Predictions and Evolution

[Bread_of_Life]

Botz

I promised you two things on another thread, and I intend to keep those promises with this thread:

1. That I would demonstrate that the theory of evolution was based on continually verified and very specific predictions, and therefore was not a matter of interpretation of bias.

2. That I would make some new predictions and very specific predictions that would be tested within our lifetimes based on the theory of evolution, and that these coming true would finally verify its truth.

Is that your understanding of what I promised? If so, I'll go on and explain predictions past, and make my predictions present.

okay?

[Botz]

Botz

I promised you two things on another thread, and I intend to keep those promises with this thread:

1. That I would demonstrate that the theory of evolution was based on continually verified and very specific predictions, and therefore was not a matter of interpretation of bias.

2. That I would make some new predictions and very specific predictions that would be tested within our lifetimes based on the theory of evolution, and that these coming true would finally verify its truth.

Is that your understanding of what I promised? If so, I'll go on and explain predictions past, and make my predictions present.

okay?

Yes SA that seems to be what you promised and I am interested in seeing what you have to say...just understand that too much scientific jargon in one posting might be difficult for me to grasp...but you have been pretty gentle with me in that department so far and I think you realize my limitations.

[Bread_of_Life]

Botz

I promise I will explain all the scientific jargon I use, and that I will try to keep my example as simple as possible so that everyone on the forum including yourself can gain the maximum understanding from it. I pray for your patience in this, because there'll be a bit of background you need to know before I get into it.

Introduction

Viruses can't breed by themselves. It's a real problem for them. But they just don't have the apparatus to replicate themselves. That means that, instead of replicating themselves, they use the apparatus our own cells to help them.

They do this in a variety of ways. Endogenous Retro-Viruses (ERVs for short), implant themselves in our DNA, and wait for our DNA to read them off and copy them (well, that's the simplified version). The fact is, they implant themselves at essentially random points in our DNA.

ERVs are really easy to find in our genome, they're quite easily recognisable. Occasionally, if they implant themselves in the germ line (and therefore get themselves into sperm or ova), they can be passed down to our children. Very occasionally, over the course of time, these can get fixed in a population (they become very common through successful breeding).

This has happened quite a few times in our lineage. Current estimates say ERV insertions make up for as much as 8% of the human genome. They arn't harmful in any way, so I wouldn't worry about it, they're just remnants of long dead viruses in our long dead ancestors.

ERV Implantation - a random process

There are many types of ERV. There are also many places they can implant. Human DNA is made up of about 3 billion base pairs - 3 billion codons of DNA. that's about 3 billion places for an ERV to implant.

The question is, is this process random, or are there "sweet spots", where ERVs prefer to insert? Some research has been done into this, and it's been found that, for some ERVs, there is a few percentage points difference for certain regions of the genome, so some regions are slightly more popular than others. However, basically, there are no real sweetspots, the insertion process can go on anywhere, it's random (or pseudo-random).

What that means is that it would be very unlikely for two animals to share an ERV in the same identical place at random. If it did happen, what it would mean is that the very same virus, attached to the exact same place, happened to get into the germ line in both animals, and got fixed in the population (didn't just die out).

What that means is that, even if animals have thousands of ERV insertions between them, they shouldn't share many if any with any other animal at random. Sure, with 10 million species, we're bound to find one or two that are shared at random between two animals in the same place, same virus etc. But it's pretty unlikely in any 2 animals, or any group of animals.

Do you follow so far - this is the introduction, it's pretty much all you need to know before going onto the predictions. Any comments, questions etc?

[Botz]

Thanks...I can follow what you are saying quite well SA and I have no real questions at this time...I may be away for about 24 hrs so if I am slow responding you will understand why.

[Bread_of_Life]

Botz

Don't worry about being away for a while, I'm sure cyberspace won't disappear in the mean time!

Summary so far!

Okay, so I take it from your response that you have understood some key points:

a) That ERVs implant themselves into our genetic code

b) That on rare occasions, they get into the germ line, and on even rarer occasions, they become common ("fixed") in a population

c) That the process of where an ERV implants in terms of precise position can be thought of as random.

d) That it is therefore very unlikely that any two animals or group of animals should share an identical ERV in an identical position in their genome purely at random.

Okay, now lets look at what this means in terms of what evolution would predict, and what seperate creation would predict.

Predictions of Evolution and Creationism

Okay, lets make it clear for a start that by creationism here I mean the idea that lifeforms were seperately created - that life on earth (and especially human life) is unrelated to other life on earth.

By evolution, I mean the theory of common descent, that is that we share common ancestors with all lifeforms on earth. The theory that we are all distant cousins, in effect.

Right, now onto the predictions of these two theories with respect to ERVs:

Predictions of Creationism

C1. That any two animals or any group of animals should not share many if any ERVs at identical genetic locations. This is because animals are not related, and therefore cannot inherit the same ERV at the same location from a common ancestor.

C2. (ONLY FOR YECs) That there should be few enough ERVs in the genome to be accounted for by 6,000 years of life on earth (about 300 generations).

Predictions of Evolution

E1. That animals should share many ERVs at identical locations inherited through common ancestors.

E2. That animals who are closely related (have a recent common ancestor) should share more ERVs with each other.

E3. That ERV similarities between animals should form the same hierarchical grouping found in other genetic and morphological evidences.

E4. That human beings should share most ERVs with chimps and gorillas, fewer with Orangutans, fewer still with Old world monkeys, and even fewer still with new world monkeys.

Explanation of Evolutionary Predictions

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/se...ml#retroviruses

Link to the above. What should be on your screen now is a website called "29+ evidences for Macroevolution", and you should be most of the way down the page.

You should be seeing a title "Molecular evidence - Endogenous retroviruses", and on the right hand side there should be a picture. For the moment being, I want you to ignore the text, although you can read it later, and I would encourage you to put this website in your favourites, and search it later on. It's very good.

Take a look at the picture. This picture shows the classical relationship that evolutionists believe humans have with the rest of the apes. This picture is called a "phylogeny", which means a map of evolutionary relationships. The picture has been built up from other sorts of evidence that we havn't discussed here yet, like fossil evidence, morphological and other genetic evidence, embryological evidence etc.

On the x-axis, from left to right, is time. Where you see all the animal names, that's present day. Where you see the root of the graph on the left hand side, that's about 25 million years ago.

Now, take humans and chimps. You can trace their lineage (the solid line) back until at one point, the two lines join to become one line. The point where these join is the last common ancestor. Imagine if we took you, and a chimp, and traced your family lineages back 5 million years, according to evolution we would eventually hit the same person. You and that chimp would have a great great great etc etc grandmother in common. The two lineages would join.

Then, if you took this joint lineage, and traced it further back, you'd find that very quickly it'd join with the gorilla lineage. This new joint lineage, between human, gorilla and chimp would then go back and join the Orang lineage, etc. Each time you come to a joining point, you hit the last common ancestor. That's basically how phylogenies work.

Now look at E1. It starts to make sense. Why? Because if an ERV got into a common ancestor of us and chimps, if it got into our long lost shared great great great grandfather, then it'd be passed down to BOTH of us, in the same location in our genome. We would both inherit our great grandfather's ERV in the exact same location.

E2 and E4 start to make sense as well. We're bound to share more ERVs with chimps that with New World Monkeys, because we've had about 12 million more years of common ancestry (of joint lineage) to collect them with chimps. We split from new world monkeys maybe 17 million years ago, but chimps about 5 million years ago. That's 12 million years of ERVs that chimps and humans will share, but New world monkeys won't.

E3 is basically a "catch-all" for all the other predictions we can make. It says really that we should infer this exact same grouping from analysing shared ERVs. In other words, statements like "old world monkeys and humans should share the same number of ERVs with New World Monkeys" should be true, but can only be true if we have this same grouping that existing evolutionary theory predicts.

Notice also how specific these predictions are. I can say that Gibbons and Chimps will share the same number of ERVs with Old World Monkeys, but this number will be less than what Chimps and Human beings share. This is an extremely specific prediction, there's no two ways about it, no room for interpretation, I hope you'll agree.

Okay, that's enough for now. We'll go onto testing these predictions next, after you validate that you understand and agree with the predictions I've listed. Phylogeny is not an easy area to get your head around, so ask as many questions as you like!

[ted]

Hi Nik.

Sorry again for the interruption, but one thing that I saw kind of peaked an interesting theory in my little mind.

You stated:

Okay, lets make it clear for a start that by creationism here I mean the idea that lifeforms were seperately created - that life on earth (and especially human life) is unrelated to other life on earth.

By evolution, I mean the theory of common descent, that is that we share common ancestors with all lifeforms on earth. The theory that we are all distant cousins, in effect.

To me, it's feasible that lifeforms were created closely related, yet still of their "own kind".

I'm not sure there is anyone that sides with creationism, in general, that states that the different lifeforms on earth are unrelated. In fact, it would be impossible to make a statement like that, given the many things various lifeforms share. Without even digging too deep into the molecular level, it's easy to see that mammals, for instance, share things like hair, lungs, eyes, ears, digestive systems, blood, etc.

So to me, preluding the discussion with the impression that creation adherents believe that lifeforms are totally separate in structure and unrelated is a bit misleading.

As to the evolution definition, it's possible that lifeforms have paralleled each others growth over the years, yet have no one common ancestor too. I'm getting the impression that the "common ancestor" you speak of means the same as the "missing link" people are so fond of searching for.

Perhaps a better definition of the two would be better for the argument?

The shared common physical traits between lifeforms, to me, have never been in question, but that doesn't mean we all evolved from some glob that hopped out of an ocean millions of years ago.

Maybe, just maybe, God created all living things to work together naturally and fill the earth to be interdependent of each other to sustain life, rather than all of this descending from one living organism, with only time and climatic changes to spur it's divisions.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled program.

t.

[Botz]

Hi SA.

Okay, that's enough for now. We'll go onto testing these predictions next, after you validate that you understand and agree with the predictions I've listed. Phylogeny is not an easy area to get your head around, so ask as many questions as you like!

Not an easy area to get your head around!...Phylogeny is like wading backwards through treacle in a pair of lead boots!...at least it is for me. I think I grasp the essential main points...but I cannot tell at all how true or consistant or thorough these theories are nor if the evidence so far will not be superceded by further breakthroughs and discoveries based around this fascinating but very difficult study.

I don't really have any questions other than my thoughts expressed above...but I will let you continue and do my best to stay with you...I do apologize for being a bit slow here Nikolai but it is like another language...I tried to get a grasp from a Creationist site but was really none the wiser.

[Bread_of_Life]

ted

I'm not sure there is anyone that sides with creationism, in general, that states that the different lifeforms on earth are unrelated. In fact, it would be impossible to make a statement like that, given the many things various lifeforms share. Without even digging too deep into the molecular level, it's easy to see that mammals, for instance, share things like hair, lungs, eyes, ears, digestive systems, blood, etc.

Ted, let me be absolutely clear what I mean by "related". I mean sharing a relative in common, have a common ancestor. When I say that humans and giraffes are related, what I mean is that, if you traced their lineages back far enough, you'd find that the lineages merged. I mean that you and a giraffe share a great great great etc. grandfather. I do not mean that you share features in common.

The shared common physical traits between lifeforms, to me, have never been in question, but that doesn't mean we all evolved from some glob that hopped out of an ocean millions of years ago.

Shared physical traits are not used as evolutionists as proof by themselves that we are all related through evolution.

So to me, preluding the discussion with the impression that creation adherents believe that lifeforms are totally separate in structure and unrelated is a bit misleading.

Find me a biblical creationist who thinks that monkeys and us are relatives, that is literal cousins, and I'll take this point on.

Evolution says that chimps and humans are cousins, that we are directly and closely related. We share a common ancestor. Creationism says that we were seperately created. Sure, we may share some characteristics, but we are not genealogically related to other animals. I think think these are unreasonable definitions of both theories for the sake of this argument.

Botz

Not an easy area to get your head around!...Phylogeny is like wading backwards through treacle in a pair of lead boots!...at least it is for me.

LOL! I'm sorry to hear that. All phylogeny is is a map in time of how animals are related to each other, mapping when their lineages diverged basically.

If you look at the phylogeny I linked you to, you will find a map of the relation of apes (including humans). As you can see from this map, our lineage is most closely related to the chimp lineage - that is, they split not long ago. Not long before that split, our lineage split from the Gorilla lineage etc.

Basically, every time to streams "join", it means the lineages have combined at a common ancestor. What that means is that every time a linegage splits, the common ancestor split into two lineages, one going to human, one to chimps or whatever.

However, I don't want to continue if there's something you don't understand fully. Perhaps you could voice your misunderstanding, or ask some structured questions so that I can find out more about the source of it, and deal with it accordingly?

but I cannot tell at all how true or consistant or thorough these theories are nor if the evidence so far will not be superceded by further breakthroughs and discoveries based around this fascinating but very difficult study.

Well, I've not presented very much evidence yet at all. The only things that I have said that are based on evidence are:

a) That ERVs implant themselves into our genetic code

b) That on rare occasions, they get into the germ line, and on even rarer occasions, they become common ("fixed") in a population

c) That the process of where an ERV implants in terms of precise position can be thought of as random.

d) That it is therefore very unlikely that any two animals or group of animals should share an identical ERV in an identical position in their genome purely at random.

These were all from the first post. I'm happy to show you the evidence for these, and how ERVs are identified in our genome etc. if you wish. But they have all been verified experimentally in their own ways. Which one do you distrust?

I do apologize for being a bit slow here Nikolai but it is like another language...I tried to get a grasp from a Creationist site but was really none the wiser.

It's okay, the little "code words" scientists use for things (like phylogeny) are difficult to come to terms with at first. Actually, what they mean is usually really easy. For example:

phylogeny: map of animal relationships / common ancestry

ERV: a type of virus that implants itself in the DNA or sperm or ova

See, we may use 3 letter acronyms, and stupidly hard to pronouce words that'd score highly on scrabble, but they usually do mean something sensible and easy to digest!

[ted]

Ok, Nik.

Thanks for the clarifications.

I apologize again for interrupting.

t.

[Bread_of_Life]

Ted,

My pleasure!