Do you accept the humans and apes have a common ancestor?
If not, explain why chimpanzees and humans share the same defective gene.
by Iain » Sun Aug 27, 2006 4:11 am
Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid) is a vital requirement in our diet and to our
survival. If we don't get it we get scurvy. Scurvy was a common problem when
sailors used to sail for months with no fruit or vegetables
Most mammals
synthesise vitamin C: they do not need to get vitamin C in their diet as we do.
They have enzymes in place to synthesize it. When we look at the human genome we
find that the gene for creating one of these enzymes has a major defect right in
the middle of it. Because of this defect we cannot produce Vitamin C. If you
look at the genome of some of our other closely related primates, chimpanzees
and gorillas etc. they also have the same defective Gene. The position of this
defective gene in the various ape species statistically correlates with the exact same
position in each genome so this was not an accident in each separate genome. It
therefore follows that this defective gene or mutation arose in the common
ancestor that led to this branch of apes. The fact that we are not able to
produce our own vitamin C has not been much of a problem in the past because
there has always been adequate fruit and vegetables available.
In case anyone is confused about what a common ancester is maybe this diagram will help.
by spongebob » Sun Aug 27, 2006 8:35 am
There's no doubt that humans and other apes (we are just one form of "ape")
have common ancestors. Although the proof requires some understanding of
science, which probably accounts for the dissention amongst most of the ultra-religious who are not scientists. It is easy to reject notions you don't
understand.
Very good article, Iain, and I liked the diagram as
well.
by narsil » Sun Aug 27, 2006 7:28 pm
good stuff, and quite interesting actually, but I'll give you the quick and
easy way out of that really convincing a (creationist) theist.
When you
see...
...you imediately know
who did those, he didn't start from ground zero everytime, they have
commonality: the colors, the paints, the strokes especially. Anything we have in
common with other animals: two eyes, a nose, skin, needing iron, oxygen-based
blood, whatever, doesn't imply neccessarily that we come from the same place,
just that we were made with the same parts. Now your example is a bit more
technical than two eyes, but I'm just trying to explain to you the other side and
why it's less strong of an argument than you might think.
by spongebob » Sun Aug 27, 2006 8:31 pm
you imediately know who did those, he didn't start from ground zero everytime, they have commonality: the colors, the paints, the strokes especially. Anything we have in common with other animals: two eyes, a nose, skin, needing iron, oxygen-based blood, whatever, doesn't imply neccessarily that we come from the same place, just that we were made with the same parts. Now your example is a bit more technical than two eyes, but I'm just trying to explain to you the other side and why its less strong of an argument than you might think.
It's interesting that you acknowledge the
more obvious commonalities humans have to other mammals, Narsil. But what of the
invertebrates? What of plants? All those genetic markers correctly confirm the
predictions made by evolutionary theory long ago, that we humans are more
closely related to apes than squid.
And to accurately portray your
analogy of painting to the tree of life, you would have to go much broader. Yes,
all these were created by Van Gogh with paint and canvas and they do show
similarities. And if one were to study his painting at the microscopic level,
one would likely see the similarities in stroke. But nowhere would one see a
trait that was carried through generations of his work that appeared in some
paintings, but not others (the analogy being one group of related works and
another group not related to the first). This is what we see with evolution of
the species, groups of related creatures that have common traits and other
groups that have their own set of common traits not shared by the first group.
The obvious reason is shard hereditiy. You don't doubt that you got your
physical attributes from your parents and that you passed on some of those traits
to your offspring, do you?
So this isn't a valid argument against common
ancestry. It's nonsense.
"Religion is something left over from the infancy of our
intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our
guidelines."
by Iain » Mon Aug 28, 2006 8:45 am
I wish I'd never read this post, I don't want to know this information or think about it so I am going to ignore it and not vote.
by narsil » Mon Aug 28, 2006 12:33 pm
by spongebob » Tue Aug 29, 2006 7:36 am
by Iain » Tue Aug 29, 2006 7:50 am
narsil wrote: I was just trying to throw out there the great wall of defense against any arguments of that type. I'm not saying it's perfect, and I'm not saying that I completely buy it either, but just trying to inform you guys of a typical response. the common features suggesting a common source is actually quite compelling once you get down into genes and such, as opposed to say like water or something.