Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
10 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,815 Year: 3,072/9,624 Month: 917/1,588 Week: 100/223 Day: 11/17 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Why are there no human apes alive today?
ZenMonkey
Member (Idle past 4510 days)
Posts: 428
From: Portland, OR USA
Joined: 09-25-2009


Message 772 of 1075 (623377)
07-09-2011 8:49 PM
Reply to: Message 768 by Mazzy
07-09-2011 7:03 PM


Re: Turkana ape-man
Mazzy writes:
Apart from the arms and a few skull features Ardi looks just like Turkana boy. If you visualise the Turkana skull tilted back just a few degrees, it is even more obvious That Turkana Boy has pronounced ape like pronagnathism and is therefore outside the range of human variation.
Well, first of all, arms and skulls would actually be rather important in determining what something looks like. I don't think that you can dismiss them quite so casually. But be that as it may, let's do some comparing.
Here is Ardipithicus ramidus, first the actual remains, then in reconstruction, as seen from the front and from the side:
Here's Turkana boy, the very same image that you linked to:
Here are two views of chimpanzee skeletons, one viewed head on in an unnatural human-like posture, the second seen from the side in a more natural posture:
Here are two human skeletons, again seen from the front and from the side (even stooped over a bit):
And finally, here are a human skeleton and a chimpanzee skeleton, posed side by side.
You've said that the chimpanzee is the primate that most resembles human beings. We can all see the differences between those two, as well as the similarities. But if Ardi and Turkana boy are both apes (again, using your sense of the word), they should at least look as ape-like as a chimp. Thus, Ardi, Turkana Boy and the chimpanzee would all clearly be apes, and being apes, would all be more like each other than they would human beings.
Again, let's look at the pictures:
The apes, according to you:
And the human being:
If you want to argue that any of these images are atypical, and that there are other images around that show a greater resemblance between any one of these species to another, then the burden of proof is on you to show us such images. (Click on help for dBCodes to learn how to display pictures.)
Do you believe that the first three specimens represent one "kind" of creature, and the the fourth represents an obviously different "kind?"
Because from where I sit, it doesn't look quite so easy to draw the line between human and non-human, at least not when it comes to Turkana boy.
Edited by ZenMonkey, : Improved spelling and rhetoric.

Your beliefs do not effect reality and evidently reality does not effect your beliefs.
-Theodoric
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill

This message is a reply to:
 Message 768 by Mazzy, posted 07-09-2011 7:03 PM Mazzy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 780 by Mazzy, posted 07-10-2011 4:16 AM ZenMonkey has replied

ZenMonkey
Member (Idle past 4510 days)
Posts: 428
From: Portland, OR USA
Joined: 09-25-2009


Message 773 of 1075 (623380)
07-09-2011 8:59 PM
Reply to: Message 768 by Mazzy
07-09-2011 7:03 PM


Re: Turkana ape-man
Oh, by the way, where are you putting H. neanderthalis these days, human or ape?
(Sorry for the image-heavy posts. I assume that this is preferable to more than 10,000 words on my part.)

Your beliefs do not effect reality and evidently reality does not effect your beliefs.
-Theodoric
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill

This message is a reply to:
 Message 768 by Mazzy, posted 07-09-2011 7:03 PM Mazzy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 781 by Mazzy, posted 07-10-2011 4:22 AM ZenMonkey has not replied

ZenMonkey
Member (Idle past 4510 days)
Posts: 428
From: Portland, OR USA
Joined: 09-25-2009


Message 786 of 1075 (623434)
07-10-2011 12:38 PM
Reply to: Message 780 by Mazzy
07-10-2011 4:16 AM


Wait a minute.
Before I attempt to address any more of your claims, I would like you to clarify a point for me. As far as I know, you have never said just how old you believe this planet to be, or more importantly, how long you think that human beings have been here.
Do you agree with the commonly accepted ages of the remains we've been discussing?
Please refrain from using the "Experts are Idiots" defense. If you believe that there is a reason why all of the modern dating methods are in error, please say what that reason is. Remember, your explanation has to account for the fact that independent and distinct methods all converge on the same values.
For example, if you weighed a rock using a balance beam, a spring scale, and water displacement and came up with the same answer every time, that would tend to be conclusive evidence that you had measured correctly. The same situation is true for radiometric and other commonly used dating techniques. They are independent each other, and they all converge on the same values. If they were wrong, they would all be giving different answers. They do not.
Also, please don't use the "If They Said One Thing 30 Years Ago and Something Else Today, They Must Not Know What They're Talking About At All" variation on the "Experts are Idiots" defense. Dating methods today are more accurate than they were in the past. 30 years ago it wouldn't have been possible to use GPS technology to measure the distance between continents to an accuracy of inches. Today it's done daily. Accuracy increases with time.
I've also noticed that you have a practice of finding the work of dissenters and outliers to be more convincing that that of the majority of experts in a field, or at least to cast serious doubt on the validity of what the majority of experts accept as the best answer in any given case. As has been stated many times, one of the strengths of science is that it grows and revises itself to account for new information. Established theories have to account for new data, if that data is valid. Conversely, new models have to account for all previously validated data, and have to provide a better explanation than previous models have.
If you or anyone else wants to dispute currently accepted facts and theories, then you have to provide evidence and reasoning that specifically address those facts and theories. Simply saying that you disagree or that someone else disagrees is not sufficient.
I've gone on much longer than I intended (not for the first time, alas), but only because I wanted to head off any diversions from what is really a simple question.
Do you accept as valid the established dates of the remains we've been discussing?

Your beliefs do not effect reality and evidently reality does not effect your beliefs.
-Theodoric
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill

This message is a reply to:
 Message 780 by Mazzy, posted 07-10-2011 4:16 AM Mazzy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 790 by Mazzy, posted 07-10-2011 3:03 PM ZenMonkey has replied

ZenMonkey
Member (Idle past 4510 days)
Posts: 428
From: Portland, OR USA
Joined: 09-25-2009


Message 789 of 1075 (623440)
07-10-2011 2:37 PM
Reply to: Message 788 by Mazzy
07-10-2011 2:13 PM


Mazzy writes:
All this nonsense on ERV's demonstrates is that organisms were exposed to the same virus eg Hendra, swine flu, HIV. It is a huge fluff to suggest that the only way organisms get markers for virus is by common decent. It is a bigger fluff to use this nonsense as evidence for common decent.
No, what ERV evidence demonstrates is that organisms with multiple viral markers in exactly the same place in the genome can only be explained by common descent.
If you don't understand that, you still don't understand ERV evidence.

Your beliefs do not effect reality and evidently reality does not effect your beliefs.
-Theodoric
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill

This message is a reply to:
 Message 788 by Mazzy, posted 07-10-2011 2:13 PM Mazzy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 791 by Mazzy, posted 07-10-2011 3:12 PM ZenMonkey has not replied

ZenMonkey
Member (Idle past 4510 days)
Posts: 428
From: Portland, OR USA
Joined: 09-25-2009


Message 792 of 1075 (623450)
07-10-2011 4:24 PM
Reply to: Message 790 by Mazzy
07-10-2011 3:03 PM


Re: Wait a minute.
Mazzy writes:
I am about to head off for a week or so but I would like to respond properly to you when I return, if the thread is still going.
I will post links to creationist dating methods and give examples of the flaws in your dating methods.
I look forward to that. I have yet to read any credible creationist refutations of the validity of radiocarbon dating methods, including those in the articles you refer to here, but I am always willing to listen to something new.
A substantial discussion of dating methods properly belongs in the Dates and Dating forum, and I would gladly continue there in a new or existing thread. The issue at hand here was simply whether or not you had valid grounds to dispute the established ages of the remains in question. Certainly 5 million years of development will give very different results than 6000. But you've at least given a partial and rather direct answer to my question. Thank you.
Enjoy the holiday.

Your beliefs do not effect reality and evidently reality does not effect your beliefs.
-Theodoric
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill

This message is a reply to:
 Message 790 by Mazzy, posted 07-10-2011 3:03 PM Mazzy has not replied

ZenMonkey
Member (Idle past 4510 days)
Posts: 428
From: Portland, OR USA
Joined: 09-25-2009


Message 864 of 1075 (624748)
07-19-2011 6:51 PM
Reply to: Message 790 by Mazzy
07-10-2011 3:03 PM


Re: Wait a minute.
Hello, Mazzy, and welcome back from holiday.
When convenient, could you please address the question I put to you in Message 786, namely:
ZenMonkey writes:
Do you accept as valid the established dates of the remains we've been discussing?
I believe that this question is on topic. It makes a difference if you think that human as well as non-human primates have only been here for a few thousand years, rather than a few million. Wouldn't all of these various hominids had to have all existed contemporaneously under any kind of recent creation model?

Your beliefs do not effect reality and evidently reality does not effect your beliefs.
-Theodoric
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill

This message is a reply to:
 Message 790 by Mazzy, posted 07-10-2011 3:03 PM Mazzy has not replied

ZenMonkey
Member (Idle past 4510 days)
Posts: 428
From: Portland, OR USA
Joined: 09-25-2009


(3)
Message 913 of 1075 (625168)
07-21-2011 4:49 PM
Reply to: Message 906 by Mazzy
07-21-2011 3:08 PM


Mazzy writes:
I accept your response in that the theory of evolution is just a theory and is not a proven fact.
This misuse of the term "theory" is so common that I'm surprised that creationists are still doing it. Well actually, no, I'm not surprised.
It's very common for a term to mean one thing in common speech and mean something quite different in a specific field. For example, when people use the word "myth," they usually mean something that isn't true but that some people believe in: "It's a myth that there are alligators in the New York sewer system." But in folklore and literature, a myth is a traditional story that illustrates some fundamental truth or explains some natural phenomenon, e.g. the myth of Prosperine and Pluto tells us why we have summer and winter. Same word, two different meanings depending on the context.
Similarly, in everyday, non-scientific speech, "theory" is used interchangeably with "hypothesis," both words conveying the idea of something that's a supposition or an educated guess. "No, you don't know for sure that it's going to rain the rest of the summer. That's just your theory."
However, in science, "theory" has a very different meaning. A theory is a coherent proposition that explains a group of related phenomena. So cell theory tells us that the cell is the fundamental unit of life. Newton's theory of gravity tells us that all physical bodies attract each other in direct relationship to the product of their masses and in an inverse relationship to the square of the distance between them. These are explanatory statements, not guesses.
For a hypothesis to reach the status of a theory, it has to have such explanatory power and be supported by the facts that to withhold consent to it would be intellectually perverse. A theory holds the place of the highest certainty in science. A fact is just a data point. A hypothesis is a proposed explanation that is still being tested and has yet to achieve the status of a theory.
No theory is held to be absolutely true, because new data could always come along that the theory fails to explain. However, very rarely if ever does a new theory contradict a previous one, because the factual basis on which a true theory is based is so extensive and well established. What happens is that a new theory explains not only all of the facts that the old one did, but does a better job of it and can be used to explain even more phenomena. Thus Einstein's Relativity Theory doesn't contradict what Newton said, it just has greater explanatory power.
It's always possible that a new theory will replace an old one, thus the statement that nothing is every proved in science with 100% certainty. But that doesn't at all mean that a theory is just a haphazard guess, as good as any other guess.
There is the fact of evolution; evidence from a multitude of fields - biogeography, taxonomy, paleontology, physiology, and genetics, to name a few - all agree that genetic information in populations changes over time. Those are facts. What the Theory of Evolution does is tell us why this is true: inheritable traits always shift over time due to imperfect copying of genetic information, and changes that all allow greater reproductive success are more likely to be inherited than those that don't. Simple, clean and almost mathematical in its logic.
I've noticed that the bulk of your rhetoric is based on what I call the "Experts are Idiots" defense. This is a weak and even foolish line of reasoning. For tens of thousands of intelligent, educated individuals to be fundamentally wrong about areas in which they are experts and in which they have years of training, while someone like yourself, self-admittedly totally uneducated in these same fields, to be right, is a highly unlikely proposition, to say the least.
Experts can often disagree about details. Some historians may argue that the dependence on slavery in the agricultural South was the primary cause of the American Civil War, while others may believe that the conflict between states rights and federalism was much more to blame. Fine. Both of these propositions are based on facts. But no credible historian is going to propose that the primary cause was actually mind manipulation by Egyptian wizards. There are no facts to support that, so no one wastes time asserting or investigating it.
While I don't think that one should just blindly accept what's commonly believed as true, it does seem that the most intellectually supportable position is to accept, however provisionally, what people who are experts are saying.
It has been pointed out many times that the facts do not support your position. In fact, you often cite studies and articles that actually contradict what you're asserting. But far worse is your refusal to accept or even address rationally the work of experts. For example, back in Message 663 I answered this assertion:
Mazzy writes:
In fact researchers have no idea what the flesh looks like on any old skeleton, they are just best guessing according to their needs.
by providing an example of how forensic anthropologists can do quite an amazing job of reconstructing likenesses even of individual people using only bones.
Here's a reconstruction on the left, built on a nothing more than a badly damaged skull and a pair of glasses found with the remains. The photograph on the right is the actual missing person who was identified by this reconstruction.
Your response was essentially a restatement of the "Experts are Idiots" defense, which is no response at all.
I've gone on at length, but I hope that I've done something to convince you to abandon this line of reasoning. Your argument may fall apart if you do, but you'll gain some intellectual credibility.
At least please stop using the word "theory" the wrong way.
ABE: It appears that Theodoric beat me to the punch in explaining the proper use of the word "theory." Maybe if you see the same explanation twice, it will suffice to convince you on this point at least.
Edited by ZenMonkey, : No reason given.

Your beliefs do not effect reality and evidently reality does not effect your beliefs.
-Theodoric
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill

This message is a reply to:
 Message 906 by Mazzy, posted 07-21-2011 3:08 PM Mazzy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 923 by Mazzy, posted 07-22-2011 3:09 AM ZenMonkey has replied

ZenMonkey
Member (Idle past 4510 days)
Posts: 428
From: Portland, OR USA
Joined: 09-25-2009


Message 915 of 1075 (625175)
07-21-2011 5:03 PM
Reply to: Message 909 by Mazzy
07-21-2011 3:33 PM


Re: NO CHIMP ANCESTRY
Mazzy writes:
So let me get this straight. You are suggesting that no one here on EVC involved in this discussion asserts that Lucy or Ardi are in the human line....WELL that's just great. Then they all should stop referring to mythical fossil evidence for human ancestry. In actual fact if neither of these representatives and their cohorts were in the human line, then effectively evolutionists have absolutely no evidence for ancestry to a common ancestor of humans and apes. I love it!!!!!
Hi Mazzy,
You seem to be a little unclear about the concept of common ancestry, and what it means for an ancestor to be direct or indirect.
Let's assume that you have a sister. You both have a common ancestor: your mother. Now let's say that you also have a cousin, whose mother is your mother's sister. You and your cousin also have a common ancestor: your grandmother on your mother's side. Everyone is related, but you have to go back two generations to find the common ancestor that you share with your cousin, but only one generation to find the one you share with your sister.
Good so far?
Now let's shoot forward in time a hundred years, three more generations down the line. Your great-granddaughter is unquestionably related to all three of you - yourself, your sister, and your cousin. She is directly related to you, and indirectly related to your sister and your cousin. She is more closely related to your sister than she is to your cousin, but she's still related nonetheless.
So if a paleontologist says that Ardi (or any other extinct hominid) may or may not be a direct ancestor to human beings, that isn't at all the same thing as saying that we're not related. In the example above, H. sapiens is your great-granddaughter. Ardi might be you, or he might be your cousin. Ardi might not be a direct ancestor, but he's still related. Our common ancestor is just further back in the lineage.
And there's the answer your primary assertion that the fact that there are no other hominids alive today proves that there never were any. Just because your sister didn't leave any children, that doesn't mean she never existed.

Your beliefs do not effect reality and evidently reality does not effect your beliefs.
-Theodoric
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill

This message is a reply to:
 Message 909 by Mazzy, posted 07-21-2011 3:33 PM Mazzy has not replied

ZenMonkey
Member (Idle past 4510 days)
Posts: 428
From: Portland, OR USA
Joined: 09-25-2009


(1)
Message 935 of 1075 (625340)
07-22-2011 12:13 PM
Reply to: Message 923 by Mazzy
07-22-2011 3:09 AM


Mazzy writes:
Zen monkey. Percy commented on your adequate post and I disagree it is adequate at all.
First, I believe that what Admin was referring to was my attempt in Message 915 to explain the difference between direct and indirect ancestry. I thought that it would be helpful for someone to clarify this for you.
Second, I'm done with you and this thread, for reasons that should be obvious to anyone.

Your beliefs do not effect reality and evidently reality does not effect your beliefs.
-Theodoric
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill

This message is a reply to:
 Message 923 by Mazzy, posted 07-22-2011 3:09 AM Mazzy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 937 by Mazzy, posted 07-23-2011 3:03 PM ZenMonkey has not replied

ZenMonkey
Member (Idle past 4510 days)
Posts: 428
From: Portland, OR USA
Joined: 09-25-2009


(1)
Message 975 of 1075 (626064)
07-26-2011 11:04 PM
Reply to: Message 966 by Mazzy
07-26-2011 5:49 PM


Edited by ZenMonkey, : No reason given.
Edited by ZenMonkey, : Not on topic enough, although a valid point.

Your beliefs do not effect reality and evidently reality does not effect your beliefs.
-Theodoric
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill

This message is a reply to:
 Message 966 by Mazzy, posted 07-26-2011 5:49 PM Mazzy has not replied

ZenMonkey
Member (Idle past 4510 days)
Posts: 428
From: Portland, OR USA
Joined: 09-25-2009


(1)
Message 996 of 1075 (626235)
07-27-2011 10:46 PM
Reply to: Message 987 by Mazzy
07-27-2011 6:23 PM


Re: Moderator Advisory
Mazzy writes:
3. How can researchers tell if an ERV has been transmited via HGT, epigentic inheritance etc, as opposed to ancestry?
You can rule out horizontal gene transfer as a possible route for ERVs to make their way from chimp to human, or from any primate to another, which is what you seem to be implying. As far as I know, HGT almost always happens between single cell organisms, very rarely between multi-cellular organisms, and never between vertebrates.
Note that word, never.

Your beliefs do not effect reality and evidently reality does not effect your beliefs.
-Theodoric
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill

This message is a reply to:
 Message 987 by Mazzy, posted 07-27-2011 6:23 PM Mazzy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 998 by Mazzy, posted 07-28-2011 12:51 AM ZenMonkey has replied

ZenMonkey
Member (Idle past 4510 days)
Posts: 428
From: Portland, OR USA
Joined: 09-25-2009


(1)
Message 999 of 1075 (626254)
07-28-2011 12:56 AM
Reply to: Message 997 by Mazzy
07-28-2011 12:40 AM


Re: Moderator Advisory
Mazzy writes:
This is also avoiding the question. Once a horizontally transmitted ERV reaches the germ line, which they sometimes do, how do you differentiate this ERV was transmitted horizontally rather than vertically if it is dated back past 1my or more. I say that you cannot differentiate.
Because HGT doesn't happen between vertebrates.

Your beliefs do not effect reality and evidently reality does not effect your beliefs.
-Theodoric
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill

This message is a reply to:
 Message 997 by Mazzy, posted 07-28-2011 12:40 AM Mazzy has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1005 by Dr Jack, posted 07-28-2011 6:50 AM ZenMonkey has replied

ZenMonkey
Member (Idle past 4510 days)
Posts: 428
From: Portland, OR USA
Joined: 09-25-2009


(1)
Message 1000 of 1075 (626256)
07-28-2011 1:03 AM
Reply to: Message 998 by Mazzy
07-28-2011 12:51 AM


Re: Moderator Advisory
Mazzy writes:
The let me state very simply that you are very wrong.
Citizendium
NOTE the words...'YOU ARE WRONG'...big time!
I fail to see how an article on HGT between bacteria supports the assertion that it can take place between chimps and humans.
Do you not know what prokaryotes are, or did you just not read the article you cited?

Your beliefs do not effect reality and evidently reality does not effect your beliefs.
-Theodoric
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill

This message is a reply to:
 Message 998 by Mazzy, posted 07-28-2011 12:51 AM Mazzy has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1002 by Panda, posted 07-28-2011 6:05 AM ZenMonkey has not replied

ZenMonkey
Member (Idle past 4510 days)
Posts: 428
From: Portland, OR USA
Joined: 09-25-2009


(1)
Message 1009 of 1075 (626317)
07-28-2011 12:23 PM
Reply to: Message 1005 by Dr Jack
07-28-2011 6:50 AM


HGT amongst vertebrates
Mr Jack writes:
ZenMonkey writes:
Because HGT doesn't happen between vertebrates.
This is not strictly true.
Gene fragments from one species can become incorporated into viruses, or bacteria, get transferred to other species with the infective agent and then incorporated into the genome of the host.
It's radically less common than in prokaryotes but it can happen and has happened.
I stand corrected. My research was obviously not thorough enough. This leaves me with three questions.
1. Is there any mechanism that would allow HGT to take place between relatively complex species without the action of an intermediary, as you describe?
2. What happens to those gene fragments in translation? Do they end up in the same place in the genome of the last species in this chain as they were in the first?
3. Could this happen with anything like the frequency necessary to account for all the exact ERV correspondences we see between, say, humans and chimps?
ABE: I now realize the my third question is kinda stupid. HGT correspondences wouldn't be orthologous.
Edited by ZenMonkey, : No reason given.

Your beliefs do not effect reality and evidently reality does not effect your beliefs.
-Theodoric
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1005 by Dr Jack, posted 07-28-2011 6:50 AM Dr Jack has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1010 by Dr Jack, posted 07-28-2011 12:58 PM ZenMonkey has not replied

ZenMonkey
Member (Idle past 4510 days)
Posts: 428
From: Portland, OR USA
Joined: 09-25-2009


(1)
Message 1022 of 1075 (626379)
07-28-2011 10:41 PM
Reply to: Message 1019 by Mazzy
07-28-2011 7:57 PM


Understanding ERVs by way of analogy.
Hi Mazzy,
Let's try an analogy. Imagine some monks in a monastery, copying manuscripts all day. They represent the copying and replication of DNA in reproduction, and the process of making copies of copies will represent the passing of the gene code on from one generation to the next.
Every once in a while, a monk is going to make a mistake. Let's say that in making a copy of manuscript A, a monk randomly inserts the word "terrible" in one paragraph. Let that represent the insertion of a virus somewhere in the genome.
Now we have manuscript B, identical to manuscript A except for that one mistake.
Any monk who makes a third-generation copy from manuscript B is going to leave that mistake in, since he doesn't know any better. Let that represent the preservation of the viral insertion into the gene code.
Let's say that five monks all make copies from manuscript B, the manuscript with the original error, and let's name them all C1 through C5. Each copy in the C generation will have that particular error. And there won't be any copies of A that have that error but weren't copied from B.
So say you pick up one of the many copies of copies made from the original manuscript A. If it has that one particular mistake, the insertion of a specific word in a specific place, you'll know that it's one of the C generation manuscripts or at least that ultimately it had to have manuscript B back in its ancestry. The odds are incredibly low that any other copies made from the original manuscript A would have that same particular insertion of the exact word "terrible" in exactly the same place, as I'm sure you'll have to admit.
Let's take it one step further. Imagine that in making copy C3, a monk makes another mistake, like misspelling the word "tolerable" as "tollerable" in one sentence. Now if you pick up a manuscript and it has both the insertion of the word "terrible" in one particular place, and the misspelling "tollerable" in another particular place, you know that it can be traced back to C3. In fact, any you can be certain that any copy that has the C3 mistake will also have the B mistake.
Even if all the old manuscripts were thrown out one day, leaving only the most recently made copies, you could still confidently put them into groups according to their ancestry. This grouping will be a nested hierarchy, the only organization possible for naturally branching descent from a common ancestor.
I hope that you can see the applicability of the analogy to the way that the insertion of ERVs into the genome works. Please think about it if it doesn't make sense at first. Once you do see how it works, you'll see why ERV insertion is such a powerful piece of evidence supporting common ancestry.
I welcome any additions or corrections to this analogy from those who know this stuff far better than I do.
Edited by ZenMonkey, : No reason given.

Your beliefs do not effect reality and evidently reality does not effect your beliefs.
-Theodoric
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1019 by Mazzy, posted 07-28-2011 7:57 PM Mazzy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1024 by Mazzy, posted 07-28-2011 11:14 PM ZenMonkey has replied

Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024