bigore

Ok, the movement to pseudoscience seems a bit odd, but ok.

I don't think real biologists will look in this section, while my question is valid for biologists i guess.

Is Peter Borger right about the mutation rate of essential genes and redundant genes? I see an answer above about gene duplication. But that is what this article is about, gene duplication is not the only reason for redundant genes as stated in his referenses..

I totally agree with Mrburns 2012

But i like to go back on topic and like an answer to this question, preferrably with references.

- Every living organism has essential genes.

- Every living organism has lots of redundant genes.

- Essential genes cannot be removed without changing the phenotype.

- Redundant genes can be removed and do not change phenotype whatsoever.

So if redundant genes are not ALL necessary for the survival of the organism, the mutation rate should be higher, because there is no selection pressure. But that is what this article claims not to be true.

Redundant genes seemes to mutate at the same rate as essential genes. Why is that if there is no selection pressure on the redundant genes?

Ok, now you scare me.

Please give us the peer-reviewed papers that points to the alien conclusion.

Merged post follows:

Thank you, I submit.

 

Then, guy is crazy and will go to hell like the rest of the religious heretics, failed to recognize the trickery of false God of Three Bibles. Lucifer, the Bringer of Light will punish them with nonexistence. He has some good arguments thought, but then he is probably not aware of "my" arguments... now, I do not mean to scare unsuspected younglings, so I would like to warn that my arguments will lead to conclusions about Reptilian Shape-Shifting Aliens. The story is not for the faint of heart... I do not think people here can handle it, even thought it is scientifically documented in peer reviewed papers.

This alien race should then come into existence darwinian way? If another alien race can come about in darwinian ways, why should we think we can't? Is this because of evidence, or...? Of isthis alien race created by a God?

Sione, for your information, Peter Borger is an creationist. A very strong believer in creationism. But he claims to get his believes through his observations in science.

Here are a few more of his articles.

Genetic code optimization part 1

Genetic code optimization part 2

Ultra Conserved regions megaproblems for evolution

Another article on Genetic Redundancy

So if i understand this correctly genetic redundancy is not a problem for evolution.

I'm just curious, this is what is said in short:

- Every living organism has essential genes.

- Every living organism has lots of redundant genes.

- Essential genes cannot be removed without changing the phenotype.

- Redundant genes can be removed and do not change phenotype whatsoever.

So if redundant genes are not ALL necessary for the survival of the organism, the mutation rate should be higher, because there is no selection pressure. But that is what this article claims not to be true.

Redundant genes seemes to mutate at the same rate as essential genes. Why is that if there is no selection pressure on the redundant genes?

By the way, i'm no creationist, this guy has more articles. But genetic redundancy is the Darwin's Death Blow as he calls it.

I got this paper from an creationist friend, he says this is the ultimate proof that evolution in a darwinian way impossible is.

http://download229.mediafire.com/mnvwu4ljxxdg/tmd2zzzhmei/genetic_redundancy.pdf

I'm no biochemist or evolutionary biologist, but does he have a point or not?

No, the article only claims that there are an estimated 1418 genes (mind you, it is just an estimation!) of 1418 genes that are not 1-1 orthologous to each other. Does it mean that there are 6% genome difference?

 

Hell no. Let us do some very basic calculations. The average gene size is roughly 3kb. If we assume (as we do not really know yet!) that there are 22k genes in the human genome, we come to a total sequence size of around 22k x 3kb = 66MB

The human genome is roughly 3000 MB, so the gene content only account for roughly 22 % of the whole genome.

 

Moving on. 1418 gene difference (~ 4MB) would therefore to account for 0.1% sequence diversity. Quite a difference, right?

 

Also he apparently did not quite get the gist of the publication. Or at least chose to misinterpret it.

 

Mind you to calculate whole genome distances is quite complicated. What the paper did, however is to investigate gene loss/gain events, or rather the rates rather than the absolute distance.

 

I just took a look whether this Peter Borger guy is real. Unfortunately he is, though I do hope that he did not really make his PhD in biology (biochemistry would be alright, though).

 

He apparently is affiliated with the ISCID, a group involved in promoting ID (Behe is in the editorial board, btw).

Dear me.

Thank you for this new inside of this story, that makes alot of difference indeed. So he's right about the 1400 genes (estimate), but he takes it to literally when saying 6,4% is different between chimps and humans. Because the actual information differs only by an estimated 0,1%, quite a difference indeed.

I'm gonna relay your answer to him if you don't mind.

He is accusing you guys for not knowing your science, this is the article where he refers to

http://www.genetics.org/cgi/content/full/177/3/1941

I must admit, it says literally that 6,4% genes are different between humans and chimps, with 678 gene gaines in humans and 740 gene losses compared to chimps. So there is a total of over 1400 genes that differ with chimps.

I stopped reading on the second line of the first paragraph:

 

 

This is equivalent to stating "magical processes set life up to be described by the rest of my theory".

 

He loses.

So true, but it's hard for me to debate with him because he goes really technical sometimes where he outclasses me. But the confidence this guy has in his theory is unbelieveble. Especially the genetic redundance part (degeneration of all lifeforms on earth), i can not give good enough feedback to make him doubt his theory. He has "proven" that life was much more complex in the early days then less complex what evolution tells us.

I don't think he is lying about the PHd, but i think it's more ignorance he is proposing. If you are interested in his theory try this link. It is a Dutch site, but his pretentious theory is in english.

GUToB

Thank you for your response, i must say that his statement is not solely based on this argument, but this is one of them. But this statement is not worth looking into i guess?

Hello,

Im new to this forum and i am from holland, so i hope my english is good enough to understand, but i think this is my best bet to get an answer to my question.

I'm having an online debat with an creationist, he is a biologist with PHd and all and claims to have an new theory that would blow darwins theory out of the sky.

I asked him the question, why do you think we are not descended from apes?In fact, we are apes.

His answer is simple, he says that he has studied the human genome and the chimp genome so closely that they could not be related. There are 22.000 genes in the human dna, and 1400 are different with the chimp. So he has based his statement on the fact that there are 1400 different genes between the chimp and human. 6,4% to be precise.

Well, im not gonna argue with his statement, but i asked him a counterquestion which could make his statement fall down.

He does not have an answer to my question so im gonna ask it here, i hope somebody can help me out.

How many different genes are there in different types within kinds. So for example, how many genes differ between a horse and a zebra, or donkey. Or how many genes between an urangatan and chimp. Because if these animals differ also around 1400 genes or more, would make his statement worthless right?

I thank anyone who respond in advance:-)