>I am not a biologist, but I had the impressive that all of life had
>largely similar genetics. The genetic variation that distincguish even
>between plants and animals is only a small part of the whole code. This
>similarity could suggest descent or variation on a theme by a creator.
>Is there a basis for choosing other than personal bias? This would
>particularly relate to considering genetic similarity in the great apes
>and man as evidence of descent.
>
>Douglas C. Franks
I think there is a crucial test which can distinguish between the two. First,
someone who designs an object very rarely designs a broken part onto his
object. An auto designer does not put a broken transmission in the back seat
of the car.
There are parts of the genome of man, gorilla, chimpanzee and gibbon which
show every appearance of being a broken gene. A gene consists of
control part--coding part A--junk--coding part B
The gene is then converted to RNA and processed. The control part is removed,
the junk is removed and the two coding parts joined. Then a tail is put on
the RNA version of the gene. It looks like:
coding part A--coding part B--tail
It is this RNA version which directs the formation of proteins.
Occasionally however, the processed RNA is back transcribed into DNA and
re-inserted into the nuclear genome. But the re-insertion lacks the control
part and junk of the original and has the tail. Thus, the pseudogene looks
like:
coding part A--coding part B--tail
Fact: the two coding parts in the pseudo-gene are nearly identical to the
original gene coding portions. The original gene is found sometimes on
another chromosome. The fact that the pseudogene is a processed version of the
original is quite clear. The control and junk regions have been removed. This
is an insertion. The fact that the tail portion is not contained in the
original would mean that if you want to explain the same pseudogene at the
same location in man, gorilla, gibbon and chimp by independent common
mistakes, you must assume that 8 deletions occurred independently at exactly
the same place (deleting the control and junk regions in each species), and
that 4 insertions independently occurred at a location nearby (inserting the
tail sequence). The way I calculate this, the odds are 1 chance out of 3.3 x
10^114. If you believe that this can happen then surely you can believe in
evolution. :-)
Without the control sequence, the pseudogene is totally useless and cannot be
converted to a protein. Being useless, it can not affect the life of the
animal. It becomes difficult to say that this portion of the DNA has a
designed function. A subsequent deletion deleted half of the chimps'
pseudogene so the chimp gets along fine with only half his pseudogene so it
can't be doing anything really important.
This is not to say that if evolution occurred, therefore the Bible is not
true in a historical sense. While many on the asa list will disagree with me,
I do feel that it is important for the Biblical record to be historical (not
inerrant). But as I mentioned, I don't beleive that evolution and the Bible
are incompatible.
glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm