Evolutionary biology

Many thanks to Relax for his efforts.== Introduction ==Readers would have noticed by now, that Relax is not trying to prove that evolution is explanation for all the diversity in nature. Rather he is using genetic arguments to argue that humans and chimps have same origin. I welcome this. This enables us to have in depth argument about one scientific problem and do adequate justice to it. Judges are requested to vote according to the topics discussed rather than resolution of the debate.On other hand, I will still assume that we are still talking about human and chimps having common origin as generally predicted by modern evolution theory. For example, I will assume that in my opponent's world view, human and chimps were having common origin 7 (+- 2) million years and that the process of evolution started few billion years ago. [1]== Rebuttals ==My opponent has chosen one particular ERV virus (ERV-K virus) and has done some probabilistic analysis based on that. I have several objections.Is site selection a random?: To do the kind of probabilistic analysis my opponent has done, we have to first ensure that ERV-K can choose any point in DNA sequence completely randomly. Pro has not presented details of mechanism by which ERV is inserted into the genetic sequence. Pro is aware of this problem, as he acknowledges that a retro-virus is more likely to attack active regions of genetic code. This is not the only problem. It is also possible is that particular ERVs look out for particular code sequence n DNA and then try to attach themselves at that location. If this happens, the number of available locations for a particular ERV will be drastically reduced. Until Pro presents clear evidence that the genetic code sequence itself plays no role in ERV attacks, it is obvious that the kind of probability calculation he has done is premature.Mismatches: Pro tries to make it sound as if there were exactly 16 matches and zero mismatches. That is simply wrong. As per the abstract of the paper cited by Pro [2] (though he had not provided the links) …we identified and characterized 76 complete ERV-K elements, 54 in human (HERV-K), 34 of which were described previously, and 21 in the chimpanzee (CERV-K)."Out of this, as my opponent informs us, 16 were at identical locations. So what about the others?As per modern theory of evolution, humans and chimps have been separate for 7 million years. But they had identical parentage for several billion years. Let us assume the common parentage to be one billion years. In that case, only 7/1000 parts of the ERVs should be at different locations! That is roughly one part in 150. Clearly the mismatches are much more than that.How do scientists explain this discrepancy? They argue that the particular ERV may not have originated a billion years ago. This is a valid explanation. But then they use the percentage of mismatches and the assumption that human and chimps had shared ancestry to date the particular ERV! This makes any probabilistic analysis on mismatch / match ratio to verify evolution essentially cyclic. Until there is an independent way to find out the age of ERVs, ERV matches are useless as arguments in favor of evolution.Small sample size: It is unclear why my opponent chose this particular ERV. As per some estimates, around 8% of human genetic code consists of ERV [3]. In light of this fact, my opponent’s argument about 16 matches is laughably anecdotal.The Turn: Why limit ourselves to comparison of ERVs. How about comparison of complete genetic code?As per [4], there is 5% difference in genetic codes of human and chimps. This means, 5% difference in 7 million years. To help my opponent and ease calculations, let us make it 10 million years. Humans and chimps have allegedly shared the genetic codes for several billion years. Let us be a bit gracious to my opponent and assume evolution started one 1 billion years.Different time / Total time = 10 millon / 1000 million ~ 1 / 100Different code / Total code = 5/100 ~ 1 / 20Please note, I have modified the first figure to assist my opponent. If I put in the real values, the first figure will become drastically smaller. 5 million years will make it 1 / 200! The difference in figure indicates something is seriously wrong with evolution theory.I reserve my right to present more arguments in next round. Looking forward to rebuttals from Relax![1] http://en.wikipedia.org...[2] http://resources.metapress.com...[3] http://en.wikipedia.org...[4] http://www.pnas.org...