NIH: 100M Years to Change a Binding Site

[Bob Enyart]

Bob. You have totally misunderstood mitochondrial Eve... Mitochondrial Eve is not the ONLY woman we trace our ancestry...

A_O, of course, that is what evolutionists mean when they speak of mEve. Of course. Where did I ever indicate otherwise?

And you might be more clear if when you explain:

She is simply the single DIRECT female ancestor.

You'd be more clear if you'd add: "of the entire human race."

"mEve is simply the single DIRECT female ancestor of the entire human race." -What A_O should make clear.

And yes, evolutionists believe there were many before her, and beside her, but she is the ONE WOMAN from whom geneticists claim the whole existing human race has descended from.

And yes there is the idea of a Y-chromosomal Adam also. But those two individuals probably didn't live at the same time and probably not even in the same place.

Wanna bet?

So even with mitochondrial Eve and Y chromosomal Adam, we're still looking at thousands of ancestors for modern humans.

A_O, you do recall the surprise from the evolutionary geneticists that they have determined there is an actual single female mEve? Yes, they believe there were countless hominds before her, and many beside her, but they were surprised to find that they could trace the human race to one woman. Do you recall this?

Regarding Y-chromosomes, the human race descended from Noah, and that explains the unity of the Y among men.

HOWEVER, now that the chimpanzee Y chromosome has been sequenced, evolutionists are "surprised" once again, and team leader David Page of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge Mass., said in Nature (1-14-2010), that the human and chimp Y chromosomes are "horrendously different from each other." Horrendously? A_O, is that a scientific term? Why not just, "different?" Why horrendously so? Because for modern Darwinism to not lose face, chimps have to be shown to be our closest relatives. Yet the chimp's Y chromosome (that which makes us reproducing males... well, males...):
- has only 66% of the genes that we do
- codes for only half the proteins ours does
- has 30% of the entire Y that can't be aligned to our Y
- and the human Y has 30% that doesn't line up to the chimps

So, this Cambridge team leader said, "the relationship between the human and chimp Y chromosomes has been blown to pieces." So A_O, that's why a scientist would say: horrendous.

But don't worry, as Jukia would say, "Bob's just making more out of this than the original paper does." No doubt.

So, that octopus is looking more like us every day

-Bob Enyart

come on... come on baby... you can do it... everybody else did... come on...

 

[Frayed Knot]

mEve is the single human female from whom geneticists claim that the entire human race has descended from.

I'm not OK with your entire wording here. mEve is a woman from whom all humans have descended, but she's not the only one who was alive at the time who has current descendants. It's easy to make simplified statements about mEve that are either misleading or technically wrong.

Other women alive at the time have current living descendants. For example, those women could have had sons but no daughters (the mitochondrial DNA you have comes only from your mother). Or, the daughters they had, had no daughters themselves, and so on. All those other women didn't produce an unbroken chain of daughters leading to today.

 

[Frayed Knot]

Yes Frayed, and if I can quote you above, but substitute genetics for your communications system:

If I have a batch of information [in my genes] that I want to [reproduce], and the [biological] system that I'm using to [reproduce] substitutes some of its own randomness ([mutations]), then the amount of my [genetic] information that you are getting [you mutant] is less than what I started with. In [reproduction], that's what's important. -BE transliterating Frayed​

Ah, but now the mutant, how much information does his genome have, when he goes to pass it along to his offspring? Because you yourself are considering how much information you had when you started.

There are two things we're talking about regarding information:

1. In a communications system, it's a measure of the receiver's reduction in uncertainty about the content of the source material.

2. In general, it's a measure of the entropy of the source material itself.

In the Tom Schneider pages that you have linked to, Tom is steadfastly sticking to using the word "information" to refer to only #1. That's fine for him as long as he clearly defines that's what he's talking about (and he does), but you have to realize that the word is used in other technical contexts as well, and it's perfectly OK to use the word to talk about #2.

But it's not very interesting to talk about word definitions - let's talk about the content behind those words. What you (and Stripe) are trying to do is to talk about concept #2, while applying some of Schneider's work on #1. That's equivocation, and it's a fallacy.

The claim often made by creationists is about the quantity of information in the genome. That's clearly talking about our usage #2.

The reliability of copying DNA from parent to offspring is not what we're discussing. What we're talking about is the amount of raw information in the parent's DNA data set, compared to the information in the offspring's DNA data set.

Back to usage #1, we can read both data sets without error (noise) by modern DNA sequencing. And as Schneider says in his paper Information Theory Primer, "if there
is no noise, the amount of information communicated is equal to the uncertainty before communication." Even if you adopt the usage #1, the fact that we can read the source data without noise means that the information we get is equal to the entropy of the original data set.

So back to the original question - if you take someone's DNA, and make changes to come up with a slightly different DNA, which set of data has more entropy (information content)? If the offspring DNA has less predictability, then it has more information content. Making changes that have more characteristics of randomness means more information content that's inherent in the source data.

Frayed, forget about us creationists, now you've gone and upset "Evolution-is-not-about-an-increase-in-information" Johnny.

Why? Evolution is most certainly not about an increase in information. It just so happens that, compared to the very first primitive life, we have more information in our genome, but so what? Lots of evolution occurs without increasing that species' information.

I guess I don't understand your point here. It's like if someone were to say "the heliocentric model of the solar system can't be correct because my mail always comes early on Tuesdays," then it indicates that the person has some kind of underlying assumption that's way off, but I may not be sure just where he ran off the rails.

 

[Alate_One]

A_O, of course, that is what evolutionists mean when they speak of mEve. Of course. Where did I ever indicate otherwise?

You acted like mitochondrial eve supports a literal reading of Genesis. It does nothing of the sort.

And yes, evolutionists believe there were many before her, and beside her, but she is the ONE WOMAN from whom geneticists claim the whole existing human race has descended from.

When looking at mitochondrial DNA only. You're missing most of the story, the *nuclear* DNA which we know could not have possibly come from 2 people, 6-10,000 years ago. And they*certainly* couldn't have come from 8 people, 4000 years ago. This is why "evolutionists" believe there are many more ancestors than mitochondrial Eve because the nuclear DNA evidence says there must have been. The human species has too much genetic diversity.

Here's an article on the subject It's from Biologos so it is written from a Christian perspective.

A_O, you do recall the surprise from the evolutionary geneticists that they have determined there is an actual single female mEve? Yes, they believe there were countless hominds before her, and many beside her, but they were surprised to find that they could trace the human race to one woman. Do you recall this?

Your logic always goes like this "scientists are surprised by something" = "everything scientists said before is wrong." Do you not see how dumb that is?

- has only 66% of the genes that we do
- codes for only half the proteins ours does

Gee that's SO many since Y is a little chromosome of almost nothing gene wise. :rotfl:

- has 30% of the entire Y that can't be aligned to our Y- and the human Y has 30% that doesn't line up to the chimps

And? Y doesn't cross over with other chromosomes, it has very little functional significance compared to the others so mutations can accumulate over a very rapid rate. On their line AND ours.

That doesn't change the fact of the billions of base pairs that are identical between the two species. Or the fused chromosome #2 we share, or the GULO pseudogene (along with others) . . . etc. etc.

Chromosomal evidence

It's funny, you are very much like the lawyers in the OJ case, no matter how much evidence there was that pointed to guilt, we need to focus on the one questionable piece of evidence that "doesn't fit" and it magically makes all the other evidence wrong. I think PL is right, you just suck at logic.

So, that octopus is looking more like us every day

Come on Bob, you can't be this stupid. But maybe you are . . .

 

[Alate_One]

Please show us good reason for your doubt.

No Stripe. It's YOUR assertion, you back it up. Show us a citation.

I know for a fact that I can make random changes to DNA that have absolutely no effect.

Your analogy provided nonsense as if it were information. To make your analogy fit the discussion you need to use English sentences that convey information. We can tell nothing from the sentences you provided in your analogy other than you seem to be limiting yourself to English words about flowers and colours.

It certainly provided information. Each gene is information just as each individual word conveys information. In the case of genes on a chromosome, the order of them is often not critical.

When meiosis occurs we have information that might be described like this:
A1. Build more nose.
A2. Build more nose x 2.
A3. Build more nose x 10.
A4. Repeat Previous.
B. Stop building nose.

:rotfl: . . . you really have no clue what you're talking about.

Here's a real list of genes on a chromosome

AACAB is going to mess up both the functionality of the child and also our certainty of the intent behind the information.

Except it doesn't. We've been finding out that many many people have chromosomal rearrangements with no symptoms at all.

DNA is extremely specific. Why would you imagine otherwise?

We've been over this. DNA code is "degenerate", redundant. You can "say" the exact same protein an incredibly large number of different ways. Plus you can make a protein with the exact same function an almost innumerable different number of ways.

 

[Bob Enyart]

As you're taking questions, did you ever change your mind regarding your objections to General Relativity?

Flipper, I still believe that time is absolute and not relative. And I realize that there's a mountain of hard physical evidence against my position. So it's a tough one to maintain. One of these days I'd like to update the Summit Clock scenario.

Good to hear from you Flipper!

-Bob

 

[Bob Enyart]

We know that each person has at least 100 random changes to their DNA every generation. Even over 6000 - 10,000 years, why hasn't every species on earth started to have horrible, unrecoverable malformations?

lain:

You did not just say this.

Stripe, yes, she did.

 

[Stripe]

No Stripe. It's YOUR assertion, you back it up. Show us a citation.

Shown and ignored.

1. You feigned ignorance of the challenge to evolution from information.
2. You were shown the challenge with linked resources.
3. You brushed off the evidence presented with "I am not sure you have a basis for this".
4. You were asked to give reason for your doubt.
5. You declare that evidence needs to be presented.

Alate, we've been throwing our sides of the story at each other for a few years now. You have got to get past the constant lies and misrepresentations. You need to go have a nice long sit down and think this through very carefully because your links, your Youtube videos and your widescreen images do not hide the fact that practically every response to reasonable challenges you get is nothing but bluster.

Smarten up. :up:

I know for a fact that I can make random changes to DNA that have absolutely no effect.

No, you don't. That would require you to know every possible function in the entire genome. You're lying when you make this claim. You've had this explained to you before, but you continue to return to it.

It certainly provided information.

As does every data set. But the only information this provided was related to the nature of its author. There is no way we could infer any plans for the future from it. That's why I suggested you improve your analogy and gave my own analogy which you chose to pretend was a description of how DNA functions. You need to engage honestly in these conversations if they are to get anywhere.

Each gene is information

WOW! There's a turn-around! So DNA is information now?

In the case of genes on a chromosome, the order of them is often not critical.

And the case in of English, order either not is critical strictly. Just ask Yoda.

you really have no clue what you're talking about.

Actually, I do. And you might benefit from trying to understand. :up:

Here's a real list of genes on a chromosome

We're trying to settle upon a good analogy. The real information set is far to complicated to talk about.

Except it doesn't. We've been finding out that many many people have chromosomal rearrangements with no symptoms at all.

Oh, so now you do understand and can talk about the analogy?

We've been over this. DNA code is "degenerate", redundant. You can "say" the exact same protein an incredibly large number of different ways. Plus you can make a protein with the exact same function an almost innumerable different number of ways.

Are you going to keep repeating this as if it hasn't been answered? Information can be delivered in numerous forms. That it is understandable in numerous forms is evidence that the information system has been well designed.

 

[Stripe]

Stripe, yes, she did.

Saddening indeed. :sigh:

I wonder if she has ever met a person with Down Syndrome? I wonder if she has ever watched a mother lose child after child to miscarriage? I wonder if she has ever heard of anencephaly?

I wonder if she has ever stopped to think about the meaning of what she insists must be true.

 

[Jukia]

Saddening indeed. :sigh:

I wonder if she has ever met a person with Down Syndrome? I wonder if she has ever watched a mother lose child after child to miscarriage? I wonder if she has ever heard of anencephaly?

I wonder if she has ever stopped to think about the meaning of what she insists must be true.

Time to get those creation scientists cracking to show Alate is wrong. But first you need to find someone who holds themself out as a creation scientist. Then you need to figure out if they have any competence or if they are just another liar for Jesus.

 

[Stripe]

2. In general, it's a measure of the entropy of the source material itself. In the Tom Schneider pages that you have linked to, Tom is steadfastly sticking to using the word "information" to refer to only #1. That's fine for him as long as he clearly defines that's what he's talking about (and he does), but you have to realize that the word is used in other technical contexts as well, and it's perfectly OK to use the word to talk about #2.

The other technical contexts need to adjust their usage. It is nonsense to say entropy is information.

But it's not very interesting to talk about word definitions - let's talk about the content behind those words. What you (and Stripe) are trying to do is to talk about concept #2, while applying some of Schneider's work on #1. That's equivocation, and it's a fallacy.

No, I am not. Information is always the reduction in uncertainty at the receiver. That's the definition I'm sticking to for information theory. DNA, as a source of data, must obey the rules of information theory and if evolution is challenged by this then it should be evolutionary theory that gives way to the very simple and very correct maths.

The claim often made by creationists is about the quantity of information in the genome. That's clearly talking about our usage #2.

Would you mind discussing this with us instead of introducing other people's arguments?

The reliability of copying DNA from parent to offspring is not what we're discussing. What we're talking about is the amount of raw information in the parent's DNA data set, compared to the information in the offspring's DNA data set.

The two are intrinsically linked. Unless the transmission is flawless the information will always decrease with every generation.

Back to usage #1, we can read both data sets without error (noise) by modern DNA sequencing.

"We obey the laws of thermodynamics in this house, young man!" In order to transmit the information from a genome flawlessly you're going to need a perpetual motion machine. We might well be able to write down all the letters correctly in most every case. But there is no such thing as a flawless transmission. There is always a cost.

And as Schneider says in his paper Information Theory Primer, "if there
is no noise, the amount of information communicated is equal to the uncertainty before communication." Even if you adopt the usage #1, the fact that we can read the source data without noise means that the information we get is equal to the entropy of the original data set.

Also from your link, "When there is noise and someone assumes that there isn’t any, this leads to all kinds of confusing philosophies. One must always account for noise."

So back to the original question - if you take someone's DNA, and make changes to come up with a slightly different DNA, which set of data has more entropy (information content)?

Trick question.

The one changed has greater entropy. The one not changed has greater information.

If the offspring DNA has less predictability, then it has more information content. Making changes that have more characteristics of randomness means more information content that's inherent in the source data.

Only if you define information as you did in #2. Which is a silly thing to do.

 

[Stripe]

Time to get those creation scientists cracking to show Alate is wrong. But first you need to find someone who holds themself out as a creation scientist. Then you need to figure out if they have any competence or if they are just another liar for Jesus.

Hi, Jukia. :wave:

Have you done your homework yet? Can you tell us how information theory does not apply to data collected from the genome in ATGC form? Or are you willing to concede, as Alate and Frayed do, that the genome is a source of information and that information theory can be applied to it?

 

[Frayed Knot]

The other technical contexts need to adjust their usage. It is nonsense to say entropy is information.

You can use words the way you want, but mathematicians who want to talk about the amount of information in a set of data must use #2.

No, I am not. Information is always the reduction in uncertainty at the receiver. That's the definition I'm sticking to for information theory.

The you cannot talk about the amount of information in DNA, or any other data set. If you do, you're referring to #2.

 

[Alate_One]

Saddening indeed. :sigh:

Really, you are still clueless. The vast majority of human children born are healthy, provided they had a good pre-natal environment. Genetic diseases are only especially problematic in genetically isolated populations. And many genetic diseases have an evolutionary explanation.

I wonder if she has ever met a person with Down Syndrome?

Down syndrome isn't caused by mutations in most cases. And it's the commonest genetic abnormality. The spindle apparatus that is in the woman's egg (most commonly) simply fails to separate two chromosomes. This is usually due to older eggs (and older spindle apparatus) though it can happen in younger mothers as well.

I wonder if she has ever watched a mother lose child after child to miscarriage? I wonder if she has ever heard of anencephaly?

Miscarriages aren't necessarily due to genetic damage and usually not *accumulated* genetic damage, neither is anencephaly. Anencephaly is a neural tube defect. Neural tube defects can nearly be eliminated through adequate intake of folic acid before and around conception.

The vast majority of babies born are healthy. If mutations ALWAYS caused problems, this wouldn't be the case since everyone has some mutations, no matter what.

I wonder if she has ever stopped to think about the meaning of what she insists must be true.

I sometimes wonder if you ever even *think* at all. . . .

 

[Stripe]

You can use words the way you want, but mathematicians who want to talk about the amount of information in a set of data must use #2. The you cannot talk about the amount of information in DNA, or any other data set. If you do, you're referring to #2.

In every case information is always the reduction in uncertainty at the receiver. Thus I can talk about the information in a data set because in order to analyse it, it must be transmitted.

Really, you are still clueless. The vast majority of human children born are healthy, provided they had a good pre-natal environment.

Yet when it suits you the vast amount of children conceived die. You should really be more careful about what you say and retract what you say that is wrong.

Genetic diseases are only especially problematic in genetically isolated populations. And many genetic diseases have an evolutionary explanation. Down syndrome isn't caused by mutations in most cases. And it's the commonest genetic abnormality. The spindle apparatus that is in the woman's egg (most commonly) simply fails to separate two chromosomes. This is usually due to older eggs (and older spindle apparatus) though it can happen in younger mothers as well. Miscarriages aren't necessarily due to genetic damage and usually not *accumulated* genetic damage, neither is anencephaly. Anencephaly is a neural tube defect. Neural tube defects can nearly be eliminated through adequate intake of folic acid before and around conception.

Equivocation, equivocation, equivocation. Just retract what you said. It was stupid.

 

[Alate_One]

Yet when it suits you the vast amount of children conceived die. You should really be more careful about what you say and retract what you say that is wrong.

I didn't say anything wrong. Yes many conceptions fail. But that isn't always due to mutations, many zygotes fail to implant for no particular reason. Chromosomal abnormalities are not *accumulated* mutations either, which was what I was talking about.

From your position, though, people should be dropping like flies, we probably shouldn't even exist. Because ALL mutation is always bad in your view, which is demonstrably wrong.

 

[Stripe]

I didn't say anything wrong.

Yeah, you did.

From your position, though, people should be dropping like flies, we probably shouldn't even exist. Because ALL mutation is always bad in your view, which is demonstrably wrong.

You need to think through the ideas other people present and consider the possibility that your knee-jerk reaction might have been considered and dismissed with good reason. Can you think of some good reasons why, even though random changes are always bad for information, our genome is still able to function pretty well?

 

[Alate_One]

Yeah, you did.

Coming from you, that means I'm 100% correct.

You need to think through the ideas other people present and consider the possibility that your knee-jerk reaction might have been considered and dismissed with good reason.

Or you could be totally ignorant of what you're talking about. If past conversations are any guide, I'm going to go with your ignorance.

Have you EVER assumed that my dismissal of your ideas is with good reason? :rotfl: I'm the one that has the background in biology. You're the English teacher. Stop pretending you have any intention of having a rational discussion of these issues when you put your own ideas on an unassailable pedestal and dismiss standard scientific explanations with a knee-jerk reaction.

Can you think of some good reasons why, even though random changes are always bad for information, our genome is still able to function pretty well?

You mean the same reasons I have given you before that random changes to DNA are not always bad? Looks like you are backpedaling now.

 

[Stripe]

random changes to DNA are not always bad

You cannot claim this without first assuming the truth of evolutionary theory and simultaneously ignoring the challenge to evolution from information theory.

Random changes always degrade the information of a data set. Evolution says that random changes can increase the information content of the genome. Only one of these claims can be accurate. It's the simple mathematical model that can be demonstrated as accurate in any number of experiments or else it's evolution.

Choose well.

 

[Bob Enyart]

It's funny, you are very much like the lawyers in the OJ case, no matter how much evidence there was that pointed to guilt, we need to focus on the one questionable piece of evidence that "doesn't fit" and it magically makes all the other evidence wrong. I think PL is right, you just suck at logic.

So, that octopus is looking more like us every day

Come on Bob, you can't be this stupid. But maybe you are . . .

A_O, I appreciate the time you take and the challenge to creation arguments that you present.

Is the evidence really that I'm bad at logic, or that we are operating from different worldviews, and interpreting the same evidence accordingly?

As to my silly upright-walking, hair-growing octopus image, the sequencing of marine worms has now killed off the long-alleged common ancestor of man and insects because the genomes of those marine worms (acoelomorphs) is found to be more like humans than are either insects or mollusks (snails, octopuses, etc.). According to LiveScience, "the missing link has gone missing" as reported in the Jan/Feb 2011 Creation Matters:
- marine worms are more closely related to humans than are mollusks and insects - Nature 2-9-11
- Evolution: A can of worms. Nature 2-9-11
- "the missing link has gone missing" Dept. of Genetics & Evolution's Max Telford, Univ. College, London
- evolutionists "alarmed" with "vehemence" - Nature magazine
- shows how important these worm props were to the evolutionary story-telling
- "the most politically fraught paper I've ever written" -Genetic researcher Max Telford
Political A_O? Yes, political.

Long-standing alleged common ancestor of humans and insects now found to be closer
to man than insects or mollusks

Am I making more of this than the original paper does? Of course.

So A_O, your analysis of why we enjoy evolutionists being "shocked" all the time is wrong. You wrote:

Your logic always goes like this "scientists are surprised by something" = "everything scientists said before is wrong." Do you not see how dumb that is?

Your equal sign "=" equates to "therefore." Yes, that would be dumb. But of course you're ignoring our actual usage.
If evolutionary cosmologists, geologists and biologists are wrong, thousands of major new finds are not going to reinforce their assumptions but challenge them.

With Aristotle's and Ptolemy's cosmology of the Sun and other planets orbiting Earth, in circles, the multiplication of secondary assumptions in the form of epicycles has a strong parallel in evolutionists being shocked by countless discoveries about planets, geology, and genetics, and whether it's the chimp's Y chromosome, the formerly common ancestor of man and insects, or a thousand other challenges, secondary assumptions multiply faster than the number of tectonic plates.

-Bob Enyart

p.s. You write a lot A_O that deserves to be carefully considered and responded to. Time's a tough constraint though. Thanks.