Real Science Friday: Christianity Today's Search for Adam

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Refractive

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Nice post. The only problem with it, you make this judgement about me without even knowing who I am.
I'm so sorry you think I was judging you, I was only in fact, relating to you my from own shortcomings as a parent. Yet, always in my heart, she was the most beautiful person I ever saw.

I am here as the 61 year old mother of a 38 year old woman, to tell you they are always our children, it is never too late, ever. She was/is also dyslexic, BTW. They thought she was stupid. They told her so. I still haven't forgiven them. God help me.

Never believe anything in this world matters to your son as much as the regard, respect and opinion of his father. And his mother.

What you do today matters very much. I think she was 32 when I finally started to be the mom to her she really deserved. We never stop being their parents.


Joel 2:25 And I will make up to you the years the locust has eaten.
 

Fred Williams

New member
Except that paper is from 1998, over 10 years, which is forever with regards to DNA science. The most recent paper from 2010, puts mitochondrial eve at 200,000 years ago.

Hardly! This remains a hot topic among evo scientists, the biggest wrench is that they keep assuming chimp/human ancestry! In fact a more recent paper than your "most recent" paper stated:

"In a significant attempt to address some of these concerns, Soares et al. [14] recently proposed an alternative method for estimating dates using human mtDNA. Their approach involves a post-hoc correction formula designed to account for the confounding effects of saturation and purifying selection. Although the formula is calibrated using a point estimate of the human-chimpanzee divergence, the approach differs substantially from previously proposed mtDNA clocks because it does not assume rate constancy across different time periods. However, the method does not allow for rate variation among contemporaneous lineages, which is a known feature of human mtDNA evolution." - Evaluating the mitochondrial timescale of human evolution, Trends in Ecology & Evolution Volume 24, Issue 9, September 2009, Pages 515-521

Another quote of note: "It is significant that, based on mtDNA data, the time between the establishment of modern humans outside of Africa and their arrival in Australia appears to have been very short, perhaps as little as 3 ka" - Ibid., pg 519

Finally , I do have to agree with their recommendation:

"The chief recommendation arising from the current state of knowledge in the field is for a movement away from reliance on the human-chimpanzee calibration". [emph added] Ibd., pg 520

Amen to that! :D
 

Fred Williams

New member
There are some conflicts but they are not necessarily fatal to the idea.

What you can't have is a literal Adam and Eve 6000 years ago that solely spawned the entire human race. (Unless you insert a lot of other miracles creating genetic diversity or more people later on.) There's a big conflict from population genetics, the population is simply too diverse to have come from two people so recently. And you need a certain population size to maintain genetic diversity, and it's way more than two!

Alate_One, sorry to keep picking on you, but you can't be serious? Is this going to be the old canard about genes and 4 alleles? Instead of getting into a big-picture or forest view of this, let's instead get into the trees and give me an example of a trait that you do not believe could have possibly originated in Adam & Eve's genomes. If you'd rather start at the flood bottleneck that's fine too. Good luck! :)

Fred
 

The Barbarian

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Alate_One, sorry to keep picking on you, but you can't be serious? Is this going to be the old canard about genes and 4 alleles?

It's a devastating problem for anyone who supposes the human race is only a few thousand years old. Adam and Eve could have had at most, four alleles for each gene locus. (they have two alleles each for each gene locus). Yet many loci have hundreds of alleles. The rest would have to evolve. Six thousand years is not enough time by anyone's measure.

Instead of getting into a big-picture or forest view of this, let's instead get into the trees and give me an example of a trait that you do not believe could have possibly originated in Adam & Eve's genomes.

All but four of them, for any particular gene locus.

If you'd rather start at the flood bottleneck that's fine too. Good luck!

So what's your opinion on the origin all those extra alleles, Fred?
 

Refractive

New member
Hardly! This remains a hot topic among evo scientists, the biggest wrench is that they keep assuming chimp/human ancestry!

I want to be exceptionally clear about this and I assure you, re: this topic, that of the evolution of Homo sapiens, I am the expert here.

Now - NO evolutionary biologist or paleoanthropologist or any reputable scientist in this field believes humans evolved from chimpanzees.

NO ONE. Not even a single one.

This is the constant misunderstanding of people who get images from popular media and their science from ill-informed websites.

What is correct, is that both the line that led to modern chimpanzees and the line that led to modern Homo sapiens had a common ancestor.

No human ancestor is claimed to have been a chimpanzee.

More like a gibbon, actually.
 

Fred Williams

New member
It's a devastating problem for anyone who supposes the human race is only a few thousand years old. Adam and Eve could have had at most, four alleles for each gene locus. (they have two alleles each for each gene locus). Yet many loci have hundreds of alleles. The rest would have to evolve. Six thousand years is not enough time by anyone's measure.

If its a devastating problem, you should be able to provide me an example of a trait that we could discuss, instead of dodging the request. :)

I suspect this is yet another one of those claims that is so incredibly flimsy that, due to the fear of assured rejection, doesn't crack the peer-review deterrent. Just as AiG has argument creationists shouldn't use, the evolutionist establishment should come up with arguments evolutionists shouldn't use. Instead of saying it can't happen, how about evidence (a real-life example) followed by an explanation of why the gene alleles can't differentiate in 4000 years.

So what's your opinion on the origin all those extra alleles, Fred?

Easy. Let me introduce you to the word mutation. :). I'm sure you have heard of single nucleotide polymorphisms that result from mutations? How about transposable elements, some that promote chromosome breakage in certain organisms? Pat, in ONE generation, if Adam & Eve had 100 kids, that's 204 possible alleles in just the first generation for a specific gene! Each kid, and each parent, could have their own two alleles. I'm trying to be diplomatic here, but I just can't believe this argument is still making its way around the internet.

Fred
 

Fred Williams

New member
I want to be exceptionally clear about this and I assure you, re: this topic, that of the evolution of Homo sapiens, I am the expert here.

Now - NO evolutionary biologist or paleoanthropologist or any reputable scientist in this field believes humans evolved from chimpanzees.

NO ONE. Not even a single one.

This is the constant misunderstanding of people who get images from popular media and their science from ill-informed websites.

What is correct, is that both the line that led to modern chimpanzees and the line that led to modern Homo sapiens had a common ancestor.

No human ancestor is claimed to have been a chimpanzee.

More like a gibbon, actually.

I'm delighted to hear you are the self-proclaimed expert! I just wish you were an expert in English reading skills. :) I have plenty of experience in this debate and can provide articles I have written over the years that prove that I am well aware that evos don't claim we evolved from a monkey. Evos do think however that we evolved from a pile of goo (that's what I would call the first single-celled organism). ;)

Fred
 

Refractive

New member
I'm delighted to hear you are the self-proclaimed expert! I just wish you were an expert in English reading skills. :) I have plenty of experience in this debate and can provide articles I have written over the years that prove that I am well aware that evos don't claim we evolved from a monkey. Evos do think however that we evolved from a pile of goo (that's what I would call the first single-celled organism). ;)

Fred
I am an expert because I spent years studying in an actual University and more years working in a Museum and doing field research. Also, I'm smarter than you are apparently, since my reading skills include noting in your post that you said This remains a hot topic among evo scientists, the biggest wrench is that they keep assuming chimp/human ancestry! which not only do they not "keep assuming" but never have.

So, either you are unable to comprehend the meaning of your own words and I am able to which means I am several orders brighter than you are, or you are just trying to obfuscate the issue - now - whoever heard of a Creationist who'd do that?

Then we have this:

I have plenty of experience in this debate and can provide articles I have written over the years that prove that I am well aware that evos don't claim we evolved from a monkey

You don't have as much experience as I have or for as long. And I didn't respond to you asserting "evos claim we are evolved from a monkey" because, as we both know, anyone as experienced in this debate as you claim is aware that a chimpanzee is not a monkey.

You better dump that slingshot and get you some real ammo if you want to take me on.
 

Refractive

New member
Ironically, the study you cited couldn't find evidence that preserved mutations of this gene would cause sterility in humans.

Fred
You mean the one titled:

Polymorphisms of the human PUMILIO2 gene and male sterility.

Abstract

The highly conserved Pumilio protein plays crucial roles in fertility of many organisms acting as a repressor of translation, and causing infertility when mutated. Although one of two human Pumilio homologs, PUMILIO2 is expressed mainly in the germ line, its role in mammalian germ cell development has not been reported yet. To shed light on the role of PUMILIO2 in development of the human male germ line, we screened this gene for mutations in 137 patients presenting a variety of phenotypes with spermatogenic failure.



give me an example of a trait that you do not believe could have possibly originated in Adam & Eve's genomes

So, you want to explain how genetically-caused sterility can have originated in Adam's genome?
 

The Barbarian

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If its a devastating problem, you should be able to provide me an example of a trait that we could discuss, instead of dodging the request.

(Barbarian checks)
You asked which trait couldn't be in the original pair. I'm assuming that you mean which alleles, since the point was that Adam and Eve could only have had four of the hundreds of alleles found at most human gene loci. But the trait for lactose tolerance would be one. That evolved long after humans scattered across the Old World. This trait for resistance to arteriosclerosis couldn't have been in Adam and Eve, since we know the individual in which this mutation happened:

J Biol Chem 1985 Dec 25;260(30):16321-5. "Apolipoprotein AIMilano. Accelerated binding and dissociation from lipids of a human apolipoprotein variant," by Franceschini G, Vecchio G, Gianfranceschi G, Magani D, Sirtori CR.

But bottom line, there's no way hundreds of alleles at countless gene loci could have evolved in just a few thousand years.

I suspect this is yet another one of those claims that is so incredibly flimsy that, due to the fear of assured rejection, doesn't crack the peer-review deterrent.

So far, no one has found a way to explain the data in a 6,000 year time frame.

Instead of saying it can't happen, how about evidence (a real-life example) followed by an explanation of why the gene alleles can't differentiate in 4000 years.

One way would be to suggest some sort of hypersuperevolution , the way ICR claims all those new species evolved from a few kinds on the Ark. But human genetic variability doesn't show any sign of that kind of thing. You might want to take a look at the work of Cavalli-Sforza, who has spent a lot of time documenting the flow and change of human genomes in an historical context.

Barbarian asks:
So what's your opinion on the origin all those extra alleles, Fred?

Easy. Let me introduce you to the word mutation.

See above. The evidence clearly shows that kind of superevolution does not take place. The evolution of hundreds of alleles for many, many gene loci, would take hundreds of thousands of years at least.

Pat, in ONE generation, if Adam & Eve had 100 kids, that's 204 possible alleles in just the first generation for a specific gene!

There are about 30,000 functional genes, and many times that many loci that don't code for anything. So, even with many more kids than one can realistically expect from one couple, it doesn't work.

Each kid, and each parent, could have their own two alleles. I'm trying to be diplomatic here, but I just can't believe this argument is still making its way around the internet.

Comes down to evidence. That's way too much evolution in way too short a time. The most actively varying non-coding DNA is something like 5% variable between generations, but much of the coding genes are quite stable.

The study of variation in the human genome
Genomics
Volume 11, Issue 2, October 1991, Pages 491-498
Anne Bowcocka and Luca Cavalli-Sforza
Regions of the genome showing high evolutionary stability are often conserved as a result of functional constraints. Conversely, more variable regions are likely to represent DNA with no functional or structural importance.


And evidence from human populations shows much longer times than 6,000 years. Moreover, the movement of alleles across geographical distances involve many, many generations. In Europe, the times include those over 25,000 years ago.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/290/5494/1155.long
 

Fred Williams

New member
I am an expert because I spent years studying in an actual University and more years working in a Museum and doing field research. Also, I'm smarter than you are apparently, since my reading skills include noting in your post that you said This remains a hot topic among evo scientists, the biggest wrench is that they keep assuming chimp/human ancestry! which not only do they not "keep assuming" but never have.

So, either you are unable to comprehend the meaning of your own words and I am able to which means I am several orders brighter than you are, or you are just trying to obfuscate the issue - now - whoever heard of a Creationist who'd do that?

Then we have this:

I have plenty of experience in this debate and can provide articles I have written over the years that prove that I am well aware that evos don't claim we evolved from a monkey

You don't have as much experience as I have or for as long. And I didn't respond to you asserting "evos claim we are evolved from a monkey" because, as we both know, anyone as experienced in this debate as you claim is aware that a chimpanzee is not a monkey.

You better dump that slingshot and get you some real ammo if you want to take me on.

Refractive, if you want to have an intelligent debate, how about lose the talk.origins response handbook. Do you want me to waste more of everyone's time and show you from your own journals places where "human/chimp ancestry" was spelled out exactly as I wrote it? Is this what we are going to debate, the proper use of English? Apparently it was well understood in those journals what the author was referring to, but since I, not a fellow evolutionist, wrote it this way it means something different in the English language. I think even Barbarian in this thread will defend my experience in this debate that I do not portray evos as claiming humans evolved from monkeys (oh yea, chimps), and yes, I can also prove that I know chimps are not monkeys.

Am I going to have to deal with constant nit-picks from you and put you on ignore, or is it possible we can try to have a civil debate?

Fred
 

Fred Williams

New member
You mean the one titled:

Polymorphisms of the human PUMILIO2 gene and male sterility.

Abstract

The highly conserved Pumilio protein plays crucial roles in fertility of many organisms acting as a repressor of translation, and causing infertility when mutated. Although one of two human Pumilio homologs, PUMILIO2 is expressed mainly in the germ line, its role in mammalian germ cell development has not been reported yet. To shed light on the role of PUMILIO2 in development of the human male germ line, we screened this gene for mutations in 137 patients presenting a variety of phenotypes with spermatogenic failure.

Yes, that's the one. Why are you leaving out the rest of the abstract?

"This variant was found in three azoospermic males, the second allele being the wild type. However, this variant was also present among fertile males, as frequently as in the patients. Although location of IVS15 + 6G > A substitution in close proximity to the canonical donor splice site GT, indicates that its influence on splicing cannot be excluded, our preliminary cDNA analysis has not revealed evidence of a splicing abnormality of PUMILIO2 pre-mRNA carrying this variant. Nevertheless, this study provides new interesting variant containing a donor splice site variant, which can be relevant for understanding of splicing mechanism of mammalian genes. The second variant, c.774 C > T transversion (Y258Y) in exon 6 was found only in one patient, but an influence on PUMILIO2 function is not obvious. Altogether, this study shows that variation in the PUMILIO2 gene is very low and it seems improbable that mutations of this gene significantly contribute to male infertility in humans.

Any hopes of a retraction on your part?

So, you want to explain how genetically-caused sterility can have originated in Adam's genome?

I don't have to explain how it originated in Adam's genome (even though it could have post-fall - ever hear of mumps? What if this virus came about due to the fall?). Are you claiming that one of Adam's kids could not have been born with a genetic defect that caused him to be sterile?

Fred
 

The Barbarian

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I think even Barbarian in this thread will defend my experience in this debate that I do not portray evos as claiming humans evolved from monkeys (oh yea, chimps), and yes, I can also prove that I know chimps are not monkeys.

Yep. Fred is a cut (sometimes a lot of cuts) above most creationists hereabouts. He's not stupid, and he's not ignorant. I'm pretty sure he knows that biologists say humans and chimps have a common ancestor, not that one evolved from the other.

And yes, he knows apes are not monkeys.
 

Fred Williams

New member
(Barbarian checks)
You asked which trait couldn't be in the original pair. I'm assuming that you mean which alleles, since the point was that Adam and Eve could only have had four of the hundreds of alleles found at most human gene loci. But the trait for lactose tolerance would be one. That evolved long after humans scattered across the Old World. This trait for resistance to arteriosclerosis couldn't have been in Adam and Eve, since we know the individual in which this mutation happened. :
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/290/5494/1155.long

I did not ask which trait could not be in the original pair. I first refuted the claim that amazingly still persists, that you can only have 4 alleles max per gene in Adam's offspring. Do you agree its time for this genetically inaccurate argument to go away? You admit above that an individual in one generation can get his or her new allele! Well, 4 + 1 is not 4.

Moreover, the movement of alleles across geographical distances involve many, many generations. In Europe, the times include those over 25,000 years ago.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/290/5494/1155.long

This is the first evidence offered for what I was asking for (you didn't offer evidence that lactose intolerance could not come about within 200 generations, good thing you didn't try :)). I will try to give this sciencemag article a look tomorrow.

Fred
PS. Thanks for vouching for my human - chimp - monkey not violating the 2nd law after abiogenesis disproved evolution. :)
 

The Barbarian

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I did not ask which trait could not be in the original pair. I first refuted the claim that amazingly still persists, that you can only have 4 alleles max per gene in Adam's offspring.

Two, actually. Each individual can only have two. The problem is that hundreds of them in each of tens of thousands of genes, is incompatible with a human race coming from 2 individuals only 6,000 years ago. As I pointed out, the evidence shows diffusion of alleles well over 25,000 years ago.

Do you agree its time for this genetically inaccurate argument to go away?

There's that problem of evidence. It won't fit a 6,000 year-old scenario.

You admit above that an individual in one generation can get his or her new allele! Well, 4 + 1 is not 4.

If there were just a few thousand, no problem. But there are millons.

Barbarian observes:
Moreover, the movement of alleles across geographical distances involve many, many generations. In Europe, the times include those over 25,000 years ago.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/290/5494/1155.long

This is the first evidence offered for what I was asking for (you didn't offer evidence that lactose intolerance could not come about within 200 generations, good thing you didn't try ).

It could happen in one generation, but the diffusion data shows it took tens of thousands of years to be transmitted to different areas.

PS. Thanks for vouching for my human - chimp - monkey not violating the 2nd law after abiogenesis disproved evolution.

Abiogenesis can't disprove evolution. Two different things. God could have magically poofed the first living things into existence, and evolution would still work. In fact, that's what Darwin suggested in his book.
 

Refractive

New member
Refractive, if you want to have an intelligent debate, how about lose the talk.origins response handbook.
Never been there, never heard of it.

Am I going to have to deal with constant nit-picks from you and put you on ignore, or is it possible we can try to have a civil debate?

Fred
So, now you want to rewrite history and cast me as the bad guy? Huh

Well:

post #23 You say "evos" assume chimp/human ancestry.

post # 25 I inform you that's incorrect

Post # 26 I post a trait and a link.

Post from you to me:

I'm delighted to hear you are the self-proclaimed expert! I just wish you were an expert in English reading skills. :) I have plenty of experience in this debate and can provide articles I have written over the years that prove that I am well aware that evos don't claim we evolved from a monkey. Evos do think however that we evolved from a pile of goo (that's what I would call the first single-celled organism). ;)

Fred

Insults are insults no matter how many emoticons you type in. So let's not think there's going to be some thread mythology promoted about how poor you are being harassed by mean me. You were free to keep the conversation objective at all times.


As to having intelligent debate, I was wondering if you'd like to explain to everyone how a single cell constitutes a "pile."

Also, you seem to think that the difference between monkeys and apes is not significant enough for you to consistently use correct references. As you have been doing this for such a long time, can you explain why you use the terms inconsistently?

Are you claiming that one of Adam's kids could not have been born with a genetic defect that caused him to be sterile?
Be clear, if I decide to stay in this thread, I am fine with going back again and again and again every time you try to divert and reposting your original questions. I will paraphrase once unless you try to deny what you asked: You said that you wanted an example of a trait the could not have come from Adam and Eve's genome.

Genetically derived sterility is one. Not disease-derived sterility which is an acquired trait.

You asked for a trait found in humans that could not come from the genomes of Adam or Eve. My question is: besides this one, how many would you like?

Genetics of human male infertility.
Poongothai J, Gopenath TS, Manonayaki S.
Source

Computational Engineering and Networking Department, Amrita Viswha Vidyapeetham, Ettimadai, Coimbatore 638107, Tamil Nadu, India. poongothai_jp@yahoo.co.in
Abstract

Infertility is defined as a failure to conceive in a couple trying to reproduce for a period of two years without conception. Approximately 15 percent of couples are infertile, and among these couples, male factor infertility accounts for approximately 50 percent of causes. Male infertility is a multifactorial syndrome encompassing a wide variety of disorders. In more than half of infertile men, the cause of their infertility is unknown (idiopathic) and could be congenital or acquired. Infertility in men can be diagnosed initially by semen analysis. Seminograms of infertile men may reveal many abnormal conditions, which include azoospermia, oligozoospermia, teratozoospermia, asthenozoospermia, necrospermia and pyospermia. The current estimate is that about 30 percent of men seeking help at the infertility clinic are found to have oligozoospermia or azoospermia of unknown aetiology. Therefore, there is a need to find the cause of infertility. The causes are known in less than half of these cases, out of which genetic or inherited disease and specific abnormalities in the Y chromosome are major factors. About 10-20 percent of males presenting without sperm in the ejaculate carry a deletion of the Y chromosome. This deleted region includes the Azoospermia Factor (AZF) locus, located in the Yq11, which is divided into four recurrently deleted non-overlapping subregions designated as AZFa, AZFb, AZFc and AZFd. Each of these regions may be associated with a particular testicular histology, and several candidate genes have been found within these regions. The Deleted in Azoospermia (DAZ) gene family is reported to be the most frequently deleted AZF candidate gene and is located in the AZFc region. Recently, a partial, novel Y chromosome 1.6-Mb deletion, designated "gr/gr" deletion, has been described specifically in infertile men with varying degrees of spermatogenic failure. The DAZ gene has an autosomal homologue, DAZL (DAZ-Like), on the short arm of the chromosome 3 (3p24) and it is possible that a defective autosomal DAZL may be responsible for the spermatogenic defect. The genetic complexity of the AZF locus on the long arm of the Y chromosome could be revealed only with the development of sequence tagged sites. Random attacks on the naked mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of sperm by reactive oxygen species or free radicals will inevitably cause oxidative damage or mutation to the mitochondrial genome with pathological consequences and lead to infertility in males. The key nuclear enzyme involved in the elongation and repair of mtDNA strands is DNA polymerase gamma, mapped to the long arm of chromosome 15 (15q25), and includes a CAG repeat region. Its mutation affects the adenosine triphosphate production. The introduction of molecular techniques has provided great insight into the genetics of infertility. Yet, our understanding of the genetic causes of male infertility remains limited.
 

Alate_One

Well-known member
Alate_One, sorry to keep picking on you, but you can't be serious? Is this going to be the old canard about genes and 4 alleles?
Not a canard. Are you assuming that EVERY gene in every child (of the 200) will mutate once? That's a crazy rate of mutation and would likely cause all kinds of damage, unless you're assuming supernatural changes to DNA, in which case you're conceding the point.

Instead of getting into a big-picture or forest view of this, let's instead get into the trees and give me an example of a trait that you do not believe could have possibly originated in Adam & Eve's genomes. If you'd rather start at the flood bottleneck that's fine too. Good luck! :)
And this isn't the problem I just gave you. You want to change the subject. The problem isn't the individuals, it's the population.

I'm sure you'd have a problem with any disease causing alleles actually originating in Adam and Eve. The sickle cell allele is a classic example.
 
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