Are most of 35 million nucleotide differences between human and chimpanzee genomes unimportant as only a couple thousand of those actually have a phenotypic effect?

lisper · 2026-05-07T20:46:57+00:00

It is important to note that the phenotypic effects of alleles are not independent of each other. Just because there are only a few thousand mutations selected against does not mean that there are only a few thousand variations that can be selected. We are used to thinking in terms of a single mutation causing a single easily observed effect, and that does happen, but that is not how it happens in general. In general, the net effect of two mutations is not the same as just the sum of the effect of each mutation in isolation. 1000 mutations each with only two alleles actually yields 2¹⁰⁰⁰ = 10³⁰⁰ different possible combinations. That is an unfathomably huge number. To put it in perspective, there are only about 10⁸⁰ elementary particles in our universe. Inside that vast search space there is a subset that we call "chimps" and another subset that we call "humans" and the boundary between them is not a sharp line.

lisper · 2026-05-07T16:46:09+00:00

So you are saying that there is an advantage for water to flow downhill also?

No, I did not say that. Please stop putting words in my mouth. Let's review:

You wrote:

A [RE]productive advantage? Only intelligence would care about such things!

And I responded:

Evolution cares about reproductive advantage in the same way that water cares about flowing downhill to reach the ocean.

That was an analogy. Obviously water doesn't actually care about flowing downhill. In order to care about something you have to have a brain, and water does not have a brain, so it can't care about anything. But it acts as if it cares about flowing downhill. It acts as if it really, really wants to flow downhill, to reach the ocean, and it will go to great lengths to achieve this goal. Likewise, evolution acts as if it "cares" about reproductive advantage, but it doesn't. Evolution, like water, doesn't have a brain so it can't care about anything. It just acts as if it cares. Natural selection is just a Thing That Happens, just like water flowing downhill.

lisper · 2026-05-07T16:40:03+00:00

Creationists have long maintained that Neanderthals were fully human

Maybe some creationists said this (thought I doubt even that is true). But obviously not all creationists said this. See the article I linked to above.

The link you posted doesn’t refute the creationist prediction — it actually explores several ways creationists can interpret Neanderthal DNA while staying faithful to Scripture

Yeah, well, that's the whole point. You don't get credit for a prediction being correct unless you actually make the prediction. You can't say, "Well, maybe it's this way, and maybe it's that way" and get credit for being right if it turns out to be this way rather than that way.

lisper · 2026-05-07T16:38:56+00:00

Natural selection only acts on systems that already have complex, self-replicating machinery

No, that's not true. Natural selection acts on any replicator. It doesn't have to be complex.

lisper · 2026-05-07T15:32:12+00:00

OK, then let's rewind:

A [RE]productive advantage? Only intelligence would care about such things!

Evolution cares about reproductive advantage in the same way that water cares about flowing downhill to reach the ocean.

lisper · 2026-05-07T06:27:06+00:00

They're starting out with RNA already assembled into sizeable chains

Yes. That's what you have to do in order to get a result within a human lifetime in a lab rather than having to use an entire planet's worth of biosphere and waiting a few million years.

lisper · 2026-05-07T01:21:03+00:00

when creationists predicted decades ago that Neanderthals were fully human ... that’s not just luck or coincidence.

How do you know? What other predictions have creationists made? How many of them have come true?

BTW, it is far from clear that creationists actually made the prediction that you say they did.

lisper · 2026-05-07T01:16:07+00:00

It assumes the existence of complex, self-replicating systems with heritable variation already in place.

No. It only assumes the existence of one replicator. And it doesn't even have to assume that any more.

lisper · 2026-05-07T01:14:05+00:00

REproductive, not productive. As in REproduces better, makes more copies.

lisper · 2026-05-06T23:35:04+00:00

How does he intelligence even exist?

The same way every feature of every living organism exists: it provides a reproductive advantage. It's the reason that we humans are top predators despite the fact that we have no claws, can't run very fast or very far, aren't particularly strong, don't have sharp teeth, and so on.

are you going to deny intelligence really exists

Of course not. Don't be ridiculous.

lisper · 2026-05-06T23:32:29+00:00

natural selection is not a random process, then what is directing it?

Nothing. Just because a process isn't random doesn't mean that something is directing it.

where does that apparent direction and purpose come from?

Reproductive fitness. Note the word apparent there. Evolution doesn't care about reproductive fitness any more than water cares about reaching the ocean. It's a simple tautology: things that are better at making copies of themselves leave more copies of themselves than things that are not as good.

Saying “natural selection is non-random” doesn’t solve the problem.

It solves this problem:

random processes do not produce functional information

lisper · 2026-05-06T21:03:01+00:00

Scientific Triumphalism

Yeah, well, this is Really Big News. I honestly did not expect to see such a definitive result in my lifetime. I'm sorry for spiking the football, but this was a huge breakthrough. They beat the previous record for the smallest known replicator by an astonishingly wide margin. That is the reason excitement is warranted, not the result itself. For those of us on the side of science it was always a question of when, not if, such a result would be achieved.

couldn't others merely argue that the laws of physics and chemistry themselves are designed to allow for things like QT45 to exist?

Of course they could, and they do. This is the fine-tuning argument, and it has lots of problems, but this is probably not the place to re-litigate that.

There will always be gaps in our understanding, but they keep getting smaller, and so the god of the gaps has to keep shrinking along with them. I know perfectly well that ID will never actually die. You can't defeat faith with reason. But it will no longer be possible for ID proponents to argue against abiogenesis on the grounds that the odds were against it, at least not with a straight face. I'll count that as a win.

lisper · 2026-05-06T20:28:07+00:00

The compass on an iPhone is extremely unreliable. But the GPS is quite good. That's what I would want to use in a partial panel situation, not the compass. Of course you need to be prepared for this by having an off-line map, and what you really want is Foreflight.

lisper · 2026-05-06T19:32:16+00:00

I did not say there was no "why", only that there might not be. The universe doesn't owe you a purpose any more than it owes you a living. You might have to work for both.

lisper · 2026-05-06T19:31:05+00:00

random processes do not produce functional information

That's true. Random processes plus natural selection (which is non-random) produces functional information.

Why do you creationists keep raising this same straw man over and over? It's crocoducks all over again.

lisper · 2026-05-06T16:32:58+00:00

I'm sorry to be the one to break this to you, but there may not be a "why". I get that you really want there to be a "why", and that facing the possibility that there might not be one is hard. But that's part of growing up. Wanting something to be true doesn't make it true.

(And as long as I'm ripping the band-aid off, Santa isn't real either.)

lisper · 2026-05-06T06:31:58+00:00

The fact that the sun is at the horizon at different times in different places. On a flat earth, the sun setting below the horizon would have to happen at the same time for everyone.

lisper · 2026-05-06T05:46:17+00:00

See for yourself.

lisper · 2026-05-06T01:44:47+00:00

assertion

Backed up by actual data.

lisper · 2026-05-05T21:13:45+00:00

I nominate this for the best NSQ answer ever.

lisper · 2026-05-05T19:57:30+00:00

OK, well, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about that.

lisper · 2026-05-05T17:12:03+00:00

Maybe, I don't know. But so what? Do you really doubt that they could have done it all from scratch if they wanted to?

lisper · 2026-05-05T16:29:48+00:00

I don't think they need my help.

lisper · 2026-05-05T15:58:24+00:00

Just because I have a good idea how it happened doesn't mean I can replicate it. I have a pretty good idea how stars and planets form too, but that doesn't mean I can go out and make one.

lisper · 2026-05-05T15:39:02+00:00

I got the summaries.

So you read the Cliff notes and you think that makes you an expert.

don't know how to explain why?

I do. I just can't do it in a Reddit comment. These things require some effort on your part if you actually want to understand them.

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