How ENV muddies the waters on the evidence for human evolution

Recently, Evolution News and Views published an article titled, The Human-Ape Missing Link — Still Missing (July 18, 2017), which attempts to cast doubt on human evolution by quoting from a recent BBC article which highlighted the massive uncertainties that still remain over the identity, appearance and date of the last common ancestor (LCA) of human beings and chimpanzees, and which even questions whether the chimpanzee is our closest relative, after all. The Evolution News and Views (ENV) article also revives the myth of an unbridgeable gap between Australopithecus and Homo.

Here’s my two-sentence rebuttal: uncertainty as to who the last common ancestor of humans and chimps was, what it looked like, and when it lived, in no way diminishes scientists’ certainty that it existed. And while the fossil record of human ancestors is very meager and patchy until about 4.4 million years ago, from that time onward, we have a veritable hodgepodge of hominins – and no unbridgeable gaps.

Well, that was quick, wasn’t it? Now for a more detailed rebuttal.

What’s the best evidence for human evolution?

For those wanting a quick overview of the evidence for human evolution, I would recommend Dennis Venema’s four-part series, titled, Intelligent Design and common ancestry, as well as his five-part series, Vitellogenin and Common Ancestry.

Dennis Venema’s 22-part series, titled, Adam, Eve, and Human Population Genetics, goes on to establish that the ancestral human population has never numbered less than 10,000 during the past one million years. In short: the notion that humanity originally descended from a single couple has been scientifically discredited. After reading Venema’s posts, I have been forced to revise my own views on Adam and Eve. (More about that in a future post.)

Readers who may be inclined to query the alleged 98% genetic similarity between humans and chimps might want to have a look at my Uncommon Descent articles, Human and chimp DNA: They really are about 98% similar and Double debunking: Glenn Williamson on human-chimp DNA similarity and genes unique to human beings. The latter article also deals with the genes which are alleged to be totally unique to human beings, and shows that they are nothing of the sort.

What the BBC article actually said

The BBC article cited in the anonymous Evolution News and Views post on human evolution was refreshingly frank about what we do and don’t know about the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees. Here’s how the ENV post summarized its findings:

Here is a long, substantive, and interesting article from the BBC — “We still have not found the missing link between us and apes.” It is interesting for two reasons.

1. It admits that we haven’t found anything that resembles the last common ancestor (LCA) between humans and apes, what author Colin Barras calls the “missing link.”
2. It admits that it’s hard to even agree on what the LCA might have looked like.

Nowhere, however, did the article contest the evidence for human evolution. What it said was that last common ancestor may have looked a lot less chimp-like than most scientists had previously believed, and that we still haven’t found this creature yet.

My major quarrel with the BBC article is that it did not mention any hominin fossils (in the line leading to humans) older than that of the 4.4-million-year-old Ardipithecus ramidus. Older probable hominin fossils such as Ardipithecus kadabba, Orrorin tugenensis, Sahelanthropus tchadensis and Graecopithecus freybergi, which go back as early as 7.2 million years ago, are completely ignored. This is a significant omission, as the human-chimp split is currently estimated to have taken place between 7 and 13 million years ago. If the oldest hominin fossil is 7.2 million years ago, then we are not so far from the last common ancestor, after all.

The allegedly unbridgeable gap between Australopithecus and Homo

The Evolution News and Views article also claims that “we don’t even have transitional forms between Australopithecus and Homo.” This, I have to say, is simply not true.

The article they link to, to support this claim, is an earlier post on Evolution News and Views (“A Big Bang Theory of Homo,” August 13, 2012). Unfortunately, the references cited nearly all date from 1990 to 2007. In recent years, there has been a dramatic shift in scientists’ views.

Until a few years ago, many anthropologists believed that there were stark anatomical differences between Australopithecus and Homo ergaster (pictured above), whose Asian counterpart was Homo erectus. Many of these anthropologists also believed that Homo habilis should be classified as a species of Australopithecus. Oft-cited in this regard is a 2000 paper by J. Hawks, K. Hunley, S.H. Lee, and M. Wolpoff, titled, Population bottlenecks and Pleistocene human evolution (Molecular Biology and Evolution 17(1):2–22), in which the authors write: “We, like many others, interpret the anatomical evidence to show that early H. sapiens was significantly and dramatically different from earlier and penecontemporary australopithecines in virtually every element of its skeleton (fig. 1) and every remnant of its behavior…” In support of their claim, the authors cited the work of Bernard A. Wood and Mark Collard, who put forward powerful arguments for this view in 1999, in their paper, The human genus (Science Vol. 284 no. 5411 pp. 65-71). However, I should mention that while Wood and Collard found major anatomical differences between Homo habilis in six broad categories of traits – body size, body shape, locomotion, jaws & teeth, development, and brain size – three of those traits could not be assessed for another species of early Homo, Homo rudolfensis. Wood and Collard defended their view that Homo erectus represented a clean break from his hominid predecessors once again in their 2001 paper, The Meaning of Homo (Ludus vitalis, vol. IX, no. 15, 2001, pp. 63-74) and more recently, in their 2007 paper, Defining the genus Homo (in Henke, W. and Rothe, H. and Tattersall, I., (eds.) Handbook of Paleoanthropology, Springer Berlin Heidelberg: Berlin, pp. 1575-1610).

However, the scenario proposed by Wood and Collard and is now out of date. Recent papers published in 2012 – see Early Homo: Who, When, and Where (by Susan C. Antón, in Current Anthropology, Vol. 53, No. S6, “Human Biology and the Origins of Homo,” December 2012, pp. S278-S298), Origins and Evolution of Genus Homo: New Perspectives (by Susan C. Antón and J. Josh Snodgrass, in Current Anthropology, Vol. 53, No. S6, “Human Biology and the Origins of Homo,” December 2012, pp. S479-S496) and Human Biology and the Origins of Homo: An Introduction to Supplement 6 (by Leslie C. Aiello and Susan C. Antón, in Current Anthropology, Vol. 53, No. S6, “Human Biology and the Origins of Homo,” December 2012, pp. S269-S277) show that the transition from Homo habilis to early Homo ergaster / erectus was not much larger than that between Australopithecus and Homo habilis. A detailed anatomical comparison indicates that the transition from Australopithecus to early Homo, who appeared about 2.3 or 2.4 million years ago, and from early Homo to Homo ergaster / erectus, is much smoother and more gradual than what anthropologists believed it to be, ten years ago. The above-cited 2012 article by Susan C. Antón and J. Josh Snodgrass, titled, Origins and Evolution of Genus Homo: New Perspectives, conveys the tenor of the new view among anthropologists (emphases mine – VJT):

Recent fossil and archaeological finds have complicated our interpretation of the origin and early evolution of genus Homo. It now appears overly simplistic to view the origin of Homo erectus as a punctuated event characterized by a radical shift in biology and behavior (Aiello and Antón 2012; Antón 2012; Holliday 2012; Pontzer 2012; Schwartz 2012; Ungar 2012). Several of the key morphological, behavioral, and life history characteristics thought to first emerge with H. erectus (e.g., narrow bi-iliac breadth, relatively long legs, and a more “modern” pattern of growth) seem instead to have arisen at different times and in different species

Over the past several decades, a consensus had emerged that the shift to humanlike patterns of body size and shape — and at least some of the behavioral parts of the “human package” — occurred with the origin of Homo erectus (e.g., Antón 2003; Shipman and Walker 1989). This was seen by many researchers as a radical transformation reflecting a sharp and fundamental shift in niche occupation, and it emphasized a distinct division between H. erectus on the one hand and non-erectus early Homo and Australopithecus on the other. Earliest Homo and Australopithecus were reconstructed as essentially bipedal apes, whereas H. erectus had many of the anatomical and life history hallmarks seen in modern humans. To some, the gap between these groups suggested that earlier species such as Homo habilis should be excluded from Homo (Collard and Wood 2007; Wood and Collard 1999).

Recent fossil discoveries paint a picture that is substantially more complicated. These discoveries include new fossils of H. erectus that reveal great variation in the species, including small-bodied members from both Africa and Georgia (Gabunia et al. 2000; Potts et al. 2004; Simpson et al. 2008; Spoor et al. 2007), and suggest a previous overreliance on the Nariokotome skeleton (KNM-WT-15000) in reconstructions of H. erectus. Additionally, reassessments of the Nariokotome material have concluded that he would have been considerably shorter than previous estimates (∼163 cm [5 feet 4 inches], not 185 cm [6 feet 1 inch]; Graves et al. 2010), younger at death (∼8 years old, not 11–13 years old; Dean and Smith 2009), and with a life history pattern distinct from modern humans (Dean and Smith 2009; Dean et al. 2001; Thompson and Nelson 2011), although we note that there is substantial variation in the modern human pattern of development (Šešelj 2011). Further, the recent discovery of a nearly complete adult female H. erectus pelvis from Gona, Ethiopia, which is broad and has a relatively large birth canal, raises questions about the narrow-hipped, Nariokotome-based pelvic reconstruction and whether H. erectus infants were secondarily altricial (Graves et al. 2010; Simpson et al. 2008).

I should add that the average brain size of Homo ergaster / erectus specimens in Africa, dating from 1.8 to 1.5 million years ago, is a mere 863 cubic centimeters, while that of Georgian specimens of Homo ergaster / erectus dating from 1.8 to 1.7 million years ago is even lower, at 686 cubic centimeters (see Susan C. Antón and J. Josh Snodgrass, from Origins and Evolution of Genus Homo: New Perspectives, in Current Anthropology, Vol. 53, No. S6, “Human Biology and the Origins of Homo,” December 2012, pp. S479-S496). By comparison, the brain size of early Homo specimens (excluding 1470 man) is 629 cubic centimeters. [The brain size of 1470 man, or Homo rudolfensis, is variously estimated at anywhere between 526 and 752 cubic centimeters.] Quite clearly, there is no evidence for a sudden jump in brain size from Australopithecus afarensis (whose average brain size was 478 cubic centimeters) to Homo ergaster / erectus. The brain size of early Homo (who lived around 2.3 million years ago) is intermediate between the two.

Is the chimp our nearest relative, or is it the orangutan?

The Evolution News and Views post on the missing link also questions the molecular data linking human beings to chimpanzees, citing the work of Jeffrey Schwartz (who is referred to in the BBC article which it quotes from). Schwartz contends that our nearest relatives are orangutans, not chimpanzees. In a 2009 paper, John Grehan and Jeffrey Schwartz argued that orangutans were morphologically closer humans than chimps were. (See here for a summary of their arguments.) However, another more recent study using a larger dataset found that chimpanzees are morphologically closer to humans than orangutans are (see also here).

The BBC article also pointed out that “few researchers agree with Schwartz.”

In short: the claim that humans are anatomically closer to orangutans appears doubtful. In view of the unequivocal molecular evidence linking humans to chimps, I think it would be prudent to go with the mainstream view that chimps are indeed our closest relatives.

When did humans split off from the line leading to chimpanzees?


Family tree showing the extant hominoids: humans (genus Homo), chimpanzees and bonobos (genus Pan), gorillas (genus Gorilla), orangutans (genus Pongo), and gibbons (four genera of the family Hylobatidae: Hylobates, Hoolock, Nomascus, and Symphalangus). All except gibbons are hominids. Image courtesy of Wikipedia and Fred the Oyster.

Ever since the late 1960s, molecular biologists have argued that humans and chimpanzees last shared a common ancestor around five or six million years ago. Gorillas were subsequently estimated to have diverged from the human-chimp line about seven million years ago. Recently, however, these specialists have revised their dating, and some researchers in the field are now doubling their original estimate of the date of the human-chimp split.

In 2012, a report in Nature by Aylwyn Scally et al. estimated that humans and gorillas last shared a common ancestor 10 million years ago, while humans and chimps diverged around 6 million years ago.

In 2014, however, a new study by Gil McVean et al. (vol. 483, 169–175 (08 March 2012), doi:10.1038/nature10842) suggested a much older date for the human-chimp split. A Live Science report by Charles Quoi (Human and Chimp Genes May Have Split 13 Million Years Ago, June 12, 2014) summarizes the results of the study (emphases mine – VJT):

Past estimates of when the ancestors of humans diverged from chimps suggested the most recent common ancestor of both species lived about 6 million years ago. However, in the past decade or so, genetic analyses revealed the human mutation rate is actually half as fast as was previously thought, suggesting the most recent common ancestor of humans and chimps actually lived at least 12 million years ago.

Now a new study of chimp mutation rates appears to confirm that the most recent common ancestor of humans and chimps lived about 13 million years ago.

“Our results add substance to the idea that the human-chimpanzee split was considerably older than has been recently thought,” said study co-author Gil McVean, a geneticist at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics in Oxford, England.

Quoi qualifies his remarks by acknowledging that the new evidence is compatible with the human-chimp split having taken place as recently as 7 million years ago:

Paleoanthropologist John Hawks at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who did not participate in this study, noted that 13 million years is only the average time for when the genes of the ancestors of humans and chimps diverged; it’s not necessarily when the ancestors of humans and chimps split into different species.

A species divergence of 7 million to 10 million years would be just fine with a genetic divergence averaging 13 million years if the common ancestor population was very large in numbers, or the common ancestor population was spread into different subpopulations with reduced mixing between them,” Hawks said. [8 Humanlike Behaviors of Primates]

McVean agreed with Hawks’ analysis. If the size of the ancestral population of both humans and chimps was very large, then their common gene pool may have begun diversifying long before the ancestors of humans and chimps split into different species, he said.

In the last year, more recent research has lent further support to the view that humans and chimps may have split up to 12 million years ago. I’ll mention just two articles:

(1) Variation in the molecular clock of primates (PNAS, September 20, 2016; 113(38): 10607–10612) by Priya Moorjani, Carlos Eduardo, G. Amorim, Peter F. Arndt and Molly Przeworskia:

Events in primate evolution are often dated by assuming a constant rate of substitution per unit time, but the validity of this assumption remains unclear. Among mammals, it is well known that there exists substantial variation in yearly substitution rates. Such variation is to be expected from differences in life history traits, suggesting it should also be found among primates. Motivated by these considerations, we analyze whole genomes from 10 primate species, including Old World Monkeys (OWMs), New World Monkeys (NWMs), and apes, focusing on putatively neutral autosomal sites and controlling for possible effects of biased gene conversion and methylation at CpG sites. We find that substitution rates are up to 64% higher in lineages leading from the hominoid–NWM ancestor to NWMs than to apes. Within apes, rates are ∼2% higher in chimpanzees and ∼7% higher in the gorilla than in humans. Substitution types subject to biased gene conversion show no more variation among species than those not subject to it. Not all mutation types behave similarly, however; in particular, transitions at CpG sites exhibit a more clocklike behavior than do other types, presumably because of their nonreplicative origin. Thus, not only the total rate, but also the mutational spectrum, varies among primates. This finding suggests that events in primate evolution are most reliably dated using CpG transitions. Taking this approach, we estimate the human and chimpanzee divergence time is 12.1 million years,​ and the human and gorilla divergence time is 15.1 million years​.

(2) New geological and palaeontological age constraint for the gorilla–human lineage split (Nature, vol. 530, pp. 215–218 (11 February 2016) doi:10.1038/nature16510) by Shigehiro Katoh et al., argues strongly that humans last shared a common ancestor with the gorilla at least 8 million years ago, and possibly 10 million years ago:

The palaeobiological record of 12 million to 7 million years ago (Ma) is crucial to the elucidation of African ape and human origins, but few fossil assemblages of this period have been reported from sub-Saharan Africa. Since the 1970s, the Chorora Formation, Ethiopia, has been widely considered to contain ~10.5 million year (Myr) old mammalian fossils. More recently, Chororapithecus abyssinicus, a probable primitive member of the gorilla clade, was discovered from the formation. Here we report new field observations and geochemical, magnetostratigraphic and radioisotopic results that securely place the Chorora Formation sediments to between ~9 and ~7 Ma. The C. abyssinicus fossils are ~8.0 Myr old, forming a revised age constraint of the human–gorilla split. Other Chorora fossils range in age from ~8.5 to 7 Ma and comprise the first sub-Saharan mammalian assemblage that spans this period. These fossils suggest indigenous African evolution of multiple mammalian lineages/groups between 10 and 7 Ma, including a possible ancestral-descendent relationship between the ~9.8 Myr old Nakalipithecus nakayamai and C. abyssinicus

The authors are uncertain as to whether Nakalipithecus nakayamai lived just before or just after the split between the gorilla lineage and the line leading to humans and chimps.

So at the moment, any date between 7 and 12 million years appears possible, for the human-chimp split. For my part, I’ll go with a date of 8 or maybe 9 million years for the human-chimp split, and 10 to 12 million years for the split between gorillas and the human-chimp line. I should mention that a date of 8 million years for the human-chimp split would push back the date of the split between orangutans and the other great apes to as early as 20 million years ago, which is about as early as the fossil evidence will allow.

Who was the last common ancestor, anyway?

Curiously, the BBC article cited by ENV says nothing about Sahelanthropus tchadensis (pictured above and at the top of this post), a hominin who lived 7 million years ago in Chad. Its discoverers claimed that it was a very ancient human ancestor but not a chimpanzee ancestor; however, some experts now believe it may have been the common ancestor of humans and chimps – or a very near relative.

Another possible candidate for the last common ancestor of humans and chimps is Graecopithecus freybergi, who lived on the savanna in Greece about 7.2 million years ago. However, a detailed examination of the morphology of the molar teeth associated with two fossils of Graecopithecus freybergi published in 2017 suggests that it may be a hominin, although other experts are skeptical.

Finally, Oreopithecus bambolii, an extinct hominoid primate discovered in the 1950s that lived in Italy from 9 to 7 million years ago, has been proposed by some as a human ancestor, although most scientists view it as an ape who was not part of the human lineage, and regard its anatomical resemblances to humans (notably in its hands) as an example of convergent evolution. To this day, the creature’s taxonomic status remains hotly disputed.

To sum up: the last common ancestor of humans and chimps may have already been found. But if the human-chimp split occurred 8 or 9 million years ago, the existence of possible hominin fossils from 7.2 million years ago is definitely a hopeful sign.

Conclusion

Despite the many uncertainties regarding the timing of the human-chimp split and the identity and appearance of the last common ancestor, scientists are justifiably confident that the chimpanzee is our closest relative. There is no good evidence for a “Big Bang” in human evolution, as far as the evolution of the human body is concerned; nor was there a time when our brain size suddenly increased. To sum up: the recent ENV article, which uses the absence of the missing link in order to cast doubt on human evolution, is profoundly misguided.

268 thoughts on “How ENV muddies the waters on the evidence for human evolution

  1. phoodoo,

    When I think about this, I think, I guess since humans have not been around for 50 million years yet, there are still enough people dam stupid enough to actually believe in this evolution fairytale crap.

    All you have to do is provide a less crap version of events. That’s all. Then people will swap over to your version, as presumably it’s less crap.

    So, given that, what is the true history of echolocation in bats according to Intelligent Design?

    I imagine it’s very similar to how a decision is made in your world. I.E. we’ll never know.

  2. Mung,

    Since I am not a Young Earth Creationist, and I do not believe, by away of example, that God literally took some mud and formed it into the shape of a man in less than 24 hours (I think it took millions of years for God to form the mud into a man), why should I care if humans and chimps share a common ancestor?

    Because I don’t. I really don’t care. If they do, it’s a big so what to me.

    If they do? Let’s just say for the sake of argument that they do. How do is it possible that god formed mud into man and that same man shares a common ancestor with chimps?

    Unless of course by “form mud into man” you mean “evolved”.

    Out of interest, and I realize you don’t actually care about this sort of knowledge, but what sort of evidence would convince you that man shared a common ancestor with chimps?

    Or is it like the mathematics of information theory as discussed in recent OPs? You don’t understand it but you know it’s wrong regardless.

  3. Mung,
    What evidence do you have that god took millions of years to form mud into man when in the bible, the only source of “evidence” for what happened in creation week, said it took a day?

  4. Mung: It gives them an advantage over the digital organisms with shorter genomes with a future goal in mind, which is stacking up logic functions.

    The purpose of the study was to test and contrast the conditions under which more complex functions evolve. It would be strange to then set up the conditions such that it systematically inhibits increases in complexity.

    They’ve made movement around in the space of genome-length, when considered in isolation, mostly neutral, which is a reasonable approximation for example for large parts of eukaryotic evolution.

    This is not to say all genome-length increasing mutations are neutral, because it depends on what kinds of mutations they are and where in the digital organism’s genome they happen. Some of the mutations that cause increased genome size also happen to yield genomic instructions that cost SIPs to run, so during the lifecycle of the organism an increased genome size can in fact incur a cost.

    They actually observe this in the experiment, as the overall replication efficiency (defined as “the ratio of genome length to energy used in an organism’s lifetime.”) fluctuated a lot during the course of the experiment.

    All this means is that the study does not mimic evolution under all possible conditions. Which is fine, because nobody was under the illusion that greater complexity would evolve under any and all conditions. Only to test and contrast the conditions under which it did.

    If we look at the diversity and history of life, we see both trends have operated all over the spectrum. The majority of genome evolution has been reductive (and the reasons for that are pretty well understood), but there has been conditions under which genomes have increased in size and greater complexity has evolved.

    The authors probably had some pretty good ideas about what those conditions might be from being well aware on the literature on the subject (one of which is when genome size has little to no effect on fitness), so they set up the landscape to test whether those suspicions could be reproduced with digital organisms.

    It’s teleological.

    I never quite know what you mean by that. It seems to me that all it means is that some circumstances are more conducive to certain outcomes and less conducive to others.
    I don’t see how this should alter our views on evolution at all, or whatever it is you think that concept should cause us to think?

    Do you really think that EQU would evolve without it?

    I think it depends on a lot of factors of which the cost of genome size replication is one, yes. And I think is depends on the strength of the selective pressure that a cost of genome-size increase would incur.

    I could certainly see how if the platform had been set up so it mimics a lot of bacterial evolution, particularly in constant environments with a limited amount of nutrients that quickly run out, which would then favor replication speed and efficiency, then genome-size increases could have incurred a significant penalty and we’d have probably mostly seen genome-size reductions.

    Why not allow the additional genome length to be disadvantageous by not rewarding it with additional SIPs? Because the “complex functions” would never evolve if they did that.

    Of course, and if they had done that the conclusion might have been that complex functions requiring additional genomic instructions would not evolve under those conditions. It wouldn’t have said that greater complexity couldn’t possibly evolve.

    I never gathered from reading the paper that the point of the study was to somehow prove that evolution always results in greater complexity. I’m not aware of any evolutionary biologist who works under that misapprehension.

    It’s designer meddling.

    No actually it’s really just to test some particular hypotheses about the conditions under which greater complexity is thought to evolve.

  5. phoodoo: Rumraket: The specifics seem to me beside the point. Phoodoo is right in that there really are innate instinctual behaviors, he’s just happened to pick some bad examples.

    They are not bad examples, just examples you have no explanation for.

    You mean to say that you don’t know what that explanation might be, because you’ve never bothered to find out. Your statements here are not reflective of the general state of the field.

    And it is most certainly not besides the point. If we don’t even know what heredity is, how can we make assumptions about its causes?

    *sigh*

    The particular examples you gave are besides the point. I was actually giving a charitable interpretation of what you were trying to get across, namely that some instinctual behaviors manifestly exist, and are heritable, Whether or not you happened to have picked good examples of those is what I was trying to say was besides your point.

    And we really do know what heridity is.

    Charlie gave another good example, about the bioelectric code. More unexplained causes of life. There are so many its hard to keep up.

    You’re confusing the claim that we know how traits are inherited with the claim that we know what all the genes that are passed on from one generation to the next, do.

    For example we still only know what a tiny minority of the roughly 21.000 protein coding genes we have identified in the human genome, even do. And the human genome is among the most studied of all for obvious reasons. It is quite premature to sit there and declare that there’s no way things like instinctive behavior or the regulation of bioelectricity can’t have a genetic component or basis.

    Handwaving these away and saying, “yea, but still, what do you think about mutations, did God do it,” is just trivial nonsense, and ignoring everything else that we need to account for.

    Regardless of whether you think genetic mutations are the basis of changes in heritable traits or not, however those changes (whatever their nature) come about is what I’m interested in. And how you think those changes are caused. What is the role of God in evolution? Is God causing the selective events to happen (does God make particular lions go after particular antelopes?), or is God causing the phenotypic changes to arise in the first place? Or both? And so on.

    We have this massive gap of understanding about what makes living things, living things

    So that’s where God is hiding? In the gaps of our knowledge?

  6. Mung: But Flint, natural selection is all about optimization.

    Yes, the process of optimization. Not the actual attainment of absolute optimality. You shouldn’t equivocate between a process that continously optimizes iteratively, and the actual reaching of the best possible of all solutions.

    If everything is already optimal, there’s no need for it. So what phoodoo is pointing out, in his unique style, is how nonsensical the evolutionist claims are.

    Either that, or echolocation (for example) always worked perfectly.

    Then phoodoo’s point is without merit, because most things in biology are very far from optimal. In fact, experiments indicate that optimality is practically unattainable. That doesn’t mean natural selection is not continously in operation, slowly and incrementally adapting and optimizing some organism to changing conditions.

  7. Rumraket: Then phoodoo’s point is without merit, because most things in biology are very far from optimal.

    Sub-optimal when you say so, optimal also when you say so-we are back to that fallacious argument again.

    So, now go on then, where is knowledge stored in our DNA?

  8. phoodoo:

    I will give you credit however, you did make me laugh, by claiming you watch woodpeckers and that you have never seen a woodpecker learn to make a hole or find food by itself.That was funny.Now I think I am starting to get it, you were raised by woodpeckers, THEY taught you how to chew.To this day, do you twitch your head a lot from side to side while at a restaurant?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zwP9dLHP9g

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBjWDkN8Bfw

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fmHd9YC-ko

    It’s not skin off my teeth if you want to remain ignorant. But really…in this day and age, there’s no excuse when everyone with a camera is documenting this stuff and posting it…

  9. phoodoo: So, now go on then, where is knowledge stored in our DNA?

    Does instinct fit the description of knowledge?

  10. phoodoo: Rumraket: Then phoodoo’s point is without merit, because most things in biology are very far from optimal.

    Sub-optimal when you say so, optimal also when you say so

    No, not optimal, and not just because I say so. This silly sniping will get you nowhere.

    we are back to that fallacious argument again.

    There was no fallacious argument.

    It’s you people who keep laboring under this misapprehension that things are somehow perfect and optimal. I merely correct your mistaken belief.

    So, now go on then, where is knowledge stored in our DNA?

    It isn’t knowledge, it is innate behavior, aka instinct.

    It’s not like there is a memory that needs to be recalled. But it can be anything from a single gene which through it’s interactions with the environment produces a specific behavior, to dusins or even hundreds of genes in combination resulting in instinctive behaviors. It depends on the species and the behavior.

    But to pick an example, the instinctive sexual behaviors of fruit flies have been elucidated in detail at the genetic and neuronal levels. See for example this and the many similar articles on pubmed:
    David S. Ronderos and Dean P. Smith. Activation of the T1 Neuronal Circuit is Necessary and Sufficient to Induce Sexually Dimorphic Mating Behavior in Drosophila.
    J Neurosci. 2010 Feb 17; 30(7): 2595–2599. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4819-09.2010

    Abstract
    The molecular and cellular events mediating complex behaviors in animals are largely unknown. Elucidating the circuits underlying behaviors in simple model systems may shed light on how these circuits function. In Drosophila, courtship behavior provides a tractable model for studying the underlying basis of innate behavior. The male-specific pheromone 11-cis-vaccenyl acetate (cVA) modulates courtship behavior and is detected by T1 neurons, located on the antenna of male and female flies. The T1 neurons express the odorant receptor Or67d, and are exquisitely tuned to cVA pheromone. However, cVA-induced changes in mating behavior have also been reported upon manipulation of olfactory neurons expressing odorant receptor Or65a. These findings raise the issue of whether multiple olfactory-driven circuits underlie cVA-induced behavioral responses, and what role these circuits play in behavior. Here, we engineered flies in which the Or67d circuit is specifically activated in the absence of cVA in order to determine the role of this circuit in behavior. We created transgenic flies that express a dominant-active, pheromone-independent variant of the extracellular pheromone receptor, LUSH. We found that, similar to the behaviors elicited by cVA, engineered male flies have dramatically reduced courtship, while engineered females showed enhanced courtship. Furthermore, cVA exposure did not enhance the dominant LUSH-triggered effects on behavior in the engineered flies. Finally, we show the effects of both cVA and dominant LUSH on courtship are reversed by genetically removing Or67d. These findings demonstrate that the T1/Or67d circuit is necessary and sufficient to mediate sexually dimorphic courtship behaviors.

    This is by no means restricuted to fruit flies. We know of many both instinctive and learned behaviors with strong genetic components in anything from worms nad insects, to dogs, humans and all sorts of livestock.

    It’s in the genes mate. Get over it.

  11. newton: Does instinct fit the description of knowledge?

    I don’t think it does in the colloquial sense. Not that it really matters, as long as we are clear about the concept, I don’t care about the label. Phoodoo calls it knowledge, I call it instinct. Weird but ok.

    As long has he doesn’t conflate it with other kinds of knowledge, like learned knowledge you get from personal experiences.

  12. Rumraket,

    Calling it instinct does nothing to cover the fact that Darwinists can’t explain it.

    Just one of the MANY things they can’t explain, but maintain a blind faith in.

  13. Rumraket,

    You are using homosexuality as an example of where knowledge is stored? WTF? Homosexuality is knowledge??

    Your arguments are getting more and more desperate.

  14. phoodoo:
    Rumraket,

    Calling it instinct does nothing to cover the fact that Darwinists can’t explain it.

    Just one of the MANY things they can’t explain, but maintain a blind faith in.

  15. phoodoo:
    Rumraket,

    You are using homosexuality as an example of where knowledge is stored?

    Ahh I see I copied the wrong reference. I have corrected the post to give the one I intended now.

    What I am referncing is a paper that show the genetic basis for certain instinctive behaviors. You claimed there was no explanation for where instinctive heaviors come from or where they are stored. The paper I reference details an example of an instinctive behavior stored in genes.

    In this case, the instinctive tendency to engage in courtship, and how it has a genetic basis and those genes are expressed in certain brain tissues in fruit flies.

    WTF? Homosexuality is knowledge??

    The courtship behavior in flies is instictive, and is programmed in their genes and those genes are expressed in their neurons.

    Your arguments are getting more and more desperate.

    No, what is getting “more and more” is the evidence for your complete ignorance of the field of biology.

  16. Rumraket: You claimed there was no explanation for where instinctive heaviors come from or where they are stored.

    No I didn’t. You have a problem reading. I said there is no explanation for where knowledge is stored, I didn’t say behaviors. People can be mean, or nice, or loud or quiet, or introverted or extroverted, or psychopaths. That is not knowledge. That is behavior.

    Once again, its your inability to understand that is the problem. As Mung explained to you, you have an unjustified high opinion of yourself.

  17. phoodoo:Rumraket: You claimed there was no explanation for where instinctive heaviors come from or where they are stored.

    No I didn’t.

    Yes you did. Let’s review.

    First you say:

    phoodoo: We don’t even know where knowledge is stored and passed on. But clearly it is.

    I ask for clarification:

    Rumraket: What knowledge? Do you mean inheritance in general, and by knowledge you mean the information to build and maintain a new organism, or do you literally mean knowledge as in things humans and other animals learn through their lives?

    You respond:

    phoodoo: Neither.

    Every animal is born with certain knowledge. Knowledge how to move their appendages. Knowledge about how to use water, and drink it. Knowledge about finding food, or about what is up and what is down, and what is scary, and what are things. Many of these things aren’t taught. No one teaches woodpecker that if it moves its head fast, it can make a hole. No one teaches an aardvark to use its tongue. It is born with this knowledge. If an aardvark was raised completely isolated from other aardvaarks, it would still be able to use its tongue to catch termites.

    We have zero explanation for these things, and where this knowledge is stored and passed on. Without some explanation (plus explanations for epigenetics, and gene switches, and fetal development, and a million other things), we don’t even know what heredity means.

    I respond:

    Rumraket: So instincts. You mean instinctual behavior.

    The evolution of instinctual behavior (a sub-branch of ethology, incidentally Dawkins specialization), and it’s roots in genetics is a pretty substantial field all by itself.

    And you never object to my understanding of “knowledge” as instinctive behavior in the discussion that follows. You also have an argument with Robin, where you both are clearly talking about instinctive behavior.

    So that’s the kind of behavior I was talking about, not all behaviors.

    I even elaborate in response to newton questioning your use of the word knowledge:

    newton: Does instinct fit the description of knowledge?

    Rumraket: I don’t think it does in the colloquial sense. Not that it really matters, as long as we are clear about the concept, I don’t care about the label. Phoodoo calls it knowledge, I call it instinct. Weird but ok.

    As long has he doesn’t conflate it with other kinds of knowledge, like learned knowledge you get from personal experiences.

    To which you then respond:

    phoodoo: Calling it instinct does nothing to cover the fact that Darwinists can’t explain it.

    Just one of the MANY things they can’t explain, but maintain a blind faith in.

    So we are talking about instinctive behavior. You claim nobody knows where it is stored and that nobody can “explain it”. You’re just plain wrong about that. It is stored in the genes and passed on from generation to generation through DNA sequences. And when those genes are expressed in specific tissues, that “knowledge” is then instantiated in the specific behaviors of the organism that we call instinctive behavior.

    You were plainly, unambigously, flatly wrong and you had no idea about any of these things, because you’ve obviously never read a damn thing about it. You get your biology information from propaganda mills like the Discovery Institute, who aim only to obfuscate and confuse, not to educate.

    phoodoo: You have a problem reading.

    No, turns out that problem is yours. You either can’t read, or you keep forgetting the preceding discussion. Or you keep changing your mind and moving the goalposts when your shit gets exposed for the ignorant gibberish it is.

    It has been clear from the beginning that we were both talking about instinctive behaviors. Where they are stored, how they are inherited, how they manifest themselves. You are claiming there is no explanation for it. You were wrong.

    phoodoo: I said there is no explanation for where knowledge is stored

    And you were talking about instinctive behaviors and you were wrong. Plain and simple. Just grow up and deal with it instead of being butthurt about me. You and Mung are so perpetually buttfrustrated about it.

    phoodoo: I didn’t say behaviors. People can be mean, or nice, or loud or quiet, or introverted or extroverted, or psychopaths. That is not knowledge. That is behavior.

    I don’t care what you call it, we are talking about the same thing. Where is the “knowledge” for instinctive behavior stored? In the genes.

    phoodoo: Once again, its your inability to understand that is the problem. As Mung explained to you, you have an unjustified high opinion of yourself.

    No, I have a justifiably low opinion of you. It is your inability to even remember three posts back that is a stumbling block. You’re just flailing around, not remembering half the preceding context or clarifications.

  18. Rumraket: So we are talking about instinctive behavior. You claim nobody knows where it is stored and that nobody can “explain it”. You’re just plain wrong about that. It is stored in the genes and passed on from generation to generation through DNA sequences.

    Haha. You are now resorting to jokes.

    Its subtle performance art, in the Onion tradition.

    Do you think we will find the “How to be Human” gene one day? What happens when it mutates, we hang from cave ceilings upside down?

    Gimp.

  19. I think its so awesome that squids accidentally got the mutations for how to be a squid, at the same time it got the mutations for being a squid. Can you imagine if it had gotten the mutation for how to be a deer, while it was becoming a squid? There would be squid frozen in your headlights when you were driving through South Carolina, and you would hear them rubbing their squid antlers up against trees in the woods of Monterrey. That would freak you out.

  20. phoodoo: Haha.You are now resorting to jokes.

    Its subtle performance art, in the Onion tradition.

    Do you think we will find the “How to be Human” gene one day?What happens when it mutates, we hang from cave ceilings upside down?

    Gimp.

    And now we are back to just plain denial and mockery.

    Man, you really showed me phoodoo.

  21. Rumraket,

    Do you think humans get the “how to be” human mutation before or after they got the “be” human mutations?

    Now there is a real chicken and egg problem.

    I know I have seen people in Germany doing this chicken style dance. It confused me at the time, but it is now starting to make sense!

  22. phoodoo:
    I think its so awesome that squids accidentally got the mutations for how to be a squid, at the same time it got the mutations for being a squid.Can you imagine if it had gotten the mutation for how to be a deer, while it was becoming a squid?There would be squid frozen in your headlights when you were driving through South Carolina,and you would hear them rubbing their squid antlers up against trees in the woods of Monterrey.That would freak you out.

    Selection and the niche. Squid don’t do at all well in temperate woodland environments and deer are a bit challenged in a submarine environment. (At least the lack of squid on land and the lack of deer thriving at sea would suggest so)

  23. Rumraket: I don’t think it does in the colloquial sense. Not that it really matters, as long as we are clear about the concept, I don’t care about the label. Phoodoo calls it knowledge, I call it instinct. Weird but ok.

    Reasonable but clarity of concept is not phoodoo’s thing.

    As long has he doesn’t conflate it with other kinds of knowledge, like learned knowledge you get from personal experiences.

    And what makes you think that is won’t be?

  24. phoodoo: Do you think we will find the “How to be Human” gene one day? What happens when it mutates, we hang from cave ceilings upside down?

    That would seem compatible with design but you seem to be leaning toward the theorythat it is downloaded from “above”.

  25. phoodoo: I think its so awesome that squids accidentally got the mutations for how to be a squid, at the same time it got the mutations for being a squid.

    Again phoodoo you are confused, that is design theory except for the accidental.. A designer puts the voodoo on the mojo and out pops the species.

    If he woke in the morning and wanted antlered squid for lunch ,it would happen

  26. phoodoo: Do you think humans get the “how to be” human mutation before or after they got the “be” human mutations?

    I think we share all our basic instincts with most of the entire animal kingdom. I don’t think there are any uniquely human instinctive behaviors. If there are, they’re probably just variations on a general theme shared by, at least, all primates, and probably all mammals too.

  27. Rumraket,

    Well, I am sure you do throw feces at others when you are angry, and sometimes eat their babies.

    But not everyone is like you.

  28. phoodoo:
    Rumraket,
    Well, I am sure you do throw feces at others when you are angry, and sometimes eat their babies.

    Are those instinctive behaviors? Do I now have to explain the loss of an instinctive behavior in our lineage? You’ve heard of gene loss, or just mutations that deactivate certain genes, right?

  29. Rumraket,

    Instinctive behaviors is your stupid term, not mine. So who knows what you mean by it.

    Do bacteria have genes for being bacteria? Do you think they were bacteria first and then got the genes for being themselves, or was it the other way around?

    Are Germans and drunk sorority sisters more closely related to chickens than Asians?

  30. phoodoo: Well, I am sure you do throw feces at others when you are angry

    Humans have been throwing all sorts of objects at things they disapprove of for all of recorded history. Children in social groups will throw objects at each other. Paper balls, food, dirt, toys, you name it. This is socioculturally repressed and we expect from adults not to engage in that kind of behavior, but it still happens.

    You might find this interesting: Poop-Throwing Chimps Provide Hints of Human Origins.

  31. phoodoo:
    Rumraket,

    Instinctive behaviors is your stupid term

    Actually it’s a proper term, dimbulb. Dude, just stop embarassing yourself and stop posting. Thank you.

  32. Your silly religion used to prescribe the stoning of people for doing things we disapproved of. Guess where that comes from? Oh the irony.

    Stopping these stupid religious customs is literally to leave behind primitive animalistic behaviors. Thank goodness for the evolution of culture and reason.

  33. Rumraket: Humans have been throwing all sorts of objects at things they disapprove of for all of recorded history. Children in social groups will throw objects at each other. Paper balls, food, dirt, toys, you name it. This is socioculturally repressed and we expect from adults not to engage in that kind of behavior, but it still happens.

    You might find this interesting: Poop-Throwing Chimps Provide Hints of Human Origins.

    I know, but a friend of mine’s kid got this genetic mutation, so that whenever they get angry, they make balloon animals and snort sour cream. Other than this, the child is perfectly normal, although the parents have noticed that whenever there are old westerns on TV, the child does attempts to swim upstream and spawn.

    The doctor has asked them if they have any Finnish blood.

  34. I haven’t had time recently to keep up with all threads and all comments. I’ve probably missed rule-breaking comments. Could I ask commenters to try to adhere to the rules regarding insulting fellow commenters or try the “ignore” button.

    @ phoodoo

    It would be great to see some substantive content from you for a change.

  35. phoodoo: There would be squid frozen in your headlights when you were driving through South Carolina

    LoL. I think this actually happened to me once.

  36. Rumraket: And now we are back to just plain denial and mockery.

    phoodoo mocks stupidity too. Stop being an easy target.

  37. Rumraket: Your silly religion used to prescribe the stoning of people for doing things we disapproved of.

    What religion is that?

  38. Alan Fox: I haven’t had time recently to keep up with all threads and all comments. I’ve probably missed rule-breaking comments. Could I ask commenters to try to adhere to the rules regarding insulting fellow commenters or try the “ignore” button.

    What do you say Rumraket, do I need to put you on Ignore?

  39. Mung: phoodoo mocks stupidity too. Stop being an easy target.

    Hehe, that one really got to you. Aww.

  40. Alan Fox:
    Moved a comment to guano. Please raise moderation issues in the appropriate thread.

    Why Alan, you are going to break the rules no matter what anyway, so why should anyone else follow them?

    I mean, you will threaten people with the fact that you don’t like their posts as enough reason for you to ban them.

    So I think no one should follow any rules, as per your leadership.

    BTW, didn’t you say you were going to stop being a moderator? You need to ask Lizzie permission for that?

  41. Mung,

    It became no fun when Alan allowed Rumraket to post photos of Tom Cruise and he didn’t get banned for content not suitable for work.

    I believe it was the inimitable Adapa who said (I can’t be 100% sure he was referring to Alan) “Fucking moron”…or something to that affect.

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