not true.they consider shared mutations as evidence for a commondescent. and non shared mutations as unique to the species. so its a circular reasoning.
What to you mean, “not true”? Are you suggesting that common ancestry does not lead to this prediction? If you are actually aiming to communicate that one of the standard and obvious predictions of evolutionary theory is just a muddled misunderstanding, then I’m afraid you will have to do so using more than a punchy “not true” and a single sentence containing two vagrant periods. I get aiming at concise, but overthrowing the bulk of modern science might require a little more legwork and sweat on the brow. Don’t worry, it’ll be well worth the effort when you get there;-)
The rest of your response is trying to be an argument, but it’s missing something (maybe a little, maybe a lot, I just can’t tell). How is it circular reasoning? The extensive pattern (and nested hierarchy) of shared mutations, as discussed above, is strong evidence for common descent while being a total mystery even for the wiliest baraminologist. I would love to hear a fleshed out (that is, multi-sentence) description of how this pattern is predicted from a YEC perspective. Maybe an argument can be made, but I haven’t heard it yet. The second part of your argument is that non-shared mutations are (usually) unique to the species. Ok. Yes, this is a reasonable explanation for non-shared mutations. Non-shared mutations are certainly explainable by both camps. This being the fairly obvious reason why non-shared mutations are not the focus of the discussion. Having figured out why this is a red herring that does not belong in this or any conversation of this type, let’s go back to your pending explanation of shared mutations. As others have pointed out above, you need to flesh out your theory, because no one seems to know how you come to the conclusion that YEC predicts what we see.
Thanks,
yep. evolution doesnt predict that two pseudogenes at 2 species must have the same mutations. you can always claim its the result of individual loss.
ok. so you are saying that creation model cant explain those shared mutations? can you give a specific example? thanks.
Individual loss? Out of curiosity, do you have an understanding of the probabilities involved here? To have not just one, but a pattern of shared pseudogene mutations for two species that are, by your account, unrelated? This time, more than one sentence is not needed, just yes or no, and a bit of explanation. If you have murky sense that it is not particularly likely that we end up with this pattern by chance, then good, it is a start, and you will at least have a sense of what you have to contend against. If you are able to get the sense that it is astronomically unlikely, then great, we are almost on the same page. If you don’t at all understand the probabilities involved, then at least be frank, and say that you’ve never really considered it. If you recognize that it is absurdly unlikely to get these results with separate creation, but you have an alternative explanation that can produce this same pattern over and over again, then please, go ahead, let’s hear it. I’ll repeat; “not true” is nice, but it doesn’t somehow make astronomical improbabilities disappear in a puff of smoke, it just means that you don’t understand or you don’t care about what is likely or unlikely when maintaining your position. Please try a bit harder to produce an argument. “No, I don’t really get the probabilities” would be fine; not understanding what is involved here but maintaining your position on faith would just mean you don’t have much to say on the subject and we can leave it at that.
You`re joking. You’d like me to offer a counter-example to an argument you haven’t made. DC, I have long understood that one of your tactics is answering questions with question or trying to pass the burden of the argument to the other person, but this just seems silly. If you can explain how special creation predicts these patterns as clearly as possible, I will try to help you out, but let’s not put the cart before the horse. In case that was not clear: you generally need to offer an actual explanation before anyone can know how to assess or refute that explanation in any way.
"Individual loss? Out of curiosity, do you have an understanding of the probabilities involved here? To have not just one, but a pattern of shared pseudogene mutations for two species that are, by your account, unrelated? "-
again- what is the problem? according to the data gorila and human shared about 15% of their genomes that doesnt shared with chimp. its mean that 1 in about 7 genes\pseudogenes in human and gorila shared mutations that chimp doesnt . so thousands bases are shared without a commondescent. therefore shared mutations cant be evidence for a commondescent. we can even arrange them in hierarchy for a specific gene- 1 mutation is shared between human gorila and chimp , and one is shared between gorila and human but not chimp.
dcs, you’ve had incomplete lineage sorting explained to you at least three times (that I am aware of). Those explanations seem to have had no effect on you.
Have you ever wondered why the pattern of relatedness between humans and other primates exactly matches the ILS pattern? Humans are the closest relatives to chimpanzees, then gorillas, then orang-utans. This pattern of relatedness predicts that humans will share the most ILS with gorillas and then orang-utans. Indeed, we were able to predict in advance how much ILS we expected in both cases, and the predictions matched up with the observed values very well.
As for probabilities, it’s not just mutations in two species you have to account for (not that your “explanation” for two species works). We see scores of shared mutations across many species (for example humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and orang-utans. Do you have a sense of how improbable it would be to have all of these mutations crop up independently in unrelated species, yet give a nested hierarchy pattern? Every mutation event is an extremely low probability event to begin with.
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DC, since you already know all about ILS in great detail, I can’t imagine that this is anything more than an effort to distract from my requests for you to explain, using the creation model, why there is any pattern of shared mutations in pseudogenes at all if these species truly are unrelated. No, I don’t think you need ILS explained to you again and no, the distraction did not work. Please let’s move back to what has been repeatedly requested of you. I would appreciate it if you would explain your hypothesis as to how your model predicts such statistically unlikely results. Why should there be such a pattern of shared mutations at all if these species don’t share a common ancestor with this same pattern? Where does it come from? Or just say that you can’t explain it, which would be an acceptable, honest response. Honestly, there are very few options that I can picture for how to deal with this evidence from the YEC perspective, I’m just looking for some follow-through here.
I’ll note that the evasion (assuming this is what this last response was) might have actually worked if I hadn’t followed exactly those recent discussions where people kept explaining exactly this pattern (ILS) to you in careful and patient detail, including how and why it is predicted. At the very least, even if you did not understand a single one of those well-crafted explanations, you would be aware that there is an uncontroversial explanation available and you would no longer be in a position to act as though this was a contradiction to what is expected given common descent. This is the problem with posting for a long time on the same forum; (a) the repeated use of the same strategies become transparent and recognized after a while and (b) you can’t suddenly unknow something that you are known to know;-). If I am wrong, and you actually didn’t realize that ILS is the well known explanation of this pattern, then please tell me and although I will be bewildered, I will of course apologize for misreading your last comment.
I really do want to hear if there is a going YEC hypothesis designed to explain this pattern, and I frankly wouldn’t be surprised if there was just such an explanation (though I also wouldn’t be surprised if it fell apart when looked at the least bit closely). A bit like hydrological sorting in flood geology or different ecological zones leading to the vertical pattern of fossils in the geological column: absolutely awful explanations, but at least they threw something out there for anyone who just needed to hear that they had some kind of a response. I just haven’t seen this particular explanation yet in YEC writings and I’m hoping to engage with it if it exists. The Vitellogen paper (the original) being discussed above is actually the most direct YEC response that I have ever seen on this kind of issue, and now that it is being dismantled so easily, it is proving to be a huge disappointment for me (weirdly, a part of me is rooting for them when they make these efforts). I actually expected better from AiG, I really took it at face value when they told me that the 150 bp sequence was all there was to it. The reason why I am interested in seeing a genuine creationist response to these arguments is that I look at this sort of genetic evidence as being powerful and conclusive, and I find that the “not true” responses and the transparent evasions that are common in YEC circles do a great disservice to any honest dialogue between the positions.
thanks dennis. i also explained why i think that it isnt a prediction but a simple logic (if most of the genome is similar then most of the coding genes will be similar too).
even if it not was the case- evolution will not have any problem. we can always say that the coding genes was under a different selection pressure.
depend in what method you use. if you go by morphological traits then the orang-utan is closer to human then chimp. so even the basic tree is in doubt.
lets see. first- we know that about 15% is closer between human and gorila then chimp, and about 0.5% is closer between orang-utan and human then chimp. so about one in a 7*200 (1400) genes can show us an opossite tree- chimp-orang-gorila-human. so we can get an hierarchy without any commondescent.
see my comment to prof venema. we can get shared mutations without any commondescent. so shared mutations cant be evidence for a commondescent.
You’ve said this countless times in total apparent ignorance of how it is possible to end up with such an extensive pattern of mutations without common descent and without the slightest bit of support. It doesn’t interest me right now:
Please stop trying to get out of a simple request that has been repeated multiple times. Answer the question DC. How does special creation predict shared patterns of mutations in pseudogenes among unrelated species? I really want to know.
You have a choice, either say you don’t know, or please go ahead and offer your perspective on this (I have already told you why it interests me). There is no third option if you are really responding this request. A sidebar discussion on incomplete lineage sorting that highlights your continuing (and astonishing) avoidance of what has been repeatedly explained to you is not your third option.
Your only other choice is to refuse to answer the question, which is well within your rights, but if this is what you chose, I see no reason why you shouldn’t do it directly and honestly instead of trying to change the subject. Answer the question or refuse to do so, but by all means, please just be straightforward. You choose to be on this forum and you choose to discuss these topics; if this is so, you have chosen to deal with the direction that every discussion takes, whether you like what this demands of you or not.
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here is 2 examples:
http://www.nature.com/news/convergent-evolution-seen-in-hundreds-of-genes-1.13679
so the creation model predict that shared mutations is the result of convergent creation. and this data support that possibility. we can explain shared mutations without any need from evolution.
Hello dcs,
Neither of those is an example. Neither one is about the identical nucleotide changes that are the subject here.
You should consider going beyond skimming abstracts.
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The positives first:
You have a wonderful tendency to turn up very interesting papers that and I enjoy scanning through them. I really appreciate this and you have brought some very interesting material to my attention so nicely done! Obviously, none of the authors come to anything like the conclusions that you come to, and this should but doesn’t raise red flags in your mind, but be that as it may…
The negatives:
You once again did not answer the question. I did not ask how common selection pressures may result in a degree of convergent evolution at a molecular level. I asked how patterns of mutations in pseudogenes (therefore not involving common selection pressures) can be similar in unrelated (according to you) species. We are not discussing mutations that result in substituting single amino acids in similar active sites to increase enzymatic activity (for example), or mutations that may result in a shift in protein conformation resulting in changes in allosteric regulation (for another example) which could be the result of convergent evolution due to the constraints of the fitness landscape; we are discussing mutations that apparently scramble the gene, such as insertions, deletions, or inversions that change all subsequent amino acids, stop codons introduced early in the coding region, or upscale mutations that render regulatory regions non-functional (but recognizable). This is the whole point of discussing patterns of mutations in pseudogenes; such stochastic mutations are not even plausibly driven by common selection pressures.
You did indeed provide a plausible mechanism for something (ironically, the mechanism you provided was, wait for it: natural selection!!), but not for what we are talking about. This type of explanation just doesn’t make sense for pseudogene mutations. Very interesting papers and thanks for the information, but no, I’m still waiting for a plausible YEC mechanism that explains these patterns, patterns that are astronomically unlikely on the grounds of chance alone. Once again, common descent explains them in the simplest way possible. What is the YEC mechanism? It has taken a long time and a lot of effort to even get you to try to present a mechanism and unfortunately it is not applicable to what we are discussing. Should I keep trying or will it take another 10 posts to get a straight answer?
Thanks.
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ok. first- its also happaned in pseudogenes. again- if about 15% of the genome is closer between gorila and human then chimp- its also include pseodogenes. so one in every 7 pseudogenes we will find mutations that shared between gorila and human but not chimp.
No DC, I’m sorry but we are not switching over to a pointless discussion about your refusal to even think about incomplete lineage sorting (lest it begins to make sense to you, leading to all sorts of tragic consequences;-). I have already said this quite clearly and I am not sure why I am forced to repeat it. Please stop trying to change the subject (again) and please don’t bring up ILS anymore as I am not interested in being the next person to try to explain it to you (the others did it better than I could anyway).
Back to the request: Please explain how YEC predicts a similar pattern of mutations in pseudogenes, where convergent selection pressures are not applicable. If, on the other hand, you have evidence that a pseudogene like Vitellogenin is undergoing convergent selection pressures between species, somehow leading to a similar pattern of mutations that would scramble any possible resulting protein (that this sequence doesn’t produce anymore anyway), then please, present it. The papers you have linked to do not present anything of the sort. If you are not able to do this, then I will begin counting I guess (hey, it works with the kids); this is the first evasion. I can’t even rise to the level of saying “nice try”, since what you’ve offered seems to be a stock reply that has been repeated and answered multiple times. Care to try again? Second try (we restarted the counter):
one mechanism is “hot spots”. in some regions in the genome the mutation rate is much higher. and because of this fact some bases change faster then other. the reslut can be shared mutations without a commondescent.
Nice! That wasn’t an evasion at all! But of course; no. Hot spots are regions that undergo higher rates of mutation, not individual bases that somehow mutate in exactly the same way for different species. This simply has nothing to do with the pattern we see. At best you would end up with increased scrambling in these regions (and in different ways for different species), not the exact same sequence. This doesn’t even start to explain what we see. Thanks for trying to offer a possible mechanism. Please try again.
so its not possible to find the same bases convergently in a 2 pseudogenes?
Hi DC, based on the mechanisms you have suggested, this would not be the predicted outcome of the YEC position. Convergent selection pressures are certainly at work in the genome and as your interesting articles pointed out, the adaptive landscape is narrower than once thought, but no, this most certainly does not lead to a prediction of the outcome we are discussing. I have already given the reasons for this and you have not presented counter-evidence or counter-arguments (which I’m open to if you have them). These articles are just not saying what you need them to say: there is no plausible selection pressure that leads to convergent deterioration of a recognizable sequence according to a specific pattern of mutations.
It’s a bit like your other suggestion, it may sound plausible for some people because it at least sounds like a response of some kind, but when you think about it for any length of time, it becomes extremely obvious that the pattern we are discussing is just not one of the predicted outcomes (although this stuff is certainly interesting, whatever is or isn’t a part of the predicted outcome).
I think this is why Argon originally asked you to walk us through the logic of your position, telling us how known mechanisms lead to the patterns we see in a special creation framework. We have done this from the common descent perspective, and you have spent most of your time (and apparently unconvincingly) trying to peck holes in this. What we haven’t seen from you (ever, as far as I know) is a step by step explanation of how your own hypothesis works and how it leads to these patterns. This is the only thing I would like to know right now… I realize you don’t like to write too much, but even a good reference that successfully accomplishes this might work (although I think it would be better if you would summarize it to give us a sense of whether or not it is worth pursuing).
I’m sorry; these last two just aren’t the mechanisms you were hoping for… can we conclude that there is no known mechanism from the YEC point of view, or would you like to look at anything else?
so your prediction is that we will not find the same bases convergently in a 2 pseudogenes (under the creation model)?