the 600+ range to the 400s in one swoop.

The second-stage drop to the 200s may be the result of a second such loss. It should also not be forgotten that the dispersion at Babel in effect caused a number of bottlenecks once again, although we have no definite indication just how tight these were.

It is also likely (if not more so) that genes coding for lesser longevity arose by mutational degeneration, with their frequency of possession rising as time passed. At the moment, too little is known of the exact mechanics of the way in which cells are programmed to die in order to offer more specific suggestions.

The information on lifespans given in Scripture does not cover all the world's peoples then living, but concentrates on one line of descent. The nation of Israel effectively starts from one man (Abraham) and his (closely related) wife, so this is another genetic bottleneck. The course of changing longevity may have been quite different in other population groups.

Just for fun, can you give me a link to the website you pulled this from? I wagering it isn't anyone who studied genetics. I'd like to see this looked over by Sumac or Huxter, etc.

Quote
John Boy:
"Check out the genetic paucity of endangered zoo animals sometime and get back to me if you think it is problematic.

The minimal population of humans and other mammals to maintain enough genetic diversity to all them to survive is about 50, by current guesstimate."

TrueCreation:
--Then those poor little Elephant seals shouldn't even exist dispite their considerably very well condition today.

Well, I can dig up the "Discover" magazine snippet which talks about the viability of minimum populations, if you wish, but here are a couple websites that reach the same conclusion.

Population level is the best single indicator of a species' ability to survive. The minimum viable population (MVP) is the population size of species that will ensure a 99% probability that it will not go extinct within 1000 years. This calculation takes into account the chance events that can occur in the environment, or within the population itself due to genetic variation and changes within the age and sex ratios. The MVP is obtained by studying population data, reproductive levels and life history. A good rule of thumb for vertebrates is to maintain 50 breeding individuals to prevent a species from going extinct in the short term. Population levels closer to 500 are needed to ensure the survival of the species in the long term and to provide a buffer against natural catastrophes. Ideally, 1000 or more individuals should be maintained to guarantee that genetic variability is kept high. [Emphasis Mine]
Minimum Viable Population

Here's another reguarding wild horses that comes to the same conclusion:

Dr. Cothran suggests that managing wild horses at low population levels leaves them vulnerable to a long range loss of genetic diversity. This is the same sort of problem which plagues endangered species around the world. But, just how small is too small? At what point do wild horse populations suffer the risk of irreparable genetic damage?

Based on his DNA analysis, Dr. Cothran now believes that the minimum wild horse and burro herd size is 150-200 animals. Within a herd this large, about 100 animals will be of breeding age. Of those 100, approximately 50 horses would comprise the genetic effective population size. These are the animals actually contributing their genes to the next generation. Dr. Cothran has stated that 50 is a minimum number. A higher number would decrease the chances for inbreeding. [Emphasis Mine]
Elimination and Set-Up for Extinction

I have grave doubt about the scientific veracity of the quote you supplied.

Quote
John Boy:
"Also, it is a problem if people keep dying young when you say they could live to be very, very old before the flood. Where are all these mummies and bodies of 900 year olds that should exist? Why didn't people write about them?"

TrueCreation:
--People did write about them, its called the bible, which is old by the way if you didn't allready know. Also, mummification was an egyptian and possibly other cultural practice.

Sure. There are other cultures that are even older than the Bible that write about their histories. The Egyptains for example. They write about people having normal lifespans. Same for the Chinese. But, I guess their written history doesn't count...

Hey, did you know if you convert the number of years the long-lived patriarchs survived to months that it turns out to be within natural human lifespans (75 years of age)? You don't suppose it could be a mistranslation, do you? It was a common practice in Summeria/Babylon to do just that--transpose years for months. [When converted to months, the ruling times of their kings fit perfectly with the recorded dates by scribes of the period.]

Quote
John Boy:
"Take a guess what their skeletons should look like."

TrueCreation:
--They would look a little something like dirt, they have decayed, I would be surprized if any human at all were to be subject to burrial during the flood (well ofcourse there are some, so I'm surprized). Also its a note that almost all the fragments we find are deformities, seemingly by poor little fellows with arthritise and the like.

The aging process leaves tell-tale changes in morphology of the skeleton. More than just arthritis, gout, and so on. If any ancients lived to be the ripe ol' age of 900 (or even only a spry 300), their bodies would leave behind evidence of that age.

There are quite a few bodies recovered from ancient times (pre-your time of the flood). Oddly, none of them appear to be older than the standard lifespans of humans. In fact, most of them seemed to live a much shorter life.

Quote
John Boy:
"How does a genome become "less specialized"? What does this loss of "specialization" do to the genome? What are you talking about? It seems to me that you are just making this up as you go along. Which is probably what you are doing--Ad Hoc 'R Us."

TrueCreation:
--No, I am not making it up, and excuse me, I meant to say 'more specialized', as I am quite sure that you are well in aquaintance with genetic drift, variability and the like.

Genetics isn't my strong suit (ask Sumac, Huxter, WHF, Robert, and a couple others if you like), but I am familiar enough with the concepts to follow along vaguely and kinda know what's going on. And also know when someone's bluffin'. And you're bluffin'.

Now, before I go (and I've wasted more than enough time on this), I hope you will start posting a little more in the way of evidence to support some of your more outlandish claims. It would make for a refreshing change than your usual simple denials and assertions without evidence

please give me a reply

[QUOTE][b]Hey, did you know if you convert the number of years the long-lived patriarchs survived to months that it turns out to be within natural human lifespans (75 years of age)?[/QUOTE]

[/b]

Remember Abraham's wife Sarah, who was 90 years old when she had a son? We were told that Sarah had grown old and out of the "ways of women" before reaching 90. If we divide 90 by twelve as you suggest we have Sarah reaching menopause before age seven and a half.

We are told that Sarah is old at 90, but still attractive enough at that age to get the attention of Abimelech. (Abraham told him she was his sister rather than his wife so he wouldn't murder him for her; by the way, he was eight years old by your reckoning when he was told to expect a son within the year's end) and Sarah lived on to the ripe old age of 127, or about 11 by your reckoning, after having finally given birth to a son. Abraham died at the ripe old age ("full of years") of 175, or nearly 15 by your reckoning. By then his son Isaac was already seeking a wife (born to Abraham when he was 9), meaning Isaac was courting Rebekah at age 6.

Enough of that family history, let's look at another convenient example from Genesis. Shem was five hundred years old (42 by your reckoning) when his son Arpachshad was born two years after the Flood. So far, so good. But Arpachshad had a child at 35 years of age according to the Bible, that is, when he was almost three years old according to your interpretation.

I would like to point out something. Despite the fact that we are used to people marrying in the 20's and having kids anywhere from their teens on, with the twenties being the most common, this wasn't the standard in older civilizations. According to research, most people didn't live past their thirties or fourties, and most people were married before they were 18 and usually had a few children by that age. Also, while we find it abhorrant now, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility to be 9 or 10 years old and pregnent ( girls can start puberty as early as 7 , though that isn't common. 9 to 14 is much more common. There are also women who don't hit puberty till their late teens ) If you had a pre-arranged marriage and were married by the age of 11 or 12, you probably would be a parent before you were 15, probably more like 12 or 13. You still find stituations like this in many third world nations.

You're missing my point. You said that some girls hit puberty at 7, I said that Sarah would have hit menopause by 7, and further, that 7 was generally considered to old to have children (she laughed at the idea when God told Abraham what would happen).

[This message has been edited by gene90, 02-28-2002]

Since I don't take the bible as literal, and considering that few during that period of time could read, let alone count , it seems to me that errors were quite likely. I have no problems with errors existing in text written by humans. Heck, even excellent authors depend on a good editor to clean up there work, and even then mistakes get through. With little or no education, it is easy to believe that errors could be made in such a text. Perhaps the original text is right, but the translation is faulty. Defending the literal veracity of the bible isn't on my shoulders. It is dependant on those who use the text to find supporting corralary evidence.

Good. Do you concede that quicksink's argument is invalid?

Bah...i see no reason to even TRY to validate the age of the patriarch in months...its unlikely those people ever existed save perhaps as figments of the Biblical author's imagination. Giving the patriarch great age was symbolic in the story,a sign of great wisdom. Thats just an old babylonian tradition that the hebrew recycled....the babylonians have kings in their stories who supposadly lived to be up to 35000 years old...are we gonna try to validate this in minutes? No because like the biblical patriarch,they mythological characters,conjured up to make a point in those legends

[This message has been edited by LudvanB, 02-28-2002]

quote:

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quicksink's argument

---

this is not my argument this is from another forum, a conversation between TC and another member

just wanted to clear taht up...

quote:

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Originally posted by gene90:
You're missing my point. You said that some girls hit puberty at 7, I said that Sarah would have hit menopause by 7, and further, that 7 was generally considered to old to have children (she laughed at the idea when God told Abraham what would happen).

[This message has been edited by gene90, 02-28-2002]

---

I'm not sure about this line of reasoning, but there is a medical
case in the UK NOW of a women who went through the
menopause at a very young age ... like early teens.

She laughs as though she wouldn't expect to get pregnant, and
that's enough for me to suggest she was thought of as old.

Two things in this context that I would raise are::

1) We do not know how long a year was in the patriarch's time.

2) On reading Genesis it appears that sometimed referring to, say,
Adam, is referring not to the man, but to his clan. 900 years
could be the lifetime of the clan of Adam, rather than the man.

[This message has been edited by Peter, 03-01-2002]

We can establish a lower limit on how long a "year" was in the patriarchs' society using Shem (500 years old at Arpachshad's birth) and Arpachshad (35 years old when his first son was born). Just decide what is the minimum age at which Arpachshad could father a child and see if the "year" (to them) / year to us ratio is small enough to make Shem's age reasonable. You might find a middle ground, but 1 month in our calender = 1 year in theirs is not reasonable.

I'm afraid I find the literal interpretation more reasonable than John Boy's interpretation.

[This message has been edited by gene90, 03-01-2002]

Thanx Quicksink, though there are some points that I would like to say before we were to do discussion. Half of it involves radioisotopic dating, in which I have already asserted that I am not up to standards to debate this (I would be speculative on if you were to know the information needed to deal with it also), though there are some other points in the post that I would deal with without regard to radiometric dating, if you would put them into your own words unless the quoter is here to argue.

--(added by edit) also, what would you like to name the topic, in the other forum it was starting to get out of hand, reaching for validity in other arguments and subjects straying the initial question. What is that question?

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[This message has been edited by TrueCreation, 03-01-2002]

Someone over at Yahoo once described a reasonable interpretation of the ages in Genesis. In this scenario the ages of adults are given as the number of months since attaining adulthood. Since adulthood is 12 years, someone who marries and has children at 75 "years" of age is not 6 years old as is the case if the years are really months, and not a geriatric case if the years are actual years, but 12 + 75/12 years old, or about 18, perfectly reasonable.

Without looking this up, didn't Methusalah live to be in the 900's or so? Using this approach, Methusalah would have been around 87 years old at the time of his death.

A literal Biblical interpretation might not embrace this approach.

--Percy

"A literal Biblical interpretation might not embrace this approach."
--I've seen this explination at times, I don't really agree with it though, and is definantly stretching it quite a bit. There isn't a problem with getting them to live 900 years, though I have encountered the problem of whether they did or not considering dates of various civilizations and the like, which leads you off into the validity of radioisotopic dating. I do not think that it is too wize to say that A could not have happend because of B when, for this to be true, B must be correct. I think there is evidence enough in the fossil record, but there are other conflicting objections that I would like to deal with, though I have yet to get into radioisotopes and the age of the earth.

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TC,
I think the problem with a 900 year life span is not only improbably, it has never been scientifically documented. Babylonian legends and history greatly expanded their rulers life spans as well, though no one doubts that these were exagerationgs, since fossil records don't bear this out.
You can't make an arguement that things were diffenent back then without solid evidence to back it up. It would be like me saying that people used to be able to fly because gravity worked differently back then. However, without solid evidence, that would be a hard sell, don't you think? True, humans can live past a hundred years, but I believe the oldest recorded lifespan in recent times is 127. Quite a long step between 127 and 900 years. If you want to establish such an age, you need observable evidence. If you have data supporting such a life span, please share it, especially if it is genetic material. I am sure the biotech industry would be estatic to get their hands on such a sample.

"I think the problem with a 900 year life span is not only improbably, it has never been scientifically documented."
--Living to such an age is not exaclty improbable.

"Babylonian legends and history greatly expanded their rulers life spans as well, though no one doubts that these were exagerationgs, since fossil records don't bear this out.
You can't make an arguement that things were diffenent back then without solid evidence to back it up. It would be like me saying that people used to be able to fly because gravity worked differently back then. However, without solid evidence, that would be a hard sell, don't you think? True, humans can live past a hundred years, but I believe the oldest recorded lifespan in recent times is 127. Quite a long step between 127 and 900 years. If you want to establish such an age, you need observable evidence. If you have data supporting such a life span, please share it, especially if it is genetic material. I am sure the biotech industry would be estatic to get their hands on such a sample."
--Yes genetics plays a major part in these life-spans, they have experimented on different animals and seen life-spans double and tripple, I'll quote myself from earlier (these are a bit long so please forgive me!):

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

quote:

---

--I would be happy, it is a simple concept really. I believe I have already gone over this in a nother forum anyways, but I will emphesize again. It is very possible that a human could have lived to 600 and even 950 years old as the bible portrays. Do you know why we die of old age? Because our parts wear out, and cells stop reproducing themselves.

AiG - Countdown to Death - http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4082.asp

"The ‘capping’ at the end of each chromosome (called a telomere) is, like the capped tips of shoelaces, necessary to prevent the ends fraying. The telomere shortens with each cell division — once the limit is reached, the cells can no longer divide. This is probably only one way in which our limited lifespans are ‘programmed’ into us. There is no biological reason at all why people could not live much longer than they do at present, if they had the appropriate genetic makeup.

It has long been known that there are human cells that can keep on dividing forever — cancer cells. These appear not to have the built-in ‘switch’ which tells cells to stop dividing, so they keep on making copies of themselves. This is why medical labs, which need to use human cell lines in their work, can be continually supplied with cells which are all the ‘offspring’ of one unfortunate person’s cancer. (Called HeLa cells, after Henrietta Lacks, the lady whose cancer it was). The HeLa cell line is effectively ‘immortal’ (unless existing HeLa cells were to all be physically destroyed).

Recently, laboratory results based on an enzyme3 that is involved with the replication of the telomere, have caused much excitement. Modified human cell lines have divided many times past their limit. Some speculate that such manipulations could cause people to live to much longer ages, providing they do not succumb to disease or accident in the meantime. Aging is certain to be much more complex than these simplified discussions, based on preliminary findings, might lead us to think. However, the evidence so far strongly suggests that genetics plays a major part."

---

"but the fact is that cancer cells are deadly to human life so they certainly do not allow us to live 900 years."
--I think you are missing the point, the point I was making is that we easily could have lived to 600-900 years in that day unless we were inflicted with a disease or was killed by some physical force, ie fall off a cliff, drown, violent actions, etc. Cancer cells are simply cells that can reproduce continuously, as if our cells had this ability we could live for a very long time. The cause of this happening could have been a mutational effect, then after the tower of babel the bottleneck would have made this negative gene take the place of the original gene allowing cells to produce continuously.
[/Quote]

--Here is some information and reading on this enzyme activity in its shortening telomerase:

"This enzyme, called telomerase, was discovered in 1980 by the winner of the 1998 Australia Prize, Prof. Elizabeth Blackburn. Without telomerase, cells cannot copy their ‘caps’."

New Scientist: November 22, 1997, p. 7; January 3, 1998, p. 6; February 7, 1998, p. 14; February 28, 1998, p. 23.

‘Can science beat the body clock?’ Sunday Times (London) January 18, 1998, p. 15.

‘Extraordinary lifespans in ants: a test of evolutionary theories of aging’, Nature 389:958–960, 1997.

‘Why do we age?’ U.S. News & World Report, August 18–25, 1997, pp. 55–57.

‘Genetics of Aging’ Science 278(5337):407–411, 1997.

--As I would also get frustrated if I did not have these resources, here is a web page that seems to be focused on the telomere:

http://resolution.colorado.edu/~nakamut/telomere/telomere.html

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--Here are two clips from a site (that definantly isn't creationist associated) on the effects of the telomere and telomerase:

Aging is a Specific Biological Function Rather than the Result of a Disorder in Complex Living Systems: Biochemical Evidence in Support of Weismann's Hypothesis
- http://puma.protein.bio.msu.su/biokhim....394.htm

quote:

---

A concept postulating that aging is a specific biological function that promotes the progressive evolution of sexually reproducing species is reviewed. Death caused by aging clears the population of ancestors and frees space for progeny carrying new useful traits. Like any other important function, aging is mediated by several molecular mechanisms working simultaneously. At least three such mechanisms have been postulated thus far: 1) telomere shortening due to suppression of telomerase at early stages of embryogenesis; 2) age-related activation of a mechanism that induces the synthesis of heat shock proteins in response to denaturing stimuli; and 3) incomplete suppression of generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) with inadequate scavenging of already existing ROS. None of these phenomena can kill the organism, but only weaken it, which becomes crucial under certain extreme conditions. This mechanism of age-induced death can be compensated for (within certain time limits) by several positive traits that greatly increase the evolutionary potential of species capable of performing this function. Similarly to apoptosis (programmed cell death), the programmed death of the body can be called "phenoptosis". Aging presumably belongs to the category of "soft" (extended in time and allowing a certain degree of compensation) phenoptosis, in contrast to "acute" phenoptosis; the death of salmon females immediately after spawning is a good example of the latter.

---

quote:

---

A. M. Olovnikov formulated the problem of terminal underreplication of linear DNA molecules in 1971 [10-12]; this phenomenon is caused by the inability of DNA polymerases to replicate several nucleotides at 3´ ends of DNA templates. Olovnikov also suggested that a specific biological mechanism should normally prevent this phenomenon. This mechanism was expected to be active in gametes, cancer cells, as well is in cells of vegetatively reproducing organisms. In most other cases, e.g., in many human somatic cells, this mechanism is suppressed.

Further studies revealed an enzyme called telomerase [13, 14] (whose existence had been predicted by Olovnikov) that compensates for DNA shortening in the mentioned cell types. The function of telomerase is to add a repeated sequence (in humans, the hexamer TTAGGG), which forms the so-called telomere, to ends of nuclear DNA. After this, underreplication of the linear DNA molecule only shortens this nontranscribed sequence of the telomeric fragment of the chromosome without damaging the genetic information or the mechanism that reads it.

---

--Here is where you can get more information on the effects of telomere and telomerase as I previously gave:
http://resolution.colorado.edu/~nakamut/telomere/telomere.html

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[This message has been edited by TrueCreation, 03-03-2002]