Ardi - Ardipithecus ramidus

[Byblos]

Putting aside the validity of such argument (which I don't necessarily disagree with by the way), I would like to know if you or IgoFan view the odds of there being a life-producing planet in a universe otherwise hostile to life as virtually nil and what that says about it.

Ah, got ya.

Facetiously I'd view the probablity of that as 1.
To give a more satisfactory answer I'd put the odds of there being a planet in our universe capable of producing life as we know it at a very, very tiny number. I'd put the odds of there being a planet that could produce life as we don't know it at being higher, but I wouldn't be able to venture a guess at how much higher (and that begins to beg the question of "what is life?").

So the odds of ERVs (assuming they are indeed ERVs to begin with) inserting at the same points in two unrelated species are not that astronomical after all, are they?

[touchingcloth]

So the odds of ERVs (assuming they are indeed ERVs to begin with) inserting at the same points in two unrelated species are not that astronomical after all, are they?

I'm not sure I follow you...

[Byblos]

So the odds of ERVs (assuming they are indeed ERVs to begin with) inserting at the same points in two unrelated species are not that astronomical after all, are they?

I'm not sure I follow you...

I've never been a big fan of using the probability argument, particularly with the fine-tuning argument as it lacks a frame of reference. But since IgoFan is using it to conclude common ancestry, I'm attempting to draw an analogy to see if he or you feel the same way about the probability of the finely tuned physical constants and whatever conclusion you draw from that. If you feel the arguments are dissimilar, how.

[touchingcloth]

Ah, OK.
The arguments are dissimilar because you're comparing the wrong things. The probability of any given ERV insertion happening is low (calculably so as we know the number of possible insertion points as well as the size of the insertions), but the probability of a particular ERV assertion happening in 2, 3 or more species becomes many orders of magnitude lower for each separate occurrence.
You're comparing this (I assume) with the probability of a universe capable of producing life as we know it (humans in particular, I assume?) - you can't put a figure on this easily as the number of different factors are huge, but I'd agree with you that it's probably much much lower than independently duplicated ERV insertions. What you should actually be comparing it to is the possibility that our universe, or any universe, could produce life (however you define that) of any kind...not just as we know it. Any universe would, by definition, have it's physical constants "fine-tuned" for the life it created, but I have no clue what the probability of a) universes hospitable to life or b) life beginning in a hospitable universe are.
Hope that makes sense...my head hurts now.

[jlay]

Chimps are our 1st cousins, gorillas are our 2nd cousins, and orangutans are our 3rd cousins. Every time you visit the zoo's ape house, you're really attending a close family reunion. How cool is that!

Genetically speaking, which race is the most evolved? And, would it be OK to capture one of the less evolved races and place them in a zoo alongside our other relatives? How cool is that?

[Byblos]

Ah, OK.
The arguments are dissimilar because you're comparing the wrong things. The probability of any given ERV insertion happening is low (calculably so as we know the number of possible insertion points as well as the size of the insertions), but the probability of a particular ERV assertion happening in 2, 3 or more species becomes many orders of magnitude lower for each separate occurrence.
You're comparing this (I assume) with the probability of a universe capable of producing life as we know it (humans in particular, I assume?) - you can't put a figure on this easily as the number of different factors are huge, but I'd agree with you that it's probably much much lower than independently duplicated ERV insertions. What you should actually be comparing it to is the possibility that our universe, or any universe, could produce life (however you define that) of any kind...not just as we know it. Any universe would, by definition, have it's physical constants "fine-tuned" for the life it created, but I have no clue what the probability of a) universes hospitable to life or b) life beginning in a hospitable universe are.
Hope that makes sense...my head hurts now.

LOL no, that makes a lot of sense, thank you. And by the way, I wasn't the one who brought up life as we know it, it was you. I merely said life-producing universe.

[touchingcloth]

Chimps are our 1st cousins, gorillas are our 2nd cousins, and orangutans are our 3rd cousins. Every time you visit the zoo's ape house, you're really attending a close family reunion. How cool is that!

Genetically speaking, which race is the most evolved? And, would it be OK to capture one of the less evolved races and place them in a zoo alongside our other relatives? How cool is that?

Do you mean race as in human races? Define "most" evolved...
EDIT - Personally I wouldn't want to put any creature in a zoo...

[Byblos]

Chimps are our 1st cousins, gorillas are our 2nd cousins, and orangutans are our 3rd cousins. Every time you visit the zoo's ape house, you're really attending a close family reunion. How cool is that!

Genetically speaking, which race is the most evolved? And, would it be OK to capture one of the less evolved races and place them in a zoo alongside our other relatives? How cool is that?

Life imitating art (Planet of the Apes).

[Byblos]

Personally I wouldn't want to put any creature in a zoo...

Agreed, I despise zoos. Although they do a phenomenal job in the areas of preservation and education (especially the Wildlife Conservation Society of which I am a member) but just the whole idea of confining animals to an area, however large, does not sit well with me (perhaps it's my closterphobia).

[touchingcloth]

Personally I wouldn't want to put any creature in a zoo...

Agreed, I despise zoos. Although they do a phenomenal job in the areas of preservation and education (especially the Wildlife Conservation Society of which I am a member) but just the whole idea of confining animals to an area, however large, does not sit well with me.

Yeah - I think they have a great utility for helping endangered species and/or animals that have been captured and abandoned without hope of being able to return to the wild.
But a zoo after the Victorian fashion of forcibly capturing and gawping at strange and wonderful animals is an awful place.

[jlay]

Oh you should come to the Knoxville zoo and see our Chimp exhibit. Wide open spaces.

Do you mean race as in human races? Define "most" evolved...

I was hoping you could define most evolved, since you seem so certain of our ancestory.
Yes, human. We really don't use the term race for other animals.

BTW, TC, have you ever thrown excrement at anyone who upset you, like your first cousins do?

[touchingcloth]

I was hoping you could define most evolved, since you seem so certain of our ancestory.

"Most evolved" really has no meaning. You could, for example, have a go at calculating which race exhibits the most genetic differences from the oldest members of our genus, but to call them "most evolved" on that basis supposes that they're in some way better than the other races.

Have I ever thrown feces like our first cousins? No. Another thing I've never done is to suggest putting other races in a zoo, like some our fellow species members have.

[jlay]

TC,
Please pardon my sarcasm. I'm sure we are all impressed with your humanitarian considerations of our ape brothers. It always seems strange to me how so many Darwinist want to embrace Chimps as our cousins, yet seem so offended at embracing the other obvious implications or Darwinism. Thomas H. Huxley said,

"No rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes that the average negro is equal...of the white man. And if this be true, it is simply incredible that, when all his disabilities are removed...he will be able to compete successfully with his bigger-brained and smaller-jawed rival, in a contest which is to be carried out by thoughts and not by bites."

if humans are higher in the evolutionary tree than chimps, then it stands to reason that certain races within the human species may exhibit superior advancement along the branch. It just seems so many want to sweep this history under the rug.

[touchingcloth]

TC,
if humans are higher in the evolutionary tree than chimps, then it stands to reason that certain races within the human species may exhibit superior advancement along the branch. It just seems so many want to sweep this history under the rug.

If humans are higher than chimps...who claims that they are?

[ageofknowledge]

Actually in most prison systems they do have caged modern humans who like to throw poo around from time to time. But that's beside the point. What I'm seeing is that evolutionary biologists maintain that the pseudogenes, SINES, LINEs, and endogenous retroviruses shared among humans and the great apes provide persuasive evidence that these primates arose from a common lineage. The crux of this argument rests on the supposition that these classes of noncoding DNA lack function and arose through random biochemical events. For evolutionary biologists, it makes little sense to attribute "junk" DNA to the Creator.

BUT recent studies on noncoding DNA, however, provide a challenge that evolutionists find surprising and yet hard to deny. Noncoding DNA regions (including pseudogenes, LINEs, SINES, and endogenous retroviruses) aren't really junk after all. These elements possess function. An alternative explanation, besides evolution, may reasonably account for the presence of noncoding DNA classes in the genomes of humans and great apes.

The scientific community is also well on its way to uncovering functional roles for endogenous retroviruses and their compositional elements. Recent advances indicate that, in addition to regulating gene expression, this class of noncoding DNA helps the cell ward off retroviral infections. Retroviruses comprise a class of viruses that exploit RNA as their genetic material. Once the retrovirus infects the cell, its RNA genome is converted to DNA by the reverse transcriptase enzyme. The retroviral DNA can then become incorporated into the host's genome.

It appears that endogenous retroviruses play a wide range of roles in the cell. One of their chief functions is protection against retrovirus infections. These DNA elements appear to be an elegantly functioning component of the human genome.

Frequently the identical junk DNA segments reside in corresponding locations in these genomes. Accordingly, the junk DNA segment arose prior to the time that the organisms diverged from their shared evolutionary ancestor. For evolutionists, this clearly indicates that these organisms shared a common ancestor. However, recent studies on junk DNA provide a response that evolutionists find surprising, yet hard to deny: Junk DNA possesses function.

Evolutionary biologists maintain that through a process called neofunctionalization, junk DNA sequences can acquire function. However, events like these are rare since random insertion of DNA sequences into genes will be deleterious more often than not. The fact that the sequence of events appears to have happened multiple times, independently, for the LTRs of the NAIP gene of humans and rodents raises questions about the validity of neofunctionalization. If the genomes of organisms are the product of evolutionary processes, then identical features like promoters derived from LTR sequences should not independently recur.

As RTB stated in their paper 'Is Junk DNA Evidence for Biological Evolution?':

"This evolutionary scenario, at least on the surface, seems reasonable. But the fact that the sequence of events appears to have happened multiple times, independently, for the LTRs of the NAIP gene of humans and rodents raises questions about the validity of this explanation. If the genomes of organisms are the product of evolutionary processes, then identical features like promoters derived from LTR sequences should not independently recur.

Chance governs biological and biochemical evolution at its most fundamental level. This is clearly the case for the neofunctionalization of LTRs. Evolutionary pathways consist of a historical sequence of chance genetic changes operated on by natural selection, which also consists of chance components. The consequences are profound. If evolutionary events could be repeated, the outcome would be dramatically different every time. The inability of evolutionary processes to retrace the same path makes it highly unlikely that the same biological and biochemical designs should repeatedly appear throughout nature.

The concept of historical contingency embodies this idea and is the theme of the late Stephen Jay Gould's book Wonderful Life. According to Gould,

“No finale can be specified at the start, none would ever occur a second time in the same way, because any pathway proceeds through thousands of improbable stages. Alter any early event, ever so slightly, and without apparent importance at the time, and evolution cascades into a radically different channel.”

To help clarify the concept of historical contingency, Gould used the metaphor of “replaying life's tape.” If one were to push the rewind button, erase life's history, and let the tape run again the results would be completely different each time. The very essence of the evolutionary process renders evolutionary outcomes nonrepeatable.

And yet, it appears as if evolution would have had to repeat itself in humans, mice, and rats to explain the promoter structures of the NAIP gene. This recognition runs counter to predictions that logically emanate from the concept of historical contingency and raises questions about the validity of the evolutionary explanation for life's history. In the abstract of their paper, the scientists who made this discovery remark at how unexpected this result is: “The independently acquired LTRs have assumed regulatory roles for orthologous genes, a remarkable evolutionary scenario [my emphasis].”

Unwittingly, the work conducted by the team from UBC—scientists committed to biological evolution—not only erodes one of the best arguments for evolution, but at the same time raises questions about the evolutionary paradigm. Is junk DNA the best evidence for evolution? It sure doesn't seem to be."