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Topic: pentadactilism again challenges the modern synthesis
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Bruce Fast
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Member # 924
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posted 27. March 2006 22:45
As one with a bachelors degree from a Christian college, who has hung around churches of various evangelical denominations for neigh on half a century, I would suggest that there is no significant link to a pentagram within these denominations.
As the Catholic and Orthodox churches are much more symbol oriented than the protestant denominations are, I would not be surprised to find that the pentagram has significant meaning in these circles, but it's hardly universal amongst devout Christians.
I made up a joke years ago. The line goes that you can take all of the world's knowledge, convert it to a numeric system, and produce a huge number that contains all of the worlds knowlege. If you then put a decimal point in front of that number, you get an extremely precise fraction. If you were to cut a stick to exactly that percentage of a foot, you would have compressed all of the worlds knowledge into a stick. From then, of course, you could go hunting for sticks that were shorter than a foot, accurately measuring them to see what knowledge they contained. Chances are you might just find the cure for cancer. (Hmmm, sounds like the multiverse theory.)
Its obvously technologically silly. But then the previlance of this number phi does cause one to wonder.
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John A. Davison
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posted 28. March 2006 06:50
Bruce
The Pythagoreans asked the most fundamental question that can be asked about a line AB. Where can it be cut at C such that AB/AC = AC/BC? It should not surprise anyone that such a discovery should have universal application. It marked the birth of mathematics and geometry.
As for your observations on devout Christians you are probably correct. I know from personal experience that some Catholics are offended by the pentagram. If the Protestants are not it may be simply that they they are ignorant of its symbolism. However, I also regard the Roman Church as the one true Christian faith.
In my opinion Martin Luther was a backslid, malcontent, anti-Papist, anti-Semitic and rather foul-mouthed troublemaking monk who did little to promote the Christian ethic. As an example:
"When I pass wind in Wittenburg they can smell it in Rome."
The Roman Church has always been the friend of science. Even today, the Pontifical Academy of Science has Nobel Prize winners in its membership. Where is a Protestant Academy of Science? The simple truth is that the most virulent critics of science, especially evolutionary science, have been Protestant evangelicals. It is unfortunate.
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Bruce Fast
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Member # 924
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posted 28. March 2006 19:12
John,
Your understanding of evolution is impeccible. However, your understanding of military strategy seems to be wanting. Military strategy 101 suggests that it is unadvisable to fight a war on two fronts. The problem with doing so is that the opponents you have on either front are your opponents. If you wage war on too many fronts, you run the risk of having all enemies and no friends.
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John A. Davison
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Member # 1425
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posted 29. March 2006 07:41
Bruce
I learned long ago that I cannot present my views and at the same time satisfy the requirements of either side of the debate. I have already been thoroughly rejected by both the Fundamentalists and the atheist Darwinians. I also am not in the least bit concerned about having professional "friends." My work, based as it is on some of the finest minds of two centuries, will stand or fall quite independently of whether or not I have any supporters. I regard both extremes in this ideological struggle as dead wrong and have repeatedly said as much. Also I am a scientist not a politician.
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Shi
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Member # 1923
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posted 14. April 2006 20:14
Humans are obsessed with living longer. Perhaps we can learn something from plants. The most long lived plant is characterized by the number 5. The oldest pine or life inhabitant is the bristlecone pine that is about 5000 years old. It has 5 needles per fascicle. Needle numbers vary from 1 to 8 among pine species.
Three other pine species that can live to 2000 years also all have 5 needles, while pine species that have other number of needles (either less or more than 5) are not known to live longer than 1500 years.
It is again a persistent pattern for the number 5 to be special among all numbers. Why is the 5 needle pine selected to live the longest but not other pines with other number of needles?
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peter borger
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Member # 722
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posted 26. April 2006 10:34
(penta)dactylism; how it works at the molecular level.
The dog’s genome revealed that intelligent – human directed – selection could arrive independently at the same outcome at least twice [Parker et al. Genetic structure of the purebred domestic dog. Science 2004, volume 304, pages 1160-4.]. If the mechanisms that induce variation would be merely a random phenomenon, it would be virtually impossible to arrive at the same phenotype within a few generations. Variation must be determined upfront and cannot be unlimited. I propose that the induction of the pre-existing variation is of non-random character and all information to induce variation was already present in the genome of the wolf-like ancestor. Genome reshuffling is probably all that is required to generate new dog breeds. Duplications or transpositions of DNA elements that are already in the genome may lead to the formation of new creations. Indeed, a study reported in 2004 drives home the importance of repetitive DNA sequences in breed formation. These so-called tandem repeats are sequences of only a few, usually three DNA letters that are repeated over and over, and are present everywhere in the genome. The repeats can be found outside as well as within the coding region of genes. It turned out that the size of a tandem repeat within a gene can alter the protein, making it more or less efficient [Garner JW & Fondon HR. Molecular origins of rapid and continuous morphological evolution. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2004, volume 101, pages 18058-63.]. The study demonstrated that the length of a breed’s snout correlated directly with the number of tandem repeats in a gene called Runx-2. Changes in repetitive DNA elements may explain why the bent snout of the bull terrier could form in only 65 years. DNA extracted from a skull of a terrier that lived in the 1930, and who didn’t have the droopy snout, yet, showed it had one more repeat in the Runx-2 gene than modern terriers had. The researchers found another intriguing correlation with another gene, Alx-4. Most dogs have five toes on their hind legs, but some members of the Great Pyrenees breed tend to have six. This reminded the investigators of mice. Mice that have mutations in Alx-4 are born with an extra toe, and this prompted the investigators to check that gene in dog breeds as well. They found that the repeat region in the Alx-4 gene of the six-toed Great Pyrenees was considerably shorter than of their five-toed relatives. The value and impact of these repeat units on genetics and on phenotype is very much underestimated. They are resources in the genome for things to rapidly evolve, not just in dogs but in other species as well. [Preview P. Borger's GUToB, chapter 3; to be released soon].
Yes guys, it is all in the genome.
P. Borger
[ 26. April 2006, 10:43: Message edited by: peter borger ]
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Bruce Fast
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Member # 924
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posted 26. April 2006 11:34
quote:
Most dogs have five toes on their hind legs, but some members of the Great Pyrenees breed tend to have six. This reminded the investigators of mice. Mice that have mutations in Alx-4 are born with an extra toe, and this prompted the investigators to check that gene in dog breeds as well. They found that the repeat region in the Alx-4 gene of the six-toed Great Pyrenees was considerably shorter than of their five-toed relatives.
Hmmm, seems to me that you are saying that a six-toed mutation is relatively easy to come by, yes?
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Bruce Fast
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Member # 924
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posted 27. April 2006 12:03
Presuming yes.
We are back to the puzzle. Though a 6 digit mutation is relatively common and easy to come by, this adapation has not been implemented as the standard in any living species of quadruped. Rather than implement six digits, however, some species, such as the pandas, have gone out of their way to implement "look a likes". This is the pentadactile mystery.
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Shi
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Member # 1923
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posted 27. April 2006 14:48
Good point. Again, why 5?
No body is saying the 5-ness is not encoded in the genes. The question is why 5-ness, rather than 4-ness or 6-ness, is programed into the genome. Darwinism invokes survival necessity to explain 5, which simply does not work. There is clearly some reason beyond mere survival necessity to explain 5, beauty, and many other mathematical orderliness in nature. From the perspective a creator and her goal of creation, it is straitforward to explain beauty. To create means to make somthing that does not exist before. It take no effort to make somthing that shows randomness, chaos, orderliness, and uglyness. Just imagine any monkey can paint something ugly but no monkey can paint like a Van Gogh. So a creator's starting point is effortlessly uglyness and to create uglyness means no creation at all. This starting background of uglyness necessarily reqires that any thing worthy the name of a creation must be beautiful. So, if the goal of evolution is creation, beauty must be a necessary byproduct of that goal. The presence of beauty therefore is another prove that the goal of evolution is creation and the mind behind the goal is a creator.
If the creator has a choice of making 4, 5, or 6 fingers of equal functionality, should she select one of the numbers based on throwghing a dice or based on the idea of creating? Since she is a creator, her priority is to create. Since her starting point is randomness and orderliness, her goal is to create order and will do her best to avoid creating things based on a dice. She will find a reason to favor 5 over 4 or 6 based on what a creation must qualify, which includes qualitities such as uniqueness, rareness (order is rarer than orderless), and beauty (beauty is rarer than ugly). Indeed, one can find mathematical reasons for why 5 is more beautiful than 4 or 6. There may be also ways to show that 5 is more unique and rare than 4 or 6. 5 is prime number. So, the prevalence of 5 is most consistent with the idea of a creator. When any number will function equally in life, a mathematical reason will be created to select a number. When that mathematical reason is found by humanity, the mind or law of God will also be known. The phenomenon of 5 requires that the only way to prove God is by mathematics.
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John A. Davison
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Member # 1425
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posted 27. April 2006 21:14
Sure folks, but all dogs are still wolves or, if you don't like that, all wolves are dogs and always will be. Evolution at the genus level ended 2 million years ago and at the species level before historical times. Phylogeny, exactly like ontogeny is a self-limiing, self-terminating process and the evolutionary scenario has run its course. Get used to it. Robert Broom did, Pierre Grasse did, even Julian Huxley did and so have I. Show me any two species living or dead with the evidence that one is ancestral to the other. We see the results of a long past evolution not "evolution in action" as the Darwinians still manage to imagine.
"A past evolution is undeniable. A present evolution is undemonstrable"
John A. Davison
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peter borger
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Member # 722
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posted 28. April 2006 03:50
This is because the information of five digits was the original standard, but the genetics that provide the information is not explicit, it is rather implicit. The genetic elements in the genome that regulate the number of toes have a built-in repeat unit that easily gets lost from the gene or regulatory element or they duplicate due to slippery DNA polymerases. This is how genomes induce variability and what I have argued since several years now. The socalled junk DNA (retroelement such as LINE's, SINE's etc and the omnipresent repeat units in genes and micro-satellites) are the DNA elements that easily induce variation. Variation induction has nothing to do with the information that is present in the genes. It is the implicitness of genomes (which of course have been created by a superintelligence otherwise our human intelligence could have easily rebuilt life) allows for flexibility and adaptive phenotypes. This is what Darwin observed, and many before him. His extrapolation from this that all organic beings have a common ancestor is a non-sequitur; molecular biolgy proofs the Darwinian stance is non-sense. All elements that induce "Darwinian" variation are already in the genome! If this is what drives evolution, then evolution is prescibed... Davison is doing a great job, and I understand his anger.
[ 28. April 2006, 03:51: Message edited by: peter borger ]
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John A. Davison
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posted 28. April 2006 04:45
That is great stuff Peter, much of which I was not aware of. Keep us up to date. One thing interests me. Certain creatures seem quite incapable of variation while others like dogs and goldfish show enormous plasticity although none of it exceeds the species barrier and probaby never will.
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peter borger
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posted 28. April 2006 05:12
It^s easy John, organisms like the Wollemia nobilis (Wollemi pine) lost the variation-inducing mechanism and are incabably of changing their phzenotype. As argued before, the elements that induce the variation are genetic redundancies. Since creation-time many organism got rid of the embellishment not required for reproduction. Reproduction is all that counts in biolgy, mate, not evolution.
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John A. Davison
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posted 28. April 2006 06:32
Peter
Creative evolution is a thing of the past as near as I can tell. The scenario was completed with the production of Homo sapiens, the youngest mammal on this planet. This is it mate! It is all down hill from here on in. Man is seeing to it. Sexual reproduction is the sure fire way to become extinct. It has never failed and it never will. It never had anything to do with creative evolution except to ensure extinction thereby making way for the next "prescribed" step. The show is over and the curtain is coming down.
Thanks for posting.
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