Something I said?

[warri0r45]

I feel there were a few important points brought up by myself in response to evolution nay-sayers on pages 2, 4 and 6 in the "evolution in public schools" thread and on page 6 in the "my issues with christianity" thread.

 

 

 

Just to reiterate the sentiment from another topic, I'll post these lines of evidence for evolution in response to the doubters among us. Feel free to comment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chromosome - Bundles of DNA (bound by special protiens) encompassing one's genome.

 

 

 

Genome - The genetic material of an organism. Every nucleotide which makes up all of your DNA.

 

 

 

Nucleotide - The monomer subuints which make up DNA. There are four. Adenine (A), Guanine (G), Thymine (T), and Cytosine ©.

 

 

 

Telomere - The end terminus of a chromosome. In vertebrates, it is comprised of the repeat sequence 'TTAGGG' which is repeated around 1000 times. Easily recognisable in the genome.

 

 

 

Centromere - The central structure of a chromosome. Comprised of segments of simple repeat DNA 171 nucleotides in length. Easily recognisable in the genome.

 

 

 

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Explanation of the video -

 

 

 

1) Humans have 46 chromosomes, while the other great apes all have 48.

 

2) It is then hypothesised that the common ancestor we and the great apes shared had 48 chromosomes, like the other great apes currently do.

 

3) Two primate chromosomes must then have fused into one human chromosome.

 

4) Chromosome 2 fits the bill; it has two centromeres, one deactivated and the other still functional. It also has telomere sequence in it's center, where it dosen't belong (remember telomeres are only found on the terminus ends of chromosomes). These two facts clearly indicate a fusion event occured.

 

5) Human chromosome 2 is also highly similar in sequence to two chimpanzee chromosomes. This clearly indicates common ancestry between us and chimps.

 

 

 

Further reading:

 

http://www.evolutionpages.com/chromosome_2.htm

 

http://www.gate.net/~rwms/hum_ape_chrom.html

 

 

 

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Just one of many examples of clear evidence for common ancestry between us and chimps. We didn't evolve from them. They are evolved creatures just like us. We share a common ancestor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/96/18/10254

 

 

 

Endogenous Retrovirus - The genome of a now defunct virus permanently inserted into one's genome. This occurs when a retrovirus makes its way into germ line cells (sperm or egg) and recieves a knockout mutation thereafter (to stop it's adverse effects).

 

 

 

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Retroviruses are unique among RNA viruses in their ability to integrate DNA copies of their genomes into the genome of the infected cell. On occasion, integration takes place in a germ-line cell, giving rise to an endogenous retrovirus (ERV), which can be inherited by the offspring of the infected host, and may eventually become fixed in the gene pool of the host population (1). The genomes of vertebrate species contain dozens to thousands of ERV sequences (2), some of which were acquired in evolutionarily recent times, whereas others derive from "ancient" times, as indicated by their identical site of integration in more than one species (1, 3, 4). Typically, ancient proviruses have sustained numerous point mutations, deletions, and insertions, rendering them incapable of expressing virus. No biologically active viruses have been associated with the ancient proviruses.

 

 

 

Despite their abundance in vertebrate genomes, and some other especially useful features described below, ERVs have rarely been exploited as phylogenetic markers (5-10). In a few instances integration site polymorphisms have served as a source of phylogenetic signal (6), or as markers for linkage analysis (11), but the usefulness of orthologous ERV nucleotide sequences has never been fully explored. Here we report the application of ancient human endogenous retrovirus (HERV) sequences to phylogenetic analysis on a time scale spanning recent primate evolution.

 

 

 

HERVs can be organized into at least a dozen distinct groups, which vary in size from one to thousands of members (1, 12). Cross-hybridization and PCR studies consistently reveal that most HERV families are also found in other primates, including apes and Old World monkeys (OWMs) (12-19). Many HERVs, including the ones used in this study, are the result of integration events that took place between 5 and 50 million years ago, as indicated by the distribution of specific proviruses at the same integration sites (or "loci") among related species. The evolution of primates has been the subject of intense study for well over a century, providing a well established phylogenetic consensus with which to compare and evaluate the performance of ERVs as phylogenetic markers.

 

 

 

 

Explanation of the quote -

 

 

 

1) There are many human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) found in the human genome.

 

2) Most of these families of HERVs are found in other primates, at the same site of integration or loci, suggesting all those who share HERVs, including humans, inherited them from our most recent common ancestor.

 

 

 

The mathematical probability of a multitude of HERVs inserting in all primates in thier precise locations and harbouring the same knockout mutations is staggering.

 

 

 

Further reading:

 

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section4.html#retroviruses

 

 

 

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Another line of evidence to corroborate with the aformentioned.

 

 

 

The motivation behind posting this is that there seemed to be so much quick disregard for evolution as 'just a theory' or 'unproven.' Well, here's some proof. Here are some genome data comparig ours to other primates and the interpretation of that data.

 

 

 

Comment, criticise, critique. That's what we're here for.

[Rebdragon]

Hehe, someone reported this.

 

 

 

I think I'm finally beginning to understand what older members of this forum mean when they say that the fluctuations of this forum are predictable. First there's a decent sized hiatus from religion/science topics, then a bunch pop up (in a two day time span or so), everyone gets interested and shoots these threads up to a couple pages in a few hours, and then there's an abrupt bandwagon backlash against science/religion topics.

 

 

 

I feel like I've seen this pattern before. Deja vu.

[PaperClipsYaaaar]

Did you make a new topic by accident? This should go in the evolution thread itself.

[WutangFlu]

Burn the bandwagon!

 

or shoot the users.

 

 

 

I'm for both. :]

[warri0r45]

Did you make a new topic by accident? This should go in the evolution thread itself.

 

 

 

In one form or another, I've discussed these things 3 times now in the evolution thread.

[-Devoted12-]

Please just use the evolution thread to post your beliefs/proof. There is no reason to start a whole new topic and have a split conversation. Thanks!

 

~Devoted12