Any practical use for Universal Common Ancestor?

Caffeine has provided a better answer than I can but here’s a bit more to think about.

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Here's another way of trying to state the argument. Surely all would agree that any given species/kind/creature produces only that same species/kind/creature, with some variations mostly in superficial traits while the basic structure or form is preserved from generation to generation.

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Well let’s start by pointing out that your ideas of which traits are “superficial” seems to be based purely on convenience to your position. Sharper claws is not a superficial trait to you, but all the variations in trilobite eye structure are. On any objective assessment that is utterly ridiculous.Next, while parents and children will generally be similar they will not be identical. There will be small differences in the genome that are not inherited from the parents. Some of these differences will have a phenotypic effect and some of these will persist and eventually take over a population of the descendants - many generations down the line.So, it is not that there is no change - there is slow, cumulative change within a population.

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The ToE, however, says that at some point it will acquire changes that ultimately produce a new species, in this case some sort of mammal. Since all we know about any creature is that it always reproduces itself with superficial variations, which is commonly known as "microevolution" the question remains: since the theory holds that it will eventually produce something other than itself, how do you see this happening? What changes and where, either in the phenotypic traits or in the genome?

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This is not a sensible question. How can you ask about specifics when dealing with the general situation ? There can be biochemical changes, changes in colouration or shape, hair might be gained or lost. The hooded crow and carrion crow seem to be separating based on nothing more than sexual selection - the plumage differences being enough to drive them apart. No doubt they will slowly diverge, since there is very little, if any, gene flow between the populations. But how they will diverge is simply not predictable. We can’t know which mutations will occur or which of those will be advantageous over the next few millennia (and I expect it will take longer than that for them to become greatly distinct)

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You would need something entirely different than exists in the rodent genome to get a new kind of paw

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As caffeine points out, that isn’t true. It would take adjustments to regulatory sequences to affect the development of the paw.

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This is all another attempt to define the question I've been asking. How do you get from the genome of one species to that of another considering that each genome is a blueprint as it were for only the traits of the species it belongs to?

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A genome is not a blueprint. It does not describe the morphology at all. It is more like instructions to grow the creature. Make this protein under these conditions is the basic level. And adjusting those instructions produces the sort of differences we see.

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My reason for using the term "superficial" is nothing like what you are imagining. Your speculations are wrong and they are unwelcome.

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So what is your reason for using an obvious double standard ? I think the fact that your arguments would collapse without it shows adequate reason for my conclusion.Note that this is a highly relevant point since you claim that the minor differences between a human hand and a chimpanzee’s require new genes.

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I already said there are differences from generation to generation. Pay attention.

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Did you admit that there are differences in the genome that are not inherited from the parents ? Did you admit that these differences can include phenotypic changes ? Did you admit that these new traits can spread to entire populations ? If not then you are the one failing to pay attention.

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The question has to do with explaining how anything that does not exist in the species genome can come to exist in the creature.

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A new trait coming from a mutation would seem to fit.

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Obviously you do not grasp the question and are not interested in it but only in making irrelevant points.

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Since the points you are objecting to are obviously relevant it seems that the reality is that you don’t want an answer.

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Gosh you don't say. It's also not a map. Or a recipe. Or an instruction booklet. But any will do as a metaphor to express the relationship between gene and protein and trait. Or if you don't think so, then please provide the best word for the job.

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Blueprint is not a good metaphor, because the genes do not directly represent the phenome in any way - map isn’t exactly better for the same reason. Recipe or instruction booklet are not as bad, but still potentially misleading.The relationship between gene and phenotype depends very, very much on the trait you are talking about. The structure of a protein depends directly on the genes. But the further you get away from that the less and less sense it makes to talk about individual genes instead of the whole system - including the environment where development is taking place, especially if it is an egg or a womb. Look up “maternal effect genes”.

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This is again just another obfuscation and distraction

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No, it’s the truth. Really, this aggressive lying is not helping anyone, least of all you.

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There are plenty of genes that are actually defined by the trait they build, and researchers are always identifying genes by the particular traits they produce, for various reasons including studying how to deal with genetic diseases. So picking one gene that doesn't fit with my question is sheer fraud.

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But I am not picking “one gene” at all, and it certainly isn’t true that only one gene doesn’t fit with the idea that a gene directly causes a trait, so your accusation of fraud is another lie. Researchers may identify genes by effects - but that may mean no more than that one particular allele is associated with a particular trait in a single species. Until you understand the relationship between the allele and the trait you can’t say any more.

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I don't care how you want to go about it but the question is about how you get a new species from the genome of another species and of course you can't do it because it is impossible.

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Of course, since you believe in the Creationist “kind”concept you don’t really believe that it is impossible at all. Nor have you identified any real issues that would prevent genetic changes accumulating through drift and selection until a population of descendants has become a distinct species. So the general question is answered - and your claim of impossibility remains unsupported.

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I've many times identified barriers to change beyond the species, both in the genome and in population genetics.

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You’ve identified no real barriers at all.

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But now I'm asking for anyone to show how I'm wrong by specifying the genetic pathway by which such changes could occur step by step. It's amusing how nobody can do that and just keep trying to throw it back on me.

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You ask a general question you get general answers. Which you can’t refute. And the fact that you obviously don’t want answers and object strongly to any explanation of how genes relate to traits is hardly helpful.

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It's hard to believe that nobody really understands the question so I assume it's dishonesty that precludes a reasonable discussion of the facts

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We don’t have to assume that dishonesty on your part is obstructing reasonable discussion - we know it for a fact.

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I'd really really **** to see someone honestly address the question but I guess it isn't going to happen

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People have. You don’t like it at all.

Some genetic differences between humans and chimpanzees, found hereWikipedia explains MYH16
And ACTN3
However it must be remembered that chimpanzees are very similar to humans in many waysE.g.

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Nice try, sort of, but not really. If you're going to claim that microevolution just proceeds without a glitch to macroevolution you should be able to come up with some kind of idea of how that could happen genetically, some kind of pathway, some idea of what genetic changes would be necessary to get from the genome that always makes only its own particular species to at least one trait of some completely different species.

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The pathways already invoked for microevolution seem to be adequate. Especially as they include gaining and losing genes.Added: and for an unusual but relevant case, see this thread and the article linked in the OP. Message 1If you have any concrete objections it is rather surprising that you haven’t seriously raised them.

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If you can't show how mutations could get from that species-specific genome to something entirely different, even one trait of it, you need to stop claiming that it happens as you all do

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There is nothing special about a “species-specific genome” that means that it can’t change. Indeed discussion around that point seems meaningless. The “species-specific genome” is based on the individual genomes of the members of that species and will change as the membership of that species changes. If a sub-population is isolated it will diverge from the rest of the species - drift alone guarantees that. The changes that occur must be counted when identifying the “species-specific genome” right up until that population is considered to be a different species when it isn’t.Or to put it simply there is absolutely nothing special about “species specific genomes” that suggest any problems in going from one to another. Changes occur, some of them will end up in new species while not being considered as belonging to the parent species (even if they were present for a time) but there is nothing special about those changes. They were just those that happened to occur as part of a speciation event rather than just adding to the diversity of the main population.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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I've already answered your objections a million times

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Simple assertions aren’t really adequate answers.

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A genome IS indeed "species-specific." That is, it can build the species it belongs to and no other.

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In practical terms that is true, but that’s not because there is anything special about the genome - and it doesn’t mean that that genome is constant. Variations can and do come and go.No meaningful objection there.

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For even a single recognizable trait that belongs to another species to be the product of such a genome is impossible.

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Presumably you mean traits that don’t belong to the species - since shared traits are ubiquitous. But this is also meaningless as an objection. Any heritable trait found in the species “belongs” to the species, and the genome will be involved in it’s existence.

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Although that is the question and you can still try to answer it

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Then that is already answered. If new traits appear through mutation - as we know can happen - then they will “belong” to the species and be the product of the genome. Even though the genome lacked the capability to produce the trait before.

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You will never get even a human fingernail from the chimp genome.

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Perhaps you can explain the differences between a chimp fingernail and a human fingernail and explain the role of the genome in producing those differences.

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If you want to show how that could be possible over millions of years then please explain. You'd have to describe the sort of genetic changes that would have to occur over those millions of years

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But you claim to be able to show that it is impossible. Asking for details that I’m not in a position to know doesn’t show that. It’s just a rhetorical trick. An attempt to cover up the fact that you cannot show any real barrier.I can be sure that if I asked you to give a similarly detailed explanation of how a single species genome could produce the much bigger variations seen in trilobites - in the absence of massive artificial selection - you would complain loudly. But it is no less fair than your demand.

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You claim the genome can change so show us how it does so.

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You mean that you want us to repeat the examples of the pocket mice and the peppered moth and the Scottish fold cat all over again ?

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I know you know that a chimp genome can't produce a human fingernail and I also know that you don't know how that is, and neither do I,

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But I don’t know that there is any significant difference between a chimp fingernail and a human fingernail at all - let alone one that is out of the reach of mutation. And neither do you.And that makes it pointless as an example.

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but we all know that what I'm saying is true: a genome is specific to the species and produces ONLY the charcteristics of that species. You know it, I know it,, everybody here knows it.

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And - unless we get into quibbles - we also know that it is a meaningless tautology that doesn’t help your argument at all.So let’s stop wasting time with rhetorical games. If you have a real case, then make it. If you don’t then cut out the aggression and honestly admit it.

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Don't be silly. I know you can't show anything I've asked you to show because it's impossible. You think it's possible so the burden is on you to show it, show SOMETHING, ANYTHING genetic that would show that you can get a completely new species from an existing species.

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You claim that there are real obstacles and therefore it is on you to show that there are. But you don’t.What is wrong with the examples you have been given? In the absence of real objections they do meet your demand here. Indeed, in the absence of any real obstacles you lose there, too.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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I have to come back to this later but please answer this question: Isn't it true that the human genome will create only a human being with human characteristics and there is nothing in it that could produce anything else or even a single characteristic of another species?

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You do realise that this is a pointless question which can’t possibly help you ? The reason has been given over and over again.Genomes change over time. They are moving targets. Nobody is suggesting that a (current) human genome would produce a chimp or vice versa.You have to show that the changes are impossible. Arguing that the genome for a species produces that species is a complete irrelevance.

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It's not that they can't be (chemically) accounted for, it's that you can't get the one from the other by mutations, you always get something that belongs to the given genome. Isn't that so?

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You’d always get something that belonged to the mutated genome, but that doesn’t exactly help you, does it ?

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By the way I don't think I claimed STRUCTURAL difference between chimp and human hands, just recognizable differences, that the genome of each creature will produce only those recognizable characteristics, recognizable chimp hand in chimp, human in human.

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And this is pointless. We are talking about changes to the genome. Just going back to an unchanged genome all the time evades the issue.We have proof that the genome does change. We know that the differences between chimp and human are compatible with the mechanisms of change. We have other evidence that chimp and human both evolved from a common ancestor (largely on the human side since chimps live in an environment that is very destructive to their remains).You have got a bald declaration that it can’t happen and instead of talking about it you go back to the current genomes every time.We are way ahead of you. Demanding more of us when you can’t even match what we have is less than fair.

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But that is not really what I'm saying. My point is that the genome can only make the creature it belongs to, so THEREFORE to get something entirely different which the ToE says is possible, at least over millions of years, the genome itself has to change and that is a completely different ballpark than the ordinary variations that go on within a given genome.

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Aside from the fact that mutations are pretty ordinary that is basically what we’ve been saying.

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Those ordinary variations are what we mean by microevolution and they occur in each generation simply through the shuffling of the alleles within the genome.

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That may be what you mean by microevolution but scientists - and I expect most creationists count mutations as microevolution too. You probably should, too because you don’t want to define them as macroevolution - which would be the only reasonable alternative.

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or something entirely different to occur you need a change that is NOT built into the genome but is a change TO the genome and since mutations simply change what the genome already does you need mutations that do a lot more than that.

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Now you are not making sense. Mutations are changes to the genome. They include disabling and deleting genes, and even the formation of duplicate genes - or more rarely the creation of new genes.

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Trial and error HAS to produce weird anomalies because there is no pathway for them.

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Not really. Most weird anomalies are developmental problems which aren’t even caused by mutations.Many mutations have relatively little effect - as you would expect for small chemical variations in proteins. To understand more you would need to know more about developmental biology than you do.

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Trial and error is going to produce huge numbers of errors before it ever got around to even a single change that could lead to a viable new species.

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But this comes down to what should be considered an error. If we ignore all mutations without phenotypic effect - and there are huge numbers of those - any beneficial or neutral mutation should be considered a success, not an error.Your point is just an uninformed guess.

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Mutations occur within the genome and are part of microevolution IF they are viable at all.

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Well obviously changes to the genome are in the genome. Where else would they be ?

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What you need is mutations that change the genome itself to produce something ENTIRELY new, ENTIRELY NOT within what the genome does.

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You are going to have to explain that because it is very unclear what it includes or excludes. Changes to the genome can obviously change what it does. We’ve seen examples. But any such changes are necessarily within the new genome and ARE what it does.So how different does the new genome have to be from the old genome to qualify ? Do very small changes count ? If they don’t what happens when a number of small changes add up to a larger change ? Does that count ?

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I'm making a distinction between "IN" the genome where they do nothing but produce a variation on what the genome does, and "TO" the genome where they putatively produce something the genome never could produce, which is what would be necessary if it really is possible to get an entirely different species from a given species.

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If you mean something that the old genome couldn’t do then the pocket mice and the Scottish Fold cat qualify. But you obviously can’t mean something that the new genome can’t do.So I just have to repeat my question. What changes count? Obviously you must be dismissing some changes, but why ?