Some at-your-fingertips stats on human–chimp similarity

_{Denyse O'Leary

October 25, 2021

Genetics, Human evolution, Intelligent Design}

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When you are stuck across the table from the local evolution bore:

The old statistic that we are about 99 percent or 98 percent similar to chimps pertains only to alignable protein-coding sequences. In fact the statistic first originated based upon similarity between humans and chimps in just one single gene! But many non-coding sequences are highly dissimilar, and there are sequences of the human and chimp genomes that are so different that they can’t be aligned for comparison. For example, there are some parts of our genome, such as the human y chromosome, that are radically different from the chimp genome.
Geneticist Richard Buggs has tried to refine the methods for comparing human and chimp genomes. In a 2018 post, he observes that “The percentage of nucleotides in the human genome that had one-to-one exact matches in the chimpanzee genome was 84.38%.” In 2020 he co-published an article in the journal Frontiers in Genetics providing a different method of estimating of human-chimp genetic differences, finding that human-chimp genetic similarity is about 96 percent. This paper’s estimate of ~4 percent genetic difference includes both coding and non-coding DNA, but it does not include centromeric DNA. If that DNA were included, the percent of genetic similarity between humans and chimps could drop to as low as ~93 percent, but probably not lower. Computational biologist Steve Schaffner has roughly estimated human-chimp genetic similarity to be ~95 percent. However, one criticism I’ve heard of all current estimates is that they are based upon versions of the chimp genome that used the human genome as a “scaffolding,” potentially making certain sections of the chimp genome more humanlike than they ought to be. This could also artificially inflate the degree of human-chimp similarity.
What this means is that until more accurate and complete versions of the chimp genome are produced, any estimate of human-chimp genetic similarity will undoubtedly be refined in the future, and current numbers may very well be overestimates. Nonetheless, any of the above estimates of human-chimp genetic similarity — 96 percent, 95 percent, 93 percent, 84 percent — carries meaning in different contexts. But what exactly do they mean?
Casey Luskin, “Human-Chimp Similarity: What Is It and What Does It Mean?” at Evolution News and Science Today (October 20, 2021)

You may also wish to read: But, in the end, did the chimpanzee really talk? A recent article in the Smithsonian Magazine sheds light on the motivations behind the need to see bonobos as something like an oppressed people, rather than apes in need of protection.

Comments

Doesn’t such a statement imply that those religious “truths” take priority over any scientific data that might contradict them, that the science will be “spun” to conform with the religious beliefs?
Irrelevant! He has an extremely long list of references to back up his claims that he makes about biology of which few or none are religious in nature. He’s a theistic evolutionist so believes it all happened naturally. Why don’t you try to find what is wrong with his science? Do you doubt anything in the paragraph I quoted? I wouldn’t have linked to him if I thought his findings were religious in nature. Did you look at the other links to Wilcox posted further up the thread? One is more religious than the other but I don’t see anything where it affects his conclusions. All or nearly all the references are from science journals. Check for yourself. https://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2014/PSCF6-14Wilcox.pdfjerry_{October 26, 2021
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Of related note, this video of Casey Luskin was just released::
Fossil Evidence for Human Evolution: Hype or Good Science? - Casey Luskin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuU_UELy4hQ
bornagain77_{October 26, 2021
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Seversky, when you accuse ID advocates are holding "religious “truths” (that) take priority over any scientific data that might contradict them," you might want to take a good, hard, look in the mirror and realize that it is Darwinists themselves, such as yourself, who are the ones who are very much committed to giving their 'religious' truths priority over any scientific data that might contradict them," Specifically, falsification is widely considered to be the gold standard for determining whether a scientific theory is true or not,
"In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality." - Karl Popper
,,, yet Darwinists, time and time again, simply completely ignore any and all falsifying evidence that contradicts their "religion" of Atheistic Materialism and/or Darwinian evolution.
1. Darwin’s theory holds mutations to the genome to be random. The vast majority of mutations to the genome are not random but are now found to be ‘directed’. 2. Darwin’s theory holds that Natural Selection is the ‘designer substitute’ that produces the ‘appearance’ and/or illusion of design. Natural Selection, especially for multicellular organisms, is found to grossly inadequate as the ‘designer substitute. 3. Darwin’s theory holds that mutations to DNA will eventually change the basic biological form of any given species into a new form of a brand new species. Yet, biological form is found to be irreducible to mutations to DNA, nor is biological form reducible to any other material particulars in biology one may wish to invoke. 4. Darwin’s theory holds there to be an extremely beneficial and flexible mutation rate for DNA which was ultimately responsible for all the diversity and complexity of life we see on earth. The mutation rate to DNA is overwhelmingly detrimental. Detrimental to such a point that it is seriously questioned whether there are any truly beneficial, information building, mutations whatsoever. 5. Charles Darwin himself held that the gradual unfolding of life would (someday) be self-evident in the fossil record. Yet, from the Cambrian Explosion onward, the fossil record is consistently characterized by the sudden appearance of a group/kind in the fossil record(disparity), then rapid diversity within the group/kind, and then long term stability and even deterioration of variety within the overall group/kind, and within the specific species of the kind, over long periods of time. Of the few dozen or so fossils claimed as transitional, not one is uncontested as a true example of transition between major animal forms out of millions of collected fossils. Moreover, Fossils are found in the “wrong place” all the time (either too early, or too late). 6. Darwin’s theory, due to the randomness postulate, holds that patterns will not repeat themselves in supposedly widely divergent species. Yet thousands of instances of what is ironically called ‘convergent evolution’, on both the morphological and genetic level, falsifies the Darwinian belief that patterns will not repeat themselves in widely divergent species. 7. Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” Yet as Doug Axe pointed out, “Basically every gene and every new protein fold, there is nothing of significance that we can show that can be had in that gradualistic way. It’s all a mirage. None of it happens that way.” 8. Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.” Yet as Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig pointed out, “in thousands of plant species often entirely new organs have been formed for the exclusive good of more than 132,930 other species, these ‘ugly facts’ have annihilated Darwin’s theory as well as modern versions of it.” 9. Charles Darwin himself stated that, ““The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God. Yet ‘our conscious selves’ are certainly not explainable by ‘chance’ (nor is consciousness explainable by any possible reductive materialistic explanation in general), i.e. ‘the hard problem of consciousness’. 10. Besides the mathematics of probability consistently showing that Darwinian evolution is impossible, the mathematics of population genetics itself has now shown Darwinian evolution to be impossible. Moreover, ‘immaterial’ mathematics itself, which undergirds all of science, engineering and technology, is held by most mathematicians to exist in some timeless, unchanging, immaterial, Platonic realm. Yet, the reductive materialism that Darwinian theory is based upon denies the existence of the immaterial realm that mathematics exists in. i.e. Darwinian evolution actually denies the objective reality of the one thing, i.e. mathematics, that it most needs in order to be considered scientific in the first place! 11. Donald Hoffman has, via population genetics, shown that if Darwin’s materialistic theory were true then all our observations of reality would be illusory. Yet the scientific method itself is based on reliable observation. Moreover, Quantum Mechanics itself has now shown that conscious observation must come before material reality, i.e. falsification of ‘realism’ proves that our conscious observations are reliable!. 12. The reductive materialism that undergirds Darwinian thought holds that immaterial information is merely ’emergent’ from a material basis. Yet immaterial Information, via experimental realization of the “Maxwell’s Demon” thought experiment, is now found to be its own distinctive physical entity that, although it can interact in a ‘top down’ manner with matter and energy, is separate from matter and energy. 13. Darwinists hold that Darwin’s theory is true. Yet ‘Truth’ itself is an abstract property of an immaterial mind that is irreducible to the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution. i.e. Assuming reductive materialism and/or Naturalism as the starting philosophical position of science actually precludes ‘the truth’ from ever being reached by science! 14. Darwinists, due to their underlying naturalistic philosophy, insist that teleology (i.e. goal directed purpose) does not exist. Yet it is impossible for Biologists to do biological research without constantly invoking words that directly imply teleology. i.e. The very words that Biologists themselves use when they are doing their research falsifies Darwinian evolution. Darwinism vs. Falsification - list and link to defence of each claim https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I6fT6ATY700Bsx2-JSFqL6l-rzXpMcZcZKZfYRS45h4/edit
Verse:
1 Thessalonians 5:21 but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.
bornagain77_{October 26, 2021
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Jerry/14
ID is where one gets truth. University science departments is where one gets spin. From 7 years ago
So, if I understand this correctly, you are offering a paper published by the American Scientific Affiliation - "a Christian religious organization of scientists and people in science-related disciplines... ", written by a creationist population geneticist, David Wilcox, which begins as follows
Updating Our Genetic Prehistory David L. Wilcox Presuppositions: Setting the Stage 1. The earth and its fullness belongs to the Lord - it is His creation. Expectations (predictions) about it drawn from the Biblical narratives are thus verifiable or falsifiable by valid data from God’s creation. 2. This includes theological statements making real world predictions. Creation’s data cannot be simply rejected, but requires theological reconciliation. 3. But traditional understandings predict (expect or state) patterns of data far different than those of modern investigation, producing a serious dilemma. 4. All theories are human formulations, but the data they explain are not human creations, but discoveries of God’s truth. Theology may reject the theory, but it cannot reject the data – which means giving them rational explanation. 5. My intent is to survey recent genetic data related to the origin, nature and early prehistory of the human species. There are issues. They must be faced and worked out by theologians and scientists in open discussion.
I will grant Wilcox's honesty in setting out his religious presuppositions but how many scientific papers begin with a declaration of the authors' religious or political postures, even assuming they are relevant? Doesn't such a statement imply that those religious "truths" take priority over any scientific data that might contradict them, that the science will be "spun" to conform with the religious beliefs?Seversky_{October 26, 2021
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I think it is sort of pathetic that some people want to be related to apes.ET_{October 26, 2021
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Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework, simply have no 'beyond space and time' cause to appeal to in order to explain these recent 'beyond space and time' findings in quantum biology, whereas Christians readily do have an explanation:
Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
it is also important to realize that quantum information, unlike classical information, is conserved. As the following article states, "In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed."
Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first time – 2011 Excerpt: In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed. This concept stems from two fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics: the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem. A third and related theorem, called the no-hiding theorem, addresses information loss in the quantum world. According to the no-hiding theorem, if information is missing from one system (which may happen when the system interacts with the environment), then the information is simply residing somewhere else in the Universe; in other words, the missing information cannot be hidden in the correlations between a system and its environment. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-quantum-no-hiding-theorem-experimentally.html
The implication of finding ‘non-local’, (beyond space and time), and ‘conserved’, (cannot be created nor destroyed), quantum information in molecular biology on such a massive scale, in every important biomolecule in our bodies, is fairly, and pleasantly, obvious. That pleasant implication, of course, being the fact that we now have empirical evidence strongly suggesting that we do indeed have an eternal soul that is capable of living beyond the death of our material bodies. As Stuart Hameroff states in the following article, “the quantum information,,, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed.,,, it’s possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.”
Leading Scientists Say Consciousness Cannot Die It Goes Back To The Universe – Oct. 19, 2017 – Spiritual Excerpt: “Let’s say the heart stops beating. The blood stops flowing. The microtubules lose their quantum state. But the quantum information, which is in the microtubules, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed. It just distributes and dissipates to the universe at large. If a patient is resuscitated, revived, this quantum information can go back into the microtubules and the patient says, “I had a near death experience. I saw a white light. I saw a tunnel. I saw my dead relatives.,,” Now if they’re not revived and the patient dies, then it’s possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.” – Stuart Hameroff – Quantum Entangled Consciousness – Life After Death – video (5:00 minute mark) (of note, this video is no longer available for public viewing) https://radaronline.com/exclusives/2012/10/life-after-death-soul-science-morgan-freeman/
Moreover, I remind readers that Darwinists have left the entire enigma of biological form on the cutting room floor, Specifically, "Embryonic development, which inspired the first theories of biological form, was eventually excluded from the conceptual framework of the Modern Synthesis, (neo-Darwinism) as irrelevant.,,, At present, the problem of biological form remains unsolved."
On the problem of biological form – Marta Linde-Medina (2020) Excerpt: Embryonic development, which inspired the first theories of biological form, was eventually excluded from the conceptual framework of the Modern Synthesis, (neo-Darwinism) as irrelevant.,,, At present, the problem of biological form remains unsolved. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12064-020-00317-3
Thus in conclusion, Darwinists, since they wrote off biological form as 'irrelevant' when they first formulated the Modern Synthesis, simply have no realistic clue as to what it actually takes to give any particular species its particular biological form, much less do they have any realistic clue as to how it is possible to change one biological form into a fundamentally new biological form. As should be needless to say, the casting aside of biological form by Darwinists as 'irrelevant' is NOT a minor problem for Darwinists. Whereas, on the other hand, Christians, especially with advances in quantum biology, are found to be, once again, sitting quite comfortably in regards to the empirical evidence that we now have in hand, and in regards to explaining biological form. i.e. Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework, simply have no possible explanation how such ‘atom by atom’ construction of a 'human form' is even remotely possible in the first place, whereas Christians readily do have an explanation for how such a thing is possible. (And have been claiming just such an explanation for 'human form' for 2000 years now)
Psalm 139:13-18 For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You.
bornagain77_{October 26, 2021
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Moreover, on top of that rather dramatic, over the top, falsification of the Darwinian expectation that the genetic evidence should line up in a tree-like pattern, we also find that it is in how these fairly similar genes in these different species get used that make the most dramatic difference. As the following paper states, “A major question in vertebrate evolutionary biology is “how do physical and behavioral differences arise if we have a very similar set of genes to that of the mouse, chicken, or frog?”,,, "most alternative splicing events differ widely between even closely related species. “The alternative splicing patterns are very different even between humans and chimpanzees,”
Evolution by Splicing – Comparing gene transcripts from different species reveals surprising splicing diversity. – Ruth Williams – December 20, 2012 Excerpt: A major question in vertebrate evolutionary biology is “how do physical and behavioral differences arise if we have a very similar set of genes to that of the mouse, chicken, or frog?”,,, A commonly discussed mechanism was variable levels of gene expression, but both Blencowe and Chris Burge,,, found that gene expression is relatively conserved among species. On the other hand, the papers show that most alternative splicing events differ widely between even closely related species. “The alternative splicing patterns are very different even between humans and chimpanzees,” said Blencowe.,,, http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view%2FarticleNo%2F33782%2Ftitle%2FEvolution-by-Splicing%2F
In fact, due to alternative splicing, “Alternatively spliced isoforms,,, appear to behave as if encoded by distinct genes rather than as minor variants of each other.,,,” and “As many as 100,000 distinct isoform transcripts could be produced from the 20,000 human protein-coding genes (Pan et al., 2008), collectively leading to perhaps over a million distinct polypeptides obtained by post-translational modification of products of all possible transcript isoforms,,”
Widespread Expansion of Protein Interaction Capabilities by Alternative Splicing – 2016 In Brief Alternatively spliced isoforms of proteins exhibit strikingly different interaction profiles and thus, in the context of global interactome networks, appear to behave as if encoded by distinct genes rather than as minor variants of each other.,,, Page 806 excerpt: As many as 100,000 distinct isoform transcripts could be produced from the 20,000 human protein-coding genes (Pan et al., 2008), collectively leading to perhaps over a million distinct polypeptides obtained by post-translational modification of products of all possible transcript isoforms (Smith and Kelleher, 2013). http://iakouchevalab.ucsd.edu/publications/Yang_Cell_OMIM_2016.pdf
This finding of “perhaps a million distinct polypeptides obtained by post-translational modification” is simply completely devastating to the ‘bottom up’ reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinists and represents yet another 'hard falsification' of Darwinian expectations. Moreover, alternative splicing, as radically different as it is found to be between humans and chimps, is still not nearly enough to explain why humans have the particular biological form that they do. The information content of human DNA is simply not nearly enough information to explain why humans, or any other multicellular creature, may take the particular biological form that they do. As Dr. Doug Axe explains in the following video at the 1 hour 16 minute mark, “there are a quadrillion neural connections in the human brain, that’s vastly more neural connections in the human brain than there are bits (of information) in the human genome. So,,, there’s got to be something else going on that makes us what we are.”
“There is also a presumption, typically when we talk about our genome, (that the genome) is a blueprint for making us. And that is actually not a proven fact in biology. That is an assumption. And (one) that I question because I don’t think that 4 billion bases, which would be 8 billion bits of information, that you would actually have enough information to specify a human being. If you consider for example that there are a quadrillion neural connections in the human brain, that’s vastly more neural connections in the human brain than there are bits (of information) in the human genome. So,,, there’s got to be something else going on that makes us what we are.” Doug Axe – Intelligent Design 3.0 – Stephen C. Meyer – video https://youtu.be/lgs6J4LqeqI?t=4575.
Moreover, (from a thermodynamic perspective), it is found that “the information to build a human infant, atom by atom, would take up the equivalent of enough thumb drives to fill the Titanic, multiplied by 2,000.”
In a TED Talk, (the Question You May Not Ask,,, Where did the information come from?) – November 29, 2017 Excerpt: Sabatini is charming.,,, he deploys some memorable images. He points out that the information to build a human infant, atom by atom, would take up the equivalent of enough thumb drives to fill the Titanic, multiplied by 2,000. Later he wheels out the entire genome, in printed form, of a human being,,,,: [F]or the first time in history, this is the genome of a specific human, printed page-by-page, letter-by-letter: 262,000 pages of information, 450 kilograms.,,, https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/in-a-ted-talk-heres-the-question-you-may-not-ask/
As should be needless to say, "enough thumb drives to fill the Titanic, multiplied by 2,000" vastly outstrips, by many orders of magnitude, the information content of human DNA. On top of that, at about the 41:00 minute mark of the following video, Dr. Wells, using a branch of mathematics called category theory, demonstrates that, during embryological development, information must somehow be added to the developing embryo, ‘from the outside’, by some ‘non-material’ method.
Design Beyond DNA: A Conversation with Dr. Jonathan Wells – video (41:00 minute mark) – January 2017 https://youtu.be/ASAaANVBoiE?t=2484
To provide empirical evidence for the claim that this massive amount of information is coming into the developing embryo ‘from the outside’, by some ‘non-material’ method, it is first important to note that, via quantum non-locality, quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,,,
Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory – 29 October 2012 Excerpt: “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,” http://www.quantumlah.org/highlight/121029_hidden_influences.php
And these quantum correlations which somehow arise from outside spacetime, are now found in molecular biology on a massive scale. In every DNA and Protein molecule,,,
“What happens is this classical information (of DNA) is embedded, sandwiched, into the quantum information (of DNA). And most likely this classical information is never accessed because it is inside all the quantum information. You can only access the quantum information or the electron clouds and the protons. So mathematically you can describe that as a quantum/classical state.” Elisabeth Rieper – Classical and Quantum Information in DNA – video (Longitudinal Quantum Information resides along the entire length of DNA discussed at the 19:30 minute mark; at 24:00 minute mark Dr Rieper remarks that practically the whole DNA molecule can be viewed as quantum information with classical information embedded within it) https://youtu.be/2nqHOnVTxJE?t=1176 Quantum criticality in a wide range of important biomolecules – Mar. 6, 2015 Excerpt: “Most of the molecules taking part actively in biochemical processes are tuned exactly to the transition point and are critical conductors,” they say. That’s a discovery that is as important as it is unexpected. “These findings suggest an entirely new and universal mechanism of conductance in biology very different from the one used in electrical circuits.” The permutations of possible energy levels of biomolecules is huge so the possibility of finding even one (biomolecule) that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,, “what exactly is the advantage that criticality confers?” https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/the-origin-of-life-and-the-hidden-role-of-quantum-criticality-ca4707924552
bornagain77_{October 26, 2021
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The Darwinian claim that humans and chimps are related via common ancestry is very similar to a chemist discovering that the chemicals in the paints that Michelangelo used to paint some of his early paintings were very similar to the paint that he subsequently used to paint his masterpiece, the Sistine Chapel, and then declaring, "AHA, you see there is no need to invoke Michelangelo in order to explain the Sistine Chapel, or any of his earlier paintings, chemicals can produce paintings all by themself, and I have 'scientifically' proven this simply by showing that the chemicals in all these paintings are very similar to one another. Of course, as everyone can see, the Darwinist, and/or chemist in this illustration, is missing a very obvious point. That obvious point being that it takes a Michelangelo in order to explain why the paints are arranged in the specific patterns they are arranged in all these various paintings. Chemicals, all by themself, simply have no power to arrange paint, nor anything else. It ALWAYS takes a painter, i.e. an intelligent agent, in order to explain the purposeful arrangement of the paint on any given painting. So to is it with explaining the morphological differences between species. Although the 'chemical' DNA sequences that make up different species are found to be quite similar, it is in how those similar 'chemical' DNA sequences are used in those different species that makes all the difference, as far as trying to explain the morphology and/or the biological form of any given species is concerned. As James Le Fanu explained the irresolvable dilemma for Darwinists, "Contrary to all expectations, many DNA sequences involved in embryo development are remarkably similar across the vast spectrum of organismic complexity, from a millimeter-long worm to ourselves.7 There is, in short, nothing in the genomes of fly and man to explain why the fly should have six legs, a pair of wings, and a dot-sized brain and we should have two arms, two legs, and a mind capable of comprehending that overarching history of our universe."
Between Sapientia and Scientia — Michael Aeschliman’s Profound Interpretation -James Le Fanu - September 9, 2019 Excerpt: The ability to spell out the full sequence of genes should reveal, it was reasonable to assume, the distinctive genetic instructions that determine the diverse forms of the millions of species, so readily distinguishable one from the other. Biologists were thus understandably disconcerted to discover precisely the reverse to be the case. Contrary to all expectations, many DNA sequences involved in embryo development are remarkably similar across the vast spectrum of organismic complexity, from a millimeter-long worm to ourselves.7 There is, in short, nothing in the genomes of fly and man to explain why the fly should have six legs, a pair of wings, and a dot-sized brain and we should have two arms, two legs, and a mind capable of comprehending that overarching history of our universe. So we have moved in the very recent past from supposing we might know the principles of genetic inheritance to recognizing we have no realistic conception of what they might be. As Phillip Gell, professor of genetics at the University of Birmingham, observed, “This gap in our knowledge is not merely unbridged, but in principle unbridgeable and our ignorance will remain ineluctable.”8 https://evolutionnews.org/2019/09/between-sapientia-and-scientia-michael-aeschlimans-profound-interpretation/ 7. James Randerson, “Fewer Genes, Better Health,” New Scientist, July 13, 2002, 19. 8. Philip Gell, “Destiny and the Genes: Genetic Pathology and the Individual,” The Encyclopaedia of Medical Ignorance, ed.s R. Duncan and M. Weston-Smith (Kidlington: Pergamon, 1984), 179–87.
i.e. Darwinists, since they have rejected God, simply have no explanation as to why similar 'chemical' DNA sequence should produce drastically different biological forms. To drive this point home, Dolphins, Kangaroos, frogs, etc.. etc… although being very different morphologically from humans, are, 'unexpectedly', found to have very similar DNA sequences to humans.
Richard Sternberg PhD – podcast – On Human Origins: Is Our Genome Full of Junk DNA? Part 2 5:30 minute mark quote: “Basically the dolphin genome is almost wholly identical to the human genome,, yet no one would argue that bottle-nose dolphins are our sister species”,,, http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/11/on-human-origins-is-our-genome-full-of-junk-dna-pt-2/ Dolphin DNA very close to human, – 2010 Excerpt: They’re closer to us than cows, horses, or pigs, despite the fact that they live in the water.,,, “The extent of the genetic similarity came as a real surprise to us,” ,,, “Dolphins are marine mammals that swim in the ocean and it was astonishing to learn that we had more in common with the dolphin than with land mammals,” says geneticist Horst Hameister.,,, “We started looking at these and it became very obvious to us that every human chromosome had a corollary chromosome in the dolphin,” Busbee said. “We’ve found that the dolphin genome and the human genome basically are the same. It’s just that there’s a few chromosomal rearrangements that have changed the way the genetic material is put together.” http://www.reefrelieffounders.com/science/2010/10/21/articlesafari-dolphin-dna-very-close-to-human/ Kangaroo genes close to humans – 2008 Excerpt: Australia’s kangaroos are genetically similar to humans,,, “There are a few differences, we have a few more of this, a few less of that, but they are the same genes and a lot of them are in the same order,” ,,,”We thought they’d be completely scrambled, but they’re not. There is great chunks of the human genome which is sitting right there in the kangaroo genome,” http://www.reuters.com/article/science%20News/idUSTRE4AH1P020081118 First Decoded Marsupial Genome Reveals “Junk DNA” Surprise – 2007 Excerpt: In particular, the study highlights the genetic differences between marsupials such as opossums and kangaroos and placental mammals like humans, mice, and dogs. ,,, The researchers were surprised to find that placental and marsupial mammals have largely the same set of genes for making proteins. Instead, much of the difference lies in the controls that turn genes on and off. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/05/070510-opossum-dna.html Frogs and humans are kissing cousins – 2010 Excerpt: What’s the difference between a frog, a chicken, a mouse and a human? Not as much as you’d think, according to an analysis of the first sequenced amphibian genome. The genome of the western clawed frog, Xenopus tropicalis, has now been analysed by an international consortium of scientists from 24 institutions, and joins a list of sequenced model organisms including the mouse, zebrafish, nematode and fruit fly. What’s most surprising, researchers say, is how closely the amphibian’s genome resembles that of the mouse and the human, with large swathes of frog DNA on several chromosomes having genes arranged in the same order as in these mammals. The results of the analysis are published in Science this week1. “There are megabases of sequence where gene order has changed very little,,,” – per nature
Moreover, contrary to what ChuckDarwin tried to imply at post 6, the genetic evidence, as similar as it may be across a vast spectrum of species, simply has not comported to Darwinian expectations. Genetic similarity, as similar as it may be, simply does not line up with morphological similarity as was originally presupposed in Darwinian thought As News explained just yesterday, “In 1965 one of the most important scientists of the last century, Linus Pauling, and biologist Emil Zuckerkandl, considered by some as the father of molecular biology, suggested a way that macroevolution could be tested and proved: If the comparison of anatomical and DNA sequences led to the same family tree of organisms, this would be strong evidence for macroevolution.7 According to them, only evolution would explain the convergence of these two independent chains of evidence. By implication, the opposite finding would count against macroevolution.“ So what were the results? Over the past twenty-eight years, experimental evidence has revealed that family trees based on anatomical features contradict family trees based on molecular similarities, and at many points. They do not converge."
Jonathan Witt: Why Is Common Descent A Better Explanation For The History Of Life Than Common Design? Excerpt: “In 1965 one of the most important scientists of the last century, Linus Pauling, and biologist Emil Zuckerkandl, considered by some as the father of molecular biology, suggested a way that macroevolution could be tested and proved: If the comparison of anatomical and DNA sequences led to the same family tree of organisms, this would be strong evidence for macroevolution.7 According to them, only evolution would explain the convergence of these two independent chains of evidence. By implication, the opposite finding would count against macroevolution.“ So what were the results? Over the past twenty-eight years, experimental evidence has revealed that family trees based on anatomical features contradict family trees based on molecular similarities, and at many points. They do not converge. Just as troubling for the idea of macroevolution, family trees based on different molecules yield conflicting and contradictory family trees. As a 2012 paper published in Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society reported, “Incongruence between phylogenies derived from morphological versus molecular analyses, and between trees based on different subsets of molecular sequences has become pervasive as datasets have expanded rapidly in both characters and species” (emphasis in original).8 Another paper, published the following year in the journal Nature, highlighted the extent of the problem.9 The authors compared 1,070 genes in twenty different yeasts and got 1,070 different trees.10 https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/jonathan-witt-why-is-common-descent-a-better-explanation-for-the-history-of-life-than-common-design/
Thus genetic similarity, as similar as it may be across a vast spectrum of species, and directly contrary to what ChuckDarwin tried to imply at post 6, has falsified, instead of verified, Darwinian expectations. And this falsification of Darwinian expectations, (i.e. expectations for how the genetic evidence should line up in a tree like pattern), as Winston Ewert has now shown, has been a 'hard falsification' of Darwinian expectations, and by no means is it to be considered a 'soft falsification' of Darwinian expectations. As Cornelius Hunter explained, the intelligent design model falsified the Darwinist's common descent model by 10,064, 40,967 and 515,450 bits respectfully, and this is where 6.6 bits is considered to provide “decisive” evidence for a model.
New Paper by Winston Ewert Demonstrates Superiority of Design Model - Cornelius Hunter - July 20, 2018 Excerpt: Ewert amassed a total of nine massive genetic databases. In every single one, without exception, the dependency graph (intelligent design) model surpassed common descent. Darwin could never have even dreamt of a test on such a massive scale. Darwin also could never have dreamt of the sheer magnitude of the failure of his theory. Because you see, Ewert’s results do not reveal two competitive models with one model edging out the other. We are not talking about a few decimal points difference. For one of the data sets (HomoloGene), the dependency graph model was superior to common descent by a factor of 10,064. The comparison of the two models yielded a preference for the dependency graph model of greater than ten thousand.,,, But It Gets Worse The problem with all of this is that the Bayes factor of 10,064 bits for the HomoloGene data set is the very best case for common descent. For the other eight data sets, the Bayes factors range from 40,967 to 515,450. In other words, while 6.6 bits would be considered to provide “decisive” evidence for the dependency graph model, the actual, real, biological data provide Bayes factors of 10,064 on up to 515,450. We have known for a long time that common descent has failed hard. In Ewert’s new paper, we now have detailed, quantitative results demonstrating this. And Ewert provides a new model, with a far superior fit to the data. https://evolutionnews.org/2018/07/new-paper-by-winston-ewert-demonstrates-superiority-of-design-model/
bornagain77_{October 26, 2021
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Who’s furious – apart from those who take great umbrage at the very idea they might be kin to apes?
It's not kin to apes that is the problem but truth. There's a big difference. ID is where one gets truth. University science departments is where one gets spin. From 7 years ago
One of the things it says is that the regulatory nature in the human genome is extremely more complex than the next species. Here is a quote:
What shall we say about the genes which make us human? We and chimps share 96% to 99% of our protein coding sequences. Why are we different? Not the 1.5% of our genome that codes for proteins but the 98.5% that controls their production. Literally, no other primate lineage has evolved as fast as our lineage has during the last 1.5 million years, and it’s all due to unique changes in our control genome. At least 80% probably more of our “non-coding” genome is also transcribed, starting from multiple start points, transcribed in both directions, with overlapping reading frames of many sizes and a whole spectrum of alterations, producing a whole zoo of ‘new’ types of RNA control elements – piRNA,siRNA, miRNA,sdRNA, xiRNA, moRNA, snoRNA, MYS-RNA, crasiRNA, TEL-sRNA, PARs, and lncRNA. Most of these unique RNA transcripts – and there are thousands, if not millions of them – are uniquely active in developing human neural tissue – uniquely active compared to their activity in chimpanzees, much less other primates or mammals. It is the new epigenetic world

https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/animal-body-so-what/#comment-511554jerry_{October 26, 2021
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Who's furious - apart from those who take great umbrage at the very idea they might be kin to apes?Seversky_{October 26, 2021
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Origenes @ 10 see Awstar @ 5ET_{October 26, 2021
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seversky:
The claim is not that humans are descended from chimps or any other modern ape, the claim is that if you follow the lineages of modern primates, including us, back far enough they will converge on a common ancestor who probably looked more ape-like than human. So what?
The claim is untestable BS.
What difference does it make, except to human exceptionalists?
It makes a difference with respect to science which requires that the claims being made have to be testable, objectively. And without a mechanism capable of accounting for the anatomical and physiological differences observed between chimps and humans, it is a lie being perpetrated in school science classrooms. So it makes a difference all the way down.ET_{October 26, 2021
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Chuckdarwin: Biologists have never claimed that chimps are our forbearers.

Seversky: CD is right. The claim is not that humans are descended from chimps or any other modern ape,
Great to see two people so in agreement, but who is it that you two are so furieusly arguing against? Who is saying that biologists claim that chimps are our forbearers? Who has made that claim?Origenes_{October 26, 2021
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CD is right. The claim is not that humans are descended from chimps or any other modern ape, the claim is that if you follow the lineages of modern primates, including us, back far enough they will converge on a common ancestor who probably looked more ape-like than human. So what? What difference does it make, except to human exceptionalists?Seversky_{October 26, 2021
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Wrong again, Chuck.
Chuckdarwin never answers a relevant question let alone a tough question. He only tries to make others look small while demonstrating his own ignorance. Interesting self indictment. And by his own admission, a trained biologist.jerry_{October 26, 2021
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Wrong again, Chuck. No one has established that humans and chimps share a common ancestor. There aren't any known mechanisms capable of accounting for the anatomical and physiological differences observed between chimps and humans. You clearly don't understand biology or science.ET_{October 26, 2021
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What is the big deal about having monkeys and apes in our family lineage? Are humans so insecure, or alternatively, so arrogant, that where we came from is that much of a burning issue?
[I]t seems obvious that since you can logically trace back males to the very first male, it could not possibly be a chimp. Humans just might have been intelligently designed that way from the start — just as the begat’s in the Bible says.
Biologists have never claimed that chimps are our forbearers. What they have established is that we and chimps have a common ancestor. And from where I sit, the data, cited in this article, still strongly supports that observation. A lot stronger than some old white dude with a long white beard wearing a long white robe poofing us into existence.chuckdarwin_{October 26, 2021
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Luskin -- there are some parts of our genome, such as the human y chromosome, that are radically different from the chimp genome.

The y-chromosome is inherited more or less unchanged from father to son to grandson, indefinitely. Chromosomes contain the DNA that determines our inherited characteristics, and the y-chromosome is one of the 46-chromosomes in the nucleus of each of the cells of all human males. Most chromosomes, including the two x-chromosomes possessed by females, get recombined or shuffled each generation before being passed down to offspring. But the y-chromosome is unique in remaining more or less unchanged when passed from father to son. -- web.stanford.edu "The Y-Chromosome and Genetic Genealogy"
Since DNA functions as encoded information, and chromosomes function much like data files within a database, and the y chromosome in particular functions much like an index that identifies the lineage from which each male descends; it seems obvious that since you can logically trace back males to the very first male, it could not possibly be a chimp. Humans just might have been intelligently designed that way from the start -- just as the begat's in the Bible says. But then that would be jumping to conclusions. Unlike evolution scientists who have performed exhaustive studies before coming to their conclusions; Such as DNA is mostly junk and human and chimp DNA differs by only 1%.awstar_{October 26, 2021
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Fashionable nonsense is about all the Darwin lobby and origin of life people can publish...and it's also quite similar to the Space lobby. If you don't publish something, people will think you aren't accomplishing anything, then the money dries up. It's all financially driven. According to Dr. James Tour, origin of life hasn't moved a millimeter in 70 years. We also have papers now saying that elephants losing tusks is evolution... no, it's de-evolution, subtraction. You have to publish something, so that's what we get. Op-eds and wokeness and nonsense.zweston_{October 26, 2021
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If one wants to understand what makes humans different genetically, they should read David Wilcox. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/is-it-the-junk-dna-that-makes-us-human/#comment-738845 https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/is-it-the-junk-dna-that-makes-us-human/#comment-738840 The difference in the epigenetics is huge. As indicated above by the large differences in non coding sequences. But again this OP like most conflates DNA with species determination and it obviously Is not the major determination.jerry_{October 26, 2021
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In short, and in what a consider to be a shining example of poetic justice, the atheist, in his denial that God really exists as a real person, ends up being forced to deny the most certain thing that he can possibly know about reality. Namely, he ends up denying that he himself exists as a real person.
“that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.” - Francis Crick – “The Astonishing Hypothesis” 1994
There is a fairly obvious fatal flaw in the atheist's claim that he is merely a 'neuronal illusion'. Specifically, "illusions are possible only for conscious minds."
The Illusionist – Daniel Dennett’s latest book marks five decades of majestic failure to explain consciousness. – 2017 Excerpt: “Simply enough, you cannot suffer the illusion that you are conscious because illusions are possible only for conscious minds. This is so incandescently obvious that it is almost embarrassing to have to state it.” – David Bentley Hart https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-illusionist
i.e. The claim from atheists that they are merely 'neuronal illusions' is self-refuting nonsense. By definition, illusions are NOT reality but are distortions that pervert our perception of reality. Again, "illusions are possible only for conscious minds." To continue on, and in regards to Darwinists holding love itself to be illusory, the following conversion of an atheist to Christianity is quite telling in that it was brought about precisely because atheistic materialism simply cannot ground love. What caused Jennifer Fulwiler to question her atheism to begin with? It was the birth of her first child. She says that when she looked at her child, the only way her atheist mind could explain the love that she had for him was to assume it was the result of nothing more than chemical reactions in her brain. However, in the following video, she says: "And I looked down at him, and I realized that’s not true."
"And I looked down at him, and I realized that’s not true." - Jennifer Fulwiler: Scientific Atheism to Christ - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMbUvlOcXNA
As should be needless to say, any worldview that denies the objective reality of beauty, morality, meaning and purpose for life, personhood, and even love itself, is a severely impoverished, even a severely depressing, worldview for anyone to have to hold. And indeed such an impoverished, even depressing, worldview, goes a very long way towards explaining why atheists have far more mental health problems than Christians do,
“I maintain that whatever else faith may be, it cannot be a delusion. The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best-kept secrets in psychiatry and medicine generally. If the findings of the huge volume of research on this topic had gone in the opposite direction and it had been found that religion damages your mental health, it would have been front-page news in every newspaper in the land.”,,, “In the majority of studies, religious involvement is correlated with well-being, happiness and life satisfaction; hope and optimism; purpose and meaning in life; higher self-esteem; better adaptation to bereavement; greater social support and less loneliness; lower rates of depression and faster recovery from depression; lower rates of suicide and fewer positive attitudes towards suicide; less anxiety; less psychosis and fewer psychotic tendencies; lower rates of alcohol and drug use and abuse; less delinquency and criminal activity; greater marital stability and satisfaction… We concluded that for the vast majority of people the apparent benefits of devout belief and practice probably outweigh the risks.” - Professor Andrew Sims former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists - Is Faith Delusion?: Why religion is good for your health – preface and page 100
And indeed such an impoverished, even depressing, worldview, also goes a very long way towards explaining why atheists also have a much shorter lifespan than Christians do,
Study: Religiously affiliated people lived “9.45 and 5.64 years longer…” July 1, 2018 Excerpt: Self-reported religious service attendance has been linked with longevity. However, previous work has largely relied on self-report data and volunteer samples. Here, mention of a religious affiliation in obituaries was analyzed as an alternative measure of religiosity. In two samples (N = 505 from Des Moines, IA, and N = 1,096 from 42 U.S. cities), the religiously affiliated lived 9.45 and 5.64 years longer, respectively, than the nonreligiously affiliated. Additionally, social integration and volunteerism partially mediated the religion–longevity relation. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/study-religiously-affiliated-people-lived-religiously-affiliated-lived-9-45-and-5-64-years-longer/ Can Religion Extend Your Life? - By Chuck Dinerstein — June 16, 2018 Excerpt: The researcher's regression analysis suggested that the effect of volunteering and participation accounted for 20% or 1 year of the impact, while religious affiliation accounted for the remaining four years or 80%. https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/06/16/can-religion-extend-your-life-13092
How atheists can possibly willingly choose to endure such an impoverished and depressing, (not to mention patently false), nihilistic worldview I have no idea. Often times atheists will try to claim, as Alex Rosenberg did, that they, in their rejection of God, are simply 'enjoying life without illusions'
The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions - Alex Rosenberg https://www.amazon.com/Atheists-Guide-Reality-Enjoying-Illusions/dp/0393344118
But far from the the atheist living his life 'without illusions', and as now has been explained, the atheist's entire worldview is, in fact, based on illusions, and indeed, even the atheist himself becomes an illusion in his worldview. So again, how atheists can possibly willingly choose to endure such an impoverished and depressing, (not to mention patently false), nihilistic worldview I have no idea.
2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
Of supplemental note: despite the over-the-top Darwinian hype that Darwinists often put forth claiming that humans have evolved from apes, the fact of the matter is that the scientific evidence itself contradicts the Darwinian 'narrative' of human evolution at every turn. Specifically, the Fossil Record, Genetics, Population Genetics, and Human Exceptionalism all contradict the Darwinian 'narrative' of human evolution at every turn.
October 2021 - Refutation of Human evolution - Fossil Record, Genetics, Population Genetics, and Human Exceptionalism https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/science-uprising-8-why-materialism-needs-ape-ancestors/#comment-738485
bornagain77_{October 26, 2021
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As I pointed out yesterday,
"Everything that is truly important (about being a human), and that can be said to ‘radically’ differentiate us from all the other creatures on earth, and that truly makes us human and not animals, is immaterial in its foundational essence and character, and therefore it is simply impossible for Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework, to ever give an adequate account for how humans came about.",,, https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-mind-matters-news-compassion-and-religion-darwins-unscratchable-itches/#comment-739031
And as Dr. Egnor points out, “Human beings have the power to contemplate universals, which are concepts that have no material instantiation. Human beings think about mathematics, literature, art, language, justice, mercy, and an endless library of abstract concepts.,,, It is in our ability to think abstractly that we differ from apes. It is a radical difference — an immeasurable qualitative difference, not a quantitative difference. We are more different from apes than apes are from viruses. Our difference is a metaphysical chasm. It is obvious and manifest in our biological nature. We are rational animals, and our rationality is all the difference. Systems of taxonomy that emphasize physical and genetic similarities and ignore the fact that human beings are partly immaterial beings who are capable of abstract thought and contemplation of moral law and eternity are pitifully inadequate to describe man. The assertion that man is an ape is self-refuting. We could not express such a concept, misguided as it is, if we were apes and not men.
The Fundamental Difference Between Humans and Nonhuman Animals – Michael Egnor – November 5, 2015 Excerpt: Human beings have mental powers that include the material mental powers of animals but in addition entail a profoundly different kind of thinking. Human beings think abstractly, and nonhuman animals do not. Human beings have the power to contemplate universals, which are concepts that have no material instantiation. Human beings think about mathematics, literature, art, language, justice, mercy, and an endless library of abstract concepts. Human beings are rational animals. Human rationality is not merely a highly evolved kind of animal perception. Human rationality is qualitatively different — ontologically different — from animal perception. Human rationality is different because it is immaterial. Contemplation of universals cannot have material instantiation, because universals themselves are not material and cannot be instantiated in matter.,, A human being is material and immaterial — a composite being. We have material bodies, and our perceptions and imaginations and appetites are material powers, instantiated in our brains. But our intellect — our ability to think abstractly — is a wholly immaterial power, and our will that acts in accordance with our intellect is an immaterial power. Our intellect and our will depend on matter for their ordinary function, in the sense that they depend upon perception and imagination and memory, but they are not themselves made of matter. It is in our ability to think abstractly that we differ from apes. It is a radical difference — an immeasurable qualitative difference, not a quantitative difference. We are more different from apes than apes are from viruses. Our difference is a metaphysical chasm. It is obvious and manifest in our biological nature. We are rational animals, and our rationality is all the difference. Systems of taxonomy that emphasize physical and genetic similarities and ignore the fact that human beings are partly immaterial beings who are capable of abstract thought and contemplation of moral law and eternity are pitifully inadequate to describe man. The assertion that man is an ape is self-refuting. We could not express such a concept, misguided as it is, if we were apes and not men. https://evolutionnews.org/2015/11/the_fundamental_2/
As to "Human beings have the power to contemplate universals, which are concepts that have no material instantiation.,,, The assertion that man is an ape is self-refuting. We could not express such a (universal) concept, misguided as it is, if we were apes and not men", in the following article Logan Paul Gage explains exactly why "We could not express such a (universal) concept, misguided as it is, if we were apes and not men",, Specifically, Logan Paul Gage notes that, "In Aristotelian and Thomistic thought, each particular organism belongs to a certain universal class of things. Each individual shares a particular nature—or essence—and acts according to its nature. Squirrels act squirrelly and cats catty. We know with certainty that a squirrel is a squirrel because a crucial feature of human reason is its ability to abstract the universal nature from our sense experience of particular organisms.,,, The first conflict between Darwinism and Thomism, then, is the denial of true species or essences. For the Thomist, this denial is a grave error, because the essence of the individual (the species in the Aristotelian sense) is the true object of our knowledge."
Darwin, Design & Thomas Aquinas The Mythical Conflict Between Thomism & Intelligent Design by Logan Paul Gage Excerpt:,,, In Aristotelian and Thomistic thought, each particular organism belongs to a certain universal class of things. Each individual shares a particular nature—or essence—and acts according to its nature. Squirrels act squirrelly and cats catty. We know with certainty that a squirrel is a squirrel because a crucial feature of human reason is its ability to abstract the universal nature from our sense experience of particular organisms. Denial of True Species Enter Darwinism. Recall that Darwin sought to explain the origin of “species.” Yet as he pondered his theory, he realized that it destroyed species as a reality altogether. For Darwinism suggests that any matter can potentially morph into any other arrangement of matter without the aid of an organizing principle. He thought cells were like simple blobs of Jell-O, easily re-arrangeable. For Darwin, there is no immaterial, immutable form. In The Origin of Species he writes: “I look at the term species as one arbitrarily given, for the sake of convenience, to a set of individuals closely resembling each other, and that it does not essentially differ from the term variety, which is given to less distinct and more fluctuating forms. The term variety, again, in comparison with mere individual differences, is also applied arbitrarily, for convenience’s sake.” Statements like this should make card-carrying Thomists shudder.,,, The first conflict between Darwinism and Thomism, then, is the denial of true species or essences. For the Thomist, this denial is a grave error, because the essence of the individual (the species in the Aristotelian sense) is the true object of our knowledge. As philosopher Benjamin Wiker observes in Moral Darwinism, Darwin reduced species to “mere epiphenomena of matter in motion.” What we call a “dog,” in other words, is really just an arbitrary snapshot of the way things look at present. If we take the Darwinian view, Wiker suggests, there is no species “dog” but only a collection of individuals, connected in a long chain of changing shapes, which happen to resemble each other today but will not tomorrow. What About Man? Now we see Chesterton’s point. Man, the universal, does not really exist. According to the late Stanley Jaki, Chesterton detested Darwinism because “it abolishes forms and all that goes with them, including that deepest kind of ontological form which is the immortal human soul.” And if one does not believe in universals, there can be, by extension, no human nature—only a collection of somewhat similar individuals.,,, https://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=23-06-037-f
As Logan Paul Gage also pointed out, via Darwin himself, Darwinists deny the entire "abstract and universal" concept of species altogether, and thus deny the "true object of our knowledge".
“I look at the term species as one arbitrarily given, for the sake of convenience, to a set of individuals closely resembling each other, and that it does not essentially differ from the term variety, which is given to less distinct and more fluctuating forms. The term variety, again, in comparison with mere individual differences, is also applied arbitrarily, for convenience’s sake.” - Darwin
And you don't have to take Gage's, Aristotle's, Aquinas's, or Darwin's word for it, In 2019, a Darwinist honestly admitted that “The most important concept in all of biology, (i.e. species), is a complete mystery”
What is a species? The most important concept in all of biology is a complete mystery – July 16, 2019 https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-species-the-most-important-concept-in-all-of-biology-is-a-complete-mystery-119200
And as the following 2020 article pointed out, "Take the apparently simple organising principle of a species. You might have learned at school that a species is a group of individuals that can breed to produce fertile offspring. But this is just one of at least 34 competing definitions concocted over the past century by researchers working in different fields.,,,,"
At New Scientist: Questioning The Idea Of Species – Nov. 2020 Excerpt: Take the apparently simple organising principle of a species. You might have learned at school that a species is a group of individuals that can breed to produce fertile offspring. But this is just one of at least 34 competing definitions concocted over the past century by researchers working in different fields.,,,, https://uncommondescent.com/darwinism/at-new-scientist-questioning-the-idea-of-species/
Of related interest, it is also important to note that, for Darwinists, "At present, the problem of biological form remains unsolved."
On the problem of biological form - Marta Linde-Medina (2020) Excerpt: Embryonic development, which inspired the first theories of biological form, was eventually excluded from the conceptual framework of the Modern Synthesis, (neo-Darwinism) as irrelevant.,,, At present, the problem of biological form remains unsolved. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12064-020-00317-3
The entire "abstract and universal' concept of species, i.e. 'the true object of our knowledge', can simply find no grounding within the reductive materialistic framework of Darwinian evolution. i.e. How much does the concept of species weigh? Does the concept of ‘species’ weigh more in English or in Chinese? How long is the concept of species in millimeters? How fast does the concept go? Is the concept of species faster or slower than the speed of light? Is the concept of species positively or negatively charged? Or etc.. etc.. etc… ?.. As should be needless to say, if you can’t even provide a rigid materialistic, (and therefore supposedly ‘scientific’), definition for the abstract and immaterial concept of ‘species’ in the first place, (in your theory that adamantly claims to be the ‘be all/end all’ scientific explanation for the ‘origin of species’ in the first place), well then, so much for your supposedly 'scientific' claim that you have scientifically explained the ‘origin of species’. i.e. Scientifically speaking, your claim is, as Pauli put it, ‘Not even wrong’. Besides having no basis in which to ground the "abstract and universal' concept of species, i.e. 'the true object of our knowledge' in the first place, Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework, also lose the ability to explain everything else that is truly important about being human, and that can be said to ‘radically’ differentiate us from all the other creatures on earth, and that truly makes us human and not animals. For instance, in the reductive materialistic framework of Darwinian thought, everything that can be said to be beautiful, moral, and meaningful, in a person's life, and even the entire concept of personhood itself, and even any love that a person may have for other people, becomes illusory, and therefore simply 'not real' for Darwinists. Charles Darwin himself denied the objective reality of beauty 'in the eyes of man'. and even said that, “This doctrine, if true, would be absolutely fatal to my theory.”
“The foregoing remarks lead me to say a few words on the protest lately made by some naturalists, against the utilitarian doctrine that every detail of structure has been produced for the good of its possessor. They believe that very many structures have been created for beauty in the eyes of man, or for mere variety. This doctrine, if true, would be absolutely fatal to my theory.” (Charles Darwin – 1859, p. 199)
And Richard Dawkins himself denied the objective reality of morality when he stated, "The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”
“In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” – Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life
And Alex Rosenberg, professor of philosophy at Duke University, denied the objective reality of meaning and purpose for a person's life, and even denied the objective reality of personhood itself, when he stated, ""There is no self in, around, or as part of anyone’s body. There can’t be. So there really isn’t any enduring self that ever could wake up morning after morning worrying about why it should bother getting out of bed. The self is just another illusion,,, Whatever purpose yesterday’s self thought it contrived to set the alarm last night, today’s newly fictionalized self is not identical to yesterday’s. It’s on its own, having to deal with the whole problem of why to bother getting out of bed all over again."
"There is no self in, around, or as part of anyone’s body. There can’t be. So there really isn’t any enduring self that ever could wake up morning after morning worrying about why it should bother getting out of bed. The self is just another illusion, like the illusion that thought is about stuff or that we carry around plans and purposes that give meaning to what our body does. Every morning’s introspectively fantasized self is a new one, remarkably similar to the one that consciousness ceased fantasizing when we fell sleep sometime the night before. Whatever purpose yesterday’s self thought it contrived to set the alarm last night, today’s newly fictionalized self is not identical to yesterday’s. It’s on its own, having to deal with the whole problem of why to bother getting out of bed all over again. (…) So, the fiction of the enduring self is almost certainly a side effect of a highly effective way of keeping the human body out of harm’s way. It is a by-product of whatever selected for bodies—human and nonhuman—to take pains now that make things better for themselves later. For a long time now, Mother Nature has been filtering for bodies to postpone consumption in the present as investment for the body’s future. It looks a lot like planning. Even squirrels do it, storing nuts for the winter. Does this require each squirrel to have a single real enduring self through time? No. If not, then why take introspection’s word for it when it has a track record of being wrong about things like this, when the self just looks like part of the same illusions and is supposed to have features that physics tells us nothing real can have." - Alex.Rosenberg, The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, ch.10
The claim by Darwinists that the entire concept of personhood itself is illusory is particularly interesting to looks at since, as Rene, 'I think therefore I am', Descartes pointed out, the fact that we really exist as real persons is, by far, the most certain thing we can possibly know about reality. As Decartes succinctly summarized, "we cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt...."
Cogito, ergo sum Cogito, ergo sum[a] is a Latin philosophical proposition by René Descartes usually translated into English as "I think, therefore I am".[b] The phrase originally appeared in French as je pense, donc je suis in his Discourse on the Method, so as to reach a wider audience than Latin would have allowed.[1] It appeared in Latin in his later Principles of Philosophy. As Descartes explained, "we cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt...." A fuller version, articulated by Antoine Léonard Thomas, aptly captures Descartes's intent: dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum ("I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am").[c][d] The concept is also sometimes known as the cogito.[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum
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