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| chimp-human difference: 83% ??? |
In a previous blog I gave a first impression of Von Daniken's book Evolution is Wrong. A Radical Approach to the Origin and Transformation of Life. I noticed some funny and nice things and some problems. I now finished a complete review of the book which I published on my Was Darwin Wrong website. I found a huge blunder: Von Daniken misreads a scientific publication about genetic differences of chimp and human. Further, a lot of amazing logical fallacies. These give entertaining reading and show how a non-scientist and non-biologist thinks about biology and evolution. Evolution educators could learn from this and overcome intuitive and non-religious conceptual obstacles to understanding evolution. Evolution textbook writes should also include a section 'Overcoming obstacles to evolution'.
Notes
An example of paying attention to conceptual obstacles is: Kostas Kampourakis (2014) 'Understanding Evolution'. The obstacles for Von Daniken are not (yet) included.
Further Reading
- Evolution is Wrong! Really? is a complete review of Von Daniken's book (21 Feb 2023).
Gert, inderdaad een bizarre vergissing of is het ondeskundig lezen?
ReplyDeleteIn mijn boek De kosmos en het leven, een Meesterwerk staat het volgende:
Ruwweg verschilt ons DNA dus 4% van de chimpansee, en soortgelijke verschillen zijn gevonden voor de bonobo, de gorilla en
de orang-oetan (Prüfer, 2012).
Wanneer men inzoomt op eiwitcoderend DNA zijn de verschillen tien tot twintig keer zo klein, namelijk 0,2%.
En die zeer kleine verschillen zijn kennelijk terug te vinden in 83% van het chimp en menselijk eiwitcoderend DNA.
Prüfer, Kay et al., ‘The bonobo genome compared with the chimpanzee and human genomes’, Nature 486, 2012, p. 527-531.
Rolie, thanks for your contirbution. Yes, Von Daniken is a careless reader, especially with English texts and especially with English scientific texts. (most of his references are books and magazine articles in German!). Furthermore, he read in line with his preconceptions, therefore he read the 83% difference and did not think a second about the result!
ReplyDeleteSequence comparisons between humans and chimps, bonobo, etc have only value if the authors specify HOW they have measured. Base sequence comparisons are of some but limited value because they omit all insertions, deletions and duplications. Otherwise you can't make a sensible comparison. So, actual differences are larger (but not interesting). Did you note that Prüfer, Kay et al. do not mention the fact that humans have 46XY/46XX karyotype and the other great apes have 48XY/48XX ?! This rather big difference is lost... :-(
Personally, I am more interested in how much of functional (transcribed) DNA differs (because some 95% of our genome is non-functional junk.). Especially: which genetic mutations caused our ancestral brains increasing with 1 Liter?
Gert,
ReplyDeleteEven een korte reactie: hoe kun je zeggen dat 95% van het DNA junk is. Bij mijn weten is dat een allang achterhaalde theorie. Ik denk aan het boek van Nessa Carey The epigenetic revolution, en verwijs naar mijn boek p. 254-256 (De kosmos en het leven, een Meesterwerk). Als je bedoelt dat we van veel DNA-materiaal niet weten wat de functie is, dan stem ik in. Als je daaruit concludeert dat het dus functieloos is, dan zeker niet.
Epigenetische programmering van genen lijkt verbonden met het zgn non-coding DNA (dwz het DNA dat niet codeert voor eiwitten), met name de introns.
En verder: als je de verschillen tussen mens en chimp wilt zoeken, dan moet je niet te veel kijken naar de genen voor eiwitten, dat zijn bouwstenen die veel organismen, zeker zoogdieren, grotendeels gemeenschappelijk hebben.
Op p. 390-91 van mijn boek bespreek ik onderzoek dat laat zien dat ondanks de zeer kleine verschillen in DNA (tussen mens en chimp of bonobo) er grote verschillen zijn in epigenetische programmering, tot wel 40% als het gaat om ledematen, voor hersenen zijn de gevonden procentuele verschillen kleiner. Ik heb het onderzoek van de laatste jaren niet bijgehouden.
Ik ben benieuwd wat je hiervan vindt.
The short answer is: have a look at Sandwalk blog and his soon to be published book: What's in your genome? 90% of your genome is junk.
ReplyDeleteHe blogged extensively about it.
https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/
Short reply 'Nessa Carey': she has been severely criticized by other biologists. I can't answer this without thorough study.
However, I do see the logic if proteins themselves do not differ between chimp and human that much, we have to look elsewhere...
This is matter that cannot be answered in a few sentences in a comment
https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2015/02/nessa-carey-and-new-scientist-dont.html
ReplyDelete"I do see the logic if proteins themselves do not differ between chimp and human that much, we have to look elsewhere..."
ReplyDeleteMy suggestion, i.e. Dawkins suggestion, would be: start with the extended phenotype (just look around you).
Gert, I read the blog given by Sandwalk on a book of Nessa Carey (not the one I read), but he does not really give comment on the content of the book.
ReplyDeleteAnd, in a paper about the genome of mammals I found that the human genome consists of 2% coding for proteins, 43% is transcribed noncoding DNA and 55% belongs to untranscribed DNA.
Thes figures suggest that your statement of 95% junk seems to be wrong. Imagine how much energy it takes the cell to transcribe about half the DNA and then not using it. What a waste of energy! Sounds unlogical in the view of evolution.
2004 - The mammalian transcriptome and the function of non-coding DNA sequences.
Rolie, according to your comment " 55% belongs to untranscribed DNA."
ReplyDeletebut that is still a waste of energy!
Start reading about transposable elements in the human genome. They are selfish elements. They are parasitic DNA.
The fight against viruses and other infectious diseases by the immune system are very costly and also a waste of energy. The world would be nicer without those!
Waste of energy: males produce millions of sperm, only 1 can fertilize the egg!
Think about the number of seeds plants, trees produces every year: how many will become a tree? what a waste. etc. etc.
Nature is wasteful, nature is not perfect.
I hope you get the idea... but there is more to say...
Rolie, some aspects of life are efficient, other aspects are less efficient or even wasteful.
ReplyDeleteMy personal guess is that matters of life and death must be efficient such as heart muscles must work very efficiently lifelong, etc.
But I think the amount of useless DNA in mammalian genomes is indeed costly in terms of materials, energy and time, but not a matter of life and death. The problem is that the increase of transposable elements and introns in our genome is off balance with the removal of those elements. My explanation is that the process of elimination of DNA is random: it cannot selectively remove transposable elements. So, in general a process that randomly removes segments of DNA is at bottom harmful. The danger is that useful DNA is deleted. Therefore there is a net increase in useless DNA. Think about the huge amount of introns in our genes: really a burden! We are stuck with it. Birds and bats have less junk DNA and smaller introns. That could be an adaptation to flight.
Welcome Anonymous. You propose Dawkins extended phenotype. I am not sure. I was thinking about regulatory DNA. I don't know how much DNA it occupies in total in our genome.
ReplyDeleteDawkins called The Extended Phenotype his most important book. The subtitle might be: 'the long reach of the gene'.
ReplyDeleteThe issue was first raised by King and Wilson, as early as 1975: in the difference between chimps and humans, regulatory DNA turns out to play a prominent role.
We might be talking about a long reach here indeed, though research has only just started.
(see f.e. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41576-022-00568-4; it mentions HARS as important regulatory elements, though it misses out on possibly even more important HAQERS )
Thanks very much for the article
ReplyDelete'Human-specific genetics: new tools to explore the molecular and cellular basis of human evolution'.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41576-022-00568-4
It certainly is very important and relevant. I missed it completely, it went under my radar :-(
It will take days to read and digest it. :-)
take your time, looking forward to your comments!
DeleteRolie Barth: waste of energy?
ReplyDeleteA small crustacean with a very big genome
https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2023/03/a-small-crustacean-with-very-big-genome.html
Antarctic krill 48.1 Gb
African lungfish 40 Gb
About 92% of the genome is repetitive DNA that's mostly transposon-related sequences.
The genomes of these animals is more than 10 times bigger than ours!
Gert, de titel van je recensie van von Daniken luidt: Book review of Erich von Däniken (2022) 'Why Evolution is Wrong'. Maar dat moet toch zijn "Evolution is Wrong"? Of is het een knipoog naar Coyne's "Why Evolution is True"?
ReplyDeleteComment was van Frank Visser
DeleteHoi Frank, dank je. Goed gezien, Het zal een Freudiaanse knipoog :-) zijn geweest.
DeleteIs gecorrigeerd.