incorygible
Posts: 374
Joined: Feb. 2006
|
Dave, at the beginning of this thread you mentioned how we supposedly don't know anything about the genetic "language" involved in GULO and vitamin C synthesis. Based on this ignorance (since shown to be yours alone), you whined that your creationist assertions were just as good.
Since then, you have been shown what we know. You have been shown how common descent predicts a shared pseudogene between humans and other primates. Not only does your "theory" not predict this, but you have to do a lot of dancing to make it even accomodate this strange similarity across different "kinds". What do you know, Dave?
If a new species of primate were discovered tomorrow, how does your "theory" inform us? What predictions does it make? Do you have to know if it is in the monkey-kind or ape-kind first? Shouldn't that be important informantion in developing your predictions? Might you not want to nail that down?
Mine says that this primate, if deprived of vitamin C in its diet, will develop scurvy. Yours (is it independent mutations sometime after the Fall? is it special but unknown independent function of the GULO?) has no reason to predict this.
Mine says that its inability to synthesize vitamin C would be a result of it being unable to produce active GLO protein (which is just one of MANY proteins involved in ascorbate synthesis, and thus one of many places where things could "break"). Yours has no reason to predict this.
Mine says that the mutations in this GULO gene would be in specific regions, in a specific appearance common to primates. These differ in recognizable ways and degree from the mutations in guinea pigs. Yours cannot predict this.
Mine says that you will not find a functional GULO region in this primate. Yours has no reason to predict this. Note that despite argystoke's interesting proposed experiment, we have no reason to expect the converse. That is, we might well expect to find additional broken GULO regions in rats and other animals that still have functioning GULO and can synthesize vitamin C. This would indicate duplication (similar to that found in hemoglobin genes and many others). It would not indicate some vital and as-yet unknown function of the pseudo-GULO. So, while it's an interesting idea, it wouldn't provide any magic bullet to decide between your "scenarios". I notice that you didn't have enough understanding of the question to realize this.
Mine says that if we spliced a rat or mouse GULO gene into the primate's liver cells (as we have done for humans), it would be able to synthesize vitamin C. Yours has no reason to predict this. Mine says we couldn't do the same for a fish. Yours?
Mine says that this pseudogene is likely the result of a retrovirus, and that the mutation occurred about 40 million years ago, in the shared ancestors of that primate and us. Yours?
What does your "theory" predict for our newfound primate, Dave?
Or let's leave the hypothetical primate. Let's look at a hamster, Dave. What does your "theory" predict for hamster GULO? Is a hamster part of the guinea pig kind? The rat kind? Its own kind? Does it matter? Can you -- without peeking at those hocus-pocus evolutionary phylogenies tracing ancestry -- predict anything about hamster GULO and vitamin C production? Can you test your predictions on your own?
Who doesn't know the language here, Dave?
|
