[Nazaroo]

Earlier, in an unrelated thread, Deadalus tried to pass off the alleged fusion of two ancestral chromosomes (pairs, e.g., analogous to a C-2 + C-23 in some proto-ape) into the Human C-2 (leaving 23 pairs instead of 24: Apes have 24 pairs or 48 chromosomes).

Of course, Evolutionists have been dancing (or pretending to dance) over this 'discovery' for over a decade (first discussed in 1991).

The sketch offered by Doofus however, really sidesteps the important questions regarding the phenomenon.

I am posting here a great introduction to the topic by a semi-neutral Christian who was curious about this claim, and did his own investigation.
Because it is written in almost non-technical terms, it will be a helpful introduction for interested readers here.
I also highly recommend you review the posts from other readers on this person's blog in response to the article:

Human chromosome 2 - a creationist response

I recently came across a page giving evidence for fusion in human chromosome 2 -- it was the first time I had heard about this. The conclusion of the article is:

The evidence that human chromosome 2 is a fusion of two of the common ancestor's chromosomes is overwhelming.

I searched the web in vain for any creationist response to this--I only found some creationist skepticism about whether there really were telomene structures in the middle of the human chromosome (which seems unjustified), and large numbers of evolutionists doing victory dances. So I was forced to actually think about it myself (oww, painful!), taking it on trust for now that the facts presented on the site linked above are basically correct. The process was quite helpful to me, and perhaps might be useful to other people, so here goes. I'm mainly looking at this from an explicitly creationist perspective, but some of this may apply to some intelligent design positions.

The problem with the conclusion, and with much of the discussion, is that it mingles the evidence with the explanation--so the conclusion, as stated, assumes that there was a common ancestor between apes and humans, which makes it difficult to use it as evidence for a common ancestor. To untangle this, let's rewrite the conclusion so that it no longer makes this assumption:

The evidence that human chromosome 2 is the fusion of two chromosomes is overwhelming. The two chromosomes it appears to derive from are directly analgous to chromosomes that are found in apes.

However, once you make this change, an explanation that agrees with creationist accounts of human ancestry just falls out. It would go something like this:

Humans were created in a separate creative event from the other primates, but with 24 chromosome pairs just like them. At some point early in human history, fusion of the chromosomes occurred to give us the 23 pairs we have now. All living humans are descended from those in which the fusion occurred.

The point is simply this: the evidence points to the fusion of human chromosomes, but gives no indication when this happened, except that it must have occurred to a creature that was the ancestor of all living humans. Since none of the apes share this fused chromosome, there is no reason at all to date this fusion any further back than warranted, so it becomes unnecessary to even posit the existence of a common ancestor between apes and humans based on this evidence alone.
What is interesting is this: at first glance, looking from an evolutionary perspective, this seems to have dealt a death blow to creationist accounts of human origins. (The main problem for the creationist is why God would have chosen to create humans with chromosomes that have useless bits in them i.e. the telomene sequences in the middle, and in a way that mimics fusion of 2 chromosomes).
But actually, the evolutionary interpretation has overstepped the mark -- it doesn't demonstrate common ancestry, it assumes it. All the way through it talks about the chromosomes of a common ancester etc. But by putting the evidence into the evolutionary framework ahead of time it has confused what the evidence actually points to. The evidence does indicate (assuming that the God-created-it-to-look-like-fusion explanation is invalid) that human chromosomes were once more similar to those of apes than they are currently, but that is all.
The article also states:

Not only is this strong evidence for a fusion event, but it is also strong evidence for common ancestry; in fact, it is hard to explain by any other mechanism.

The main basis for saying this appears to be the statement: "At the place where we would expect it on the human chromosome we find the remnants of the chimp 2q centromere". But of course, as the author explains later, we don't actually find the chimp 2q centromere -- there is no label on it saying "I'm a chimp 2q centromere". What we find is the remnants of centromere that is in the same place, relative to certain sequences, as the 2q centromere is in chimps. All this shows is that the ancestor chromosomes (i.e. before the fusion event) of current human chromosomes were closely analagous to chromosomes of apes, including chimps.

So the author claims we can rule out other accounts of human origins, but is unjustified in doing so. The reason for this logical mistake is that he/she has intertwined the evidence and the evolutionary explanation so tightly, and seen that they fit so well, that the author cannot imagine another explanation would fit.

In reality, the evidence fits a creationist explanation equally well--there is nothing contrived or tricky about what I have presented, and if evolutionary theory did not exist, there is nothing in this evidence that would make creationists think of common descent. The idea that humans originally had a complete set of chromosomes that correspond to ape chromosomes, rather than only 23 out of 24, does not shake creationist ideas one little bit. We already knew there was a vast amount of similarity between humans and primates both in terms of physical characteristics and genetic material and structure.

It is a mistake of the evolutionary mindest to assume that observing similarities necessarily brings you to the conclusion of common descent. Taxonomy based on physical characteristics was already a very well established science when the idea of common descent came on the scene, and people from both the intelligent design and the creationists camps have no problem in understanding physical and genetic similarities that are not rooted in common descent -- that is, it is easy to think of perfectly adequate reasons why a designer (either an unknown intelligence in the case of ID, or God in the case of creationism) might have reused designs.

A lesson for both sides to take away is the importance of detaching yourself from your current position in order to see where the evidence actually points. It is easy to imagine that because evidence fits with your position, and fits very well, it therefore not only confirms your position but disconfirms the rival theories.
____________________________________

[Note, I realise that I'm likely to get flamed for this entry, as I have been in the past for the smallest references to things of this nature. Since this is my blog, and I'm interested in intelligent debate, and don't want my readers to have to trall through screens of rubbish, I will not hesitate to delete comments that are just stupid and contribute nothing. I promise not to censor you if you have something intelligent to say, and I am genuinely interested in any flaws in my logic or gaps in my knowledge of the evidence.]

[Stuu]

Who said the fusion evident in chromosome 2 was evidence of common ancestry?

It's the fact that the genes on the fused chromosome match the genes on two separate chromosomes on our closest cousins, and don't match quite as well equivalent chromosomes in more distantly-related species that is the evidence.

Your post looks like yet another creationist strawman, perhaps one in the stages of invention still.

Maybe creationists could spend a bit less time misrepresenting science and a bit more time giving us the Theory of Creation. You know, a falsifiable, evidence-based, predictive model of how a deity breathed into dirt and made a man, or transmogrified a rib to make a woman...or managed to make an earth before the existence of light.

What a bunch of time-wasting morons creationists are.

Stuart

[voltaire]

Originally Posted by Stuu

Who said the fusion evident in chromosome 2 was evidence of common ancestry?

It's the fact that the genes on the fused chromosome match the genes on two separate chromosomes on our closest cousins, and don't match quite as well equivalent chromosomes in more distantly-related species that is the evidence.

Your post looks like yet another creationist strawman, perhaps one in the stages of invention still.

Maybe creationists could spend a bit less time misrepresenting science and a bit more time giving us the Theory of Creation. You know, a falsifiable, evidence-based, predictive model of how a deity breathed into dirt and made a man, or transmogrified a rib to make a woman...or managed to make an earth before the existence of light.

What a bunch of time-wasting morons creationists are.

Stuart

You are assuming your conclusion just like the rest of your bunch.

[Nazaroo]

Now to save time for the trolls, I'm not going to defend either the thinking, the sentiments, or the wording of our example skeptic in the previous post.

Frankly since he's not a physicist, I'm not likely to be taking any lessons.

But I will do us the favour of quoting our Evolutionist mouthpiece,
for the purpose of examining his weak b.s.:

EVIDENCE:



At each end of a chromosome we have a Telomere the purpose of the telomere in a chromosome is to prevent deterioration of the important bits of the chromosome from the end.



Chimpanzees and Humans have extremely similar DNA to humans, but Chimpanzees have more chromosomes than Humans do, and if Humans and Chimpanzees are genetically related (sharing a common ancestor), this extra chromosome had to go somewhere. Evolutionary Biologists might predict that two chromosomes fused into one. As it turns out Chromosome number 2 in Humans was once two different chromosomes that were fused together, and the evidence is that that a extra large Telomere appear in the middle of the chromosome as well as an extra Centromere, as depicted in the illustration above.

Dr. Kenneth Miller has stated that he believes in God but not a deceptive one, which is why he accepts Evolution and is a prominent biologist.

This looks like quite a neat, tidy little package.
Who cares if he stole the picture from Wikipedia.

The real point is that the diagram is actually deliberately misleading.
In the original set of drawings used in the (1992?) legal trial over IC/ID,
the actual biologist who used this example had an extra step!



Later, the biologist used a simplified diagram, but still showing the same important detail MISSING from the Wikipedia version:





The ALL IMPORTANT SECOND Centromere was originally labeled "inactivated",
which is itself a bit of a fraud.

In fact the Centromere, as correctly noted in the article last post,
is not an intact or identically sequenced centromere as found in other primates,
but a unique, possibly corroded, deteriorated or otherwise damaged REMNANT of a centromere.

This (actually quite long) sequence of nucleotides is actually a unique signature belonging to the human Chromosome 2, and does not resemble,
except in the most general terms, the supposed "source centromere"
found in apes.

The original biologist was at least honest enough to indicate the discrepancy in his own diagrams,
and label it (albeit inaccurately to avoid drawing attention),
while the Wikipedia FAKE diagram is a far more serious 'simplification',
implying that there is an actual match.

Had there been a simple "fusion" of two genes,
it should be obvious to even the most inept observer,
that (especially since these segments of DNA are DORMANT),
they should be identical, since they are not anywhere near the site
of the fusion.

"Random" mutation of this segment of the chromosome would of course require eons of time (millions of unavailable years), and place the C-2
segment millions of years away from our supposed "proto-ape" ancestor.

The huge problem with this of course, is that it requires a 'Catastrophe Theory',
to explain why it would be present in EVERY HUMAN BEING,
which in essence means something killed off all other members of our species, while only a SINGLE PAIR of parents survived...

I'll leave that event up to your imagination.

[Nazaroo]

Putting the "Disappearing Centromere" aside (for later fraud charges),
Lets now consider the absurdity of this being "evidence for Natural Selection".

Even if we were to accept the ridiculous time-scales for "early hominids"
proposed by these idiots,
this radical fusion of two whole genes into one gene is an obvious
'one-time' event, having apparently little or nothing to do with evolution
in the 'survival' sense.
The immediate result of this horrific and possibly fatal "accident",
would be to render the lone 'survivor' incapable of sexual reproduction
with any other member of its species.

Unless early man was a hermaphrodite, this poor bugger is dead in the water.
He may be able to hunt and fish, but he is unlikely to build himself a genetic lab,
in order to clone a female version of himself for reproduction purposes.

What then happened?
Obviously this was not a step in the "evolution" of modern man,
but a far more recent, possibly failed genetic experiment upon a human lab rat.
In that case, the ability to reproduce is easily explained.
God knows how many undifferentiated zygotes were grown in some pre-flood military complex,
but there it is.
Experiment # 407 escaped the lab, probably because it was bombed by opponents,
and our cute little human bunny ancestors survived their overlords.

[Stuu]

Originally Posted by voltaire

You are assuming your conclusion just like the rest of your bunch.

I am assuming that creationists are morons? I think the evidence is pretty clear.

Stuart

[Stuu]

Originally Posted by Nazaroo

this radical fusion of two whole genes into one gene is an obvious 'one-time' event, having apparently little or nothing to do with evolution in the 'survival' sense.
The immediate result of this horrific and possibly fatal "accident",
would be to render the lone 'survivor' incapable of sexual reproduction with any other member of its species.

How do you know it was not possible for the ends of the corresponding separate chromosomes to line up with the join in chromosome 2?

Stuart

[Stuu]

Originally Posted by Nazaroo

Lets now consider the absurdity of this being "evidence for Natural Selection".

You don't appear to have yet realised the absurdity of claiming that people use is as evidence for natural selection.

Stuart

[voltaire]

Originally Posted by Stuu

Who said the fusion evident in chromosome 2 was evidence of common ancestry?

It's the fact that the genes on the fused chromosome match the genes on two separate chromosomes on our closest cousins, and don't match quite as well equivalent chromosomes in more distantly-related species that is the evidence.

Your post looks like yet another creationist strawman, perhaps one in the stages of invention still.

Maybe creationists could spend a bit less time misrepresenting science and a bit more time giving us the Theory of Creation. You know, a falsifiable, evidence-based, predictive model of how a deity breathed into dirt and made a man, or transmogrified a rib to make a woman...or managed to make an earth before the existence of light.

What a bunch of time-wasting morons creationists are.

Stuart

Originally Posted by voltaire

You are assuming your conclusion just like the rest of your bunch.

Originally Posted by Stuu

I am assuming that creationists are morons? I think the evidence is pretty clear.

Stuart

What you were assuming is highlighted in yellow.

[Alate_One]

Originally Posted by Nazaroo

Putting the "Disappearing Centromere" aside (for later fraud charges),
Lets now consider the absurdity of this being "evidence for Natural Selection".

As Stuu said, fusing chromosomes doesn't need to be evidence for natural selection. It could easily be the result of drift.

Even if we were to accept the ridiculous time-scales for "early hominids"
proposed by these idiots,
this radical fusion of two whole genes into one gene is an obvious
'one-time' event, having apparently little or nothing to do with evolution
in the 'survival' sense.
The immediate result of this horrific and possibly fatal "accident",
would be to render the lone 'survivor' incapable of sexual reproduction
with any other member of its species. Unless early man was a hermaphrodite, this poor bugger is dead in the water.
He may be able to hunt and fish, but he is unlikely to build himself a genetic lab,
in order to clone a female version of himself for reproduction purposes.

Except none of this is true and you have no idea what you're talking about. There are plenty of human beings running around right now with *other* fused chromosomes. These people can have children just fine, though there can be problems with unbalanced gametes at some point but that won't affect all of the offspring.

[Nazaroo]

Originally Posted by Alate_One

As Stuu said, fusing chromosomes doesn't need to be evidence for natural selection. It could easily be the result of drift.

(1) Thank you for confirming my first point. Its not evidence for Natural Selection, and its also not evidence of any kind for any part of the Theory of Evolution.

Except none of this is true...
There are plenty of human beings running around right now with *other* fused chromosomes.
These people can have children just fine,...
.

(2) Thank you for biting the hook and confirming my 2nd Sleeper point. Man does not have exactly 23 pairs of chromosomes, and Evolutionists have no idea how the complex system of the molecular biology of the cell operates.


Finally, none of the genius Evolutionists caught my planted typo.

Its not about "genes" fusing, but about "chromosomes" fusing.

[The Barbarian]

Thank you for biting the hook and confirming my 2nd Sleeper point. Man does not have exactly 23 pairs of chromosomes, and Evolutionists have no idea how the complex system of the molecular biology of the cell operates.

Well, one man doesn't.

The point is that the difference in the number of chromosomes between humans and other apes led to the prediction that humans had a chromosome fusion at some point in our evolution.

This was later confirmed. This and many other confirmed predictions of the theory are why scientists accept it as true.

[Nazaroo]

Originally Posted by The Barbarian

Well, one man doesn't.

The point is that the difference in the number of chromosomes
between humans and other apes led to the prediction that
humans had a chromosome fusion at some point in our evolution.

...for all the wrong reasons.

And here are two reasons that demonstrate the impulse of Evolutionists is unscientific and wrongheaded.

(1) At least two famous biologists have claimed that the discovery of a possible fusion of two chromosomes to create the number of 23 human pairs, was a proof of Evolutionary Theory, because failing to find this case of fusion would have actually falsified Common Descent!

That is, the claim of the significance of Chromosome 2 is so radical, that in 'lucky' hindsight, the Evolutionists have now claimed that had it not been discovered, Evolution from proto-apes would have been false!

The irony is as stunning as the level of B.S. surrounding this issue:
If the lack of evidence for fusion of Chromosome 2 was so damning to Evolutionary Theory, then Evolutionists should have been acknowledging that Common Descent of humans and chimps from a proto-ape was utterly implausible right up until 1991.

(2) History shows however, that Evolutionists have never stopped making exaggerated and outrageous claims of "fact" regarding the Evolutionary Hypothesis, ever since it was conceived. There has never been a period in the history of the Theory of Evolution where it was regarded as implausible or in serious doubt as a result of the state of contemporary knowledge or ignorance.

The high and mighty claims regarding Evolution have been a total CONSTANT, regardless of the lack of or state of evidence at any point in its 100 year history! That is, for all practical purposes, Evolutionary Theory is UNFALSIFIABLE in practice, and is sustained whatever direction scientific knowledge progresses in!

This was later confirmed.
This and many other confirmed predictions
of the theory are why scientists accept it as true.

The problem is, the Darwinian Theory of Natural Selection made no such prediction. The history of the idea of a Chromosome Fusion could only begin AFTER molecular biology had advanced to a state of knowledge concerning DNA.

The entire claim of 'Prediction' and 'Confirmation' has been entirely fabricated anachronistically in order to advance the cause of "Evolution".

The Theory of Evolution has never made ANY historical predictions, that were unknown and subsequently confirmed by scientific investigation.

[fool]

Originally Posted by Nazaroo

God knows how many undifferentiated zygotes were grown in some pre-flood military complex,
but there it is.
Experiment # 407 escaped the lab, probably because it was bombed by opponents,
and our cute little human bunny ancestors survived their overlords.

Can you elaborate on the "pre-flood military complex"?

[Nazaroo]

(1) At least two famous biologists have claimed that the discovery of a possible fusion of two chromosomes to create the number of 23 human pairs, was a proof of Evolutionary Theory, because failing to find this case of fusion would have actually falsified Common Descent!

Example 1 (modern claim about Chromosome 2):

4:55 -

"...The implications are clear:
if according to various other lines of evidence human beings do in fact share a common ancestor with nonhuman primates, evolutionary theory simply must account for the missing pair of chromosomes.

There can be little doubt that if it were the case that such a large amount of
genetic material were deleted in such a short span of time, it would most certainly prove lethal, in effect preventing the afflicted gamete from developing into a healthy individual. Because of this evolutionary biologists where in essence forced to make a bold prediction:

That prediction stated that at some point following the divergence of human and nonhuman primate lineages, two chromosomes must have fused, and of course we should expect to find clear evidence of a chromosomal merging somewhere in the human careotype.
Soon after the prediction was made the prediction was confirmed.
Striking evidence of a chromosomal fusion is observed in human chromosome 2"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-WAHpC0Ah0

Example 2: (Original Claim at trial about Chromosome 2):

"...and therefore you could say when modern genetics came into being
everything in Darwin's theory was at risk, could have been overturned,
if it turned out the genetics contradicted the essential elements of evolutionary theory: - but it didn't contradict them. It confirmed them in great detail."

And as Miller would testify, a genetics paper published less than a year before the trial had confirmed what has long been the most inflammatory part of Darwin's theory:
the common ancestry of humans and apes.
That paper exported curious discrepancy in our chromosomes. The cells
of all great apes like chimpanzees gorillas and orangutans, contain twenty four pairs of chromosomes. If humans share a common ancestor with apes, you'd expect us to have the same number. But surprisingly human cells contain only twenty three pairs.

"The question is, if evolution is right about this common ancestry idea, where did the chromosome go? Well: Evolution makes a testable prediction:
And that is that somewhere in the human genome, we ought to be able to find a piece of the "scotch tape" holding two chromosomes together
so that of twenty four pairs, two of them were pasted together to form just twenty three. And if we can't find that, then the hypothesis of common ancestry is wrong and evolution is mistaken ."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CexojNPz2cU

Its quite clear that Evolutionist Biologists are not merely claiming that the discovery of evidence for a fused pair of chromosomes was consistent or corroborative of Evolutionary Theory, but that it was critical to it,
and that a lack of such evidence would be FATAL to Evolutionary Theory, the portion that asserts the common descent of man and apes from a shared ancestor (proto-ape).

But if this were the case, then prior to this evidence, namely for at least 25 years between the 1970s and the 1990s, when genetics and the problem of the chromosome count was well known and understood, evolutionary biologists should have been coming forward as scientists, and saying plainly and loudly that the Descent of Man from Apes was actually unlikely and fraught with difficulties, unless a possible mechanism to explain the discrepancy in the chromosome count was found.

Of course there is no such history of intellectual honesty
and scientific integrity in Evolutionary biology.

Now all of a sudden, evolutionary biologists are heralding the "discovery" of a possible chromosome fusion as PROOF of human descent from apes. But since they haven't been acting as impartial scientists from the beginning, or ever, why should they be treated as such now, and believed?

In fact, we plainly have another problem. In order to demonstrate that two chromosomes have indeed been fused, they must also show what the mechanism was, and how this genetic mutation came to completely invade every single human being.

Finally, since by their own calculations, humans split off from this "ape ancestor" some 14 - 7 million years ago, but this genetic feature has the appearance of having taken place only 5 million years ago, this has nothing at all to do with "evolution" from a proto-ape at all, but is simply an incidental genetic 'tag' of pure humans, happening millions of years AFTER the supposed evolution of man from a proto-ape.

Its as "important" as a hairless behind, two boobs, or male pattern baldness. It may uniquely identify "humans", but it has nothing to do with speciation, since if this mutation had caused any kind of speciation at all, it would not have survived as a genetic trait. The first human with this mutation HAD TO be able to multiply with other humans.

Its not an "evolutionary" trait at all, but a mere inherited birth defect.

Nonetheless, its total dominance in humans millions of years AFTER "evolution",
must be accounted for by a catastrophic event!

This particular genetic example provides better evidence for a universal flood
than it does for descent from Apes.