Are we just customized apes?

Question

Over the last few days I have posted the two links given below which beautifully deomsnstrate common descent between man and apes. (See links below)

If you take the time to read those links, you'll see that there are certain strucutres in our genetic code whcih can only be explained through common descent (as opposed to desgn). Specifically, there is no reason for either for vestigial genes, vestigial telomeres or a vestigial centromere to be present in our genetic code if we were designed.

A few times, I have gotten the counter argument that God could have reused DNA strucutres from apes when he made adam.. This argument strikes me as odd for two reasons.

First, the fact that there is no reason for God to have made apes and humans with a busted biochemical pathway for vitamin C synthesis or to have fused two chromsomos when making humans.

Second, if the argument is that God simply used recycled DNA to create humans, how is that any different from saying we are related to apes?

http://www.evolutionpages.com/chromosome_2.htm

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section2.html#molecular_vestiges

sam t, what is the reason then? I guess you could argue that deceit was the reason. Other than deceit, what possible reason could there be?

Jo, is that a cut and paste job? Whatever it is, It fails to lay out the assumptions used in making the calculation.

However, as near as I can deduce, it assumes that all five mutations have to happen at the same time. I'm not sure why that assumption is made. Perhaps you can clear this up for me.

Answer 1

Very true.

Besides, we were supposed to be made from dirt. If that is the case why are we carbon based instead of silica based?

Answer 2

No, Even on a theoretical level, it does not seem possible for mutations to account for the diversity of life on earth, at least not in the time available. According to Professor Ambrose, the minimum number of mutations necessary to produce the simplest new structure in an organism is five (Davis, 67-68; Bird, 1:88), but these five mutations must be the proper type and must affect five genes that are functionally related. Davis, 67-68. In other words, not just any five mutations will do. The odds against this occurring in a single organism are astronomical.

Mutations of any kind are believed to occur once in every 100,000 gene replications (though some estimate they occur far less frequently). Davis, 68; Wysong, 272. Assuming that the first single-celled organism had 10,000 genes, the same number as E. coli (Wysong, 113), one mutation would exist for every ten cells. Since only one mutation per 1,000 is non-harmful (Davis, 66), there would be only one non-harmful mutation in a population of 10,000 such cells. The odds that this one non-harmful mutation would affect a particular gene, however, is 1 in 10,000 (since there are 10,000 genes). Therefore, one would need a population of 100,000,000 cells before one of them would be expected to possess a non-harmful mutation of a specific gene.
The odds of a single cell possessing non-harmful mutations of five specific (functionally related) genes is the product of their separate probabilities. Morris, 63. In other words, the probability is 1 in 108 X 108 X 108 X 108 X 108, or 1 in 1040. If one hundred trillion (1014) bacteria were produced every second for five billion years (1017 seconds), the resulting population (1031) would be only 1/1,000,000,000 of what was needed!

Answer 3

"there is no reason for God to have"

I assume this isn't trying to attack the belief in a deity, but if it is, a simple and understandable answer is: "He did it because he did." By the way, I like the way you put it, I think I will start doing that also. "It is a fact, that I had no reason to eat the cookie from the cookie jar, and this is a definate fact."

d_chino_m: Man get some freaking literacy, and read the actual words of the bible. It says man was made from dust not dirt. (Enormous difference.) When we die, we turn into dust right? That means that when we are not dead, we are still dust, except we are alive. We were made from dust.

Answer 4

Nice angle. The more we educate people in evolution, the better this world will be. The primary target should of course be Muslims.

Answer 5

Don't need to prove anything, the academic community has moved on. It's over.

Answer 6

We are, but so are orang-utans and bonobos.