Evolution is out of time

I discussed this a bit on last night’s Darkstream, but because my grasp of the technicalities of how genetics work is close to nonexistent, I didn’t even try to delve into the details. It’s much better to simply read the linked articles; I leave it to those more versed in the subject to determine how valid the reports of the massive gap between the oft-reported 98 percent estimated similarity between the chimp and human genomes and what genetic scientists are actually seeing now as their ability to analyze the various genomes improves.

The first exhibit is an interview with a creationist geneticist, which will no doubt be improperly dismissed by scientistry fetishists with an appeal to the genetic fallacy.

Dr. Tomkins: My motivation started when I arrived here and was given the task of researching the human-chimpanzee similarity issue because people ask about this in churches. They hear the claim that humans and chimps are 98 to 99{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b} similar. People want to know if that’s true. Before working here, I’d not investigated that issue. I ran a genome center for over five years and investigated various plants and animals but never the human-chimpanzee comparison. I went into it with an open mind and began reading all the literature on the subject—this started about eight years ago. I looked at the top six scientific publications that proposed a 98 to 99{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b} DNA similarity between modern humans and modern chimpanzees.

Brian: A 98 to 99{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b} genetic similarity between modern humans and modern chimps—why is that important?

Dr. Tomkins: It’s very important to theoretical evolutionists. The 98 to 99{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b} claim is a theory—it’s speculative. They need a similarity that close to have humans and chimps evolve in the alleged three- to six-million-year timespan from a supposed human-chimpanzee common ancestor. Their statistical models need that 98 to 99{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b} similarity.

Brian: What did you find in the literature?

Dr. Tomkins: The first thing I noticed when I began reading these articles was that researchers were throwing out a lot of data. They were cherry-picking the areas of DNA between humans and chimps that were highly similar and throwing out areas, including areas that would not line up properly. Areas that don’t line up are dissimilar. When I researched the data, I was coming up with DNA similarities between 81 to 86{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b} when I included the dissimilar data. I published a paper on this.1 This is way outside the realm of theoretical evolution.

Brian: What should the evolutionary community say about this?

Dr. Tomkins: They have reacted to a lot of my research since that first paper. There’s a lot of DNA sequence data that is publicly available in databases. I began working with the data myself, and over a number of years I refined my techniques. I used an algorithm developed by evolutionists that turned out to be a bad algorithm—so there’s been a lot of trial and error. But I finally got to the point where I published a paper in 2016.2 It was the most comprehensive study I’ve done yet, and I looked at all 101 data sets that went into originally building the chimpanzee genome.

I sampled 25,000 sequences at random from each of the data sets and then began analyzing and comparing them to human. Over half of the data sets were extremely similar to human, and the other half were extremely dissimilar to human. It appeared the initial chimpanzee genome was contaminated with human DNA, which is a huge problem in genomics.

There’s a number of studies by secular researchers showing that many public DNA databases, from bacteria to fish, have significant levels of human contamination. Human DNA literally gets into the samples. Contamination is a major issue. Human DNA comes from researchers’ fingers, coughing, sneezing, etc., and it gets into the samples. Now researchers are taking greater steps to alleviate that problem. This was especially prevalent back in the earliest phases of genome projects, when the chimpanzee was sequenced.

Brian: Wouldn’t some of the human DNA that made it into the raw data affect the results of any comparison analyses?

Dr. Tomkins: It has a huge effect because the chimpanzee genome is stitched together using the human genome as a scaffold. It’s like a puzzle—researchers used the human DNA “picture on the box” to assemble the chimp genome. The chimp DNA sequences used were all about 750 bases long. Not only was the chimp genome built using the human genome as a guide, it also has human DNA contamination in it, so it showed a lot of similarity from the contamination.

Brian: Even with those factors in place that skewed the data to a more human genome, is it closer to the 98{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b} or the 86{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b} maximum you observed?

Dr. Tomkins: It’s difficult to determine because it is a flawed product. I based my research on human-chimp similarity on the half of the data sets that appear to have much less human DNA. Based on my work, I’m seeing not more than an 85{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b} DNA similarity of chimpanzee to human, and that’s a maximum. It’s probably less than that.

The second exhibit is even more interesting, because an evolutionary biologist who is the Professor of Evolutionary Genomics at the University of London has been seeing much the same thing in his review of the various chimp-human genomic studies:

When assessing the total similarity of the human genome to the chimp genome, we also need to bear in mind that roughly 5{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b} of the human genome has not been fully assembled yet, so the best we can do for that 5{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b} is predict how similar it will be to the chimpanzee genome. We do not yet know for sure. The chimpanzee genome assembly is less well assembled, so in future we may assemble parts of the chimpanzee genome that are similar to the human genome – this is another source of uncertainty to keep in mind.

To come up with the most accurate current assessment that I could of the similarity of the human and chimpanzee genome, I downloaded from the UCSC genomics website the latest alignments (made using the LASTZ software) between the human and chimpanzee genome assemblies, hg38 and pantro6. See discussion post #35 for details. This gave the following for the human genome:

4.06{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b} had no alignment to the chimp assembly
5.18{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b} was in CNVs relative to chimp
1.12{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b} differed due to SNPs in the one-to-one best aligned regions
0.28{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b} differed due to indels within the one-to-one best aligned regions

The percentage of nucleotides in the human genome that had one-to-one exact matches in the chimpanzee genome was 84.38{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b}

In order to assess how improvements in genome assemblies can change these figures, I did the same analyses on the alignment of the older PanTro4 assembly against Hg38 (see discussion post #40). The Pantro4 assembly was based on a much smaller amount of sequencing than the Pantro6 assembly (see discussion post #39). In this Pantro4 alignment:

6.29{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b} had no alignment to the chimp assembly
5.01{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b} was in CNVs relative to chimp
1.11{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b} differed due to SNPs in the one-to-one best aligned regions
0.28{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b} differed due to indels within the one-to-one best aligned regions

The percentage of nucleotides in the human genome that had one-to-one exact matches in the chimpanzee genome was 82.34{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b}.

Thus the large improvement in the chimpanzee genome assembly between PanTro4 and PanTro6 has led to an increase in CNVs detected, and a decrease in the non-aligning regions. It has only increased the one-to-one exact matches from 82.34{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b} to 84.38{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b} even though the chimpanzee genome assembly is at least 8{e5873ef35c49232e29b64cdfe957a2c94da2fd9855660473ec610b770b20216b} more complete (I think) in PanTro6.

I have already shown that it is highly improbable that the speed of mutational fixation is sufficient to account for the estimated 98 percent similar relationship which needs to account for 30 million fixed mutations since the Last Chimp-Human Common Ancestor, so this massive increase in the observed difference between the two genomes, which is presently calculated to end up somewhere between 84.38 to 93.43 percent, is enough to not only drive the final nail in the Neo-Darwinian coffin, but wrap it in iron bands, encase it in concrete, and drop it into the Marianas Trench.

Because what we’re seeing here is inept statistical wizardry that involves everything from contaminated evidence to cherry-picked data and the ridiculous assumption that literally ALL of the remaining unknown areas will, in the future, be found to perfectly align with orthodox Neo-Darwinian theory. And the priests of TENS are still desperately clinging to that improbable assumption even though it was only proved to be correct for 25.5 percent of the area that was filled in over the course of the seven years that passed between the publications of PanTro4 and PanTro6.

Of course, no one here will be even remotely surprised to observe that Prof. Buggs’s original 2008 prediction was too low because, in the 2005 paper upon which he relied, the biologists got the math wrong.

Wait, what?

Did John Kasich really echo Q’s version of the death of John McCain? On CNN, of all places?

I’d always assumed that rumors of secret military tribunals executing traitorous politicians were absurd on their face, especially considering that the God-Emperor still hasn’t locked her up, but on the other hand, look at the absolute lack of expression on the reporter’s face. It’s like he’s totally focused on not drawing any attention to Kasich’s astonishing little slip there. That, to me, is an absolutely fascinating response.

Of course, CNN would be one of the safest places to make a mistake of this magnitude, considering how few people actually watch it these days.

Share your thoughts

Now that UNAUTHORIZED.TV has been in operation for more than 24 hours, I would welcome your thoughts, opinions, feature requests, and bug reports, especially if you are a subscriber.

The latest Darkstream is now up, as are four more shorts by Owen Benjamin, in case you haven’t seen any of those.

Upon further review, we do have the ability to offer annual subscriptions, but not variable-price subscriptions or one-time donations yet. So, if you have any opinions on what low-end and high-end annual subscriptions should be for the time being, please feel free to opine on the subject as well. At present, these simply represent different levels of support for the channel, as all subscriptions provide access to the same premium content.

Some of my ideas that I haven’t seen anyone mention yet:

  • User-limited superchats. This would permit the streamer to define ahead of time how many superchats will be permitted during the session. It creates stress when one has to choose between extending a stream and not answering a question to a paying supporter.
  • Dual-streaming option for simultaneous streaming to YouTube.
  • Assignable memberships. This would permit me to grant Unauthorized access to Voxiversity subscribers without forcing them to pay a second time.
  • Subscribers-only download option.

Thanks to all of you for such an unexpectedly successful launch! If you haven’t subscribed yet, you can do so here.

Mailvox: on my permanent record

A banned commenter wishes to establish something for the record and I am inclined to allow it.

But let the record show that you can not answer a simple question.

I admit I never thought I’d see the day that VD would run away from a question.  You are the guy who makes fun of people for being afraid to debate you.  Yet, a simple question has me banned.

Noted.
Tank

To which I responded:

I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you’re not lying, you’re just a moron. I have refused to answer thousands of questions over the years. Yours was off-topic and did not merit any answer.

You’re also socially clueless. You come into my place making demands and “calling me out”, then act surprised when you’re thrown out?

I ban everyone who acts the way you do.  But yes, we’ll make sure the record shows this on the blog.

Every. Single. Time.

If you ever wonder why I exhibit such open contempt for gamma males, imagine having to deal with this sort of thing EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. the entitled little freakshows don’t like an answer you’ve given them, or the way you’ve refused to answer them, or how you haven’t responded to their email, or that you haven’t responded to them within their expected time frame, or have committed any of the myriad of deeply personal offenses that triggers their ever-bubbling sense of outrage.

They FEEL American

But they’re not, they never were, and they never will be. A telling confession from a review of an entirely unnecessary book by the eminently contemptible Max Boot.

The best bits of The Corrosion of Conservatism come early, when Boot describes his childhood under Soviet tyranny and his years as a precocious, politically hyper-conscious teenager in Reagan-era California. The most sympathetic character we encounter is his mother—the ­fiercely loving émigré, who “enrolled me in swim classes, piano lessons, and Hebrew school to give me the athletic, musical, and religious education that she had lacked.” All this, though money was tight and his ­father largely absent.

Yet Boot never took to sports, nor the piano, nor Hebrew study, and he didn’t retain his native Russian. His real passion was America. Boot was six years old when pressure exerted by Sen. Henry Jackson forced the communist regime to allow families like his to emigrate. In a passage that had me underlining and writing “Amen!” in the margins, he explains: “I have never visited Russia since leaving. I feel entirely American.” That describes my own immigrant sensibility, though I came from Iran just before I turned fourteen.

But it soon becomes clear that Boot views his adopted homeland through a set of abstract, free-­floating propositions about rights and norms—his patriotism is attached to liberal proceduralism. The religious and spiritual warp and weft of the land elude him entirely. That is, when he isn’t disgusted by them.

America is not, and has never been, an idea. America is a nation, which means, by definition, that Americans are an actual and distinct living people. The claim that America is an idea or a creed is not merely an insult, it is an existential attack on the genetic Posterity of the American Revolution, a nation that has been invaded, adulterated, betrayed, confused, and demoralized to the point that it doesn’t recognize itself or even know what it is.

If you want to know why the military doesn’t defend the borders, and why the people don’t defend their lands, their neighborhoods, or their families, it is because the American nation has been literally robbed of its identity. And that is why the charlatans and gatekeepers of the Right condemn identity politics, identity, and nationalism so vehemently, because they are alien usurpers who are desperate to keep the rightful heirs of the Revolution from claiming the very country their forefathers founded.

The review is much more perspicacious than the book, which makes sense, if one considers who the author of the latter is, even though the reviewer’s identity complications prevent him from grasping why the metaphysical ideals of the West have been eclipsed.

Without a shared vision of the common good, society devolves into consumerist cliques and warring tribal factions. With the eclipse of the metaphysical ideals that underlie their conception of reason, America and the West can barely address other civilizations, much less win them over. And it turns out that the consent principle, without more, can authorize all manner of degradation, most shockingly evident in such phenomena as the sale of children and wombs in surrogacy, the unrestricted circulation of hard-core, misogynistic pornography under the banner of “free speech,” and the legalization of death-by-doctor throughout the developed world.

The liberal consensus, then, has emerged as a profoundly illiberal, repressive force—precisely because it grants the autonomous individual such wide berth to define what is good and true. If maximizing individual autonomy is the highest good and, indeed, the very purpose of political community, then for ­Chelsea Manning to exercise “her” autonomy requires the state to compel the rest of us to say that “she” wasn’t born male. And even absent state compulsion, as already exists in Canada and elsewhere, the institutions charged with upholding the consensus—corporations, big tech, universities, and elite media—can exact a high price for dissent.

The free world doesn’t feel free.

They just keep going off script

Muslim students blame the Democratic Party politicians and activists who have been relentlessly hurling hate speech at Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) for the violent events in New Zealand:

Muslim students have berated Chelsea Clinton at a vigil for the victims of the New Zealand mosques massacre, saying she is to blame for the attack.

Clinton, who is pregnant with her third child, was attending the vigil at New York University on Friday when senior Leen Dweik began castigating her in an astonishing moment caught on video.

‘This right here is the result of a massacre stoked by people like you and the words that you put out into the world,’ says Dweik, gesturing to the vigil for the 49 who were killed in Christchurch when a white nationalist shooter stormed two mosques.

‘And I want you to know that and I want you to feel that deeply – 49 people died because of the rhetoric you put out there,’ Dweik continues, jabbing her index finger toward Clinton as other students snap their fingers in apparent approval of her words….

According to NYU student Rose Asaf, who posted the video on Twitter, students at the vigil were angry about Clinton’s accusation last month that Rep Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, used ‘anti-Semitic language and tropes’ while criticizing Israel.

It’s rather amusing to see how bewildered the media is about this unanticipated reaction. “Wait, you’re supposed to blame the false flag on white supremacists, WHITE SUPREMACISTS! How can you possibly screw this up?”

I have to admit, I know that the rhetoric of “anti-semitism” is losing its effectiveness, but I never anticipated it backfiring to such a degree, and in such an amusing manner.

Moral and intellectual bankruptcy

What, precisely, comprises “elite” status in the USA today?

Lessons? Here are two. First the good news: We are shocked by the actions of these parents precisely because there is so little corruption in America. If the problems were as systemic as some on the Internet believe, they would hardly raise such an outcry. Denizens of countries where bribery is a way of life look at us and say, “Amateurs.”

The second lesson is not as comforting. Operation Varsity Blues is further evidence of the bankruptcy of American elites. For over a decade now, the legitimacy of elites in politics, foreign policy, central banking, journalism, religion, and economics has crumbled as reality failed to match their rhetoric. Education is the latest sphere where elites have betrayed our country’s institutions and our country’s people by using wealth and connections to rig the rules of the game.

The scandal also points to the flagrant hypocrisy of Hollywood liberalism. No class is more moralistic, more hectoring, more obnoxiously activist than the Hollywood left. They barrage Americans with displays of their virtue, their calls to humanitarianism, their paeans to multiculturalism and feminism, their slanders of President Trump, Vice President Pence, Republicans in general, and conservatives in particular. And they have great sway in national politics. A Democrat’s future depends on the beneficence of Hollywood donors—donors who were well represented among the individuals charged in Operation Varsity Blues.

The entertainment industry liberals talk a good game. But look at their actions. Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey are synonymous with predation. Jussie Smollett was a B-list celebrity until he faked a hate crime against himself and blamed it on supporters of Trump. Now we have actors breaking the law so their kids can go to USC.

Why on Earth should we take political cues from these people? By what right do they portray themselves as enlightened, as advanced, as more sophisticated than half the country, even while they lie, cheat, steal, and assault?

There is nothing genuinely elite about the modern faux-elite. They are not our moral, intellectual, or even physical superiors. They are uniformly frauds, from their dyed-hair on the top of their heads to the lifts they wear in the soles of their shoes. Most of them are not even very attractive or physically fit.

Announcing UNAUTHORIZED

Owen Benjamin, Vox Day, David the Good, and Infogalactic are pleased to announce UNAUTHORIZED.TV.

The Intellectual Outlaws of the Internet

Daily streams and premium content from the most intelligent, the most outrageous, and the most innovative minds on the planet.

Hours of free content every single day!

We launched this a little sooner than we’d planned, due to the fact that YouTube demonetized the Big Bear yesterday afternoon. But we already have over one hundred hours of content, including the Darkstreams, Voxiversities, and Owen’s shorts and live shows.

The premium content is coming soon, but there is no real difference between the $10 Basic subscription and the $25 Premium monthly subscriptions, it’s just about how much support you’re willing and able to offer the channel. Most of the content is, and will remain, free. The $5 Feed the Bear subscription is a replacement for Owen’s YouTube memberships and primarily supports the Big Bear.

There is beta streaming functionality already built into UNAUTHORIZED, so I will do a subscribers-only stream test today to see how it works. If possible, I’ll also test it with Restream to see if simultaneous streaming is an option.

Never let a false flag go to waste

New Zealand’s prime minister wastes no time in attempting to disarm the New Zealand populace:

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is calling for change following the country’s deadliest mass shooting ever.

On Friday morning, at least one shooter opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, leaving at least 49 dead and dozens more injured. Ardern qualified the shootings as a “terrorist attack” in a morning news conference, saying this will remain “one of New Zealand’s darkest days.”

Ardern revealed more details about the shooter in a news conference later in the day, saying the “primary perpetrator” used five guns in their attacks. They had a gun license to carry the “two semiautomatic weapons and two shotguns,” and they got that license in November 2017, Ardern continued. So given that fact — and that there had been three failed “attempts” to change gun laws in the past — Ahern pledged “our gun laws will change.”

The same tactic worked in Australia and England, after all. Not so well in the United States, where the descendants of the American Revolution know better than to permit themselves to be disarmed by their government.