Thoughts on Religion vs Evolution...

Had you read any of the papers, you would already know that.

They are specific ERVs that are shared by all downstream species in the cladogram.

Correction. You cannot challenge what you refuse to read. I have provided you with direct links to the papers. Go read them

There absolutely are specific ERVs that are shared by all humans, apes and old world monkeys. Two of them are noted on the cladogram. But of course ERVs that arose after the split between old world monkeys and apes/humans would not be shared by all of them. Those would be shared only by the descendents of that particular branch. Three of those are noted on the diagram.

It also shows two ERVs that are shared by both Old and New World higher primates... but not by prosimians.

Two more are noted that arose after the gibbons split from the great apes/humans.

Two more are noted that arose after the orangutans split from the line that led to the African apes/ humans.

It should be obvious that it would be very easy to disprove this evidence by identifying a single ERV that was shared by (for example) gibbons and humans but no other great apes. ERV research has been taking place since at least 1982. Several hundred ERVs have been identified in that time frame.

Not a single one of them has ever been shown to contradict this cladogram.

Ignoring that you still have not read any of the papers and so are in no position to pretend to know what they do or do not contain, the papers deal specifically with the common ancestry of the higher primates. They prove that all higher primates (including humans beings) share common ancestors.

ERVs are useful for comparisons only going back about 100 million years. Older retroviral insertions are rendered unusable for comparison purposes by subsequent point mutations.

Yes... but it would be wrong to distract from the actual discussion by too much hand holding in the effort to ameliorate your personal ignorance. That's your job. Read the papers.

I have provided the demonstration I intended and to this point you still have no challenge for it.

 

You have been corrected once. The cladogram is from the Lebedev paper, not TalkOrigins. Your attempt to poison the well by misrepresenting the source of the cladogram does not do you credit.

There is no error.

 

It's from TalkOrigins...

 

You have been corrected now three times on this. The figure is from the Lebedev paper.

• Lebedev, Y. B., Belonovitch, O. S., Zybrova, N. V, Khil, P. P., Kurdyukov, S. G., Vinogradova, T. V., Hunsmann, G., and Sverdlov, E. D. (2000) "Differences in HERV-K LTR insertions in orthologous loci of humans and great apes." Gene 247: 265-277.

Since it requires a paid subscription to link images directly from the paper (and politicalforum has no such subscription) I have linked to the copy of the figure found on TalkOrigins.

If you are somehow claiming it is not the exact figure from the Lebedev paper, that would be a lie.

 

I told you I did… I just wanted to get something in a post from you so I could rebuttal, since I know you have no clue what those links say…

But, I will be more than happy.

First – you can’t say what is above the arrows because you have no idea what is above the arrows. One that I made out was q22.3 and looked in ALL the links for that – and didn’t find any, thus, could you please submit what it states at ever juncture of the diagram you linked from TalkOrigins please. Because the one that I was able to see was not in any of the reading provided by you.

(go to page – click on edit – find on page)

See, I told you there was something wrong with you diagram now didn’t I…? Do you want to know what that is? We have a missing link don’t we? That missing link is the common ancestor for the classification of apes, being gorillas, tangs, chimps and us.

But, for some odd reason… on that diagram… tangs have a “different” common ancestor! Yes… look at it… but, chimps, gorillas and us share but a different ancestor…

FAIL!

But there is more though…

Unlike you – I will be more than happy to quote your links of the FAIL you are trying to put on us… Are you a used cars salesman?

First site: gene of the endogenous baboon virus…. This is the gene sequence they found… Thus, it would be in all Old World Monkeys and it is not… FAIL 1… I could go on if you want?

Second site: This is the Chromosome debate… Along with this The 5' long terminal repeats (LTR) and 3' LTR of ERV-K(C4) in long C4 genes of human, orangutan, and African green monkey have similar sequence divergence values of 9.1%-10.5%. These values are more than five-fold higher than the sequence divergence of the homologous intron 9 sequences between the long and short C4 genes in higher primates. The latter is probably a result of homogenization or concerted evolution. Probably means they are guessing… This also suggest that the African Green Monkey would be in our clade since they have high divergence values for that ERV… FAIL…

Do you even know what you posted? Explain this then… How did the African Green Monkey have a similar sequence divergence value?

 

I just told them where you got the pic from... TalkOrigins is all... because that is where you got it. Nothing from that dude, just a picture linked to a site called TalkOrigins.

Also, the picture that you put up is about as right as the post that you said was "spot on"!!!

High - larious!!!

 

Just a heads up WKA - your little link to TalkOrigins clade doesn't match up with your links... You do know that right?

Hint - it's in one of my posts that I posted... If you know what your talking about - you'll see it...

But, what I had to do is have you commit to something, which is a hard thing to do since you just post up whatever and never answer for what you posted. It's like you are not accoutable for your own posts.

This time - I've got you because there is no way out since you committed...

 

I'm not sure evolution and creationism are mutually exclusive

 

Since DBS seems to be spinning in the desperate effort to come up with some challenge, any challenge to the proof of common higher primate ancestry provided by ERVs, I thought I'd move on and go to another independent source of evidence for evolution. As you may recall, DBS has previously scoffed at the idea that mammals evolved from reptiles... a surprising denial since it is one of the most exhaustively demonstrated transitions in the entire fossil record.

Let's just look at one particular (but dramatic) detail of that transition... the evolution of the jaw joint. That this is significant is demonstrated by the fact that prior to understanding the evidence, creationists considered this a barrier that evolution could not breach.

The problem is this. Reptiles (and all other tetrapods except mammals) have a jaw joint made up of two bones; the quadrate bone of the skull, and the articular bone of the jaw. But all living mammals have a jaw joint made from completely different bones; the squamosal bone of the skull and the dentary bone of the jaw.

For mammals to evolve from reptiles, somehow those completely different jaw joints need to get switched... all the while still allowing the animal to chew its food. Fortunately we have an extensive fossil record of the animals that were undergoing the transition, and we can see every step of the change along the way.

Starting in the first half of the Permian period, several lines of synapsid reptiles began to experience changes in their jaws. All of the jaw bones except the largest (the dentary) began to shrink, as did the quadrate bone of the skull. As they shrank, other bones began to "helP' at the joint... specifically the dentary and squamosal bones. For a while, these animals actually had both jaw articulations at the same time. One from the early Jurassic was even named Diarthrognathus (double-jointed jaw).

As this process continued and the quadrate and articular bones became even smaller, they lost their function as part of the jaw joint completely, leaving behind only the dentary / squamosal joint found today in all living mammals. They eventually completely detached from the jaws and today are the "hammer" and "anvil" bones of the mammalian middle ear... where they joined the original single bone of the reptilian ear that in mammals is now called the "stirrup."

Every step of this process is preserved in the fossil record, in fossils of the exactly correct place and age to record the transition.

​

And at the same time, these same fossils show the gradual evolution of a vast suite of other reptilian conditions into their corresponding mammalian version.

 

You are still trying to poison the well rather than actually make an argument. You still have made no challenge to the proof offered that all higher primates, to include humans, share common ancestors.

 

I have already told you exactly what the arrows are. The are the designations of specific ERVs that have been found in the genomes of living primates. Your failure to find them in the papers I provided is certainly because you did not search the entire papers. You searched only the abstracts.

Again, you know specifically the paper from which the cladogram came. Go read it. The whole thing. Not just the abstract.

There is no missing link in the cladogram at all.

Of course. The last common ancestor of the orangutans and the African apes is different from the last common ancestor of the African apes. What about that do you not understand?

You are wrong. The gene sequence is found in all the Old World Monkeys. That's why they chose it as the marker to see if they could also find it in humans.

They did.

You don't really understand the paper at all it seems.

It is clear that you do not understand a single thing you have cut and pasted here. This is in fact evidence reinforcing the proof of common ancestry provided by that specific ERV. If the three lines had shown significantly different divergences, that would have been a problem indicating a different amount of time from the original infection for each. Since the divergences are the same, it shows again that they all inherited it from the same original infected individual.

The only "fail" here was your complete failure to understand what you were reading.

Because it has been the exact same amount of time since the common ancestor for both humans and Green Monkeys.

Insert "duh" here.

 

Make an argument or don't.

But I can see why you are holding back, given the demonstration just now that you still have not read any of the papers, and grossly misunderstood both abstracts that you looked at.

 

I already know about what the whole paper states and put up quotes from the abstract that show that what you suggested is wrong. Until you can provide something that states the opposite, which you won’t, then mine, with link and quote, stand.

It’s funny that you are just like how evolution is. You think that since you “say” something, then it’s true without showing any evidence of what it is that you say IS true! All these people reading see it. No quotes from links that you say are what you say they are. I say they are not and then show you, within your own stupid links, that they in fact are NOT what you say they are. Of course you want to move on now that I have unmasked you to be a fraud…

Yes there is….


Want to read something funny…?

Ready for it? Here it is. In the post above it states, “The last common ancestor of the orangutans and the African apes is different from the last common ancestor of the African apes.” There is two things wrong with that ridiculous statement… Anyone know what it is? I know some of you spot it… I’ll drop a hint – has to do with the word “ape”…

Not wrong – then provide the quote where it says that… because it NEVER states that in the paper… What you did is go off of that stupid TalkOrigins picture and “assume” that what was printed worked with the picture and it doesn’t… Like I said, you have no clue what you are talking about. If you do – quote it like I did…

Can’t do it? Too scared? Don’t know what you’re talking about?

EXACTLY!!!

GREAT!!! It reads as follows: C4 genes of human, orangutan, and African green monkey have similar sequence divergence values of 9.1%-10.5%. Question then… Where is gorillas and chimps? You have no clue again what it is your posting and you don’t understand it at all. You are correct that ERV should show common descent, but as it says, it doesn’t… No chimps or Gorilla… But, we came from a common ancestor. SO!!!! If the Green Monkeys have this, then the whole ape clade “should” have it… But, they don’t… Why?

FAIL!

Good Idea!!! “DUH” for those who think that the example of Humans, tangs and green monkeys is an example of common descent!! A green monkey is one species of monkey – ONE! And it is Old World Monkey at that. Explain how ONE SPECIES of Old World Monkeys has the same percentage as half of the Great Ape classification? Do you even know how retarded that is to suggest that ERV is an evolutionary stepping stone when you don’t have any evidence of this? Draw the line between ONE OLD WORLD MONKEY and ONLY HALF OF THE GREAT APE CLASSIFICATION!!!

You can’t..

FAIL!

 

I love it when people "try" to use the fossil record as evidence... You know I can go to a pet cemetary and do the same thing as above? I could... I could say that mice evolved into cats evolved into dogs into Tucan Sam with a box of Fruit Loops! Just look at the jaw bones!! Just look at the rib cages... or whatever... It's all ridiculous... Especially when less than .0000001 to the 1000000000 % of life on this planet that lived has been fossilized. The number is ridiculously larger, in fact we don't have a number for that it would be like a Google to the Google squared by a Google (if that is even possible)... I would be equivalent to how many seconds has passed on this planet since it's birth is how many 0's there would have to be behind the decimal point of what percent of life has been fossilized...

It's like suggesting that 500,000 years ago the wolf evolved into a great dane...

 

I just got this in a PM from someone reading (I will withhold the posters name) and I found it very interesting...

The DNA sequence and the idea of old DNA from animals of the past and present being akin to that of the humans is no surprise, if you simply look at the Chronology of events there in Genesis 1. Man made from the dirt, the dirt contains DNA of animals that lived before man, God forms man, breathes life into man and man has in his composition, DNA from other animals. No big mystery.

Why do I like it? Because it makes perfect sense... IF there was a God and this is what he did (which is what The Bible states) then of course DNA would be present from what God made the first man from. Then man himself would be different within himself, because he was "created" by God.

I like that Christians know at least what they are talking about and can back it up with Scripture as the Darwnist doesn't have SQUAT!!!!!!!

 

Please explain why you think this please...

 

For giggles...

The common ancestor for humans was the next door neighbor to the green monkey ancestor. They used to play stick ball together! Pick fruit from the tree!

Wait... I was wondering... What were the names of the common ancestor of the green monkey or homosapien sapien? BUT FOLKS!!! Even though we do not know what either is - WKA has assured us they lived AT THE EXACT SAME TIME!!!!!

Thank you WKA!! Thank you...

 

You have provided no links. It is still clear that you have not read a single one of the ones that I provided... quoting as you do only from the abstracts and then demonstrating that you did not even understand what you had quoted.

I have provided six peer referred scientific papers to support what I "say." You have provided no serious response to any of them, and no contradictory research examples of your own. I am content with that circumstance.

There you go again, pretending you have found something wrong and then keeping it a secret. It would merely be tedious were it not for the fact that you never actually get around to revealing any actual errors.

It is among the things that makes interacting with you more boring than it really needs to be.

Right back at you. You claim you read the paper. Support what you claim it says. Provide the quote where it says that the baboon ERV is not found in any other old world monkeys. Because we both know you simply made that up. It's not in the abstract, it's not in the paper.

Such a finding would be earth shattering! It would deserve an entire paper of its own because it would prove evolution false. Where is it, DBS? Where is the single most important scientific finding in the whole paper, and why are you the only one to have noticed it?



But let's not just spend all our time chasing your pathetic red herring. Let's quote the money shot from the Abstract... the critical point that you ignored and the reason I provided you with the paper:

Go ahead. Explain that one.

Who cares? You don't even appear to understand why the divergence was even compared for those three species. Similar divergence values for humans, gorillas and chimpanzees would only test the divergence rate for only about 14% of the 35 million years since the original infection.

Once again, you prove that have no idea what the paper is even about.

Again... the entire clade does have this ERV. Including gorillas and chimps. If a single other old world higher primate did not that would have been the single most important finding of the whole paper.

Alas... no such finding is there.

What does that even mean? You are digging even deeper into a complete failure to understand the first thing about what the paper proves.

All old world monkeys and all apes have the nearly identical divergence for that ERV. That the abstract only mentioned three species was specifically to demonstrate this was true across such widely different old world primates. If you can show a single old world higher primate that does not possess that ERV or has it with a wildly different divergence, please do so.

Go ahead. Prove the paper wrong.

Because until you do, my evidence stands. I have provided six peer refereed scientific papers proving the common ancestry of all higher primates using ERVs to do so.

You have provided nothing.

Your personal confusion does not an argument make.

 

Prove it then. Go to a pet cemetery and find a fossil skull with the intermediate jaw joint of the therapsids. Just one. I'll wait.

You can say anything you want.

Show me the skulls to prove it.

Like I did.

 

There are many common ancestors for humans. Many of them (but not all) were also common ancestors of humans and the other apes. And many of them (but not all) were also common ancestors of humans, apes and Old world monkeys. And so it goes all the way up the tree of life.

Immediately after the split of apes from the old world monkeys, the ancestor of humans would absolutely have been next door neighbor to the ancestor of the Green Monkey. But they would no longer be common ancestors.

You really, really do not have the slightest idea of how any of this works, do you?



This particular ERV proves that the individual who got the original infection that caused the ERV was the same exact common ancestor to humans, apes and the old world monkeys. Not "a neighbor." They were the same exact individual animal.

Not just at the same time. They were the same exact individual animal.

And the ERV proves that.

It is breathtaking how bad your understanding is.

 

For those trying to sort out DBS's confusion regarding the papers I linked for him here is what his issues are:

In one abstract, he noticed that a baboon ERV was used as a template for searching out similar ERVs in human gene libraries. This is, of course, the only way to find ERVs in the first place... looking specifically for a known virus sequence that is on the DNA molecule.

The paper discovered not just that this specific virus sequence was present in human DNA... but also that an identical ERV was found in the identical location in both human and chimpanzee DNA, proving that the humans and chimps had inherited them from the same common ancestor.

Of course DBS ignored that completely and instead made a false and invented claim that the baboon ERV was found in no other old world monkeys. How do we know he invented it? Because that claim can be found nowhere in the paper. It is a complete fabrication.

We are waiting for him to prove otherwise.

His second confusion had to do with a paper that was researching whether or not ERVs would be useful as a "genetic clock." The paper took an already well known ERV that is found in all old world higher primates, and decided to compare the divergence rates for three very different species. The idea was that since green monkeys, orangutans and humans had diverged from each other so long ago the divergence rates of the ERV should be very close to the same if the genetic clock was stable. The three "clocks" would have been running separately from each other for about 30 million years (in the case of the monkey and the two apes) and about 10 million years ago in the case of the orangutan and human.

Sure enough, the genetic clock turned out to be very stable, with the same divergence occurring across all three lines in the same amount of time.

DBS first tried to pretend that this similar divergence was some sort of anomaly when in fact it was the expectation of the experiment.

When that didn't work he invented essentially the same fake claim he did for the other reference, claiming that no other old world primates had that ERV. Of course, the only reason that ERV was selected for the experiment in the first place was because it was already known to be shared across all old world higher primates.

We are waiting for him to prove otherwise.

In short, DBS continues to spin, but has yet to provide a single genuine challenge to the six peer refereed scientific papers I provided him that prove the common ancestry of all the higher primates. At least part of the reason for the shortfall on his part is because he simply doesn't understand them in the first place... and that's even just reading the abstracts.

 

Is that the same way as saying "In one THEORY...."?

 

No. Not even close.

An abstract is the short "executive summary" before a scientific paper giving the brief overview of what is in the paper itself.

It's like a sneak preview of a movie.

 

Yes! "executive summary" is one of the standard definitions of 'abstract' however; "theory" is also another such definition of the word 'abstract'. Is one synonymous with the other?

Well of course they are:

See here the list of synonyms for 'theoretical':
"Other words for theoretical


modif.

ideological, ideal, imaginative, unearthly, idealized, ideational, problematical, analytical, academic, presumed, postulated, assumed, formularized, formalistic, pedantic, codified, technical, intellectual, vague, abstract, general, conjectural, unproved, tentative, suppositional, pure, unsubstantiated, speculative, transcendental, philosophical, logical, metaphysical, contingent, instanced, open to proof, stated as a premise, in theory, on paper, in the abstract, in the realm of ideas; see also hypothetical 1.

Antonyms practical*, applied, factual."

 

If we understand the nature of reality as it pertains to our physical world, we understand the underlying structure of how our world(s) exist.

To me this is really an existential question.

I work with software.
With software we create an environment based upon a set of rules.
We can change or modify the software but we typically need to stay within the rules upon which our environment (application) is based.
Otherwise we "break" the construct and it no longer functions
- ie. we cannot arbitrarily change the nature of our digital environment without repercussions which potentially threaten it's existence.

Reality is only observed through the filter of our limited five senses.
Our physical world is a construct comprised of smaller pieces and what appears solid is similary relative.

Basically the more we delve into the nature of the physical world the less we "know" and the more our base assumptions of reality are challenged.