Posted on 08/26/2009 9:24:24 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
The HAR1F gene: a Darwinian paradox
Unexpected scientific outliers are always interesting, as they offer the opportunity to either identify unsuspected causal factors or to discredit cherished theories. With this in mind, some human genes show such marked dissimilarities to those of chimpanzees that they invite careful reflection. Perhaps the data conforms well with a designed cause. Alternatively, various evolutionary explanations may be invoked. Might one interpretative framework be more plausible than the other?
According to a recent report in Nature, non-random or ordered mutations can be accepted as part of an evolutionary framework. This sounds suspiciously like post facto rationalization and is remarkable since streng verboten teleological implications quickly come to mind. The article speculates on why human brains are so distinct from the brains of chimpanzees. Scientists at the Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz, believe they may have found a key gene, HAR1F, which helped the human brain evolve from that of putative chimp-like ancestors.[1] The Associated Press offered[2] a tantalizing overview:
‘Human brains are triple the size of chimp brains.
‘Looking at 49 areas that have changed the most between the human and chimpanzee genomes, Haussler zeroed in on an area with “a very dramatic change in a relatively short period of time”...
(Excerpt) Read more at creation.com ...
Ping!
Thanks for the ping!
I have noticed when reading articles that the view that humans are so closely linked to chimpanzees has been undergoing a revaluation. There seems to be more differences being discovered which is causing some backpedaling from the view that humans are but a variation on the chimpanzee line that was popular a few years back. I love reading these articles even if some of the items go over my head. There are many things about the origin of humanity that are a unexplained mystery, whether from a creationist viewpoint or a evolutionary one. Certainly I have trouble believing God is as ugly as some of the people who are made in his image.
The very name 'human accelerated region' begs the question of whether evolution has occurred.
Wasn't someone complaining the other day that only creationists could be guilty of such fallacy?
It’s one of many evolutionary equivalents to epicycles.
Yours is an unusually thoughtful reply for these threads. I thought you might also be interested in the following. All the best—GGG
http://creation.com/national-geographic-unveils-wilma-the-neandertal-lady
http://creation.com/taking-a-crack-at-the-neandertal-mitochondrial-genome
Or to frame-dragging, depending on your cosmological preference.
A dramatic chgange in a short period of time?
but but but the evo-liberals demand that it took ga-jillions of years.
OOOPS!
==OOOPS!
It would seem the evos hardly say anything else these days :o)
LOL!
There is no possible observation that is inconsistent with the claim “God made it that way.” There is no conceivable evidence that, if found, would cause someone to say “God could not have done that.” Therefore creationism is inherently unfalsifiable, and therefore it is not and cannot ever be science
There is no possible observation that is inconsistent with the claim "Evolution did it that way." There is no conceivable evidence that, if found, would cause someone to say "Evolution could not have done that." Therefore evolutionism is inherently unfalsifiable, and therefore it is not and cannot ever be science.
See the current evolutionary theory can be falsified simply by finding a clovis point embedded in a T-Rex fossil, how would you falsify id/creationism/cdesign proponents?
[[There seems to be more differences being discovered]]
they KNEW there were vast differences, but they deceitfully portrayed us as ‘close’ while hiding hte differences from general public attention-
first, it’s not 98% ‘identical’ as once claimed, but may be as low as 85% ‘similar’ due to the following:
Second, this ‘similarity’ was concluded only AFTER filling in entire regions of hte chimp’s missing dna sequences with HUMAN sequences
Third- the 98% ‘identical’ claim is grossly misleading because this % is only a % of the less than 1.5% coding region, not hte entire genetic makeup
Fourth- after this fact came out, Evos claiemkd that the remaining 98.5% of hte ‘non coding’ regions weren’t relevent- which as we’re finding out more andm ore, is another deceitful lie, as ‘junk dna’ is being foudn to have very specific purpose contrary to the claims of evos.
Out-of-order fossils are found all the time without falsifying evolutionary 'theory'. The concept is known as 'fossil reworking'. You should do some research into the subject and consider how fallacious the concept is.
In addition, organisms previously thought extinct that are later found alive don't falsify evolution. Coelacanths and wollemi pines come to mind. There is nothing unique about a clovis point in a t-rex fossil that would require the falsification of evolutionary 'theory' when organisms previously thought extinct for millions of years and found living didn't do it.
Were a T-rex fossil found with a clovis point embedded, evolution would seamlessly accept the revision and any creationist making your claim would be roundly ridiculed as 'not understanding how science works'.
Yeah, we know how 'science' works. You just make it up as you go along with one constant, it is always founded on the assumption of naturalism.
Intelligent Design is Falsifiable
Discovery Institute
Center for Science & Culture
© 2005
There is a belief among media commentators that intelligent design is unscientific because it is unfalsifiable or untestable: no empirical evidence can count against it.
Though common, this charge is demonstrably false. Of course there’s no way to falsify a mere assertion that a cosmic designer exists. This much we are agreed on. But contemporary design arguments focus not on such vague claims, but on detectible evidence for design in the natural world. Therefore, the design arguments currently in
play are falsifiable.1
How does one test and discredit Behe’s argument? Describe a realistic, continuously functional Darwinian pathway from simple ancestor to present motor.
Darwinists like Kenneth Miller point to the hope of future discoveries, and to the type III secretory system as a machine possibly co-opted on the evolutionary path to the flagellum. The argument is riddled with problems, but it shows that Miller, at least, understands perfectly well that Behe’s argument is testable. Similarly, the Internet is filled with supposed refutations of contemporary design arguments, many written by scientists using information from the natural world to make their arguments. An argument can’t be both open to falsifiability and unfalsifiable at the same time.
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?id=494
Is Intelligent Design Testable?
FALSIFIABILITY: Is intelligent design falsifiable? Is Darwinism falsifiable? Yes to the first question, no to the second. Intelligent design is eminently falsifiable. Specified complexity in general and irreducible complexity in biology are within the theory of intelligent design the key markers of intelligent agency. If it could be shown that biological systems like the bacterial flagellum that are wonderfully complex, elegant, and integrated could have been formed by a gradual Darwinian process (which by definition is non-telic), then intelligent design would be falsified on the general grounds that one doesn’t invoke intelligent causes when purely natural causes will do. In that case Occam’s razor finishes off intelligent design quite nicely.
On the other hand, falsifying Darwinism seems effectively impossible. To do so one must show that no conceivable Darwinian pathway could have led to a given biological structure. What’s more, Darwinists are apt to retreat into the murk of historical contingency to shore up their theory. For instance, Allen Orr in his critique of Behe’s work shortly after _Darwin’s Black Box_ appeared remarked, “We have no guarantee that we can reconstruct the history of a biochemical pathway.” What he conceded with one hand, however, he was quick to retract with the other. He added, “But even if we can’t, its irreducible complexity cannot count against its gradual evolution.”
The fact is that for complex systems like the bacterial flagellum no biologist has or is anywhere close to reconstructing its history in Darwinian terms. Is Darwinian theory therefore falsified? Hardly. I have yet to witness one committed Darwinist concede that any feature of nature might even in principle provide countervailing evidence to Darwinism. In place of such a concession one is instead always treated to an admission of ignorance. Thus it’s not that Darwinism has been falsified or disconfirmed, but that we simply don’t know enough about the biological system in question and its historical context to determine how the Darwinian mechanism might have produced it.
For instance, to neutralize the challenge that the irreducible complexity of the bacterial flagellum raises against Darwinism, Ken Miller employs the following argument from ignorance. Like the rest of the biological community, Miller doesn’t know how the bacterial flagellum originated. The biological community’s ignorance about the flagellum, however, doesn’t end with its origin but extends to its very functioning. For instance, according to David DeRosier, “The mechanism of the flagellar motor remains a mystery.” Miller takes this admission of ignorance by DeRosier and uses it to advantage. In _Finding Darwin’s God_ he writes: “Before [Darwinian] evolution is excoriated for failing to explain the evolution of the flagellum, I’d request that the scientific community at least be allowed to figure out how its various parts work.” But in the article by DeRosier that Miller cites, Miller conveniently omits the following quote: “More so than other motors, the flagellum resembles a machine designed by a human.”
So apparently we know enough about the bacterial flagellum to know that it is designed or at least design-like. Indeed, we know what most of its individual parts do. Moreover, we know that the flagellum is irreducibly complex. Far from being a weakness of irreducible complexity as Miller suggests, it is a strength of the concept that one can determine whether a system is irreducibly complex without knowing the precise role that each part in the system plays (one need only knock out individual parts and see if function is preserved; knowing what exactly the individual parts do is not necessary). Miller’s appeal to ignorance obscures just how much we know about the flagellum, how compelling the case is for its design, and how unfalsifiable Darwinism is when Darwinists proclaim that the Darwinian selection mechanism can account for it despite the absence of any identifiable biochemical pathway.
http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_isidtestable.htm
Those hwo object that ID ‘isn’t falisifiable’ and ‘therefore not science’ are objectiing why? Not because ID isn’t infact not falsifiable, but rather that they CAN’T falsify ID because they haven’t been able to show Macroevolution in action lol- they are throwing a hizzy fit because they can’t falsify ID, and because nature ifnact DOES show design (which they disingeniously dismiss out of hand as nature ‘pulling a fast one on us’ lol), and they have no explanation for how nature could produce Designed IC, so they move the goalposts by exclaiming that ID can’t be falsified when what they really mean is that Naturalism can’t explain ID
[[Yeah, we know how ‘science’ works. You just make it up as you go along with one constant, it is always founded on the assumption of naturalism.]]
The goalposts used by evos are quite mobile dontchaknow? The goalposts keep moving- dependign on which direction is more conducive to keepign he dream of macroevolution alive
“Second, this ‘similarity’ was concluded only AFTER filling in entire regions of hte chimp’s missing dna sequences with HUMAN sequences”
—I’ve seen you make that claim several times. Do you have a source for that?
The sort of stats I’m finding are like what I pasted below; which says about 98.5% for dna that can be compared, and drops to about 96% when deletions/insertions are taken into account (if human dna was inserted into missing parts, that number would actually go up, not down.)
http://www.genome.gov/15515096
The DNA sequence that can be directly compared between the two genomes is almost 99 percent identical. When DNA insertions and deletions are taken into account, humans and chimps still share 96 percent of their sequence.
...
About 35 million DNA base pairs differ between the shared portions of the two genomes, each of which, like most mammalian genomes, contains about 3 billion base pairs. In addition, there are another 5 million sites that differ because of an insertion or deletion in one of the lineages, along with a much smaller number of chromosomal rearrangements.
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