Originally posted by Scott J:
DNA suggest something? What did it sound like?
And no that is not just a sarcastic, rhetorical question. It points to a most important point. The facts of DNA as interpretted by someone is where the suggestion comes in.
OK fair enough in a way but remember I was responding to a post where an anti-evolutionist stated DNA suggests (his word) that it was created uniquely for each species, and using that form of speech in my reply.
I am going to violate my own rule and deal with this detail just briefly. It was on my mind as I drove past thousands of acres of crop land on the way home yesterday.
And I want to thank you for taking the time to actually address this issue, which has been raised many many times in this board and in other places and I have yet to see an attempt at a substantive reply to this important piece of evidence, until now.
You build this case as if the only conclusion is that primates have a common ancestor. Let me suggest another scenario that has real world comparisons.
Perhaps primates, which can still suffer from some of the same diseases, were at some time hit with a significant plague and only those with the deficiency you cite could survive it.
You've made a nice try but you've missed the point. The point is that this non-functioning gene exists in exactly the same form over multiple species. So how would the damage to this gene - as specific as saying of your car that it was stopped by removing left rear wheel - occur over multiple species?
In order to make your suggestion credible, some investigation would be in order. The gene at present is non-funtional. Is that determination in error? Are there ways in which the gene can perhaps express itself in some circumstances?
Why is the damage always the "left rear tire"? Wouldn't the right rear tire or the crankshaft give similar results?
The idea that the gene broke but that didn't matter because there was plenty of vitamin c in the diet is a very simple, easily understood idea.
You can try to place another reason for the broken gene in there, as you did, but that misses the evidential point, which is that the exact same defect occurs across multiple species. How did THAT happen in the absense of a common ancestor that started the defect off in the beginning?
It is also the case with insects and agricultural pesticides. Insects usually adapt by losing genetic information. IOW, only those in the population without certain gene characteristics survive. These deficiencies may manifest themselves as a disadvantage elsewhere but they allow the survival of a remnant.
I'm sorry, but I regard learning how to live with a poisen that used to kill my ancestors as a gain in information not a loss in information.
You have leapt to the conclusion that it must be a common ancestor when all the evidence really requires is that we have some common genetic attributes . . . . But why? Why must it be a common ancestor? Because it agrees with the assumptions.
Common genetic attributes are routinely regarded as evidence of ancestry in matters of legally establishing paternity. Do you think all our courts are misguided by relying on this evidence, or are we perhaps at last really on the track of something that is reliable? I submit the latter is the case.
OK Nice try, but in my opinion the argument that there might be a hidden purpose behind the mutation fails to explain the exact uniformity of the mutation within species that exactly matches the postulated evolutionary pattern. This omission in your argument, coupled with the complete out of the blue speculation for an unknown and unknowable purpose based on merely assuming there has to be a purpose, leaves your arguement, in my opinion, out in the cold.
Primates are not the only creatures that fail to make vitamin C - guina pigs also fail, and they have (surprise!) a different mutation that causes their problem. Not surprising to the evolutionist, they're not in the same closely evolutionary related family tree.
