DNA Analysis proves evolution

Quranexplorer wrote: 1) The accuracy of DNA predictions: What you do in a DNA analysis is you make a prediction on one's ancestry by matching the genetic components and you see that the prediction matches almost 100% with the fact if you are testing two individuals in a first level connection in the chain. But the accuracy comes down with each level upwards and at some point you see that you end up with more ancestors than you have sections of the DNA which means the only way you can make a prediction is by way of a guesstimate.

That's why it becomes more difficult to identify specific ancestors the farther back you go; but that's not what we're trying to do.

We're trying to show that two contemporary individuals had a common ancestor (never mind who); and for that, the problem is almost the opposite.  The farther back you go, the more likely it is a priori that any two random individuals will have a common ancestor.  In fact, according to your source, if you go back a mere 3500 years it's not just a guesstimate, but a virtual certainty that they do, even without doing the genetic testing.  (That number sounds surprisingly low, by the way.  I'm looking into where they got it.)

That's why they are criticizing commercial services that offer individual genetic ancestry testing.  It's not that they are necessarily wrong.  In fact, for many predictions they are almost certainly right.  If you are of Nordic stock, then you probably had a Viking in your ancestry.  If you are European, there was probably a Roman soldier back there somewhere.  But you didn't need a DNA test to tell you that.

airmano wrote: Obviously you try to avoid answering my question with the rhetorical trick of asking a counter-question. That much for the argument... To answer it nevertheless: The model is based exactly on the empirical evidence you claim to be non-existent. Did you actually have a look at it ?

If you are talking about DNA analysis, it is not accurate beyond the first level and cannot be used to test a theoretical model to establish an empirical evidence.

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airmano wrote: Sorry QE, once more: your claim "there is no evidence (for ET)" is getting kind of tiring. Just type "empirical evidence Evolution theory" in Google (do you know how to do this ?) and you find on the first page: Evidence and even a Wiki entry on this subject. I'm sure that you're only looking for info comforting your point of view and all the rest is blinded out. Not good: Airmano

Even I find it tiring when people keep repeating the same so called "evidences" when it is clear that none of these so called "evidences" can "prove" evolution.

Nevertheless, In Sha Allah I won't give up helping those weaker in understanding to understand the truth as far as I can do. Let's have a look at the so called "evidences" presented in your link:

1. Fossil Record: There is not even one fossil record that completely shows all the links to support evolution of one species to another. Even this incomplete record is so minuscule that there are only 24 or so of the so called transitional fossil records against a few millions of species identified so far. Even with more than 100,000 species represented in fossils, the lack of intermediate forms is even greater than it was in Darwin's day.

So the fossil record clearly fails to support the Theory of Evolution.

2. DNA Evidence: As we have already seen, DNA analysis is not accurate beyond the first level and cannot be used to test a theoretical model to establish an empirical evidence.

3. Geographic Distribution of Related Species: What is the scientific evidence to the author's speculation that evolution is "The most likely explanation"?

4. Genetic Changes over Generations: How can the genetic changes within a species be blindly extrapolated to claim species changes without any empirical evidence for the same?

Ron Webb wrote: That's like saying you can't see individual atoms from a distance of several miles, so there's no way we can determine the location of a star using light.� At a distance of hundreds of generations, DNA analysis is not precise enough for identifying individuals, but it's still accurate, and it can still identify family relationships at larger scales.

At distances of hundreds of generations it is not even a question of accuracy. At distances where your ancestors growing in a geometric progression exceeds your DNA components, you simply cannot have an empirical match using DNA.How can you say an empirical method that has a reducing accuracy with distance and simply fails at some point at an individual level becomes more accurate when applied at a larger scale?

It should be the other way around simply because of the fact that you will have to have more approximations to apply a variable that necessarily remains at an individual level to be representative of a larger population.

Ron Webb wrote: The problem with individuals is that if you go back far enough, every human is related to every other human, so the question of whether two individuals belong to the same family becomes meaningless.� If you look back far enough, we all shared a common ancestor at some point, so we're all ultimately in the same family -- the human family.� DNA confirms that.� If that were not true, it would be meaningless to refer to "human DNA".

You are getting closer. And that is perfectly in line with what you observe--human species always remain human species. And it is perfectly in line with the idea of all humans created from a single soul:

Quran 4:1 "O mankind! Be careful of your duty to your Lord Who created you from a single soul and from it created its mate and from them twain hath spread abroad a multitude of men and women. Be careful of your duty toward Allah in Whom ye claim (your rights) of one another, and toward the wombs (that bare you). Lo! Allah hath been a watcher over you."     

Ron Webb wrote: And in exactly the same way, we have simian DNA, confirming that we belong to the simian family along with the apes.� We also have mammalian DNA, which places us in the mammalian family, and so on.

Now what you are saying is the theoretical part and something not substantiated either by observation or by any other credible empirical evidence to be accepted as a fact by the existing scientific standards.

Ron Webb wrote: No, the genetic information is independent of any circumstantial evidence. As for the link, it talks exclusively about individual genetic testing, not species comparisons. Good grief, several of the experts quoted in your source are specialists in evolutionary genetics! Surely you don't think they meant to imply that the whole basis of their field of study is flawed?

To quote from the same link: �There are millions of possible �stories� of your ancestry. To know whether any one of them is likely to be true, it would need to be tested statistically for its likelihood against other possibilities.� Now if you read your King Richard link, this is precisely what they have done�using the circumstantial evidences to statistically test their genetic test results to come to a conclusion.

Those individuals being experts from the field of genetics doesn�t mean that they should blindly come to a conclusion that �DNA Analysis proves evolution� in the absence of any credible empirical evidence. For that matter I wonder if you would be able to find even one scientist of credibility who would dare to make such a conclusive and definitive statement like �Theory of Evolution has been proved scientifically�.

Ron Webb wrote: Whether you call it a law or not is a matter of semantics, but it is an empirical method (several of them actually) which links two different DNAs with an estimate of their evolutionary distance. That's what you asked for.

The one thing that I like about science is it has got some established framework to work with and is not something that works on individual whims and fancies. So a scientific law has to be a scientific law and TMRCA fails to qualify as one:

�A scientific law is a statement based on repeated experimental observations that describes some aspects of the universe. A scientific law always applies under the same conditions, and implies that there is a causal relationship involving its elements." (just google for this definition)

There are no experimental observations for TMRCA, but only a theory.

There is not even a universal statement to qualify TMRCA as a law.

Ron Webb wrote: Of course there are experimental observations. How do you think they calibrated the models? "Estimates of TMRCA are thus based on the observed number of mutations by which the two Y chromosomes differ." http://nitro.biosci.arizona.edu/ftdna/quick.html

Maybe you missed this part from the same write-up:

�Since mutations occur at random, the estimate of a TMRCA is not an exact number (i.e., 7 generations), but rather a probability distribution, a function that gives the probability that the TMRCA is a certain number of generations or less (i.e., a 47% probability that the TMRCA is 16 generations or less)�.

I wonder how can you have even a fair estimate of �Random Mutation� which necessarily doesn�t follow any set patterns?

Ron Webb wrote: I said there is no direct observational evidence. Nobody has directly observed the evolution of a new species, simply because the process takes millions of years. However, there is plenty of indirect observational empirical evidence, i.e. DNA evidence.

No so called indirect observational empirical evidence is enough to �prove� the theory.

The so called indirect observational evidences including the DNA evidence are nothing more than theoretical models based on geusstimates and fail to qualify as empirical methods to independently test and prove ET.

Ron Webb wrote: By the way, I find it very odd that the people who demand direct observational evidence of evolution never think to apply the same standard to creationism. [IMG]smileys/smiley17.gif" align="absmiddle" alt="Tongue" />

My endorsement of the idea of an ultimate creator is based on a faith based belief. And it would be foolish to think that the creator who could create a universe that still remains beyond the capability of the best of human minds to explain has to be proved by an imperfect tool called science created by his imperfect creations.

I feel no problem in admitting that I am following a faith based belief and I rely on Allah�s guidance where my reason becomes incapable.

I can�t be like some others who claim their reason as the only way of guidance and would still cling to their choice even when it is clearly against human reason to do so