Oh really? Which basic biology textboook says, and I quote:
> > This is because the DNA within each kind of animal created by God
> > contains sufficient variety to easily account for penquins and koalas.
> > Regardless of the animals Noah
Title and ISBN numbers please.
> Using the human animal as an example, biology textbooks tell us that there
> are over 20,000 genes available to define human characteristics. The
> interaction among these genes produces a polygenic inheritance in certain
> traits, for example skin color, allowing for color variations from very dark
> to very light. We also find a polygenic inheritance in other traits such as
> height (dwarf to giant), hair color and texture, and on and on. In theory,
> the three sons or Noah and their wifes could easily have given rise to a
> human population that included white people, black people, Indians, Chinese,
> Aborigines, or whatever we have today. Rather than me citing a biology
> textbook that tells us these things are real science, how about you citing
> one that says that it is not. Now, if you are saying that, in practice,
> scientists have not mapped out every gene for every animal and plant in
> existence, then you are right.
That's only too easy, Roger. Never try to play biologist with someone who is well-versed in biology, you'll lose every time. If you are arguing that five sets of genetic codes (Noah, his wife, and the wives of his sons, since all Noah's sons would have the same genetic code as Noah and his wife) are sufficient to explain all the variation we observe in humanity, you're dead wrong.
Without getting terribly technical, let me just say this: all characteristics are determined by a set of alleles, or distinct genes, located at one or more locuses or locations in the DNA strand. Each offspring receives one allele from each locus from each parent. Each parent may have two of the same allele (homozygous) or different alleles (heterozygous). Therefore, the offspring receives two alleles for every locus on the strand. Each allele works, either by itself or in conjunction with others, to generate every feature or characteristic an individual organism has. This includes eye color, hair color, skin color, nose shape, etc. Let us look at an example of this in action. A genetic trait, such as human skin pigmentation, can be thought of as a dozen or so alleles scattered at various loci, all of which come together to determine the amount of melanin in the skin. If we look at how many different genetic sets Genesis makes available, which is 5 (Noah's children had the same genetic makeup as Noah and his wife), we can see that there is no way that the kind of diversity we see today is possible with the material we have to work with.
The genetic problems get much worse when we look at the animals. As stated before, the "canine" kind must have carried the genetic variations necessary for coyotes, foxes, jackals, dingos, fennecs, domestic dogs, etc., then they must have carried the genetic variations for hair color for each. Hair color in domestic dogs is determined by twenty four genes at nine loci. As we only have two animals for each "kind", we can see how ludicrous this line of thinking is. How do they explain it? Lane Lester, a creationist, theorizes a type of "supergene" which would contain all the information necessary to generate these animals. (Lester, "Mimicry", in "The Battle For Creation",1976, p. 251) If this is so, some questions scream out to be answered. First, in the estimated 5,000 years since the flood, evolution has not had nearly enough time to erase all traces of these "supergenes". Where are they today? Secondly, if these genes held all information necessary to create both fresh and salt water fish, what is to stop the salt-water fish from getting the fresh-water genes? After all, genetic division is completely random in nature, and most offspring from these "supergene" creatures would be unviable. Thirdly, we know that strangely shaped chromosomes and odd-numbered gene sets will disrupt meiotic cell division. Such conditions surely existed in these "supergene" animals, and therefore, their offspring would be born sterile. The supergene is, like much of creationist thinking, found unviable under scientific evaluation and must be discarded.
Now, would you like to talk about the 30 varieties of A and B antigens in the HLA region and how five individuals could form 30 sets of genes? Anywhere between a third and half of human genes are polymorphic, which means that they work in conjunction with other genes to generate a particular trait. Even if none of the five sets of genes we have to work with ever had an allele in common, there are still too few genetic possibilities to allow for all thirty varieties of the A and B antigen in the HLA region. If we allow all of the members of Noah's party to be heterozygous in every locus, it still would not solve the problem. In fact, it would cause more problems. We would still not have enough genes available to produce all 30 antigens, and all the members of Noah's crew would be dead. According to Dobzhansky, it is questionable whether an individual with a high percentage of heterozygous alleles (more than 5-20%) would even be viable. (Dobzhansky, "Evolution", 1972, p. 72)
> Brian
> Lane Lester has been laughed off the stage for many years, Roger, his
> ideas are completely and totally invalid. Try again.
>
> RH
> How about Darwin who did field studies and observed extensive variation in
> traits among individuals in a population. Then, there was Mendel who did
> some basic research on heredity and theorized about the existence of a
> genetic code. Seems like other guys validated his results. So, who's Lane
> Lester -- a comedian?
One of yours, Roger. It isn't a matter of the existence of a genetic code, it is the basic problem that there isn't enough basic variation in the code of five individual humans, or two individual animals, to result in the sort of genetic variation we see today. Creationists have been trying to dig their way out of this particular hole for years, Roger, completely without success. You're not faring any better, I'm afraid. In fact, it looks like you've been so completely snowed by these people that you actually think what they have to say is scientifically valid.
-Brian