Scientists are beginning to analyze the DNA differences between modern humans and our extinct archaic relatives, the Denisovans. (National Human Genome Research Institute)
Posted on 09/01/2012 5:42:46 AM PDT by Pharmboy
Scientists are beginning to analyze the DNA differences between modern humans and our extinct archaic relatives, the Denisovans. (National Human Genome Research Institute)
Genome of ancient Denisovans may help clarify human evolution
Scientists recently reported they had pieced together a high-quality sequence of an archaic human relative, the Denisovans.
Among other things, the researchers took a close look at the ways in which we differ from these people, who were named after the place where their traces were discovered: Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia....snip
It's "fascinating" to see the DNA changes that spread to most or all modern humans since our line split off from that of the Denisovans and the Neanderthals, said senior author Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. It's like taking a look at the last steps in human evolutionary history.
"The amazing thing to me is that [it is] not an astronomically long list," he said at a press conference on Wednesday. ...snip
Boring down even further, the researchers found 23 amino-acid changes that we have but Denisovans and monkeys and apes don't have. These might be especially likely to be important in making us who we are, Paabo said.
"It's quite interesting to me that eight have to do with brain function and brain development ... and some of them have to do with genes which, for example, can cause autism when the genes are mutated," he said.
And the autism-linked genes are interesting because a lot of what it takes to get by in human society, with all its politics and manipulation, has to do with being able to "read" the likely feelings of others, to get inside the head of another person.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Therefore evolution must provide an explanation which provides a description of specific genetic changes and the morphological changes which correspond with each of them.
Number of chromosome pairs is irrelevant to quantity of genetic material passed from one generation to the next. Meiosis and fertilization are important events to understand here.
You get exactly half (on average) of each parent’s genetic material. The same thing happened to them from their parents, which means you have exactly one fourth (on average) of genetic material from each grandparent.
As for speciation—if it doesn’t exist, there can be no such thing as descent with modification and evolution is therefore only a figment of our imaginations.
Science is not about truth. It is about proof.
Religion is about truth.
Never the twain shall meet.
I think this is a false categorization of religion and science.
For example, are your comments religious or scientific? Are they true?
Is it not true to say that force equals mass times acceleration?
And where does philosophy fit in? Logic, which deals with proof, is central to philosophy. But nobody would say philosophy isn’t about truth.
Outstanding! Very creative way of injecting a babe into a science thread!
She blinded me.
With science.
No, evolution continues all the time, because it is change, period. Speciation is merely a subset of that change. The rest of your post is a figment of your imagination.
Darwinian evolution can happen even if speciation is impossible?
Since you brought it up, you can answer your own question. You’re just a slippery eel and a troll, and I’ll waste no further time with you.
Leaving the personal attacks to those who don’t really believe their own arguments, let’s you and I review just how evolution can occur if no single species can change into another, ever.
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