Thursday, August 7, 2014

... on Evolution, Chromosome Numbers, PZM's Honesty and Similar Matters



Video commented on: Religion Reverses Everything
AronRa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vquOuWx6NlA


The Dungeon Master
I have a question: Is it creationists' presupposition that Earth is 6,000 years old that makes them unable to understand evolution, or is it their presupposition that evolution is wrong that forces them to believe Earth is 6,000 years old?
johnflux1
The presupposition is the bible.
VIIflegias ["VII flegias"?]
in many cases what drives a creationist is the pleasure that derives from basking in confirmation bias and that is clearly visible ( it's most evident in the case of nephilimfree ). in other words ''i'm right because i fell good about the fact that i fell good because i'm right''. in other other words, they perform mental masturbation with circular reasoning. this happens to everybody, but creationist tend to be hardcore about it. if by some miracle you manage to take that out of the picture and begin a discussion, the creationist mind is trained to follow specific thought patterns in response to specific stimuli and those programmed responses usually make them incapable of accepting new information or recognizing a valid argument, even if it's just a variation of their own arguments ( again this happens to everybody, that's how we work, and it's a bad habbit). finally, if you strip away all that, you should be capable of opening a proper discussion and having him/her actually listen to you. at that point, when all they have is a mind with a few fundamental presupposition ( finally here is my answer :P ) i think the main presupposition is : ''i know that my mindset is flawless, therefore the accuracy of any piece of information or reasoning that would force me into a stream of consciousness that i detect to be conflicting with my model of thought does not need to be ascertained and can be dismissed as a irrelevant fallacy''. in other words, and of course this is just an hypothesis, as soon as their brains detect anything that might in the end force them to admit they are wrong not only regarding the subject but wrong in their way of thinking, their primary and last line of defence is activated, like a firewall, instantly halting the process of elaboration of the information they were just presented. and this does not happen to everybody, not to people who have an idea of what intellectual honesty is.
Bolan Meek
+johnflux1 There's actually a supposition that precedes "the bible [is true]": that those who promote that book are trustworthy. People don't believe 'The Bible' because they've read it; they believe it because someone has endorsed it to be true, with appeals to emotion. With few possible exceptions, those promoters were trusted loved ones.

After believing 'the Bible', the convinced then read it with filters of confirmation bias, ignoring or belittling all external and internal evidence of its nature as a collection of myths.
Jordan Novak
+The Dungeon Master I would say that for the majority its the presupposition of the Earth's age. Then they fish for reasons to make evolution wrong. Hence the giant list of creationist claims.. they keep searching..

Claim List: Index to Creationist Claims
edited by Mark Isaak
Copyright © 2006
[Last update: 5 Nov 2006]
http://talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html
Tobias Hagström
Probably mostly the former.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
+The Dungeon Master, as a creationist, I would say we consider both wrong on its own merits. We have Biblical - both Historical and Theological, if you like - evidence against Billions of Years. We have scientific evidence evolution won't work even with Billions of Years, not as presumed in the theory.

+Jordan Novak, the list might give an impression of including all major known creationist claims, with links to appropriate answers.

I went through the claims concerning C-14. Our really MAJOR argument on the issue is not listed. Perhaps it is thought to be only a "minor" aspect of first claim - the answer to which includes no answer to it. Here is my going through of the work of Mark Isaak on TalkOrigins:

Creation vs. Evolution : Well, how about Mark Isaak? Too lazy to do his homework?
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2014/07/well-how-about-mark-isaak-too-lazy-to.html


+Bolan Meek That an individual promoter of the Bible to me is a trusted loved one is obvious. It's my ma. Your point?
The Dungeon Master
+Hans-Georg Lundahl And what, dare I ask, is this evidence? I feel I should remind you that we didn't develop the theory of evolution and then force everything to conform to it, we just observed repeating patterns in nature and gave it a name.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
By the Biblical evidence for a short history of the universe, I suppose you will agree we all mean genealogies, so I suppose you were asking for the evidence against evolution.

Since you made a reminder, I will answer it first.

Observing a pattern in nature as we see it today is one thing. Projecting it backwards over a supposed billion or more of years and into MUCH larger proportions is another one. And looking at buried bones and finding confirmations for the pattern observed in the bones, if you project part of the possibilities of projections of the pattern and thus get a pattern in the bones with theoretical overlay that will confirm your projection is a third thing - it is going for a stupid choice of method with all the intelligence one has. Usually brighter than that stupidity.

The evidence against evolution now, have you heard of telomeres? Do you know that we age and die because our telomeres get shorter?

AND, have you heard of PZM's theory of chromosome splits to explain how mammals have different numbers of chromosomes?

If so, you might work out the evidence against evolution for yourself.

If you can't - come back.

While you are thinking it over, watch this documentary by Trey Smith:

NOAH: the TRUTH is BIGGER than you thought......the JourNey BeGins
Trey Smith
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lktmmd7YnD8
The Dungeon Master
+Hans-Georg Lundahl Why should finding bones that match our expectations be bad again? We understand some of the principles the universe runs on, so it stands to reason that those principles will be constants across time. For instance, no matter where or when you go, force always equals mass times acceleration.

Yes, I know about telomeres. They're those useless nucleotide sequences that protect the rest of a chromosome from being damaged during cell division. Telomeres do not determine our life span because they are repaired by telomerase reverse transcriptase.

I couldn't find any information about the theory you mentioned. Could you please link me to where you found it, because I want to read it.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
"Why should finding bones that match our expectations be bad again?"

If they match it spontaneously, so to speak, no problem. That is not exactly what has happened. People who do not know exactly what places the bones have been found, think that is the case. They might even think this textbook diagram (or sth) is honest which says "we find trilobites 100 ft below the ground, dinosaurs 50 ft below the ground, early humans ten ft below the ground and never any place which reverses the order".

There is no such place where you find that on all of earth. It would be as famous among land palaeontologists (dinos and men being both land creatures, unlike trilos) as Grand Canyon among marine palaeontologists.

In order to find confirmation of evolution in the bones, you first impose evolution as a much more virtual way of reading them than 100 ft etc. below the ground. Btw, if there are any finds with lots of bones dug up from 100 ft below the pre-dig ground level, I would like to know. Fossils are usually dug up from where they are acessible.

"We understand some of the principles the universe runs on, so it stands to reason that those principles will be constants across time"

But we have not here and new seen that evolution (in the sense usually interpreted, i e projected way beyond present evidence) is a principle the universe runs on. We have however lots of evidence chromosomes is one of the principles ALL polycellular life runs on.

We also know they come in different numbers for different creatures. The primates are famous in one niche - baboons, chimps, gorillas all have 2*24 (or 48), but man has 2*23 (46).

Other primates are less easy to pack into the theory of evolution from a common ancestor. Unless, as chromosomes can fuse, they also can split.

Certain non-mammals can form offspring with more than two chromosomes in each "couple".

In plants you find tetraploids, octoploids, sometimes artificial hexaploids too, no problem (but natural hexaploids seems to be one). A "human tetraploid" would have 4*23 chromosomes, i e 92. Now, "human tetraploids" are usually spontaneously aborted very early. One boy was born who died after a year, after a very sickly existence.

Do you start to see the problem?

"Yes, I know about telomeres. They're those useless nucleotide sequences that protect the rest of a chromosome from being damaged during cell division."

If they protect the rest of the chromosome from harm, they are not useless. You only mean they do not specify a proteine which is true.

"Telomeres do not determine our life span because they are repaired by telomerase reverse transcriptase."

But repair is overall deficient in comparison to damage, as far as I know, so they do.

But the point about telomeres and PZM's theory is this: for telomeres to be repaired, you need to HAVE some telomere in place in the first place.

In his theory we have this sequence, which lands us with two chromosomes each of which is incomplete since each of which has an arm without a telomere:

"Mutation A" Centromere reduplication:

T_______C______T
GIVES
T_______C____C___________T

(PZM wrote out the genome loci also involved in reduplication)

"Mutation B" Split:

T_______C____C___________T
GIVES
T_______C__ //break// __C___________T

In this scenario there would not be any "repair of the telomere" since there wasn't any telomere there in the first place. Without a telomere, you won't have telomerase, without a telomerase you won't have a reverse transcriptase, without a reverse transcriptase, you won't have anything to repair the telomere with.

Reading links:
Little summary on my own writings on it:
Creation vs. Evolution : Letter to Nature on Karyotype Evolution in Mammals
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2011/11/letter-to-nature-on-karyotype-evolution.html

Where I link to PZM's post:
Pharyngula : Basics: How can chromosome numbers change?
Posted by PZ Myers on April 21, 2008
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/04/21/basics-how-can-chromosome-numb/


[Comment to a page not found message: I have so far NO idea if PZM deleted the post or just changed the adress to make my link bad. Now same link works. Again. If you click it from the comment under the other link rather than here. At least. Unless this was some computer admin having fun just locally - where I was looking. See footnote* on admins having fun.]
The Dungeon Master
+Hans-Georg Lundahl Not really. Believe it or not, we are not lying when we say that everything we've seen supports evolution. And evolution itself means change, nothing more. We've identified, observed, and recreated the circumstances under which evolution occurs. In fact, earlier this year we built a completely man-made bacteria.

I still don't see how the chromosomes present a problem. Through separation at duplicated centromeres, or the fusion of two different centromeres, it is possible to increase or reduce the number of chromosomes an in individual, or possibly an entire species after enough reproduction. We even see it in humans sometimes.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
In humans we do indeed see someone where 2*23 is 47 instead of 46, so to speak.

Trisomics have been around for VERY long. They are not automatically infertile. Ever wondered why they haven't succeeded in restoring - if so you would term it - a 48 number of chromosomes and thus a 24 number of pairs?

Because the pair we get Downers with an extra chromosome with is 21 and all three in their pair 21 are pair 21 chromosomes.

When their 21 splits at production of sex cells, one sex cell will get 1 chromosome as usual, the other the other two.

Theoretically, if two Downsers get in bed, their offspring could have the following sets:

1/4 chance of normal child.

2/4 chance of child with pair 21, 3 chromsomes.

1/4 chance of a child with pair 21, 4 chromosomes.

So, why do we not see any strain of mankind with a doubling of pair 21 in two pairs? Think of it. Come back later.

"Believe it or not, we are not lying when we say that everything we've seen supports evolution"

I believe you are honest. I am certain PZM is not. He erased the part of the comment section where I had in debate refuted him very well, and which I linked to from my message while the comments were still there (November 2011).

So, if everything YOU have seen confirms evolution, you haven't seen much yet. If PZM says the same for him, I will not believe that sacrilegious liar. As far as I am concerned, you and he are not a "we" who are either collectively honest or collectively dishonest. You are two different persons, and he is, perhaps already dishonest to you, certainly dishonest to others like you.
Jordan Novak
+Hans-Georg Lundahl Even if all 12 dating methods which all point to the same time eras were somehow wrong. It still doesn't make magic in the desert in the bronze/iron age literature books correct.

Can we cherry pick things in the bible too? What about factual statements like genealogy? If its all inerrant in your fundamentalist mind how do you resolve two different genealogies for a Jesus? How do you resolve differences in the nativity story?

In the OT, how do you resolve the advocation of child rape - murder - torture - abortion - infanticide - genocide?

How do you resolve the 1,000 year older story of Hindu creation, which the Genesis authors forged their ideas from?

How do you resolve believing in Genesis accounts when there is no scientific proofs? (Charlatanry work by ICR doesn't count.)
Hans-Georg Lundahl
How I solve two different genealogies for Jesus?

[I could have made an intro by saying that the genealogy type is an incomplete one, and that such give lots of different complementary ones.]

Answer given by Catholic Church CENTURIES or even more than a millennium ago, a local bishop of Hippo Regia in what is now Tunisia called St Ausgustine answered.

ONE gives the physical descent of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which is also the Juridic descent of St Joseph. The other gives the Juridic descent of Our Lord as King, via St Joseph. Unless I mixed it up.

How I resolve believing in Genesis accounts when there is no proof? There is, by now.

Especially of the Flood.

BUT even if there weren't most events don't leave the kind of traces that are scientific proof. Most proof about events of the past is anyway historical. And NOT scientific.

"Even if all 12 dating methods which all point to the same time eras were somehow wrong."

Oh, 12 dating methods which for nearly all objects are all or nearly all of them used and point to such and are all really independent of each other? That WOULD be impressive.

It is NOT what we have.

ONE major dating method for historic and "up to 40.000 years old" objects that have to be organical is C14, dendro comes in as its minor valet. A 20.000 year old dendro date is NOT based on purely tree ring series leading forward to present, but rather on such not leading forward to present calibrated by ... C14. So if THEN you use C14 as "calibrated by dendro", you are going circular.

ONE major dating method for "millions of years old" objects is, for the organic part, ascribing the diverse biotopes around the time of the Flood to world wide biospheres succeeding each other. As if all Permian fossils were before all Triassic ones, etc.

It is calibrated in some detail by the other nine methods. Which also are not independent of it.

"It still doesn't make magic in the desert in the bronze/iron age literature books correct."

What is exactly your problem either with "magic" (we would not agree on terminology)? Or bronze age?
Later add
[to each of the main ones of the codebators]

+Jordan Novak And the word "literature books" ... what books are NOT literature? Catalogues? Phone diaries? Shopping collections for mail order shopping?

+The Dungeon Master - it seems the link I gave for PZM's blog is no longer valid.

Have you noticed?
The Dungeon Master
+Hans-Georg Lundahl It's still working for me.
Hans Georg Lundahl
I noted so myself later.

Probably some admin* playing games, since I share computers.

Apart from that - have you thought it over? Do you have an explanation for one mammal getting more not genes in a chromosome but the chromosomes themselves getting more numerous after a common ancestor?

PZM's scenario won't work because it lacks new telomeres at the break. Trisomy extending to tetrasomy won't work since all trisomies make dysfunctional individuals with less chances of surviving and tetrasomy even more so. Polyploidy will get spontaneously aborted, as well as this happening also with trisomy of largest chromosomes (1 or 3 for instance, 21 is much smaller).
The Dungeon Master
+Hans-Georg Lundahl Is it unreasonable to hypothesize that the first time a chromosome splits that it becomes damaged or is at least imperfect? After all, chromosomes splitting is an error anyways, but descendants' DNA doesn't know that. It just assumes that it's supposed to have more chromosomes, so it just tacks on some telomeres and calls it a day. That's my hypothesis, anyway.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
For that to happen, there must at some point have been added, not repair to a damaged telomere, but a totally new telomere to a damaged chromsome arm ending where there is not any telomere.

As for as I know, this kind of damaged chromosomes has been observed - in cancer cells.
The Dungeon Master
+Hans-Georg Lundahl Then perhaps it's some process we haven't figured out yet. Or we already have, and I just don't know it, since I don't keep tabs on all the scientific journals. It's definitely an interesting matter, though.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
It is. An interesting matter, that is.

It is also not likely we have figured it out. And, as a non-evolutionist I say: it is not likely "we" will figure it out. It is not likely there is one.

In 1999 an Evolution believer admitted as much as you: for now it is - to those believing Evolution from very few common ancestors happened - a mystery:

The site:

The TalkOrigins Archive (TTOA)
http://talkorigins.org/


Post of the Month:

TTOA : Post of the Month
http://talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/


1999:

TTOA : Posts of the Month for 1999
http://talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/1999.html


And you will see which one to click.
*Footnote on admins having fun:
visibly in adress bar: http://talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html
error 404
Not Found
The requested URL /indexcc/list.html was not found on this server.

Notice the extra letter ï? When I did, I knew I had to remake the "l" in html. Sure enough, there was an invisible character after the "l", so I had to use back button twice to delete it.

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