If We Were to Take the Flood Account Literally.. (page 8)

notverylikely

I think your full of it.

Backpeddaling.

When you take anatomy, you learn about genetics.

While I clearly ain't as lernt as you what with yer 'natomy class n' such type lerning, I wuz gud enuf to luk up an anatomy syllabus online and thur shure enuf ain't none of them genetics on it nowheres. Guess that means while I might be full of it, you just don't know what yer babbling about.

Check it out at http://faculty.ivc.edu/rrodriguez/Bio%2011syllp3.htm

With regards to what you consider back peddling, it's simply a matter of understanding how evolution and gentics works. Two people or two wolves would not be likely to populate an entire civilization due to the severe inbreeding that would occur with serious side effects that leads to various health problems and an increased potential for excitinction. The genetic bottleneck would basically ensure that all members of the population are genetically too similar.

Rather, all people and all dogs are descended from a population of proto-people and wolves (proto-dogs).

I'm just stating facts.

Not really.

Facts that are taught in college. By people that call themselves scientist.

Too bad you didn't retain any of them.

Mad Sweeney

So Bohm, can I summarize your explanation this way?

To go far enough back in time to have single pairs of ancestors one would have to go WAY back before there was anything even resembling dogs, wolves, humans, or monkeys; really, one would have to go back to the time when microbes were the only life for it to be possible and even then it seems unlikely.

I think nvl and jag need to call a truce here.

Unless one majors in a biological science, it is extremely unlikely that one would be exposed to this level of detail as regards evolution and genetics. Generally speaking, your average college student is taught an extremely watered-down version of biology and it wouldn't be unheard of to have a teacher in a freshman biology class (or anatomy/physiology class) "simplify" things by referring to single pairs of proto-dogs and other such inaccurate things.

It is little different from how supposedly educated scientists persist in using the term "greenhouse effect" when referring to earth's atmosphere. It is to make things simpler by dumbing-down the topic. Even though greenhouses retain heat by suppressing convection and the atmosphere's heat transfer is ALL about convection, the phrase persists even in higher education because it is easier than going into the nitty gritty of thermodynamics in a lower level course with a different focus.

This sort of misinformation occurs more than we like to admit, and it is even worse at the secondary level than the postsecondary.

notverylikely

microbes were the only life for it to be possible and even then it seems unlikely.

Why does that seem unlikely?

I think nvl and jag need to call a truce here.

There is no war, therefore no need for a truce.

Unless one majors in a biological science, it is extremely unlikely that one would be exposed to this level of detail as regards evolution and genetics.

You can always do what I do and read.

it wouldn't be unheard of to have a teacher in a freshman biology class (or anatomy/physiology class) "simplify" things by referring to single pairs of proto-dogs and other such inaccurate things.

Anatomy is a very specific course that doesn't in any way get into that subject material. A genereal biology class would and that would inclide basic genetics like recessive and dominant genes, basic anatomy, basic cell structure, etc., but an ANATOMY class would not cover genetics.

When you claim some authority on a subject because you took a class in college a long time ago, make sure you know WTF you're talking about is my basic point. Don't try to tell me that you learned how to cook a steak in a baking class.

And that last part wasn't really directed at you, Mad.

Mad Sweeney

microbes were the only life for it to be possible and even then it seems unlikely.

Why does that seem unlikely?

This was my interpretation of Bohm's post and it was really a question more than an assertion ( "can I summarize your explanation this way?" ). The implication, as I understood it, is that after the very first living cell, subsequent generations are pretty much thought to have always evolved in groups rather than individuals and/or pairs.

When you claim some authority on a subject because you took a class in college a long time ago, make sure you know WTF you're talking about is my basic point.

Excellent point it is.

notverylikely

The implication, as I understood it, is that after the very first living cell, subsequent generations are pretty much thought to have always evolved in groups rather than individuals and/or pairs.

Ah, gotcha.

That is the general consensus.

Excellent point it is.

Sometimes I get lucky and find a good point.

TD

I think sometimes the term, "Descent from a common ancestor" is misunderstood.

Consider:

You've got one mother and one father

You've got two grandmothers and two grandfathers

You've got four great grandmothers and four great grandfathers

You've got eight great-great grandmothers and eight great-great grandfathers

--ad infinitum

The father you go back, the wider your family tree flairs, and hence the more ancestors you have in common with others.

But that is very, very different than claiming that "all man kind could come from 2 people." An ancestor held in common by the entire human species does not imply that said individual was the only human on earth at one time.

Higher mammals do not tolerate this level of inbreeding. Common ancestory arises partially because many thousands of concurrent lines of descent have died off at multiple points in the past. Epidemics are a major cause of this phenomenon.

bohm

Mad Sweeney:

i see it this way:

If we focus on the parts of the genetic material which is passed in a non-sexual fashion, ie. the mitochondrial RNA (mRNA), there is a single "parent" for all mRNA. The argument is like this: Take all currently living beings and their mRNA. Ask "who are their mothers" and you get a new set of women which has to be smaller because no person can have two mothers, but any women can have more than one child. Keep repeating this and you end up with just one women, the mitochondrial Eve (ME), and all of our mRNA descend from hers in a straight line.

The same thing can be done for the Y-chromosome and one end up with a man we all inherit our Y-chromosomes from in a straight line, lets call him mitochondrial Adam (MA). Notice he is only "adam" to all Men.

now, ME and MA did not have to live at the same time or in the same place - infact we know they did not and was seperated by thousands of thousands of years.

This argument only holds for the parts of the genomen which is passed in a non-sexual manner, the typical gene can be inherited from both parents and things get more complicated. This is also why its a really really good idea to have sexual recombination since the effective gene pool become so much larger!

It is also good to keep in mind that there is nothing special about ME or MA; the process is simply something which counteract the natural genetic drift. Also, in particular with the Y-chromosome, there are mechanisms where the genetic content can be reshuffled and transferred between chromosomes, that make it a lot more complicated.

In short, there could be an ancestoral pair of any species. Its technically possible. However, one has to monkey around in a major way with the way mutations are known to happend, or just plain throw out all population genetics out of the window. Im not sure where Jaguarbass stand on that question. He seem to argue like evolutionary theory is still in a pre Fisher, Haldena and Sawell Wright state.

Mad Sweeney

Awesome posts!

Shows that complex topics CAN be explained succinctly WITHOUT dumbing them down with inaccurate metaphors.

jaguarbass

Get yourself an education Buddy, You spend a whole week on genetics when you take anatomy and physiology.

ANd you have to solve problems of what different parents will produce.

Human anatomy and physiology by Marieb, chapter 30 Heredity, gene pairs, genocyte and phenotype, alles.

bohm

jaguarbass: Yep there are something called genes and alleles and they can be expressed or not. Noone is questioning you there.

But evolution is not just about two animals having children, its more about how a population of animals evolve. Thats why the relevant term here is really population genetics which is a field in its own right

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_genetics

and its a cornerstone in the modern synthesis of evolution which you can readily check. And if i phrase the question like this:

"Which field in biology is relevant in terms of describing the genetic variety can one expect in a population of animals which went through a very narrow genetic bottlenect and was left alone for 4300 years"

population genetics make a nice semantic answer.

If We Were to Take the Flood Account Literally..

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