Missing link between man and apes found

reply to post by Terapin


I looked at the genetic link. Thank you for providing that link. The explanation was very enlightening. Lots of 'we think this happened', 'this may have happened', etc. So 1 in a 1,000 humans has a fused chromosome and this anomaly is used as the basis for saying that somewhere along the line a proto-human went from 48 to 46 and this anomaly gave it some advantage which then spread to all other proto-humans and eventually to us.

Funny thing is that all apes STILL only have 48 chromosomes. Do they not also have 1 in a 1,000 anomalies? Wouldn't they have the same advantage if some of them did have an anomaly like this? Our common ape ancestor supposed evolved into humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangatangs plus at least one other type that I've forgotten the name of and yet only humans have 46 chromosomes.

But the really interesting thing about this link, which I urge everyone to look at, is the pictures of human and ape chromosomes side by side. Look at chromosome #2. If you look at it carefully, you'll see that the two ape chromosomes didn't just attach to each other. The Human chromosome looks very different in the center compared the overlapping ends of the ape chromosomes. Does this kind of thing happen with the 1 in a 1,000 anomaly? Somehow I doubt it.

reply to post by nixie_nox


Just what do you think a debate is if not a back and forth argument?

Originally posted by IntastellaBurst


In your face Creationism.

In..... Your....... Face !!!!

Why are you so against the writtings of the Jewish folks.
Are you anti-semetic? Are you a decendant of a monkey?

[edit on 4-4-2010 by Donny 4 million]

reply to post by Studenofhistory


www.synapses.co.uk...

According to this source, fused chromosome reproduction is explained by inbreeding.

Originally posted by Studenofhistory
My understanding of human versus ape chromosomes is well researched.

..

Take the fused chromosome for example. It isn't just two chromosomes sticking together. Oh no! There's more to it than that. Let's call the two chromosomes A and B. What apparently happened is that A lost a few of it's base pairs on one end and B lost a few of it's base pairs on one end and then a chunk of DNA, which doesn't match any DNA in any of the other chromosomes, somehow appeared out of nowhere and just happened to connect to both of the shortened ends of A and B. So this fused chromosome does have a lot of the same genes as the two chromosomes that preceded it but it's not exactly the same because of the changes in the middle. This information I did find in a scientific journal. The author describes the missing bits on each end and the fact that the piece in the middle isn't a copy of, or broke off of, any other chromosome. The author did NOT go into the implications of this information nor did he explain why or how it happened.

How dare you claim that you've researched this well when you clearly haven't studied the issue at all. What happened was a telomere-telomere fusion of ape chromosomes 2A and 2B. So what's lies at the fusion site of human chromosome 2 is telomere sequences. They were complementary to begin with! They're the same exact sequences you find at the ends of all hominid chromosomes. There's more to it than this but I will not bother explaining it cos you clearly can't even understand the easy part.

reply to post by rhinoceros


Look at the picture of chromosome 2 in the link supplied by terapin.

It's as plain as the nose on your face. Parts of the two ape chromosomes disappeared and were replaced by different DNA when those two chromosomes supposedly fused into one. Telomeres not withstanding, the two ape chromosomes didn't just stick together like two cigars with crazy glue. Something else happened.

Originally posted by Studenofhistory
How can that first 46 chromosome version have more 46 chromosome offspring if he or she is surrounded by 48 chromosome potential mates? Why didn't that one individual have sterile offspring the same way that horses and donkeys have sterile offspring? It's not entirely clear that apes and humans could produce any offspring at all. Evolution should be able to come up with at least a plausible theory of how this could happen but it doesn't. I know because I've looked for one.

Well you can rest easy cos the search has now ended.

Here is how it might have happened:

There was an individual whose chromosomes 2A and 2B had fused. Let's call her Jane. Jane had a baby, let's call her Joan. Joan produced two types of gametes. Joan's other gametes had 23 chromosomes and the others 24 chromosomes. Jane then had another offspring. Let's call him Jim. Like Joan, also Jim produced two types of gametes (the 23 and 24 chromosome types). Jim and Joan had 10 babies and 5 of them had diploid 23 chromosome genomes. In the year 2010 those 5 babies have turned into 7 billion individuals.

Originally posted by Studenofhistory
reply to post by rhinoceros

 

Look at the picture of chromosome 2 in the link supplied by terapin.

It's as plain as the nose on your face. Parts of the two ape chromosomes disappeared and were replaced by different DNA when those two chromosomes supposedly fused into one. Telomeres not withstanding, the two ape chromosomes didn't just stick together like two cigars with crazy glue. Something else happened.

Obviously, some 8 million years later the fusion site looks different than it did right after the incident. Since those telomere sequences at the middle of human chromosome 2 don't serve any purpose mutation rate at that site is very high as no matter what happens there does not make the offspring less able to survive.

reply to post by rhinoceros


Yes yes, that's the generally accepted theory. All nice and neat and simple. So how come horses and donkeys can't do the same thing? ie. have fertile offspring that are either horses OR donkeys? Because that's exactly what you're describing. You're saying that the first proto-human (defined as the first one with 46 chromsomes) can mate with apes and produce offspring that are either ape(48 chromosomes) or proto-humans(46 chromosomes). That IS what you're saying right?

reply to post by rhinoceros


Ah!!! I get it! All of the genetic material in the middle has mutated into something different....except for the remaining telemeres sequence of course. That didn't change. Funny how that happened, eh?

Originally posted by Studenofhistory
reply to post by Terapin

 

Here's another 'miracle' that evolutionists are unable to explain. How did millions of single-celled organisms, that are not specialized in any way, suddenly all decide to 'stick' together to form the first multi-cell creature, with some of the formerly single cell organisms now specializing as muscle, others as lungs, others as skin, others as...etc. ? If you or anyone else has a scientificly accurate explanation of how that happened, I'd very much like to hear it.

I don't think that single celled creatures had to combine to make multi cell creatures. I would guess that some or one of the single celled creatures figured a way to add new DNA to it's genetics. Just like it figured out to create itself.

I am interested in the 48/46 cromosome deal.
To bad scientists can't follow the ancient changes in DNA when and IF there was change or seperate developement.

Originally posted by Studenofhistory
reply to post by rhinoceros

 

Yes yes, that's the generally accepted theory. All nice and neat and simple. So how come horses and donkeys can't do the same thing? ie. have fertile offspring that are either horses OR donkeys? Because that's exactly what you're describing. You're saying that the first proto-human (defined as the first one with 46 chromsomes) can mate with apes and produce offspring that are either ape(48 chromosomes) or proto-humans(46 chromosomes). That IS what you're saying right?

I have no idea if it's the "generally accepted theory". I just came up with one possible sequence of events.

As for your question. Your example is a totally different thing. Jane and the people she had sex with were of same species. Jane just happened to have a different chromosome count. Horses and donkeys on the other hand are not of the same species. They've evolved individually for 100s of thousands (maybe some millions I don't know..) years. They're not genetically (essentially) identical. However they're still similar enough that they can produce infertile offsprings. It's a totally different thing.

Originally posted by Studenofhistory
reply to post by rhinoceros

 

Ah!!! I get it! All of the genetic material in the middle has mutated into something different....except for the remaining telemeres sequence of course. That didn't change. Funny how that happened, eh?

Essentially it's all telomere sequences. However a lot of random mutations has accumulated in that area of the chromosome because whatever happens there doesn't in any way effect the reproductive output of the individual carrying it. There's nothing weird about it.

Originally posted by abecedarian
Why does it have to be an "either/or" choice between evolution and creation? I find it equally plausible that evolution is the means of creation and the timeline was not measured by our current definition of years.

For the sake of argument, if the Old Testament were written by men why would it be necessary to explain every step of how man was created from dust need explained in the books / scrolls, when the important aspect is that we and everything else "were" created from dust, star dust if you will? Isn't that, in essence, what evolution seeks to explain: "how" we were created- the jump from simple molecules to complex life forms?

The great fallacy, in my opinion, is the confusion surrounding the definition of years. According to Relativity, time is experienced differently based on the frame of reference. Is it not possible that to someone outside of the Universe, our evolution took place in ~6500 of their years, while to us inside the expanding Universe, it took nearly 14 billion years?

And for the record, I'm not religious. I just have an open mind.

I agree with you for I see Adam as the point in man's history that man finally became man. Does it really matter how? God could just as easily started a single cell life form on a 4 billion year course to make man, or he could have waved a magic wand...I guess, but in any case both sides want to find a start for man, and so to say Adam as the first man or the missing link are one and the same.

One other point too is modern man is not much older than 6000 years old when one talks in terms of civilization.

[edit on 4-4-2010 by Xtrozero]

reply to post by rhinoceros


I disagree. It's is the same thing when it comes to the number of chromosomes that horse and donkey offspring have. Mules ARE in fact sterile because they have an odd number of chromosomes. Mules can't breed with anything, not themselves, not with donkeys and not with horses period. But my skepticism about your theory is this.

Look at the picture of chromosome #2 again. If 2a and 2b merely attached themselves end to end, then the combined single chromosome would be longer than the human version. So why aren't they the same length? What I suspect is the case here is that in humans 1 in a 1,000 people really will have 2 chromosomes that are literally stuck together end to end. But that's not what we see with human versus ape chromosome #2. And the explanation that only the center section changed over time while the rest of the chromosome didn't change isn't convincing. In fact it smells of desperation.

[edit on 4-4-2010 by Studenofhistory]

reply to post by Donny 4 million


Think about what you're saying. A single-celled organism that is not specialized ie. it doesn't only DO one thing like skin or muscle or liver, it does everything, has a change in genes that means that when it spilts into two cells, one of them will go on to specialize in something like muscle and the other one will specialize in something else like lungs and then those two will somehow also mutate so that they split and specialize even further into blood cells, brain cells, liver, pancreas, etc. etc. We are talking about huge changes in the genetic code. By the way, I'm assuming that a multi-cell organism would be an animal. If you assume a plant instead, it's just as bad because plants are made up of specialized cells too. How does a preliminary multi-cell organism survive if it doesn't have all of the specialized types of cells it needs? ie. muscle but no skin...etc. It's seems to me that a multi-celled organism, whether it be a plant or animal has to be an all or nothing kind of deal. Either it's all there and functioning or it's dead before it has a chance to reproduce.

Originally posted by Donny 4 million

Originally posted by IntastellaBurst


In your face Creationism.

In..... Your....... Face !!!!

Why are you so against the writtings of the Jewish folks.
Are you anti-semetic? Are you a decendant of a monkey?

[edit on 4-4-2010 by Donny 4 million]

Creationism has nothing to do with Jewish people, grow up.

reply to post by Studenofhistory

I looked at the genetic link. Thank you for providing that link. The explanation was very enlightening. Lots of 'we think this happened', 'this may have happened', etc.

I looked at the link too (thanks, Terapin).

The linked article begins by admitting that we don't know how exactly it happened. Remember, it happened millions of years ago: the exact circumstances can never be known to us. However, the article went on to offer a scientifically informed and (in my opinion, at least), perfectly credible explanation, partly based in molecular biology and partly in population genetics, of how it probably happened.

So 1 in a 1,000 humans has a fused chromosome and this anomaly is used as the basis for saying that somewhere along the line a proto-human went from 48 to 46 and this anomaly gave it some advantage which then spread to all other proto-humans and eventually to us.

You make it sound awfully far-fetched. The example you quote was given only to show that fused chromosomes occur and are heritable, which disproves your assertion that crosses between zygotes with different numbers of chromosome pairs are always infertile.

Nowadays these anomalies tend to get weeded out of the human population because only fifty percent of such crosses are viable, and the vast majority of 'normal' genomes have a much higher chance of being inherited in a set of normal/anomalous pairings over time. In a small population (as explained in the article) the chances of heritability and eventual dominance are much higher - especially if the mutation creates a reproductive advantage for its carriers.

Funny thing is that all apes STILL only have 48 chromosomes. Do they not also have 1 in a 1,000 anomalies?

See preceding paragraph. Substitute 'ape' for 'human'.

*

As I'm sure you know, the theory of evolution holds that all life on Earth evolved from a common ancestor. Different species have different numbers of chromosomes in their cell nuclei: fruit flies have eight pairs, we humans 23 pairs, garden snails 54 pairs and kingfishers a whopping 132. So if it is impossible for chromosomes to fuse or break apart or for such changes to be inherited, evolution cannot have happened at all. Well played!

However, chromosomes do fuse and split all the time, and such alterations can be inherited. This is sufficient, I think, to deal with the question.

More generally, the evidence for evolution is not a single plank. It is an entire ballroom floor, and a pretty solid one at that. The evidence comes from many different sources: from observations of living animals and plants in their natural habitat, from domestic animal breeding, from virology and parasitology, from molecular biology, from fossils and other remains and from the massive predictive power of evolutionary theory. Knocking out one plank on its own won't hurt the theory - not unless in doing so you also show how all the other thousands of planks can all be broken, too.

The case for evolution has progressed far beyond the point where quarreling with this or that piece of evidence is sufficient to refute it.

Originally posted by Studenofhistory
reply to post by rhinoceros

 

I disagree. It's is the same thing when it comes to the number of chromosomes that horse and donkey offspring have. Mules ARE in fact sterile because they have an odd number of chromosomes. Mules can't breed with anything, not themselves, not with donkeys and not with horses period.

Disagree all you want. You're still wrong. Horses have 64 chromosomes and donkeys 62 chromosomes. Mules have 63 chromosomes. The reason for their general infertility (general because in fact they do on rare occasion produce offsprings) however does not lie in their chromosome count. I think it has to do with the process of creation of proper gametes (meiosis). They hardly ever manage this right because their parental chromosomes come from 2 different species and are thus structurally different (not homologues). This obviously wasn't a problem for Jane and her mates as they were of the same species.

But my skepticism about your theory is this. Look at the picture of chromosome #2 again. If 2a and 2b merely attached themselves end to end, then the combined single chromosome would be longer than the human version. So why aren't they the same length? What I suspect is the case here is that in humans 1 in a 1,000 people really will have 2 chromosomes that are literally stuck together end to end. But that's not what we see with human versus ape chromosome #2. And the explanation that only the center section changed over time while the rest of the chromosome didn't change isn't convincing. In fact it smells of desperation.

I don't know what picture you're looking. Is it to scale? Why would you expect contemporary fused ape 2A & 2B to be identical to human chromosome 2? 8 million years of evolution separates us. That is a lot of time for deletions, duplications, transposons, etc. to produce differences. You do understand that when you compare chromosomes from different humans they differ in size too, right?

[edit on 4-4-2010 by rhinoceros]

Originally posted by Studenofhistory
reply to post by Donny 4 million

 

Think about what you're saying. A single-celled organism that is not specialized ie. it doesn't only DO one thing like skin or muscle or liver, it does everything, has a change in genes that means that when it spilts into two cells, one of them will go on to specialize in something like muscle and the other one will specialize in something else like lungs and then those two will somehow also mutate so that they split and specialize even further into blood cells, brain cells, liver, pancreas, etc. etc. We are talking about huge changes in the genetic code. By the way, I'm assuming that a multi-cell organism would be an animal. If you assume a plant instead, it's just as bad because plants are made up of specialized cells too. How does a preliminary multi-cell organism survive if it doesn't have all of the specialized types of cells it needs? ie. muscle but no skin...etc. It's seems to me that a multi-celled organism, whether it be a plant or animal has to be an all or nothing kind of deal. Either it's all there and functioning or it's dead before it has a chance to reproduce.

Well actually many (probably most) bacteria live in colonies and cooperate and show different gene expression depending on their location within the colony. For example in some Cyanobacteria colonies some cells might fix nitrogen while other cells photosynthesise. Basically it's the same thing what cells in multicellular organisms do (thou obviously a lot more simple). Thou then again not that much more simple than what cells of sponges do.

[edit on 4-4-2010 by rhinoceros]