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"If two chromosomes merged, this is what it would look like."

I'm not a YEC, but that argument in the OP doesn't sound very scientific.

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So a precise evolutionary prediction like, "we expect to find three telomere regions and two centromere regions on a human chromosome," is not scientific to you? We study the structure of the chromosome, know what it's supposed to look like, study human and ape genetics, and make and then confirm a precise prediction after that and this is not scientific? Come on. This is a quintessential example of how science is supposed to work.

I know what two separate cars look like. I see the following



I expect a car crash occurred. Your response is that eh, that's not really scientific? What's the alternative, by the way? They were just created that way?!

I was actually curious to learn more about the research in the area of chromosome merging, but I guess OP isn't going to provide any.

Another question out of my ignorance, but could a common ancestor of apes and humans have had 23 chromosomes, and the "chromosome 2" actually split into two and became apes? Has this question been answered?

How did scientists determine it was a fusion that led to humans and not a split that led to apes?

Bummer: Thank you for contacting the Institute for Creation Research. Unfortunately, Dr. Tomkins will not be able to participate in an online discussion at this time.

Here is a link to his latest research on Human Chromosome 2 that was published on February 8, 2017.
Feb Article

It apears that he answers a few objectors in this article. I'm not a geneticist and therefore unable to participate in a detailed discussion.

AstroAg17 said:

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Unless we do take the time to understand the argument, we're just appealing to authority, and the scientific concensus is decidedly against Dr. Tomkins.

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And each side is likely to just believe the authority that agrees with their existing belief.

I read Tomkins and then some other rebuttals but honestly it's like reading a foreign language. Without an extensive background in genetics I can't determine if either side is adding spin or not.

What would not require a genetics background or understanding of this specific case, is if there are other examples of this phenomenon found and recorded in other species. Particularly strong evidence would be actual documented before and after case and record of the process, as opposed to "it's plausible it happened in the past but the find details are unknown." Details like how did an animal with screwed up chromosome reproduce?

When I searched for examples of chromosome fusion all I could find was discussion of chromosome 2... it seems this is a really hot topic and dominates the discussion on chromosome fusion and drowns out discussion of other examples if they exist.

I think if this is the only example of possible chromosome fusion, then it really raises the level of skepticism of the fusion theory.

John Maplethorpe said:

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They'll just answer the same way other dna evidence is answered, 98% genetic similarity for instance.
"It's God's paintbrush, of course there are similarities, doesn't make evolution true"

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The evidence discussed in the OP destroys the "God's Paintbrush" arguement

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In light of all the other evidence of evolution, if God did this he is a mastermind deceiver indeed.

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I get where you describe how the evolution from 24 to 23 could have occurred.

However, please articulate how the fact that these genes are similar supports the "deceptive God" argument. I don't get that.

AstroAg17 said:

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I'm not a geneticist either, and neither is Darg. I would question why this guy didn't get this published in a real journal if it is a valid criticism. I could actually take the time to try to figure out why the scientific consensus differs from his opinion, but you would likely have to devote a significant amount of time to understanding the answer, and I doubt anyone on this board wants to take the time to delve into this. I know I don't. Still, I can if necessary.

Knowing Darg, he's probably working on an 8 page manifesto refuting this, so perhaps wait for that.

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Yeah, so, that defense. It doesn't work. The reality is that the "valid journal" scheme is kind of a cartel, and has a definitive political slant.

So, I fully agree with your comment that if we don't understand the science, then we are simply appealing to authority. And, I am extremely skeptical of scientific analysis that comes from blogs purported to be defending creation science, etc. But the probability that a criticism of research supporting the theory of evolution being addressed fairly, without bias, by someone like "Nature" is really very, very low.

I read the article by Dr. Tompkins. He has some very specific, very scientific criticisms that show that the case for the chromosome fusion may be a bit overblown.

Specifically, where did all of the central telomeres go? We are down to 798 pairs from a starting point of around 10,000 pairs. A response has been that they have degenerated over time. What would be interesting is to see some chip DNA from a couple of hundred or couple of thousand years ago. Did that site still have exactly 798 pairs back then? If so, why did the degeneration just stop at 798?

In addition, the proof that this region is actually working DNA is the most significant. Telomeres are supposed to be non-functioning (at least, at this point, we don't understand what they actually do). In the original theory, those 798 pairs are the leftover telomeres from the fusion. However, since these genes are actually doing work, we now have to assume that the oranism also evolved in a way to turn non or low-functioning telomeres into working DNA.

I am not sure if we have ever witnessed that type of evolution. It would be interesting if someone could point to that somewhere. I couldn't find any, but I wound up spending like a day researching genetic fusions of European butterflies last time the smarties on this board were given a similar challenge.

In short, I find it hypocritical that you would deride some people on this thread for trying to hide behind the Biblical canon, and then, when someone does exactly what the OP asks for and addresses the science head on, you hide behind your canonical list of approved biased journals.

This scientific field is still in its infancy. The technological progress we are making right now in genetic research tools is staggering, and exciting. Once we get some young geniuses to bend that technology into interesting research, I think we are going to learn a lot.

AstroAg17 said:

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I don't agree that the valid journal scheme is a "cartel" and I think that's a ridiculous assertion. People challenge accepted things all the time. Is there bias? Unavoidably. But to assert some kind of conspiracy is just unfounded as far as I'm aware.

I think humans and apes have been diverged about 6 million years, so your thousand old DNA idea probably isn't viable. We wouldn't expect a much larger number. It might even be within the bounds of random mutational error. Also the half life of DNA is ~500 years so we don't have much material to work with. His assertion that we would expect 5,000 repeats is a massive strawman anyways. Nobody would, for several reasons. Degeneracy is one, and another is that the fusion didn't have to happen at the very ends of the chromosomes.

I'm willing to learn and discuss the evidence, so I'm not "hiding" behind an appeal to authority. Do you agree that articles published in creationist magazines are reason to doubt the scientific consensus if you don't understand them?

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It's not necessarily a conspiracy. It's just that the journals are inherently biased due to the structure of the academic industry.

I stand 100% behind my assertion that there is zero chance that a journal like Nature or Science would publish someone like Tompkins regardless of the rigor or scientific merit of his work.

I'm not saying that there should be 5,000 repeats. But, 798 is not a lot. If we could look back and there were any number more than 798, even if it was only like 802, that would be interesting.

Like I said above, you have to be skeptical of everything written on a creation science website, but to write off criticism as not important because it hasn't been published in a collection of journals with biased editors is not a good idea, either.

AstroAg17 said:

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What type of evolution are you not sure we've witnessed? Degeneration of non-coding DNA? We can easily witness that. It's just a bunch of types of mutations. Have we ever watched something mutate for 6 million years? We have not.

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The author shows that the fusion site, which is supposed to be non-coding DNA left over from two chip chromosomes fusing end to end, is within an important gene.

So, the mutation that I am looking for is the change of non-coding centromere into DNA that actually does work, especially a gene that encodes proteins.

As we get to know more and more about how DNA does its job, I think we are going to come to a pretty definitive answer on this one.

As for right now, the fact that the fusion region does real work is a significant criticism to the original fusion theory.

Wrong message

AstroAg17 said:

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Here's a paper on a gene unique to humans which appears to have been formed "from scratch" meaning that it was non-coding DNA which was "turned on" by the removal of a stop codon or insertion of a promoter or something. This does happen, although it's rare since your non-coding DNA is usually not fit for coding. The abstract covers the meat of it.

http://m.genome.cshlp.org/content/early/2009/08/31/gr.095026.109

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This is interesting. However, here is the origin of these genes:

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The novel proteins identified in this study are all short, encoded by an uninterrupted ORF, are supported by expression data, and the corresponding regions of chromosome where the ortholog is expected to be found in chimp and macaque harbor disabling mutations, which mean that the protein cannot be produced.

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So, in this paper, the novel protein encoded genes are present in the Chimp, but turned off due to a mutation. In at least one of them, the gene overlapped a protein encoding gene on the other side of the strand.

That is pretty different from a situation where you have centomeres or telomeres mutating into protein encoding DNA, which is likely even more rare than this mutation.