[ml/nj]

I have many difficulties with "evolution." This is the one I was referring to in my earlier post on this thread.

I asked the professor whether he believed that evolution occurred gradually over long periods of time, or rather was the result of some sudden change. He, like most, answered that it was the result of imperceptible changes over a long period of time.

I then asked if he believed in genetics and, more specifically if he believed in chromosomes. And of course he did.

I pointed out that humans (capable of reproducing anyway) have 23 chromosome pairs, and that at sometime we must have "evolved" from some animal with 22 pairs, or possibly some other number. But since the simplest animals have just one pair end we evolved from them we must have made the jump to 23 pairs at some point along the way. I asked him how this could be done gradually. He didn't have an answer. (The conversation was a little more detailed than this, but that's the gist of it.)

ML/NJ

[Doctor Stochastic]

Horses and donkeys don't have the same number of chromosomes, but they do mate.

Humans often have an extra chromsome, (for example, Al Gore pointed out that Republicans have an extra Y chromosome.)

Plants (and some amphibians) often exhibit polyploidy.

[Dimensio]

Doing a search on Google with 'human "chromosome pair" evolution' gave me a number of hits that I could probably explore for a much more thorough debunking, but here's a sample from one selected page:

"...some organisms maintain genetic barriers that basically result from a change in the overall number of pairs of chromosomes. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans all have 24 pairs of chromosomes. Since these ape species are our closest primate relatives, we can conclude that the common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans had 24 pairs chromosomes, and that two pairs of chromosomes became fused at some point during the evolution of the human branch of the ape tree."

I would assume that chromosome seperation would allow for an increase in chromosomes (I'll dig up some more web pages if you want), but it's safe to say that your 'refutation' falls a bit flat (especially when your claim puts humans as being 'more simple' than chimpanzees, since they have more chromosome pairs).