Chromosome 2

Posted by Seer 7 years, 1 month ago to Science
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Yesterday, I was searching the Internet for possible answers to why the mythology of the ancient Sumerians was, in one very important respect, different from the mythology of ancient Egypt.
One thing led to another, and I came across something I had never known before: Chromosome 2.
We are told that the DNA of humans and chimps are 98. something % alike; we are not told that the haploid number of chromosomes in the genus Homo is one less than in other primates.
Apparently there was a random "mutation"---and it probably occurred in more than one individual---that caused the fusion of two chromosomes, resulting in the second largest chromosome in the cell structure of hominids.
Some implications of this occurrence are:
1. It gives credence to the "cladogenesis" theory of evolution: "Cladogenesis is the process by which a species splits into two distinct species, rather than one species gradually transforming into another."--Wikipedia
2. An abnormality associated with Chromosome 2 is synesthesia: "a neurological phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway." From here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthe...
3. Apply cladogenesis to rampant and legal abortion, and you have another reason it is illegal.


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  • Posted by fivedollargold 7 years, 1 month ago
    Given that humans of European ancestry have a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA, one must conclude they also had 23 pairs of chromosomes. Does this support the clad theory?
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    • Posted by 7 years, 1 month ago
      I didn't know this before my recent searches, but it turns out Neanderthal is included in the genus Homo, so would have 23 haploid number of chromosomes. Some researchers think Neanderthal may have been a separate species: Homo neanderthalensis, some include him as a subspecies: Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. As a subspecies he could have interbred with H. sapiens sapiens (gotta say it twice) but I don't know if he could have as a separate species. Anyway, that really is more than I need to know--gets confusing from there on in. I do think H. neanderthalensis probably died out as a result of rapid climate changes, not having the advanced mental capability of H. sapiens sapiens, who was able to adapt more quickly.
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      • Posted by Dobrien 7 years, 1 month ago
        The ancient genomes, one from a Neanderthal and one from a different archaic human group, the Denisovans, were presented on 18 November at a meeting at the Royal Society in London. They suggest that interbreeding went on between the members of several ancient human-like groups living in Europe and Asia more than 30,000 years ago, including an as-yet unknown human ancestor from Asia.

        “What it begins to suggest is that we’re looking at a ‘Lord of the Rings’-type world — that there were many hominid populations,” says Mark Thomas, an evolutionary geneticist at University College London who was at the meeting but was not involved in the work.

        The first Neanderthal and the Denisovan genome sequences revolutionized the study of ancient human history, not least because they showed that these groups interbred with anatomically modern humans, contributing to the genetic diversity of many people alive today.

        All humans whose ancestry originates outside of Africa owe about 2% of their genome to Neanderthals; and certain populations living in Oceania, such as Papua New Guineans and Australian Aboriginals, got about 4% of their DNA from interbreeding between their ancestors and Denisovans, who are named after the cave in Siberia’s Altai Mountains where they were discovered. The cave contains remains deposited there between 30,000 and 50,000 years ago.

        Those conclusions however were based on low-quality genome sequences, riddled with errors and full of gaps, David Reich, an evolutionary geneticist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts said at the meeting. His team, in collaboration with Svante Pääbo at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have now produced much more complete versions of the Denisovan and Neanderthal genomes — matching the quality of contemporary human genomes. The high-quality Denisovan genome data and new Neanderthal genome both come from bones recovered from Denisova Cave.

        The new Denisovan genome indicates that this enigmatic population got around: Reich said at the meeting that they interbred with Neanderthals and with the ancestors of human populations that now live in China and other parts of East Asia, in addition to Oceanic populations, as his team previously reported. Most surprisingly, Reich said, the new genomes indicate that Denisovans interbred with another extinct population of archaic humans that lived in Asia more than 30,000 years ago, which is neither human nor Neanderthal.

        The meeting was abuzz with conjecture about the identity of this potentially new population of humans. “We don’t have the faintest idea,” says Chris Stringer, a paleoanthropologist at the London Natural History Museum, who was not involved in the work. He speculates that the population could be related to Homo heidelbergensis, a species that left Africa around half a million years ago and later gave rise to Neanderthals in Europe. “Perhaps it lived on in Asia as well,” Stringer says.
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      • Posted by fivedollargold 7 years, 1 month ago
        They might have died out from some disease to which humans had immunity but they didn't. However, I suspect they were killed off by humans except for some of the Neanderthal women kept as sex slaves. It's possible they remain alive only through a small amount of their DNA preserved in some modern humans.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 1 month ago
    Not really sure why people are downvoting just for presenting information, even though I personally question many of the underlying suppositions.
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    • Posted by Dobrien 7 years, 1 month ago
      (1) Is the 99% Human/Chimp DNA-similarity statistic accurate? While recent studies have confirmed that certain stretches of human and chimp DNA are on average about 1.23% different, this is merely an estimate with huge caveats. A recent news article in Science observed that the 1% figure "reflects only base substitutions, not the many stretches of DNA that have been inserted or deleted in the genomes."1 In other words, when the chimp genome has no similar stretch of human DNA, such DNA sequences are ignored by those touting the statistic that humans and chimps are only 1% genetically different. For this reason, the aforementioned Science news article was subtitled "The Myth of 1%," and printed the following language to describe the 1% statistic:

      "studies are showing that [humans and chimps] are not as similar as many tend to believe";
      the 1% statistic is a "truism [that] should be retired";
      the 1% statistic is "more a hindrance for understanding than a help";
      "the 1% difference wasn't the whole story";
      "Researchers are finding that on top of the 1% distinction, chunks of missing DNA, extra genes, altered connections in gene networks, and the very structure of chromosomes confound any quantification of 'humanness' versus 'chimpness.'"
      Indeed, due to the huge caveats in the 1% statistic, some scientists are suggesting that a better method of measuring human/chimp genetic differences might be counting individual gene copies. When this metric is employed, human and chimp DNA is over 5% different. But new findings in genetics show that gene-coding DNA might not even be the right place to seek differences between humans and chimps.
      But there is a deeper question: (2) If humans and chimps were truly only 1% different at the genetic level, why should that demonstrate common ancestry?
      similarities in key genetic sequences may be explained as a result of functional requirements and common design rather than mere common descent. We might reasonably ask the evolutionist why the 1% difference value is considered powerful evidence for Darwinian evolution, and at what point does the comparison cease to support Darwinian evolution? What about 2% different? 3%? 5%? 10%? Is there an objective metric for falsification here, or is PBS putting forth a fallacious argument for human / chimp common ancestry?

      the truth is that the percent difference says nothing about whether humans and chimps share a common ancestor. The percent genetic similarity between humans and apes does not demonstrate Darwinian evolution.
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      • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 1 month ago
        There are certain similarities in nearly all animals. If you look at the general skeletal structure of most vertebrates they show remarkably similarities. Many animals share the same basic organ layout and complex animals share many of the same systems and glands - even if there are minor changes from Class to Class. What I caution against is the jump that many make to try to infer that there is more than just similarity because creationists argue that similarity is the sign of a single guiding hand. If you want to take a Darwinian approach, that's fine, but realize that without a fossil record to support it, it isn't even a theory - it's a daydream.
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        • Posted by 7 years, 1 month ago
          The importance of the "position" of the genetic structure is why I brought up the anomaly known as "synesthesia":

          An abnormality associated with Chromosome 2 is synesthesia: "a neurological phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway."

          There are at least two implications here: a. Could this anomaly reflect human's (but not a chimp's) ability to conceptualize: "...the stimulation of one...cognitive pathway, leads to the involuntary stimulation of a second...cognitive pathway." and b. Could synesthesia occur if the two chromosomes were separate?
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          • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 1 month ago
            Design a test to evaluate your hypothesis. It's a valid question.
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            • -1
              Posted by 7 years, 1 month ago
              It is most definitely a valid question; and I'm sure the evolutionists are on it, as we speak. I can't do all their work for them!!

              Don't you think Dob's refutation of the validity of evolution is a pretty pi**poor argument for the legality of abortion?
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              • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 1 month ago
                I don't support the notion of evolutionary origin, so I'm going to leave him to offer his own defense. Personally, I'm not really sure how one would be either support or denial for abortion, so I'm not going to comment further.
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                • Posted by 7 years, 1 month ago
                  Where do you find lack of support for the theory of evolution?
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                  • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 1 month ago
                    A lack of fossil evidence for one. If evolution really did happen, we should see partially formed creatures at every layer of history. We should see evidence of failed mutations throughout archeological history - and a lot of them. We don't. What do we see? We see an explosion of plant and animal life in one period in history rather than a growing buildup. We've never seen any instances of failed mutation in current ecology either.

                    Another problem for evolutionary origin is the sheer volume of different species. Given how difficult it is for even a single successful combination of genes to come to play and the lengths of time evolutionists claim for even minor organisms, it would take trillions of years for the sheer volume of forms of life on this planet to have been generated along the proposed evolutionary paths. That exceeds both the life of our sun and the life of the universe itself.

                    Another problem is that of complex systems. According to evolutionary theory, the only way a complex system can happen is if it evolves over time each individual piece in turn (each taking millions of years) or if every single mutation occurred at the same time in the same organism (statistically impossible). Take the digestive system, which starts with mastication and salivary breakdown of simple sugars then slides down into the most caustic environment in the human body - the stomach - which simultaneously assaults the food with both chemical and physical means of breakdown. Then you have a small sphincter mechanism which spurts this half-digested material into the small intestines, where nutrients are absorbed, bile is introduced to aid in breakdown of fat, and fillers and other non-digestibles pass right through. Then the large intestines which absorb excess water and condense the final material for expulsion. There are simply too many complex steps involved of which none makes sense by itself for evolutionary origin to provide for me a sufficient explanation. And digestion is a rather critical process to leave to chance. The same problems exist with circulatory and nervous systems and an even bigger one with the endocrine/lymph system because it is a system for controlling and coordinating other systems (we couldn't even digest much without insulin). All this within a single organism. Extend this to every separate genus and species on the planet and the sheer odds alone defy any rational explanation.

                    There are also the astronomical aspects of the Earth's position, tilt, rotational speed or composition; the moon itself or even the presence of Jupiter all as critical aspects in making this a habitable sphere.

                    Hope that helps.
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                    • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 1 month ago
                      Re: “Another problem is that of complex systems. According to evolutionary theory, the only way a complex system can happen is if it evolves over time each individual piece in turn (each taking millions of years) or if every single mutation occurred at the same time in the same organism (statistically impossible).”

                      Complex systems theory explains how evolution can proceed so rapidly:

                      “Complexity theory shows how, under the right conditions, orderly structures can arise spontaneously in large, initially chaotic systems. This spontaneous order provides a rich background of material for natural selection. So it is not necessary for natural selection to sculpt every detail of an organism, because many structures and patterns emerge spontaneously. For example, in a multicellular organism, cell division creates a natural hierarchical structure that provides the basis for modular organs.”
                      https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-rel...

                      Stuart Kaufmann’s book At Home in the Universe (1999) explains the concept clearly and much more extensively.
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                    • -3
                      Posted by 7 years, 1 month ago
                      Because if you're a creationist, no amount of evidence will prove the theory of evolution to you. It is easier to convert an atheist to a belief in God, than to convert a creationist to a belief in evolution.

                      If you want to believe that God created man out of a lump of clay, be my guest. I happen to think God was a little more subtle than that.
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                    • -4
                      Posted by 7 years, 1 month ago
                      Doesn't seem to be helping you.

                      Please don't tell me you are a chreationist!
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                      • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 1 month ago
                        You asked what problems I saw in the theory of evolution as it currently stands. I gave them. If you have evidence that addresses these concerns, you are welcome to present it.
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                        • -3
                          Posted by 7 years, 1 month ago
                          I have just told you that no amount of evidence will convince you. Creationists, or those who eschew evolution, have reasons to disbelieve evolution, that go beyond science.
                          I told you I think God was a little more creative and subtle than creationists want to believe.

                          I will add this, though. Just as early man was able to create images from clay, or stone, or metal, so primitive man imagined God would do the same, then "breathe" life into his creation, which was something man could not do.
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                          • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 1 month ago
                            If you expect me to understand where you are coming from, you have to do more than just start accusing anyone who criticizes your viewpoint with being dogmatic. I respected your inquiry and responded. What I expected was a reasoned explanation of why you believe what you believe. Instead I was granted with a plurality of random accusations which were a total departure from your original line of questioning. You're welcome to your belief on the matter, but I find your diversion (red herring) very discordant with reasoned debate.

                            I invited you to share how the problems with the notion of evolutionary origin I presented above have been addressed by evidence or adjustment of the hypothesis. If none such exists, I am left no recourse other than to reject such a theory as incomplete at best, fallacious at worst.
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                • Posted by 7 years, 1 month ago
                  Maybe I should ask instead; how do you believe humans got here?
                  There are many legitimate scientists who entertain the idea of a "panspermia", or some aspect of that, to explain how life formed on earth.
                  How do you think it did?

                  I have said, at times, to those who believe life on earth originated from outer space, that perhaps you think Earth is such a stingy planet it could not have supported the "creation" of life.

                  And I have called evolution: God's way of creating a robust people for a robust planet."

                  And, lastly, I think there should be research into how paleoclimatology could have influenced the genome of the various peoples of the earth.
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      • Posted by 7 years, 1 month ago
        I hope, Dob, you are not bringing a case for the morality of abortion?
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        • Posted by Dobrien 7 years, 1 month ago
          As a man it is none of my business unless I participated in the pregnancy. That said it is a very traumatic event often with long term emotional baggage attached. A reckless sexual behavior that does not anticipate results has its consequences. Birth control and consciousness could avoid many abortions. Rape or incest or medical issues is a different story.
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      • Posted by 7 years, 1 month ago
        I happen to believe in the theory of evolution and can't understand why any other doesn't.
        But that wasn't the purpose of this topic.

        The presence of Chromosome 2 implies that even though 98.something % of human and chimp genes are alike (and what exactly does that mean: genes---are they talking about "codes" for enzyme production?) it is the position of those "genes/codes" that determine attributes of species, not their existence itself.
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      • -2
        Posted by 7 years, 1 month ago
        Doby, since I can not argue with you vis-a-vis the validity of evolution---there is no amount of evidence I can present that will ever convince you---I suggest you take the matter up with God.

        I did.
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    • -3
      Posted by 7 years, 1 month ago
      I'm not even going to ask you, blarman: Like what?
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      • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 1 month ago
        First of all that because most of the chromosomes are similar that somehow that means the resulting organisms are also similar in origin. The amount of information encoded on any chromosome fills libraries, yet the argument is that because 9 out of ten libraries are similar that the origin of the tenth can be more or less ignored. The effort required for the creation of even one chromosome is staggering and given the inherent self-replication and self-healing exhibited in DNA, the notion that a mutation would cause a gene split of this magnitude is of such a ridiculous probability not just once but millions of times...? Humans also share 60% similarity with fruit flies (http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/...) - yet no one argues that humans are going to sprout wings or mate and die.

        The second is the mutation theory of genesis. The problems with this is that we see precisely zero examples of mutating genes in the world around us. If it happened for millions (or billions) of years as evolutionists claim, why did it stop? Why do we see nothing in the fossil record and nothing in present zoology? A far more likely conclusion is that it has never happened at all.
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      • -3
        Posted by 7 years, 1 month ago
        I think the downvoter is one who doesn't want to give up her "right" to choose abortion.
        But of course she doesn't want to come forward with her objections.
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        • Posted by ewv 7 years ago
          The immorality of prohibiting abortion has been explained many times on this forum without any hesitancy. The 'downvoting' of Seer's posts is most likely due to the fact that they are generally inarticulate swaggering and/or drive-by swipes that do not contribute to the discussion, typically showing no understanding of Ayn Rand.
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  • Posted by 7 years ago
    You are right. This is not the forum for me. RT is my forum.
    But I doubt enough of you will be able to read this before it disappears.
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  • -1
    Posted by 7 years, 1 month ago
    Doby and blarman, I wonder if you even believe in the intellectual and emotional, or even spiritual, evolution of mankind.
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    • Posted by Dobrien 7 years, 1 month ago
      Please explain emotional evolution.
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      • Posted by 7 years, 1 month ago
        Good question. I'm not sure even the neurologists or psychologists have a good idea of what emotions and feelings are. I used it, in the sense of my thesis: "The long childhood of mankind and the long childhood of man are mutually recapitulative."
        That is, as a child outgrows his immature thought processes, and primitive "displays" (not the emotion itself, but the lack of awareness of it) of emotion, so man has done so, himself, throughout his long childhood.

        My reference to how early humans analogized the creation of man with the creation of images by man, is an example.

        If you look closely at evolution, you will see that it is actually proof for the existence of God, not his non-existence.
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