Stupid Christian Article on Evolution

[A'isha]

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That's where you are wrong. There are not new traits. There are genes they didn't expect to be there.

Why is that?

Why were they "surprised" in the coral study, for example?

It's simpler than that in this paper. The authors say they were "surprised" at the level of genetic complexity and mention finding genetic sequences for vertebrate and human nerve function and how since these functions don't exist, they were "surprised" to find them.

Why were they "surprised"?

Again, you're completely wrong about what and why the scientists said in the paper. They didn't expect to see those genes in the coral, because those genes weren't in intermediate invertebrates. That's all.

And to say "those functions don't exist", and that's why the scientists were also surprised, is just as wrong. As the paper itself notes, every one of those genes functions just like it's supposed to in the coral.

They were surprised because, before this, those genes were only found as a small part of the larger vertebrate nervous system. But here, they're performing the same functions for the much simpler nervous system of the coral. Basic functions, mind you, not complex functions.

In other words, they didn't find a complex nervous system in corals, like you keep trying to imply. The found that the basic nervous system in corals uses a few small parts that were previously only found in complex vertebrate nervous systems. But the presence of those small parts does not in any way mean that the coral's nervous system is more complex than previously thought (since other invertebrates like insects that don't use those parts have a more complex neural system than corals do).

To go back to the automotive analogy, fuel injection systems are found only in complex, modern cars. If we were to find an old car built before the Model T that uses a primitive version of fuel injection, but was otherwise built exactly like all the other cars of the period, that would certainly be surprising and unexpected.

But it sure as hell wouldn't imply that the old car is as complex and advanced as today's cars, nor that it had an engine just like modern engines due to the presence of that one feature in common.

 

[randman]

That's all he was asked for.

Thank you. Maybe being willing to answer a question from an evo is a good basis not be taken seriously.....

 

[dlorde]

They'd have to not be as old as they are considered to be as a group of creatures in order to have been vertebrates at one time and evolved into simpler organisms. It seems unlikely.

Unlikely indeed! chordate vertebrates that somehow evolved into Cnidarians? - a different phylum altogether

Your understanding of the field becomes obvious.

 

[randman]

I've tried with you, but maybe we have nothing to talk about. Your comments are too confused and tired of correcting them. You say, for example:

In other words, they didn't find a complex nervous system in corals, like you keep trying to imply.

I have never stated or implied that. In fact, once again, I have stated the exact opposite repeatedly; that they do not have a complex nervous system.

I tried but just flat out and continually claiming the opposite of what I write is my claim is tiring. If you want to debate, show me you properly understand my points and acknowledge them, and THEN argue about them.

Your approach is to just throw out false claims of what I have written and then waste my time having to correct you.

No, the corals don't have a complex nervous system. Never said they have. Yes, they scientists were "surprised" just as I stated. Yes, they did say human "genes" were found in the corals corresponding to complex human nerve function. No, I never implied then the corals had a complex nervous system.

Yes, they did say they were genetically "complex", etc,etc,.....

Try considering the argument of someone else before misrepresenting it out of ignorance.

 

[A'isha]

You are reaching and stretching. They don't cite human homologs for nothing, but that's besides the point anyway and not germane to the discussion.

No, they say that stuff right in the paper. They cite human homologs only because for the purposes of their project they were comparing it to the human genome (and not any other vertebrate genome), not because those things couldn't be found in any other vertebrate genome.

To restate, they expected these genes to emerge along with the function of complex nerve function. That's what I am getting at. It shouldn't even be controversial. That's what evos expected to find. They expected such genes to emerge and evolve along with vertebrate nerve function.

No. They didn't expect those genes to emerge along with the function of complex nerve function. It was the other way around.

They weren't expecting those genes there because they weren't found in other invertebrate organisms, and so they thought that meant those genes had emerged along with vertebrate nerve function (not should, as you seem to think they did, but had).

In other words, they didn't make a prediction and then look for evidence, they looked at evidence and drew a conclusion.

Now they have new evidence, and so they're drawing a new conclusion. That's how this whole process works, you know.

 

[A'isha]

I have never stated or implied that. In fact, once again, I have stated the exact opposite repeatedly; that they do not have a complex nervous system.

You said that they have genes for a complex nervous system, which they shouldn't have since they don't actually have a complex nervous system, implying then that evolution is wrong since the genes for the complex human nervous system didn't evolve at all, but were all present as far back as the ancestral metazoan, with no new genes added to create that system in humans.

I'm saying that they have genes that are also found in a complex nervous system but aren't actually complex in and of themselves, since the specific nervous system functions expressed by these genes are not complex in the least, and are used in that non-complex way by the coral's simple nervous system, and that to get from those genes in the simple coral nervous system to our complex nervous system requires a lot of evolution, including the addition of a lot of new genes to create that system.

Do you even understand the difference?

Yes, they did say human "genes" were found in the corals corresponding to complex human nerve function.

No, they didn't say human genes. They said genes that are found in humans, that are also found in every other vertebrate ever.

Let me ask you something. Would you describe the frog Xenopus laevis as having a complex human nerve function? Because, by describing the genes found in the coral that way, you're doing that.

 

[randman]

Here are some comments from the scientists about their research. If you guys keep failing to realize what just one paper says, how can we discuss a bunch of them.

Our research has yielded several unexpected results.

Note the comment "unexpected results."

First, the complexity of the A. millepora genome has proven to be surprising, considering the relatively simple cellular organisation of these animals. We now estimate that there are at least 20,000 genes in the coral genome, many more than we would have guessed when we started the project.

They are surprised because of the relatively simple cellular organization of the corals. That's the reason, not that later stages have less. That's a secondary point. Note the word "second" in the next sentence.

Second, many genes previously thought to be vertebrate specific, because they were missing from Drosophila and Caenorhabditis, are present in the genome of A. millepora. This finding indicates that gene loss has played a major role in the evolution of a number of genomes. In addition there often appears to be a greater similarity between the genes of corals and humans, than between coral and the first model invertebrates, Drosophila and Caenorhabditis. Third, Acropora contains a substantial number of "non-metazoan genes" in its genome. Because in many cases these genes contain introns, are clearly incorporated into the coral DNA and occur in scattered other organisms from throughout the animal kingdom, we argue that these are ancient metazoan genes which have been lost in many animals.

http://www.cmgd.adelaide.edu.au/research/dev_evo/#coral
Here they do mention vertebrate genes being absent and so assumed they arose with vertebrates but that doesn't change the fact they expected a simpler genome. What is not stated and clearly implied is that they expected the genes to emerge with vertebrates because the genes for vertebrate function would be expected to emerge with that function.

They go on to show why they expect the common metazoan ancestor to be much more complex than previously considered. Of course, that creature would be even more simpler in it's cellular organization than the coral. So it is even more surprising to expect greater complexity rather than less going back to the LCA.

Why is it surprising to expect the LCA to have greater complexity than perhaps any of it's ancestors?

Answer that and we are getting somewhere. It's not that just that other simple organism have simpler genomes. It's that genes are thought to emerge with greater function. They tell you that by saying in their paper these findings "overturn" common assumptions about how things evolved.

What are those assumptions?

That the more primitive the organism, the more primitive the genome as a general pattern. The idea of evolution occurring via massive loss of genes is not to be expected.

 

[bikerdruid]

creationist science is an oxymoron.

 

[Lowpro]

Ok, looked at it. No, an extinct cattle does not say much to me in this debate.

The fact that Auroch's play the ancestor to Zebu and most all domesticated cattle. I prime example of speciation, which you need for macro evolution.

 

[randman]

No, they say that stuff right in the paper. They cite human homologs only because for the purposes of their project they were comparing it to the human genome (and not any other vertebrate genome), not because those things couldn't be found in any other vertebrate genome.



No. They didn't expect those genes to emerge along with the function of complex nerve function. It was the other way around.

They weren't expecting those genes there because they weren't found in other invertebrate organisms, and so they thought that meant those genes had emerged along with vertebrate nerve function (not should, as you seem to think they did, but had).

In other words, they didn't make a prediction and then look for evidence, they looked at evidence and drew a conclusion.

Now they have new evidence, and so they're drawing a new conclusion. That's how this whole process works, you know.

They up-front say their findings contradict and overturn what they expected and general assumptions about evolution, and specifically comment on "massive loss of genes" in respect to that.

It's clear to anyone that the expectation was the same thing evos have long held, a slow accumulation of genes, not greater complexity with even simpler organisms.

They specifically suggest the LCA would be have greater complexity, and of course, even though it would be even simpler in it's cellular organizational structure.

Why you won't acknowledge these things is beyond me?

 

[randman]

The fact that Auroch's play the ancestor to Zebu and most all domesticated cattle. I prime example of speciation, which you need for macro evolution.

Right up front thought it was clear that speciation was not the issue. What happens with speciation?

Generally a subgroup is isolated geographically or sexually and then evolves? The process of isolation reduces the number of available genes. It's evolution in the wrong direction.

Have evos ever showed a mutation rate that increases the number of available genes greater than the massive loss via reduction in members through isolation?

Or is this just something else we have to take on faith?

 

[dlorde]

Do you actually think that the paper says the coral has all the genes for our complex nervous system, just laying about unused in its genome?

I think he does.

They use human because they were looking for those genes in comparison to the specific human genome. But you are aware that just because a gene is found in humans that doesn't mean it's exclusive to humans, right?

They were probably using human sequences as representative of modern vertebrates in general because it's well-sequenced and freely available.

 

[Lowpro]

Right up front thought it was clear that speciation was not the issue. What happens with speciation?

Generally a subgroup is isolated geographically or sexually and then evolves? The process of isolation reduces the number of available genes. It's evolution in the wrong direction.

Have evos ever showed a mutation rate that increases the number of available genes greater than the massive loss via reduction in members through isolation?

Or is this just something else we have to take on faith?

Not quite a lesson here is needed on Hardy Weinberg equilibrium and genetic drift for you I see. You need to have an understanding of genetics, allele frequency, and how mutations work.

 

[A'isha]

They up-front say their findings contradict and overturn what they expected and general assumptions about evolution, and specifically comment on "massive loss of genes" in respect to that.

It's clear to anyone that the expectation was the same thing evos have long held, a slow accumulation of genes, not greater complexity with even simpler organisms.

And in the conclusion, the paper's authors say that we really shouldn't be assuming that, since it's not only not true about evolution, it gives misleading impressions that result in surprises that shouldn't be surprises, like that uncovered in the article.

Why you won't acknowledge these things is beyond me?

Acknowledge that the assumptions like the above exist, sure.

But why you insist that these assumptions are an integral part of evolutionary theory, when the very paper you cited says, in effect, "this is why we need to stop assuming this, because it's not part of evolutionary theory and will only hurt our understanding of things" is beyond me.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

It's simpler than that in this paper. The authors say they were "surprised" at the level of genetic complexity and mention finding genetic sequences for vertebrate and human nerve function and how since these functions don't exist, they were "surprised" to find them.

The paper doesn't say that at all. This has been pointed out to you. Repeating this claim does not make it true.

 

[randman]

Here's another paper that gets into this subject.

The remarkable genetic complexity of anthozoancnidarians implies that most of the qualitative genetic differences between animals and other eukaryotes are ancestral, and begs the question do these differences correlate with the evolution of multicellularity in the animal lineage?

http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...serid=10&md5=d8b459d1eba9329181fed31f50583ec4

articles about it

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2005/12/06-02.html

 

[A'isha]

Here's another paper that gets into this subject.



http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...serid=10&md5=d8b459d1eba9329181fed31f50583ec4

articles about it

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2005/12/06-02.html

Yes, as these articles from six years ago show, evolution does not depend on the assumption that early organisms were always simple and later organisms always complex.

Which is what we've been trying to tell you.

 

[dlorde]

Which is what we've been trying to tell you.

I think we're wasting our time, he's hearing but not listening, reading but not understanding.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

They tell you that by saying in their paper these findings "overturn" common assumptions about how things evolved.

At no point in any of the papers you've linked to is the word "overturn" used. Your implying that it is by putting it in quotes is dishonest.

 

[Dinwar]

I think we're wasting our time, he's hearing but not listening, reading but not understanding.

Actually, by his own admission he's not reading.

randman, how many of the books I've linked you to have you read in the last hour? Can we assume, since you continue to post on this subject, that you have read them? If so, please show how Chapter 2 of "Evolutionary Analysis" is wrong. Specifically, please address the following issues:

1) Direct observation of change in allele frequency through time AND morphology through time AND direct observation of sepciation.

2) The presence of vestigial organs, such as eye sockets in blind fish, vestigial wings in the kiwi, and hind limbs in the rubber boa (I'm limiting it to these because the authors provide pictures)

3) Mass extinctions and subsequent recovery in the fossil record (I'd reocmmend Peter Ward's work on this for further reading)

4) The Law of Succession (please understand what this is before you respond)

5) Transitional forms including Archaeopteryx and all of those from China, the whale intermediate fossils you admit exist, and those mollusk fossils I mentioned. I'll also mention radiolarians, forams, diatoms, and other microfossils.

6) Evidence of environmental change and associated faunal transitions.

7) Homologies (and here they reference photographs of embryos by Richardson et al., 1998, shattering your argument that we still use disproven embriology studies)

8) Molecular homologies (listed in the text; the big one is that we all use predominantly the same DNA)

Those are the major points that actually deal with your arguments. How we can have inheretable variation (observed by everyone who's ever dealt with animals) and deep geologic time (meaning an Earth that's billions of years old) without having evolution is beyond me; those two facts alone are enough to support the theory. With those eight points (from the text; they are not the only ones) the theory is more or less proven. Unless you can prove what this text says wrong.