During my recent escapades on Twitter, I have come across some delightfully idiotic creationists. One of whom is reformador7, who I challenged with Human Chromosome #2 as evidence for common ancestry. In response, he sent me a blog (http://www.twitlonger.com/show/fdidc9). To which this blog is a response to.
To start off, evolution is a done deal. There is far too much evidence in its favour to doubt it in lue of creationism, to do so would be either an act of extreme ignorance or self deception. There is evidence from all over biology, such as genetics, paleotology, biochemistry, comparative anatomy, developmental biology etc.
There are 3 areas I will address in this blog: 1) Human chromosome #2 is a fusion of two ape chromosomes, and proves common ancestry with apes, 2)Evolution of intelligence in Humans and 3) evolution of miRNAs.
First off why does chromosome 2 support common ancestry with apes? Well humans have 46 chromosome, apes have 48. In order for common ancestry to be correct, one chromosome has to be lost (which is determental) or two chromosomes fused. Fusion was suggested based on the banding patterns of humans and apes (Yanis and Prakash, 1982. Stanyon 1983). This was then confirmed by Molecular cytogenic data (Hastie and Allshire 1989, Clemente et al, 1990) and the location of the telomere to telomere fusion point located on the chromosomal band 2q13 (Ijdo et al, 1991, Luke and Verma, 1992). One strawman commited by reformador is that fusions produce new species. No one has said this, it's proof of our common ancestry, not THE speciation event. The Ninth Commandment is not optional people. At the end of the blog, he claims that Dr Millers statement that the only way that creationists can explain it is by "thats the way the designer made it", however he explains it by saying the designer made the chromosomal banding patterns similar, and apes and humans had the same number of chromosomes. However it is still thats the way the 'designer made it argument", only with a fusion step in, which is still only proof of a deceptive designer. Furthermore chromosome 2 can only be explained with fusion of two ape chromosomes becuase of the centromere of human chromosome 2 lines up with the chimp chromosome 2p chromosomal centromere (Ijdo et al, 1991) and at the place where we would expect it on the human chromosome we find the remnants of the chimp 2q centromere (Averello et al, 1992).
Figure 1: Kasai et al, 2000
He states in his blog "reliable eyewitness testimony is more powerful than circumstantial evidence in establishing historical details". To which I say this is utterly wrong, circumstancial evidence, is still evidence. However the evidence for evolution is beyond cricumstancial, and for the bible the evidence is lacking or contradictory (e.g the flood).
He brings up intelligence in humans. However like a typical creationist, he hasn't bothered to check the literature.One such article I found stated bipediality produced a larger brain (but blocked enlargement of the parturient canal and retarded further increases in the size of the brain). Changes in copulation behavior contributed to the evolution of language.Females further evolved language in order to take care of the infants. Male Homos accelerated food acquisition activities to provide the energy required to maintain a larger brain.Females who acquired the initiative in copulation begun to select male partners by their ability to provide food and security. By this sexual selection, the evolution of language was accelerated (Hattori,1998). He states that such advancements were never observed, and inferred because evolution has an atheistic base. Evolution doesn't have anything to say with god. In fact Dr. Miller who he refers to in this article is a practising Catholic.
Next our dear creationist friend tries to argue that miRNAs are proof of a god, and against evolution. MiRNAs are non coding RNAs that regulate gene expression at the pretranslatory level. First off the evolution miRNAs is underexplored in the literature, this however does not mean it that it didn't evolve, it means we don't know how as of yet, as I stated previously, there is too much evidence in favour to support evolution to throw it out because we haven't researched an area of it yet. One study I found conducted the first systems-level analysis of human transcription factor (TF)-miRNA regulatory network. miRNAs have unique and even opposite evolutionary rules comparing with TFs and other protein-coding genes, suggesting that miRNAs may have unique functions and roles in various biological processes and disease (Chengxiang et al, 2010).The most interesting discovery from this study is that the evolutionary patterns of miRNAs are different from those of the TFs and other protein-coding genes at the network level (Chengxiang et al, 2010).
In conclusion, Reformadors quite long tweet did nothing but to highlight his own ignorance on the subject of science and his ability to strawman. For more information please check out the bibliography below.
TheKitch2 out!
References:
Fumio Kasai1, Ei-ichi Takahashi, Kumiko Koyama, Keiji Terao, Yumiko Suto1, Katsushi Tokunaga,Yusuke Nakamura, Momoki Hira (2000). Comparative FISH mapping of the ancestral fusion point of human chromosome 2. Chromosome Research. 8: 727-735.
Stanyon R (1983) A test of the karyotypic ¢ssioning theory of
primate evolution. Biosystems 16: 57-63.
Yunis JJ, Prakash O (1982) The origin of man: A chromosomal
pictorial legacy. Science 215: 1525-1530.
Clemente IC, Ponsa M, Garcia M, Egozcue J (1990) Evolution
of the simiiformes and the phylogeny of human chromosome.
Hum Genet 84: 493-506.
Hastie ND, Allshire RC (1989) Human telomeres: fusion and
interstitial sites. Trends Genet 5: 326-331.
Ijdo JW, Baldini A, Ward DC, Reeders ST, Wells RA (1991)
Origin of human chromosome 2: An ancestral telomere^telomere fusion. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 88:9051-9055.
Luke S, Verma RS (1992) Origin of human chromosome 2. Nat Genet 2: 11-12
Hattori K (1998.Drivers of intelligence evolution in Homo: Sexual behavior, food acquisition and infant neoteny. Mankind Quaterly. 39 (2): 127-146.
Avarello R, Pedicini A, Caiulo A, Zuffardi O, Fraccaro M, Evidence for an ancestral alphoid domain on the long arm of human chromosome 2. Hum Genet 1992 May;89(2):247-9
Chengxiang Qiu1, Juan Wang1, Pengying Yao1, Edwin Wang,Qinghua Cui1 (2010). microRNA evolution in a human transcription factor and microRNA regulatory network. BMC Systems Biology. 4:90
