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But I don't think anyone who understands the DNA can possibly deny evolution. It's considered a fact verified in stunning detail via the genetic record: http://www.sciencedaily.com/...ases/2010/05/100512131513.htm
Theobald's conclusion has been rigorously challenged.
Douglas Theobald’s Test Of Common Ancestry Ignores Common Design | Evolution News
Douglas Theobald Tests Universal Common Ancestry by Refuting a Preposterous Null Hypothesis | Evolution News
DNA analysis actually disproves the evolution story. Let's take a look at The Tree of Life shown by molecular phylogenetic analysis:
Evolutionists often claim that universal common ancestry and the tree of life are established facts.
This figure below from a leading textbook [George Johnson, Jonathan Losos, The Living World, Fifth Edition, McGraw Hill, 2008.] is typical.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/...-XehG8E/s1600/JohnsonTextTOL.JPG
According to Dr. Jonathan Wells: " [Darwin] believed that the differences among modem species arose primarily through natural selection, or survival of the fittest, and he described the whole process as "descent with modification."
"Biologists in the 1970's began testing Darwin's branching tree pattern by comparing molecules in various species. The more similar the molecules in two different species are, the more closely related they are presumed to be. At first, this approach seemed to confirm Darwin's tree of life. But as scientists compared more and more molecules, they found that different molecules yield conflicting results. The branching-tree pattern inferred from one molecule often contradicts the pattern obtained from another."
What do evolutionists say?
For a long time the holy grail was to build a tree of life, says Eric Bapteste, an evolutionary biologist at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, France. A few years ago it looked as though the grail was within reach. [i]But today the project lies in tatters, torn to pieces by an onslaught of negative evidence. Many biologists now argue that the tree concept is obsolete and needs to be discarded. We have no evidence at all that the tree of life is a reality," says Bapteste. That bombshell has even persuaded some that our fundamental view of biology needs to change. espite the amount of data and breadth of taxa analyzed, relationships among most [[animal] phyla remained unresolved.
Antonis Rokas, Dirk Krueger, Sean B. Carroll, "Animal Evolution and the
Molecular Signature of Radiations Compressed in Time," Science, Vol. 310:1933-1938 (Dec. 23, 2005).
Evolutionary bioinformatics specialist W. Ford Doolittle explains, Molecular phylogenists will have failed to find the ‘true tree,’ not because their methods are inadequate or because they have chosen the wrong genes, but because the history of life cannot properly be represented as a tree.W. Ford Doolittle, "Phylogenetic Classification and the Universal Tree," Science, Vol. 284:2124-2128 (June 25, 1999).
"[d]espite the amount of data and breadth of taxa analyzed, relationships among most [a nimal] phyla remained unresolved."
- Antonis Rokas, Dirk Krueger, Sean B. Carroll, "Animal Evolution and the Molecular Signature of Radiations Compressed in Time," Science, Vol. 310:1933-1938 (Dec. 23, 2005).
Just a moment...
What about 'convergent evolution' on the DNA level?
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Convergent Evolution on the DNA level
Evolutionists have found convergence on the DNA level which goes against their expectations because it is highly, highly, unlikely. This is found among whales and bats when it comes to echolocation. The ScienceDaily article reports that these similarities are not just phenotypic but extend down into the level of the gene sequences:
"two new studies in the January 26th issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, show that bats' and whales' remarkable ability and the high-frequency hearing it depends on are shared at a much deeper level than anyone would have anticipated -- all the way down to the molecular level"
Convergent genetic evolution was said to be "surprising" under neo-Darwinian thinking, this article reports, "The discovery represents an unprecedented example of adaptive sequence convergence between two highly divergent groups and suggests that such convergence at the sequence level might be more common than scientists had suspected." The article continues:
"The natural world is full of examples of species that have evolved similar characteristics independently, such as the tusks of elephants and walruses," said Stephen Rossiter of the University of London, an author on one of the studies. "However, it is generally assumed that most of these so-called convergent traits have arisen by different genes or different mutations. Our study shows that a complex trait -- echolocation -- has in fact evolved by identical genetic changes in bats and dolphins."
[...]
"We were surprised by the strength of support for convergence between these two groups of mammals and, related to this, by the sheer number of convergent changes in the coding DNA that we found," Rossiter said
Likewise, a report by the same scientists in Current Biology called the finding "surprising":
Only microbats and toothed whales have acquired sophisticated echolocation, indispensable for their orientation and foraging. Although the bat and whale biosonars originated independently and differ substantially in many aspects, we here report the surprising finding that the bottlenose dolphin, a toothed whale, is clustered with microbats in the gene tree constructed using protein sequences encoded by the hearing gene Prestin.
(Ying Li, Zhen Liu, Peng Shi, and Jianzhi Zhang, "The hearing gene Prestin unites echolocating bats and whales," Current Biology, Vol. 20(2):R55-R56 (January, 2010) (internal citations removed).)
Thus, the high unlikelihood of such convergent genetic evolution poses great problems for systematists who seek to reconstruct a tree of life because molecular systematic banks upon the assumption [or expectation] that genetic similarity is the result of common inheritance. In this case, however, common inheritance makes no sense:
What could have caused the misplacement of dolphin to the bat clade in the prestin tree? Horizontal gene transfer, DNA contamination, gene paralogy, long-branch attraction, and biased amino acid frequencies are all unlikely. The only remaining reason is the convergence of the prestin sequences of echolocating bats and whales, likely resulting from a common selection for amino-acidaltering mutations that are beneficial to echolocation.
(Ying Li, Zhen Liu, Peng Shi, and Jianzhi Zhang, "The hearing gene Prestin unites echolocating bats and whales," Current Biology, Vol. 20(2):R55-R56 (January, 2010) (internal citations removed).)
A review of this research in Current Biology stated:
Remarkably, prestin amino-acid sequences of echolocating dolphins have converged to resemble those of distantly related echolocating bats. ... Even more remarkable is the new finding that echolocating dolphins and porpoises show Prestin gene sequences that resemble those of echolocating bats. Whales and dolphins belong to the order Cetartiodactyla, and their closest living relatives may be hippopotamuses. Nevertheless, dolphins and porpoises share at least 14 derived amino acid sites in prestin with echolocating bats, including 10 shared with the highly specialised CF bats. Consequently, dolphins and porpoises form a sister group to CF bats in a phylogenetic analysis of prestin sequences (Figure 1). This finding is arguably one of the best examples of convergent molecular evolution discovered to date, and is exceptional because it is likely to be adaptive, driven by positive selection.
(Gareth Jones, "Molecular Evolution: Gene Convergence in Echolocating Mammals," Current Biology, Vol. 20(2):R62-R64 (January, 2010) (internal citations removed).)
Source
http://www.evolutionnews.org/...n_design_in_bat_and_whale042 291.html
This is just a few of the many examples that disproves the evolution story.
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Some of our hominid cousins do survive in our DNA:
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Sorry, I don't have a pass to log in and don't plan on getting one anytime soon.
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No, why would I?
Okay, so you're just gullible.
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We out competed them.
Scientific evidence please?
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You didn't offer the same courtesy. Why would we expect to find sub-humans walking around?
Because they supposedly existed? Oh, but of course they just so happened to be extinct... because humans out competed them according to you.
Interesting story.
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The more I think about this, the sillier it seems.
They were living where we wanted to live, using the resources that we wanted to use, hunting the game that we wanted to hunt and inhabiting the land that we wanted to cultivate, and they were our technological and intellectual inferiors. What is there about the history of our bloody and warlike species that makes you expect that for tens of thousands of years we'd have (in effect) established nature reserves for them, while visiting unrestrained war and death on members of our own species, and while driving dozens of other mammal species into extinction?
Around these nature reserves --- are we to suppose? --- empires rose and fell, wave after wave of invaders came and fought and settled and were conquered in their turn, armies of thousands and tens and hundreds of thousands struggled for land, and all this time every culture that came into contact with H. erectus said "But we mustn't kill them and take their land. Because one day someone will invent the theory of evolution and then they will be seen as being of great scientific importance."
I think not.
It is obvious that they would be driven to extinction, because if nothing else got them, we would. So I think the explanatory burden is on you. Can you think up any plausible scenario at all under which they would have survived to the present day?
Scientific evidence that supports your story please?
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There are many intermediate species that have become extinct through one of two processes: (1) they evolved into later species or (2) they were outcompeted by other species.
Oh, riiiiiight they evolved to other species so that's why we don't see sub humans or they got outcompeted by other species.
Scientific evidence please?
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Measured by DNA the gap between chimps and humans is about 2%, and this is similar to the gap between horses and zebras and donkeys.
Actually, that has been challenged. Recent study shows it can be as low as 70% genome similarity.
Zondag
Moreover, A Study Reports a Whopping "23% of Our Genome" Contradicts Standard Human-Ape Evolutionary Phylogeny
Study Reports a Whopping “23% of Our Genome” Contradicts Standard Human-Ape Evolutionary Phylogeny | Evolution News
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Why?
Can you show how the theory of evolution would predict this?
Do you expect to see great great grandparents roaming the world? Their great great grandparents?
Evolution is the change in the frequency distribution and composition of hereditary traits within breeding populations from generation to generation, in response to ecological challenges and opportunities.
This necessarily means that evolution occurs over sequential generations. This predicts that intermediates would be found in ancestral populations rather than in current populations.
If living sub human populations were walking around it would certainly give more credence to the evolution story. But of course, they just so happened to be extinct or they evolved. Whatever. But not even the fossil record supports their story as quoted by evolutionists.
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Age of references most certainly matters simply because our level of understanding changes over time. The most recent quote (which you posted twice) was Gee 2001 - congratulations on making it into this century, if only barely. Most of your copypasta PRATTs were from a time when a computer capable of keeping up with my laptop would fill rooms, if it existed at all.
But if there is no new scientific evidence that contradicts it then the 'old' evidence is still valid. I have yet to read or hear any scientists recently who say the fossil record supports gradual evolution.
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I believe I have already done so. Please reread my response and tell me why I haven't proven it - show us your evidence.
I believe you haven't.
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And in many cases they have.They have also found rapid change and stability of species over time. You oversimplify then nature of evolution, misrepresent how it works and then claim it to be false.
This image has been shown before but how's this for gradual transitions? Show me where apes end and humans begin.
What scientists endorses it? Is there a consensus among scientists of the interpretations of relationships of the fossils to one other? How do we know there are not hoaxes? Evolutionists have a history of presenting hoaxes as the 'missing link'?
There are a bunch of other questions regarding it.
I just go by what evolutionists have said and they say in essence the hominid fossil record is horrible and open to many different interpretations. That's not hard scientific evidence.
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This book rolls up a great deal of information from many papers, so if you'd like to see the papers containing the data he used there's a long list of references at the end beginning on page 45.
I'm not trying to debate the percentage of extinct species with you, I just thought since you asked about it that you'd like to see some additional information. Is this somehow relevant to your contentions about human ancestry?
I'm still not sure what question you're asking. Are you asking why the gap between chimps/bonobos and humans is so large? And if so, then if you do not accept that the extinct hominid species are related to us, why do you accept that chimps and bonobos are related to us when they resemble us even less?
Also, you didn't give any indication whether you understood the explanation about the lack of evidence making it impossible to know in any specific way why a species went extinct. Did the explanation make sense?
The Newman book provides models which is hypothetical at best. However I'm asking for hard scientific evidence for the claim that 98%+ of all species have become extinct.
Evolutionists claim that 98%+ of species have become extinct in order for their evolution story to make sense. Since there so many gaps in the fossil record they assume the fossils of all the species are there but they just haven't discovered them yet. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
The explanation is just that... an explanation. Where is the scientific evidence to back it up?
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Precisely what are you willing to accept as "scientific evidence?" Do you expect Percy's reference to have a listing of all of the billions of species estimated to have existed on Earth throughout history? Do you require documentation of a specific fossil for every species that is believed to have ever existed, despite the fact that fossilization is an extremely rare event and many organisms (including bacteria and other single-celled organisms) simply do not leave fossils? Are you willing to accept a mathematical extrapolation from the number of known species from the fossil record? Given that the number is in fact an "estimate," will you immediately challenge the admitted imprecision of the number, even though it's likely to be accurate, regardless of Percy's response? Do you even understand the difference between precision and accuracy, or will you conflate the two in an attempt to "prove" that the imprecision of an estimate means it's somehow likely to be inaccurate in its entirety?
What if only 90% of the species that have ever existed are now extinct? Would your argument change? Would it change at 80%? At 50%? Because even if it's an absurdly low number like 10%, we know that our hominid ancestors are all extinct, even though it's extremely unlikely to find evidence for a specific cause for the extinction of a specific species. Does the manner of extinction particularly matter when determining whether those hominid ancestors were actually the ancestors of modern humanity? Does it matter whether a branch of our ancient cousins were killed off in a natural disaster because they all lived in a single geographic area, or whether they were simply out-competed by a new branch of the family tree? What's the relevance?
Is there some reason that you think that reversing the typical "if humans descended from apes, why are there still apes" argument into the equally vapid "if humans are descended from apes, why are all the human-ancestor apes extinct" is particularly clever? Why do you think that the Theory of Evolution requires ancestor species to survive to be contemporary with all of their descendants? By that logic, you should be asking "if birds descended from dinosaurs, why aren't there any dinosaurs living today?" After all, we don't see "sub-birds" and "sub-sub-birds" flapping their not-quite-flight-capable wings around today either. I wouldn't expect to, but for some reason you seem to. Why?
I think empirical evidence is very strong scientific evidence as opposed to ad hoc explanations, just-so stories, assumptions, and speculations that evolutionists are fond of.
Did Percy's reference have scientific evidence to back up the claim? I believe not.
Yes, having the fossils would be really compelling scientific evidence.
Would you accept the human population is 6,000 years old using mathematical population statistics? Probably not.
I don't think it matters how they were extinct. However I think it matters to provide evidence to back up the evolutionists' story of how they were extinct.
Evolutionists are really good story tellers. I'll give them that. Too bad they have no scientific evidence to back it up.
Again, I find it very funny that they all just so happened to be extinct. It would be really compelling evidence to find some human like ape with primitive features and culture somewhere around the world. Ooooh but of course they all just so happened to be extinct.
These days I don't know what evolution theory requires anymore if it requires anything. Evolution explains everything and therefore explains nothing. That's why evolution can't be falsified. No matter how much evidence contradicts it or shatters their expectations or predictions they will just give some ad hoc explanation or change their evolution story.
For example, Junk DNA. It was expected or predicted:
The amount of DNA in organisms, neo-Darwinist Richard Dawkins wrote in 1976, is more than is strictly necessary for building them: A large fraction of the DNA is never translated into protein. From the point of view of the individual organism this seems paradoxical. If the ‘purpose’ of DNA is to supervise the building of bodies, it is surprising to find a large quantity of DNA which does no such thing. Biologists are racking their brains trying to think what useful task this apparently surplus DNA is doing. But from the point of view of the selfish genes themselves, there is no paradox. The true ‘purpose’ of DNA is to survive, no more and no less. The simplest way to explain the surplus DNA is to suppose that it is a parasite, or at best a harmless but useless passenger, hitching a ride in the survival machines created by the other DNA. (The Selfish Gene, p. 47)
Recent scientific evidence says otherwise:
"Pseudogenes have long been labeled as "junk" DNA, failed copies of genes that arise during the evolution of genomes. However, recent results are challenging this moniker; indeed, some pseudogenes appear to harbor the potential to regulate their protein-coding cousins. Far from being silent relics, many pseudogenes are transcribed into RNA, some exhibiting a tissue-specific pattern of activation...."
Pseudogenes: Pseudo-functional or key regulators in health and disease?
"What was once considered "junk DNA" now holds the keys to many novel gene regulatory mechanisms..."
The role of noncoding "junk DNA" in cardiovascular disease - PubMed
Of course there are numerous more studies that shatters the "Junk DNA" myth. According to Jonathan Wells (received two Ph.D.s, one in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California at Berkeley) exposes the myth in his book aptly titled "The Myth of Junk DNA"
http://www.mythofjunkdna.com/
Or what about Morphological Stasis?
Evolutionists didn't expect to find organisms to stay the same morphologically for millions and millions of years (supposedly) as shown with discoveries of "living fossils" and "amber fossils":
Stasis, or nonchange, of most fossil species during their lengthy geological lifespans was tacitly acknowledged by all paleontologists, but almost never studied explicitly because prevailing theory treated stasis as uninteresting nonevidence for nonevolution. ...The overwhelming prevalence of stasis became an embarrassing feature of the fossil record, best left ignored as a manifestation of nothing (that is, nonevolution). Stephen J. Gould, "Cordelia's Dilemma," Natural History, 1993, p15
Niles Eldredge remarked: In the context of Darwin’s own founding conceptions, and certainly from the perspective of the modern synthesis, living fossils are something of an enigma, if not an embarrassment. (Eldredge and Stanley p. 272)
Peter Ward in his 1992 book terms living fossils evolutionary curiosities, more embarrassments to the theory of evolution than anything else. (p. 13)
"The principal problem is morphological stasis. A theory is only as good as its predictions, and conventional neo-Darwinism, which claims to be a comprehensive explanation of evolutionary process, has failed to predict the widespread long-term morphological stasis now recognized as one of the most striking aspects of the fossil record." (Williamson, Peter G., "Morphological Stasis and Developmental Constraint: Real Problems for Neo-Darwinism," Nature, Vol. 294, 19 November 1981, p.214.)
These are just a few of the many contradictions or shattered expectations that discredits the the evolution story.
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"How come there is no members of my family tree more like me than my cousins? Why is there such a huge gap? You would expect to find all of our shared ancestors like parents and grandparents and great-grandparents leading up to me, right? All of my family before me from my father to my grandfather to my great-great grandfather should be walking around."
The fact that most of my ancestors are dead has no logical bearing on whether or not my cousins and second-cousins and other more distant relatives who still breathe are actually related to me.
Why then do you believe that the ancestors of our species must be alive to prove our relation to the distant cousins of humanity that are alive today?
Your analogy doesn't seem to make sense.
I know my great... grandfather was human. I don't know if my ancestors going back many generations weren't human as believed by evolutionists. If these supposed sub human species existed it would give more credence to their claim. Ah but of course they are all extinct.
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So do you have any evidence that punctuated equilibrium is incorrect?
I can't prove a negative, buddy. You should provide scientific evidence if you actually believe in PE.
This should be good.
Edited by CrytoGod, : Typos.
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