On Sun, 21 May 1995 17:26:28 -0400 you wrote:
BD>Terry said (roughly) that the facts
>1.that only humans and guinea pigs do not make vitamin C, and
>2.that the presence of genetic material for vitamin C manufacture
>in the human pseudogene lends some support to the argument that
>humans (physically) evolved from an earlier ancestor that had the
>genetic machinery to code for making Vitamin C.
SJ>However, I will comment on this. Surely it would be only evidence
>for common ancestry (which is *not* the same as evolution IMHO), if
>*all* the "branches" above the alleged mutation had the same changed
>gene?
TG>Please explain. How is common ancestry *not* the same as
>evolution?
SJ>My children have me as their "common ancestor" but they did not
evolve from me. "Evolution" is a hypothetical mechanism to explain a
hypothetical "common ancestry". The similarity between things
(including living things) may be due to other factors: eg. same
designer, convergence, etc,
SJ>Think of the analogy of grafting a new tree onto the stock of an
>old tree. *Every* branch above the graft has the new genetic makeup
>of the graft species.
SJ>Does *every* species in the supposed ancestral line from "guinea
pigs" to man have the same Vitamin C deficiency?
TG>There is no line from guinea pigs to man. The fact that they share
>this trait is convergent evolution. However, primates all share a
>common ancestor.
SJ>How do you know that "primates all share a common ancestor"? Why
could not their observed similarities be due to common design
and/or convergence?
TG>Primates are a separate branch: all member share the deficiency.
>Guinea pigs are in a completely different branch (independent loss of the
>Vitamin C "gene").
SJ>How do you know that they were not originally designed without this
vitamin C `gene'.
SJ>On the other hand, if Guinea pigs can independently lose this
vitamin C `gene', why could not the primates?
SJ>Terry, I do not rule out that God may have progressively created
each basic type using a previous genetic design or even previous
genetic material. I do not rule out that He may have even used an
evolutionary process. I do not deny that this vitamin C pseudogene is
good evidence for evolution. However, I believe you have to solve a
lot of other problems before you can claim that man is descended with
modification from a common primate ancestor by a purely natural
process of mutation and natural selection.
SJ>Johnson points out:
"Despite these difficulties, many scientists consider molecular
classification to be not only possible, but, in principle, more
objective than classification based on visible characteristics.
Molecular studies have also produced claims having important
philosophical implications, particularly on the sensitive topic of
human evolution, because by some molecular measurements chimps are
much more similar to humans than they are to other non-human primates.
This degree of similarity may call the importance of molecular
comparisons into question, because it does little to explain the
profound dissimilarities between humans and animals of any kind.
Evidently the information content of the human genetic system is
significantly different from that of apes, even though the arrangement
of chemical "letters" looks almost the same. This point is lost on
some Darwinists. In Blueprints: Solving the Mystery of Evolution,
Maitland Edey and Donald Johanson casually declare that: ''Although
humans may look entirely different from chimpanzees and gorillas,
those differences are superficial. Where it counts-in their genes-all
three are ninety-nine percent identical." There is a lot of
philosophy packed in that phrase "where it counts."
Because Darwinists take for granted that ''relationship is equivalent
to common ancestry, they assume that the molecular classifications
confirm the "fact of evolution" by confirming the existence of
something which by definition is caused by evolution. They also tend
to assume that the particular relationships determined by taxonomists
were "predicted" by Darwin's theory. When these fallacious
assumptions are made, it seems that a 99 per cent" molecular
similarity between men and apes confirms Darwinism decisively.
The misunderstanding is fundamental. Darwin did not invent
classification or reform its practice. His contribution was to
provide an explanation in materialistic terms of how the categories
Came about and why the classifiers were right in their instinct that
the "types" are real natural entities and not arbitrary sorting
systems (such as a library uses for books). Pre-Darwinian classifiers
also were aware that humans are physically very much like the
anthropoid apes. That is why the creationist Linnaeus, the father of
taxonomy, unhesitatingly included humans among the primates. The
genetic similarity confirms Linnaeus, not Darwin. It tells us once
again that apes and humans are remarkably similar in some ways, just
as they are remarkably different in others, but it does not tell us
how either the similarities or the dissimilarities came to exist.
(Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial", Second Edition, 1993, Inter Varsity
Press, Illinois, pp93-94)
Stephen