Pretty much nobody. Just somebody I talked to. I was wondering what your response would be. I'd really like to hear your take on the second paragraph, though.
Saename
JoinedPosts by Saename
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24
Evolution is a Fact #6 - Human Chromosome 2
by cofty inpart 1 - protein functional redundancypart 2 - dna functional redundancypart 3 - ervspart 4 - smelly genespart 5 - vitamin c.
the big book of how to build a human - your genome - is approximately 3 billion letters long.. the text is arranged in long molecules of dna called chromosomes.
each letter of code in a chromosome is joined to its compliment - a to t and c to g - and the whole string is arranged in the iconic double-helix shape discovered by watson and crick in 1953.. our chromosomes come in pairs, one from our father and one from our mother.
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Evolution is a Fact #6 - Human Chromosome 2
by cofty inpart 1 - protein functional redundancypart 2 - dna functional redundancypart 3 - ervspart 4 - smelly genespart 5 - vitamin c.
the big book of how to build a human - your genome - is approximately 3 billion letters long.. the text is arranged in long molecules of dna called chromosomes.
each letter of code in a chromosome is joined to its compliment - a to t and c to g - and the whole string is arranged in the iconic double-helix shape discovered by watson and crick in 1953.. our chromosomes come in pairs, one from our father and one from our mother.
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Saename
Recently I heard someone argue that the vestigial telomeres in chromosome 2 don't exist in the numbers an "evolutionist" would expect. Those vestigial telomeres, he argued, also supposedly degenerated far more than, again, an "evolutionist" would expect. Therefore, they're not vestigial telomeres but telomeric sequences found throughout chromosomes. Here's what he specifically said:
To address the science, though, the fusion was supposedly a telomere-telomere fusion, the first documented aside from in cancer cells: “Fusion of telomeres is a rare occurrence in normal lymphoblasts and fibroblasts, although it has been observed in 20-30% of the cells of certain tumors, where it appears to be nonclonal (25-29) . . . The frequency with which telomere-telomere fusion has participated in chromosome evolution cannot readily be assessed. ” (http://www.pnas.org/content/88/2...). That is because the function of telomeres is typically to prevent fusion and is a highly unlikely way for fusion to actually occur at all—much less lead to a higher organism.
Humans typically have 2500 repeats of the telomeric sequence TTAGGG (15,000 base pairs). Chimpanzees have telomeric sequences that are twice as long (Blood cell telomere lengths and shortening rates of chimpanzee and human females.). If there was a fusion, even if there had been degeneration, we could have expected thousands of repeats. However, another group found “Only 48% of the 127 repeats in RP11–395L14 and 46% of the 158 repeats in M73018 are perfect TTAGGG or TTGGGG units” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc...). So there were few repeats to begin with (127+158=285, ~4% of the 7500 that could be expected), and most of these were degenerate. That also forces them to raise the question “If the fusion occurred within the telomeric repeat arrays less than ∼6 Mya, why are the arrays at the fusion site so degenerate? The arrays are 14% diverged from canonical telomere repeats (not shown), whereas noncoding sequence has diverged <1.5% in the ∼6 Mya since chimpanzee and humans diverged (Chen and Li 2001)” (ibid.). They come up with several explanations, but of course they have to keep riding with the Evolution assumption and can’t admit that the data just don’t fit their assumptions because they have no other option with God excluded. The Christian response that these telomeric repeats are simply normal telomeric repeats that intersperse chromosomes and that the human chromosome, though similar (as humans and chimpanzees are also outwardly similar), is unique.
Furthermore, we would expect there to be little genetic function in this region, since telomeres are not active, but are expendable parts of the chromosome that only protect the rest. On the contrary, though, the region around the fusion site is functionally quite active (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc...).[...]
As I said, the vestigial telomeres don't exist nearly in the numbers one would expect, and have supposedly degenerated far more than one would expect. I find it more likely that they are just telomeric sequences that are found throughout chromosomes. Most are peri-centric (Distribution of non-telomeric sites of the (TTAGGG)n telomeric sequence in vertebrate chromosomes), about where the fusion location is supposed to be.
What would be your response?
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No brain, No Life -- says JW Professor Rajesh Kalaria
by cognisonance inso continuing my review of the current bull shit my family in this cult are subjected to i found this article about professor rajesh kalaria, a jw since 1973 and a scientist who has studied the human brain for 40 years (hmm... so he converted into this cult very early in his career it seems).anyway i also found this jw broadcasting piece about him where he says:.
“and brain is what we are; what i am, what you are.
no brain, no life.
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Saename
cognisonance - This being the case how then does he (or the JWs leadership that endorses his view) reconcile that with their belief in a resurrection.
Er... no... The JW leadership doesn't endorse Kalaria's view. Kalaria endorses the view of the JW leadership. So, you got that backwards...
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Are you a Christian Who Accepts Evolution?
by cofty inif you identify as a christian but you have accepted that the diversity of life - including humans - resulted from a process of biological evolution could you add your name please?.
just to be clear i am referring to the fact that our physical lineage could literally be traced back all the way to non-human species.. if you like maybe you could comment on why you see not conflict between evolution and your christian faith.. there is a tendency to conflate evolution with atheism.
it would be good to show that this is not the case..
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Saename
jp1692, now that's just incredibly stupid. Calm down. You haven't said a word which would indicate that you were agreeing with me. You simply quoted some article. Next time you want another person to get your meaning, say a f&cking word.
Now I'm done responding to you. Bye.
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Are you a Christian Who Accepts Evolution?
by cofty inif you identify as a christian but you have accepted that the diversity of life - including humans - resulted from a process of biological evolution could you add your name please?.
just to be clear i am referring to the fact that our physical lineage could literally be traced back all the way to non-human species.. if you like maybe you could comment on why you see not conflict between evolution and your christian faith.. there is a tendency to conflate evolution with atheism.
it would be good to show that this is not the case..
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Saename
jp1692 - "Neanderthals have contributed approximately 1-4% of the genomes of non-African modern humans, although a modern human who lived about 40,000 years ago has been found to have between 6-9% Neanderthal DNA (Fu et al 2015). The evidence we have of Neanderthal-modern human interbreeding sheds light on the expansion of modern humans out of Africa." - (Click the link above to read the full article)
I am fully aware of that. The problem is that you have no idea what you're reading.
Again, Homo sapiens did not evolve from Homo neanderthalensis. Homo sapiens evolved from Homo heidelbergensis. Once our species appeared and moved out of Africa, our ancestors started interbreeding with the neanderthals. All that means is that modern non-African humans have neanderthal DNA (they are descendants of the neanderthals.) As a species, however, we did not evolve from them. They are our cousins. Richard Dawkins said as much in his conversation with George Pell, but when he was explaining it, he was interrupted. Hence, he didn't get to explain it, but he did say that Homo neanderthalensis are not our ancestors (as a species):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZobzGgE5KE
If you don't trust me on this, trust an expert.
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Orangeburg Assembly Hall - designed to be sold as a future supermarket?
by cedars ini've just been watching a youtube video that reveals the new assembly hall in orangeburg, sc.. two things struck me when watching it.... firstly, everything is attributed to jehovah, right down to deciding the location where the hall is to be built.
"we examined over 300 properties," said one interviewee, "we were reminded that jehovah knew where the site was, we just had to keep looking and show him that we were persistent.
" other workers interviewed throughout the video attribute everything to god, as though it is impossible to build anything without divine direction.. here is the video.... .
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Saename
I haven't watched the videos, but is there actual evidence in them pointing towards this building being purposely designed like a supermarket?
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Are you a Christian Who Accepts Evolution?
by cofty inif you identify as a christian but you have accepted that the diversity of life - including humans - resulted from a process of biological evolution could you add your name please?.
just to be clear i am referring to the fact that our physical lineage could literally be traced back all the way to non-human species.. if you like maybe you could comment on why you see not conflict between evolution and your christian faith.. there is a tendency to conflate evolution with atheism.
it would be good to show that this is not the case..
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Saename
truthseeker - I believe man was already on this planet but as a Neanderthal
I don't have time nor any particular interest to clear out other misunderstandings you have about evolution (because there's just sooo much to talk about...), but I still wanted to clarify this one issue.
Neanderthals are not our ancestors.
Repeat: Neanderthals are not our ancestors.
They're our cousins. We evolved from Homo heidelbergensis, and Homo neanderthalensis evolved from Homo heidelbergensis as well, which makes us cousins.
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Are you a Christian Who Accepts Evolution?
by cofty inif you identify as a christian but you have accepted that the diversity of life - including humans - resulted from a process of biological evolution could you add your name please?.
just to be clear i am referring to the fact that our physical lineage could literally be traced back all the way to non-human species.. if you like maybe you could comment on why you see not conflict between evolution and your christian faith.. there is a tendency to conflate evolution with atheism.
it would be good to show that this is not the case..
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Saename
cofty - Ex-JWs have difficulty grasping how evolution and faith can be resolved because they have a peculiar view of the ransom that depends on a literal Adam. This is not an issue for most christians who believe Jesus' death was a vicarious punishment for their own sins not those of Adam.
Yeah, that's a misunderstanding I had until last week. It was quite an interesting revelation because I was utterly convinced that the original sin was a central doctrine in most forms of Christianity.
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Study with an Elder - propose a question.
by CitizenofEarth inhello there.. as some of you might remember i am keeping my facade up by "studying" with an elder.
this study however is more of a session where i put hard questions about the org, doctrine and so on, on the table.
the time has come for the next session in a couple of days, and i have quite frankly lost the will to keep digging up things that just shouldn't be happening.
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Saename
QUESTION #1 - Why does our chromosome 2 seem like a result of end-to-end fusion of two ancestral chromosomes found in the chimpanzees?
"I am not convinced that evolution is true, but recently I've been talking to a friend who knows a lot about it, and he asked me a question that I find difficult to answer. If evolution is false, how do we explain chromosome 2 in the human genome which quite evidently seems to be a result of end-to-end fusion of two ancestral chromosomes. Here are the facts I can't explain:
1) Our chromosome 2 has almost identical DNA sequence to two separate chromosomes found in the chimpanzees, which indicates the aforementioned fusion.
2) Normally a chromosome has one centromere, but our chromosome 2 has one additional vestigial centromere, which, again, indicates that our chromosome 2 was a fusion of 2 other ancestral chromosomes.
3) Normally a chromosome has telomeres at each end, but our chromosome 2, in addition to that, has extra telomere sequences that are located far from the ends of the chromosome, and that also indicates a fusion.
How does the creationist model explain those three observed facts?"
QUESTION #2 - Why does Deut. 22.28–29 force rape victims to marry their rapists?
"I understand that Christians are not under the law of the Old Testament. Hence, I would never uphold that rule. But what I find really uncomfortable is, not the fact whether we have to follow it since quite clearly I would never do so, but the fact that this law is in the Bible. I wholeheartedly believe that the Bible was inspired by God because this is the only way to explain how unique it is. However, if God inspired the Bible, including the Old Testament, why does this law force rape victims to marry their rapists? Why did God inspire Moses to write this down?"
The usual apologetics is that the law says "if they are discovered," which supposedly indicates that the woman and the man were both giving consent to sex. Question his logic. Say that, to you, it seems as if it were merely indicating that the rapist was found raping the victim, and that's all. Ask him why he thinks it indicates consent. (This is something I really cannot understand. How the hell do you conclude that the woman was consenting based on such an ambiguous phrase?) Another fact is that it is not even certain whether the original Hebrew said "they." In the LXX, the phrase is translated as, "and he is discovered." (Focus also on the fact that Jehovah's Witnesses often make appeals to the LXX because they believe it's accurate [whenever it suits them]. Why ignore the LXX here but not in other parts?) Additionally, the passage uses the Hebrew word taphas when it says "seize." The word taphas meant literally to seize someone by force. The passage is not talking about seduction because in Hebrew, there was a different word for "seduce," and it was pathah. (This is why this law is not a repetition of Exod. 22.16–17. The claim that Deut. 22.28–29 is a repetition (or that sex was consensual) was debunked by Professor Bernard Jackson, who has actual expertise in the Jewish law.)
QUESTION #3 - Why does Exod. 21 support slavery?
Before you ask the question, get familiar with Matt Dillahunty's videos on slavery in the Bible. He explains the issue quite well, far better than I ever could. Also, learn about the usual apologetics, such as the letter to Philemon, and why it does not mean that the Bible condemns slavery. Most importantly, keep in mind that something to ask is this: "I understand that the letter to Philemon quite clearly condemns slavery, but I have a different issue. When we look through Exod. 21, it's also evident that this chapter supports slavery. If God inspired the Bible, why didn't he make his opinion on slavery very clear? Because it's not clear at all. In Exod. 21, it is extremely obvious that God supports it, while in the letter to Philemon, his opinion is quite different." (And, again, see how Matt Dillahunty debunks the apologetics Christians use to explain away Exod. 21.)
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Origin of Life
by cofty inin recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?
as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.
there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.
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Saename
John_Mann - The other problem is life is only found on Earth and we can see a huge share of the universe and nothing... This fact threatens panspermia.
I don't think it's in any way a problem. The fact is that even on earth there are plenty of different life forms. Some of them are impossible to detect without a good microscope. Imagine how difficult it would be to discover a microbacterium on a planet that is light years away.
So why isn't it a problem? Because the only thing it proves is that... we don't know. The fact that we don't know is not a problem. Theists make it a problem for themselves. To those who are driven by science, it's only a problem in the sense that it's a mystery—and we want to solve mysteries. Other than that, it's not a problem at all.
When it comes to panspermia, as far as I know, it's mostly an abandoned hypothesis anyway.