Comment on The Adventist Accrediting Association to Approve LSU’s Accreditation by Sean Pitman.

You assume you know all the variables in your statistical models but overlook the possibility that this is completely voided by the catalytic and enzymatic properties of life. mathematical models are useful but invariably simplify and assume. They are a biologist servant not his master. If something statistically improbable exists then there is a problem with the statistics not the reality.

I’m in shock! Now its not just natural selection acting on random mutations to cross non-beneficial gaps in sequence space, it’s some kind of “enzymatic properties of life”?! Amazing! Where are these special magical enzymes and how do they work? And, if these magical enzymes do really exist, why aren’t there any examples of evolution in action beyond very low levels of functional complexity? Why can’t we seem them working in any kind of real life demonstration? In other words, where is your “reality” that counters the statistical argument?

My point is that you have neither the reality nor the statistical arguments on your side. Everything is against your story that the mechanism of RM/NS is remotely capable of doing what you claim it did. So, where is your basis for belief? – the basis of your faith in this little mechanism? Some magical enzyme that you can’t see, feel, touch, or test, but must somehow be there because it can’t possibly have been the result of deliberate design?

We both agree that random changes and natural selection can generate evolution. We disagree only on the limits.

That’s right. You claim that there are no limits with regard to levels of functional complexity – based on magical enzymes. Where is your science for this conclusion? Where is the predictive power for your hypothesis? Where is any evidence of any kind beyond the non-scientific argument that, “No God would have done it that way”?

I maintain that chimps and humans are related by common ancestory. You claim they are not.

The claim here isn’t about common ancestry. It’s about the creative mechanism of random mutations and natural selection. Clearly humans and chimps are “related”, along with all other living things, through a common origin of some kind. The problem here is mechanism that explains the differences. You argue that the mechanism that explains all differences, regardless of their functional complexity, is RM/NS. Based on what? Wishful thinking and magical enzymes?

I say that all the differences between chimps and humans are based on small changes in multiple coding and non-coding regions. There are no dramatic changes such as development of completely new ciliary motor.

If that were true then we have no argument. However, when you’re talking about neo-Darwinism in general, you’re talking about a point in time when rotary bacterial flagellar motors did not exist. How where such machines created? Magical enzymes?

You maintain that since, a priori, they cannot be related there must be a limit defined by some statistically high barrier and you go on to claim that it is a 1000 fsaar barrier.

I never made the claim that humans and apes “cannot be related” via common descent – via RM/NS. What I said is that any novel functionality that exists within one or the other gene pool that requires more than 1000 specifically arranged amino acid residues cannot be explained by RM/NS. There’s an important difference here.

However, the more and more that is learned about the functional differences between humans and apes, the more and more it seems unlikely that certain differences cannot be explained by RM/NS. For example, there are several unique functional differences involving the brain. Apes do not have the nervous system control needed for speech or writing. No one has been able to teach an ape to talk or to write in English or any other human language system. Such functionality requires a fair degree of novel brain complexity in humans. Speech and writing skills are controlled, in humans, by two fairly large sections of the cerebral cortex within the parietal and frontal lobes. These particular regions have many neuronal connections with other parts of the brain’s cortex and with each other. In comparison, apes do not have these specialized functional areas or the extensive connections that humans have.

What could be responsible for building and maintaining this difference in brain structure and function? Well, it turns out that about 8% of non-coding miRNAs are unique to humans.

The different miRNA repertoire, as well as differences in expression levels of conserved miRNAs, may contribute to gene expression differences observed in human and chimpanzee brain. Although the physiological relevance of miRNAs expressed at low levels remains to be shown, it is tempting to speculate that a pool of such miRNAs may contribute to the diversity of developmental programs and cellular processes . . . For example, miRNAs recently have been implicated in synaptic development and in memory formation. As the species specific miRNAs described here are expressed in the brain, which is the most complex tissue in the human body, with an estimated 10,000 different cell types, these miRNAs could have a role in establishing or maintaining cellular diversity and could thereby contribute to the differences in human and chimpanzee brain … function.”

Eugene Berezikov, et. al., “Diversity of microRNAs in human and chimpanzee brain”, Nature Genetics, Vol 38 | Number 12 | December 2006 pp. 1375-1377.

A study published by Nature in early 2010 shows just such a difference between the Y-chromosomes of humans and apes. The Y-chromosome for chimps had never been completely sequenced and mapped directly before this study was performed. It showed many striking differences between human and chimp chromosome structure, gene content, and even qualitatively unique genes between the two species. As far as looking at specific genes, the chimp and human Y-chromosomes seem to have a dramatic difference in gene content of up to 53 percent. In other words, the chimp is lacking approximately half of the genes found on a human Y-chromosome. Because genes occur in families or similarity categories, the researchers also sought to determine if there was any difference in actual gene categories. They found a shocking 33 percent difference. The human Y-chromosome contains a third more gene categories, entirely different classes of genes, compared to chimps. (Link)

Additional research carried out by scientists at the University of Oxford and the University of Chicago (A. Auton, et. al., 2012) found that hotspot regions that determine the locations for genetic recombination during cellular meiosis in sexual reproduction showed “no overlap between humans and chimpanzees.” This was an “extraordinarily unexpected finding.”

In any case, there really is no discussion at all here until you are able to recognize the limitations of RM/NS mechanism with regard to levels of functional complexity – something you have not done. Until your are able to do this, there is no point in having any further discussion.

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