Antievolution.org - Antievolution.org Discussion Board -Topic::AFDave's UPDATED Creator God Hypothesis 2

Posted: Oct. 02 2006,05:49

Quote (afdave @ Oct. 02 2006,09:47)

Also, I read Wesley's article which supposedly refutes Denton's conclusions from the above chart. Now I can see why Evos are losing ground. His article doesn't make any sense to me. Best I can tell, he simply asserts that Tetrahymena should have the same amount of sequence difference from modern humans as any other modern organism, then produces a chart which shows that this is so. Hello? McFly? How did you come up with this assertion, Wes? Maybe one of you can explain this to me in terms my "macaque brain" can handle.

Dave, has it ever occurred to you that this might actually be the problem? Do you think it's possible that the reason you don't think the theory of evolution is true is because you don't have even a layman's understanding of it?

How many times do I need to tell you that science is hard, Dave? You simply cannot swagger in with no knowledge of it, or even how it works, stagger around, and think you're going to refute whole swaths of it with a few visits to the AiG freakshow.

But let me try this one more time (others have said this before, with little effect, but maybe endless repetition will help):

Every organism alive today is equally "evolved," Dave. Every organism still in existence has been evolving, at one rate or another, for the last almost-four billion years. When you look at your chart, the common ancestor of every organism on it, except for the bacterium at the bottom (you'll note that every single organism on Denton's chart other than the bacterium at the bottom is a Eukaryote, Dave), diverged from bacteria at the same time, probably somewhere around a billion years ago (in very rough terms). Therefore, they're all equally distant from bacteria. Therefore, they all should show roughly the same sequence difference amount (just in different places), which is exactly what Denton's chart shows.

Let's take a real-world example: are you more, less, or equally different from your great-to-the-eighth maternal grandfather as your fifth cousin on your mother's side?

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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,05:56

Quote

Let's take a real-world example: are you more, less, or equally different from your great-to-the-eighth maternal grandfather as your fifth cousin on your mother's side?

Bwahahaha...I got the mental image of Stupid frowning at that question , then taking off his shoes and socks to try to "calculate" it on his toes.

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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,05:56

I don't know if evolutionists NEED evolution or not.

What I said was Evolutionist NEED Deep Time.

Genetic sequences prove this. Why?

Because if it takes 5-8 my to go from the Ape/human LCA to modern humans, then, by extrapolation, knowing that chimps and humans differ by only 1.5%, we know that it must take about 43 times this long to go from bacteria to modern humans. 43 x 5 = 215 my. 43 x 8 = 344 my. So you need at least 200 MY to get from a bacteria to a modern human. Eric says that very little evolved in the first 2 billion years or so ... not sure why. Did it take that long for the bacteria to "get lonely" and wish they had some higher life forms to share the planet with? Hmmmm...

Anyway, the chart is great because it shouldn't be as it is if evolution were true. Some of the organisms on that chart should be genetically closer to or farther from bacteria than they are simply because they are supposedly in the line of ancestry leading up to modern humans.

How does this all fit together?

Evos NEED Deep Time to support ToE.

So geochronologists select or reject dates to conform to the Grand Evo Fairy Tale.

Now please ... tell me how am I mistaken?

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incorygible

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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,06:02

Quote (afdave @ Oct. 02 2006,09:47)

This is a great chart from Michael Denton ... in spite of what the Thumbsters here may say. Let's look at what they say a little more closely.

First, Incorygible says Michael Denton doesn't understand evolutionary theory because he says that this chart and what it represents should have been considered one of the most astonishing finds of modern science (p. 281 of his "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis" book). Now this is amazing that Michael Denton, a professional molecular biologist, who still claims to be an evolutionist in spite of his doubts, by the way, would not understand the Theory of Evolution!

Let's be clear, Dave. I have already told you that I have not read Denton's book. The table you present comes from that book. I am evaluating YOUR claim (which you represent as Denton's) that the bottom row of that chart (nearly equal genetic divergence of all considered eukaryotes from prokaryotes) is an astonishing find because YOU believe we should expect increasing divergence with...what exactly? Anyhow, YOU claim we should expect increasing divergence as we move to the left of the chart. ANYONE who makes such a claim (as YOU have stated it) does NOT understand evolutionary descent. I already know YOU do not understand evolutionary descent. IF Denton made this claim, that goes for him as well.

Quote

In any case, whether Michael Denton understands evolution or not, I would like to understand it ... Soooo ... let's make a nice numbered list which represents the probable steps from Pond Scum to Deadman :-) We'll disregard all the parts of the "Great Tree of Life" EXCEPT for the line directly from Pond Scum to Humans. I don't care about plants right now, or anything else that is not in the ancestry of modern humans ...

1) Pond Scum
2) Amino acids
3) Bacterium
4) First Multi-celled organism [example?]
5) Sponges
6) Worms
7) Squids
8) Fish
9) Amphibians
10) Mammals
11) Apes (Deadman)
12) Humans (AFDave)

OK. Now I am quite sure I DO NOT have this right except for (1), (10), (11) and (12), so that's where YOU come in ...

Help me out, guys. Help me get this little chart right so I can understand your theory.

Then I will show you why Evolutionists Need Deep Time

As has been linked for you before:

the Tree of Life.

And once again, no need to show us why we NEED deep time. We have Deep Time. We had Deep Time well before Darwin. Life (on this planet, at least) has been around for much of Deep Time. End of story.

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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,06:07

Quote

Evos NEED Deep Time to support ToE. So geochronologists select or reject dates to conform to the Grand Evo Fairy Tale. Now please ... tell me how am I mistaken?

1. You're using a fallacy...actually, I could say your claim utilizes several fallacies. This alone negates it.
2. I took lots of geology, because I liked it. Your claim of geologists conforming to a theory in biology is pretty stupid. Remember, dummy, geologists like Lyell and Hutton and many others were citing deep time BEFORE Darwin.

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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,06:15

Eric...

Quote

Every organism alive today is equally "evolved," Dave. Every organism still in existence has been evolving, at one rate or another, for the last almost-four billion years. When you look at your chart, the common ancestor of every organism on it, except for the bacterium at the bottom (you'll note that every single organism on Denton's chart other than the bacterium at the bottom is a Eukaryote, Dave), diverged from bacteria at the same time, probably somewhere around a billion yealrs ago (in very rough terms). Therefore, they're all equally distant from bacteria. Therefore, they all should show roughly the same sequence difference amount (just in different places), which is exactly what Denton's chart shows.

Ah, OK. We're getting somewhere. I'm finally getting an insight into your brains.

So you mean to tell me that you think modern bacteria are just as "evolved" as modern humans?

Wow! This has many implications. This means that if we were able to compare the earliest bacterial DNA to modern bacterial DNA, we would find the same 65% sequence difference that we see in the chart for all the other organisms, right? Are we able to do this? Anyone wanna bet money on the results? Hmmm... wow...my mind is spinning with all the implications of what you are saying. This is gonna be great!

Before I go too hog wild with this one, I'd better get some confirmation from Cory and maybe Jeannot. Do you also agree with this that Eric is saying?

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A DILEMMA FOR THE COMMITTED NATURALIST
A Hi-tech alien spaceship lands on earth ... DESIGNED.
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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,06:25

Quote (ShitForBrainsDave @ Oct. 02 2006,10:56)

Evos NEED Deep Time to support ToE.

So geochronologists select or reject dates to conform to the Grand Evo Fairy Tale.

Now please ... tell me how am I mistaken?

No one selected the dates for deep time you moron. The empirical evidence shows the Earth is 4.55 billion years old, and that life has existed here for 3+ billion of those years.

Your lame-brained claim is like saying pilots selected the ambient density of air to be 1.168 kg/m3 because they NEED that value to make their “heavier than air theory of flight” work.

Every day I don’t see how you can possibly be more stupid Davie, yet every day you give us this

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incorygible

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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,06:28

Quote

Also, I read Wesley's article which supposedly refutes Denton's conclusions from the above chart. Now I can see why Evos are losing ground. His article doesn't make any sense to me. Best I can tell, he simply asserts that Tetrahymena should have the same amount of sequence difference from modern humans as any other modern organism, then produces a chart which shows that this is so. Hello? McFly? How did you come up with this assertion, Wes? Maybe one of you can explain this to me in terms my "macaque brain" can handle.

Okay, Macaque brain, here we go:

Your children all share (on average) 50% (1/2) of their genetic information (in this case, we’re talking exact, inherited genetic material, not identical or similar genetic information, which will, of course, be much higher) with each other (based on chromosomal division in your sperm and your wife’s egg). Your children share (on average) 1/8 of their genetic information with their cousins (e.g., your brother’s children). Your children share about 1/32 with their relatives who are your father’s brother’s grandchildren. Their cousins ALSO share about 1/32 of their genetic information with your father’s brother’s grandchildren. And so on.

Now, replace your children with the different mammal species in that table (nicely surrounded by a box). Replace their cousins with the yeast (or any other box). Replace their more distant relatives (e.g., your father’s brother’s grandchildren) with the bacteria. See how this works? It's pretty simple, Dave. If not, add as many familial linkages as you need until you figure it out, dunce. You’ll know you’ve figured it out when you understand the boxes on that table and why the values within them are so similar. And stop insulting the macaques.

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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,06:33

Ah yes. I see I may be confusing you by talking about "moving left on the chart."

I do understand that sunflowers and penguins, for example, are NOT in the "human branch" or "trunk" or whatever you call it.

What I am focusing on is that SOME of the organisms listed on the chart ARE in the "human ancestry" (I think ... worms and fish at least, right?). And since they are in the "human lineage" I (and Denton) would expect the worm to be closer genetically to the bacterium, and the fish to be farther, and the human to be farther still (he lists humans on the next page of his book and it's the same 65%). So the chart entry for a worm should be, say, 20%, and the fish entry should be maybe 40%.

Do you see my (and Denton's) point? If worms and fish really are ancestral to humans, then the DNA should have shown this when it was elucidated.

But it clearly does not!

*******************************

Now maybe you don't say worms and fish are ancestral to humans. Maybe I have that wrong. This is why I would like for you to fill in my little numbered list for me, so I could keep it straight.

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A DILEMMA FOR THE COMMITTED NATURALIST
A Hi-tech alien spaceship lands on earth ... DESIGNED.
A Hi-tech alien rotary motor found in a cell ... NOT DESIGNED.
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incorygible

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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,06:36

Quote (afdave @ Oct. 02 2006,11:15)

Eric...

Quote

Every organism alive today is equally "evolved," Dave. Every organism still in existence has been evolving, at one rate or another, for the last almost-four billion years. When you look at your chart, the common ancestor of every organism on it, except for the bacterium at the bottom (you'll note that every single organism on Denton's chart other than the bacterium at the bottom is a Eukaryote, Dave), diverged from bacteria at the same time, probably somewhere around a billion yealrs ago (in very rough terms). Therefore, they're all equally distant from bacteria. Therefore, they all should show roughly the same sequence difference amount (just in different places), which is exactly what Denton's chart shows.

Ah, OK. We're getting somewhere. I'm finally getting an insight into your brains.

So you mean to tell me that you think modern bacteria are just as "evolved" as modern humans?

Wow! This has many implications. This means that if we were able to compare the earliest bacterial DNA to modern bacterial DNA, we would find the same 65% sequence difference that we see in the chart for all the other organisms, right? Are we able to do this? Anyone wanna bet money on the results? Hmmm... wow...my mind is spinning with all the implications of what you are saying. This is gonna be great!

Before I go too hog wild with this one, I'd better get some confirmation from Cory and maybe Jeannot. Do you also agree with this that Eric is saying?

I see I didn't read carefully enough and Eric beat me to this.

Dave, 200+ pages later, welcome to the theory of evolution. What a revolutionary discovery you just made. What a joke.

Once again, THIS IS EVOLUTIONARY THEORY. It is not Eric's invention. It can be confirmed from any BASIC textbook.

Yes, if we had bacterial DNA from 500 million years ago (we don't), and we looked at a true molecular clock (i.e., a NEUTRAL marker free to mutate at a relatively consistent rate in all lineages, as opposed to a region of DNA visible to natural selection, and therefore likely to be maintained (or changed) in very un-clock-like fashion), then we would expect to see the same sequence divergence in modern bacteria as in modern yeast or modern humans. I would put money on it.

Now, in all the learning you are doing in your "Truth Search", why have you not learned this most basic fact of evolutionary theory? Hmmm?

improvius

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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,06:43

Quote (afdave @ Oct. 02 2006,11:56)

I don't know if evolutionists NEED evolution or not.

So then you agree that there is no bias towards favoring evolution over any other theory in the scientific community?

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Quote (afdave @ Oct. 02 2006,18:37)

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incorygible

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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,06:44

Quote (afdave @ Oct. 02 2006,11:33)

Ah yes. I see I may be confusing you by talking about "moving left on the chart."

I do understand that sunflowers and penguins, for example, are NOT in the "human branch" or "trunk" or whatever you call it.

What I am focusing on is that SOME of the organisms listed on the chart ARE in the "human ancestry" (I think ... worms and fish at least, right?). And since they are in the "human lineage" I (and Denton) would expect the worm to be closer genetically to the bacterium, and the fish to be farther, and the human to be farther still (he lists humans on the next page of his book and it's the same 65%). So the chart entry for a worm should be, say, 20%, and the fish entry should be maybe 40%.

Do you see my (and Denton's) point? If worms and fish really are ancestral to humans, then the DNA should have shown this when it was elucidated.

But it clearly does not!

*******************************

Now maybe you don't say worms and fish are ancestral to humans. Maybe I have that wrong. This is why I would like for you to fill in my little numbered list for me, so I could keep it straight.

Dave, NO MODERN ANIMAL (be it worm or fish or ape) is ancestral to humans. If you read through Eric's and my explanations above (especially what a molecular clock actually is), you'll see why we DO NOT expect the relationships with bacteria that you propose. To see what you (or Denton) propose, we would need (very) historic DNA, not modern DNA. In other words, we would need DNA from the point when worms became worms, amphibians became amphibians, mammals became mammals, etc. If you actually had the DNA from, not only the organism, but the organism and TIME that lineages ancestral to humans branched, then you would see what you expect to see.

improvius

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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,06:48

Quote (afdave @ Oct. 02 2006,12:33)

Now maybe you don't say worms and fish are ancestral to humans. Maybe I have that wrong. This is why I would like for you to fill in my little numbered list for me, so I could keep it straight.

Your chart represents present-day worms and fish. No present-day organisms are ancestral to humans. Everyone keeps telling you this, but you just don't seem to get it.

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Quote (afdave @ Oct. 02 2006,18:37)

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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,06:51

OK. I understand that no modern organism is ancestral to humans. However, ToE says that a single celled organism living 500 myo which conceivably is indistinguishable from a modern bacterium IS ancestral to humans. Ditto for some ancient worm. Ditto for some ancient fish. Etc. etc. Right?

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improvius

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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,06:54

Quote (afdave @ Oct. 02 2006,12:51)

OK. I understand that no modern organism is ancestral to humans. However, ToE says that a single celled organism living 500 myo which conceivably is indistinguishable from a modern bacterium IS ancestral to humans. Ditto for some ancient worm. Ditto for some ancient fish. Etc. etc. Right?

None of which are represented on your chart.

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Quote (afdave @ Oct. 02 2006,18:37)

Many Jews were in comfortable oblivion about Hitler ... until it was too late.
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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,06:58

DAVE, READ THE FRIGGIN LINKS THAT PEOPLE HAVE BEEN PROVIDING, YOU MORON

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incorygible

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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,07:03

Quote (afdave @ Oct. 02 2006,11:51)

OK. I understand that no modern organism is ancestral to humans. However, ToE says that a single celled organism living 500 myo which conceivably is indistinguishable from a modern bacterium IS ancestral to humans. Ditto for some ancient worm. Ditto for some ancient fish. Etc. etc. Right?

Right. Let's work with the fish.

Say we actually had the DNA of the LCA of humans and fish. A very, very old fish-like thing, whose descendants are about to go in two different directions: one that will lead to all mammals (including humans) and one that will lead to all modern fish. (EDIT: thanks to OA, we're talking about point 11 in the figure above. Look at that chart, Dave. The SUM of the VERTICAL line lengths connecting one thing to another is related to the expected genetic divergence. What does that tell you about humans and fish, humans and worms, all animals and bacteria, etc?)

THAT ancestral organism would have had cytochrome much more similar to bacteria (both to ancestral bacteria, and even, to a lesser extent, to modern bacteria) than anything living today. (As a bonus question, see if you can estimate how much more similar it would have been from the information in the table -- this is possible.)

If we compared human DNA and modern fish DNA to that ancestral fish-like-thing's DNA, both would be more similar to it than they are to each other NOW (the human-fish difference in the matrix -- again, see if you can guess how much more similar). Furthermore, the modern fish and humans would be genetically diverged from that old fish-like thing by the SAME amount.

Are you starting to get this yet? Can I hope that it might actually click?

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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,07:05

"For Denton a demonstration of evolution in proteins is a demonstration that protein-sequences can be arranged in a series of intermediates. He found a dramatic absence of intermediates when comparing the cytochrome C2 of all eucaryotc organisms with bacteria. They all differ 64%-72% with bacteria. He concludes: no eucaryotic cytochrome is closer to bacterial cytochrome than any other. No intermediates. No primitive or advanced. However he fails to point out that necessarily only living species are described. And because they are living now, their proteins are copied from generation to generation and mutations accumulated. Cytochromes of living organisms, however morphologically primitive they may be, are not intermediary, because now-living organisms do not have ancestor-descendant relationships. All are descendants.
All vertebrates have the same molecular distance to all invertebrates, because their ancestors separated only once. Equally, all eucaryotes have in common that their ancestor split at the same time from bacteria. The molecular distance of any group to any other group is of course a measure of time elapsed since their separation. Denton knows that no evolutionist has ever claimed that any of the living representatives of any vertebrate class is directly ancestral with respect to another vertebrate group (p293). So: who is Denton attacking ?"
http://home.wxs.nl/~gkorthof/korthof56.htm#cytochrome-c
Matthew J. Brauer and Daniel R. Brumbaugh: 'Biology Remystified: The Scientific Claims of the New Creationists', p308-314 of Pennock(2002) 'Intelligent Design Creationism and its Critics'

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k.e

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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,07:07

Bah ....~~ericmurphy~~ Occam's Aftershave.....that diagram doesn't show AFD's ancestors .....he has a direct link to the weasle.

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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,07:11

Incorygible...

Quote

Yes, if we had bacterial DNA from 500 million years ago (we don't), and we looked at a true molecular clock (i.e., a NEUTRAL marker free to mutate at a relatively consistent rate in all lineages, as opposed to a region of DNA visible to natural selection, and therefore likely to be maintained (or changed) in very un-clock-like fashion), then we would expect to see the same sequence divergence in modern bacteria as in modern yeast or modern humans. I would put money on it.

OK great. Now I have at least nailed you down. I am going to really enjoy hearing the answer to this next question. Ready?

You guys have been preaching to me about how similar organisms have similar genetic sequences, i.e. chimps and humans are within 1.5% of each other, right? And you are correct. Similar homologies yield similar genetics. I agree with you there.

But now you are telling a new whopper!

You really want me to believe that a 500 myo bacterium (let's say we could get some DNA from a bacterium fossil) is much different than a modern bacterium? Now all of a sudden, instead of similar homologies yielding similar genetics, you're telling me "Oh yes, ancient bacteria LOOKED very similar to modern bacteria, but we are quite sure that their genetics would be far different ... probably the same 65% difference."

Come on, guys! This is ridiculous! You are GUESSING what ancient bacterial genetics might have been like and you are CONTRADICTING the guideline you just finished giving me about similar morphologies=similar genetics.

What in the world?

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A DILEMMA FOR THE COMMITTED NATURALIST
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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,07:15

What's amusing is that this is analogous to a guy arguing against ...oh, say algebra...while not knowing the commutative, distributive and associative properties of multiplication. It's surreal.

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ericmurphy

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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,07:15

Quote (afdave @ Oct. 02 2006,10:56)

I don't know if evolutionists NEED evolution or not.

What I said was Evolutionist NEED Deep Time.

Dave, when are you going to address the fact that you need deep time, too? How does your "hypothesis" account for the supposed ultra-mega-hyper-macroevolution implied by the explosion (which, by the way, dwarfs the "Cambrian Explosion") of diversity from several tens of thousands of species to tens of millions of species in less than five thousand years? Another "miracle"?

And frankly, Dave, I'm not sure where you think you're going with this obsession with evolution "needing" deep time? So what? The time is available; in fact, more time than necessary is available.

Quote

Genetic sequences prove this. Why?

Because if it takes 5-8 my to go from the Ape/human LCA to modern humans, then, by extrapolation, knowing that chimps and humans differ by only 1.5%, we know that it must take about 43 times this long to go from bacteria to modern humans. 43 x 5 = 215 my. 43 x 8 = 344 my. So you need at least 200 MY to get from a bacteria to a modern human.

Dave, you might want to stop posting arguments that refute your other arguments. You claim that you can get from bacteria to humans in 344 my (a number, by the way, that no evolutionary biologist would agree with, because it's way too small). So if you can get from bacteria to humans in less than 500 million years, why do geologists claim the earth is 4.55 billion years old, which nine times older? Just to be on the safe side? If you think geologists conspire with evolutionary biologists in order to make the numbers come out right, why don't they just say the earth is only a billion years old? According to your reasoning, that's way more time than necessary to get from bacteria to humans, right?

Quote

Eric says that very little evolved in the first 2 billion years or so ... not sure why. Did it take that long for the bacteria to "get lonely" and wish they had some higher life forms to share the planet with? Hmmmm...

The honest answer here is that no one knows for sure (which I'm sure you see as a huge, gaping hole in the theory, but that's just because you know fuck-all about how science works). But given the simplicity of bacteria, it's not hard to understand how it could take a long time for them to evolve into anything more complicated. Think of it as a learning curve, Dave. Humans developed the wheel when? Several thousand years ago? There were nothing but livestock-powered wheeled vehicles for thousands of years; then, suddenly, in less than a hundred years, we went from horse-and-buggy to 1,000-horsepower Bugatis than can do 250 mph.

Quote

Anyway, the chart is great because it shouldn't be as it is if evolution were true. Some of the organisms on that chart should be genetically closer to or farther from bacteria than they are simply because they are supposedly in the line of ancestry leading up to modern humans.

Dave, you dolt, the chart confims evolutionary theory. What it disconfirms is your bad, wrong, broken misunderstanding of evolutionary theory. Yeast and humans diverged not long after all eukaryotes diverged from bacteria. As I just said this morning, every single organism on your chart is equally distant from bacteria! Mushrooms are no more closely related to bacteria than humans are. Is that so hard to understand? Or are you deliberately failing to understand it?

Quote

So geochronologists select or reject dates to conform to the Grand Evo Fairy Tale.

Now please ... tell me how am I mistaken?

Why, Dave? Because they want to support their buddies? If the geochronologists back in the 30s said, gee guys, all the dates we come up all converge on 75 million years, what do you suppose would have happened? Do you think the evolutionary biologists bribed them to change their story?

And are you still under the misapprehension that geologists—any kind of geologists—are "evolutionists"?

And you still haven't explained why all the available dates converge on a value that by your own reasoning is almost an order of magnitude larger than it needs to be.

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k.e

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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,07:19

Quote

Come on, guys! This is ridiculous! You are GUESSING what ancient bacterial genetics might have been like and you are CONTRADICTING the guideline you just finished giving me about similar morphologies=similar genetics.

What in the world?

AFD are you truly that simple minded?

Every living thing has a parent is that so hard to grasp?

Even a 4 year old knows that.

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The conservative has but little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of the passions.These are the wreckers of outworn empires and civilisations, doubters, disintegrators, deicides.Haldane

argystokes

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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,07:20

Quote

You really want me to believe that a 500 myo bacterium (let's say we could get some DNA from a bacterium fossil) is much different than a modern bacterium?

Well, Dave, how similar or different do you think modern bacteria are? And how what percentage of living bacterial species do you think we have discovered (putting aside the difficulties in defining bacterial species)?

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incorygible

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Posted: Oct. 02 2006,07:21

Quote (afdave @ Oct. 02 2006,12:11)

Incorygible...

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Yes, if we had bacterial DNA from 500 million years ago (we don't), and we looked at a true molecular clock (i.e., a NEUTRAL marker free to mutate at a relatively consistent rate in all lineages, as opposed to a region of DNA visible to natural selection, and therefore likely to be maintained (or changed) in very un-clock-like fashion), then we would expect to see the same sequence divergence in modern bacteria as in modern yeast or modern humans. I would put money on it.

OK great. Now I have at least nailed you down. I am going to really enjoy hearing the answer to this next question. Ready?

You guys have been preaching to me about how similar organisms have similar genetic sequences, i.e. chimps and humans are within 1.5% of each other, right? And you are correct. Similar homologies yield similar genetics. I agree with you there.

But now you are telling a new whopper!

You really want me to believe that a 500 myo bacterium (let's say we could get some DNA from a bacterium fossil) is much different than a modern bacterium? Now all of a sudden, instead of similar homologies yielding similar genetics, you're telling me "Oh yes, ancient bacteria LOOKED very similar to modern bacteria, but we are quite sure that their genetics would be far different ... probably the same 65% difference."

Come on, guys! This is ridiculous! You are GUESSING what ancient bacterial genetics might have been like and you are CONTRADICTING the guideline you just finished giving me about similar morphologies=similar genetics.

What in the world?

Idiot Dave, try to figure out why I have kept correcting you on NEUTRAL genetic information vs. SELECTED genetic information (hint: one works as a clock, one doesn't). Read the above quote (e.g., the distinction between "morphologically primitive" and cytochrome in Deadman's quote above).

Yes, in a truly neutral region of DNA (i.e., a molecular clock), a 500 myo bacterium is MUCH different than a modern bacterium. The difference between old bacterium and new bacterium would be very similar to the difference between human and old bacterium IN THIS NEUTRAL REGION.If you want to talk about non-neutral (e.g., coding) regions (does that remind you of a heading in the human-chimp table?) that are under the purview of natural selection, we can expect that modern bacteria are more similar to ancient bacteria than humans are (but we can't know how similar, unless we can study fossil morphologies to make educated guesses about certain genes).

You just don't get it Dave, and it's pretty clear you never will. You keep inventing ill-conceived, misunderstood, no-clue-in-#### strawmen that have nothing to do with evolutionary theory or with what we are telling you.

Posts: 1621
Joined: April 2006

Posted: Oct. 02 2006,07:31

Incorygible...

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Yes, in a truly neutral region of DNA (i.e., a molecular clock), a 500 myo bacterilum is MUCH different than a modern bacterium.

How do you know this? Are you just guessing? How about in the Cytochrome C? Do you say the same?

To answer Argy's question, I would guess that there is VERY LITTLE sequence difference among modern bacterial DNA. And I would also guess that there is very little difference between modern and "ancient" bacteria. ("ancient" in quotes b/c I of course believe that ALL bacteria are only about 6000 years old.)

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ericmurphy

Posts: 2460
Joined: Oct. 2005

Posted: Oct. 02 2006,07:36

Quote (afdave @ Oct. 02 2006,11:15)

Ah, OK. We're getting somewhere. I'm finally getting an insight into your brains.

So you mean to tell me that you think modern bacteria are just as "evolved" as modern humans?

Dave, you're not using the term "evolved" in the proper sense. You're using it in the layman's sense (imagine my surprise) that's way too teleological for the way it's used in evolutionary biology. You're making the same mistake that even a lot of biologists make; that life is evolving in some particular direction, with some sort of goal in mind (in your mind, that goal is, of course, yourself).

Bacteria have been "evolving" just as long as everything else on the planet. Every organism alive today is at the end of a long line of organisms that has been evolving for something like four billion years.

Not all organisms evolve at the same rate, or in the same directions. Ants and humans are both descended from a common ancestor that diverged from bacteria something like a billion years ago. They both evolved in different directions, at different rates, but they've both been evolving away from bacteria for the same length of time

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Wow! This has many implications. This means that if we were able to compare the earliest bacterial DNA to modern bacterial DNA, we would find the same 65% sequence difference that we see in the chart for all the other organisms, right? Are we able to do this? Anyone wanna bet money on the results? Hmmm... wow...my mind is spinning with all the implications of what you are saying. This is gonna be great!

No. Different organisms evolve at different rates. Bacteria have not evolved nearly as rapidly as eukaryotes, for a host of reasons. However, if you could go back in time to the earliest eukaryotes, say a few tens of millions of years after the prokaryote-eukaryote split, you would find that all the eukaryotes of the time were approximately equally diverged from bacteria, but the sequence difference would be much smaller than it is today. As you move ahead in time, and keep sampling different eukaryotes, you would discover that even though the distance from their genotypes to bacterial genotyes was increasing, the distance for all eukaryotes would remain roughly the same. This is exactly what the theory of evolution predicts, and it's exactly what Denton's chart demonstrates. (You did notice, didn't you, that there's a great deal of variation within eukaryotes, but little difference from all eukaryotes to bacteria, didn't you?) If you could come back in another 500 million years (assuming there's still life here on earth) you would discover that the sequence difference was increasing, but it would still be roughly the same over all eukaryotes.

But here's the take-home lesson, Dave: horses are just as distantly-related from bacteria as digger wasps are. Both are just as far from bacteria as bamboo is. All three are as distant from bacteria as baboons are.

There is no "ladder of life," Dave. There's a tree of life. Take two leaves at opposite sides of the tree. Which one is further from the roots?

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argystokes

Posts: 766
Joined: Jan. 2006

Posted: Oct. 02 2006,07:36

Quote

Yes, in a truly neutral region of DNA (i.e., a molecular clock), a 500 myo bacterium is MUCH different than a modern bacterium. Exactly as much as a human is. If you want to talk about non-neutral, CODING regions (does that remind you of the human-chimp table?) that are under the purview of natural selection, we can expect that modern bacteria are more similar to ancient bacteria than humans are (but we can't know how similar, unless we can study fossil morphologies to make educated guesses about certain genes).

Considering the dearth of noncoding DNA in bacteria, I suspect molecular clock techniques would not be particularly useful even if we had 500 myo DNA.

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k.e

Posts: 1948
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