Ken Miller - On Apes and Humans

TRANSCRIPT:

The second thing you saw at the trial was that when data was introduced at the trial which I and another witness introduced from whole genome sequencing , the ID advocates literally had nothing to say. We weren't asked questions in cross examination, the other side never brought it up, they never argued against it, they just left it.

Here's an example : - Many of you may know that a few months ago that the genetic code of the chimpanzee was published. Therefore we can compare our genome to these primate relatives. What do we find? I want to show you one striking finding that dates to about a year ago. You all know that evolution argues that we share a common ancestor with the great apes, the chimpanzees, the gorilla and the orangutan.

Well, if that's true, there should be genetic similarities and in fact there are. But there's something that's really interesting and has the potential, if it were true, to contradict evolutionary common ancestry. And that is that we have 2 fewer chromosomes than the other great apes. We have 46 and they all have 48. Now that's very interesting. Now what does that actually mean? Well, first of all, the 46 chromosomes that we have have, you got 23 from mom and 23 from dad, so its actually 23 pairs. These guys have 24 from each parent, so they have 24 pairs.

So everybody in this room is missing a pair of chromosomes. Now where did it go? Could it have gotten lost in our lineage? If it got lost, if a whole primate chromosome was lost, that would be lethal. So, there's only 2 possibilities. And that is, if these guys really share a common ancestor, that ancestor either had 48 chromozomes or 46. Now, if it had 48, 24 pairs which is probably true because 3 out of 4 have 48 chromozomes, what must have happened is that one pair of chromosomes must have gotten fused.

So, we should be able to look at our genome and discover that one of our chromosomes resulted from the fusion of 2 primate chromosomes. So we should be able to look around our genome, and you know, if we don't find it, evolution is wrong. We don't share a common ancestor. So how would we find it? Biologists in the room would know that chromosomes have nifty little markers. They have markers called centromeres which are DNA sequences which are used to separate them during mitosis and they have cool little DNA sequences on the end called telomeres.

What would happen if a pair of chromosomes got fused? Well, what would happen is that the fusion would put telomeres where they don't belong in the center of the chromosome and the resulting fused chromosome should actually have 2 centromeres. One of them might become inactivated, but nonetheless, it should still be there. So we can scan our genome, and you know what if we don't find that chromosome, evolution is in trouble.

Well, guess what? It's chromosome number 2. Our chromosome number 2 was formed by the fusion of 2 primate chromosomes. This is the paper from 'Nature' a little more than a year ago and I put up a little of the paper. I am sorry it's technical but look at what it says: " Chromosome 2 is unique to our lineage. It emerged as the result of the head to head fusion of 2 chromosomes which remain separate in other primates."

Those of you who have not kept up with how much we know about the genome should pay attention to this cause you will be amazed at how precisely we can look at things. The precise fusion site has been located at base number 114, 455, 823 - 214, 455,838. In other words within 15 bases. And the other thing you'll notice is multiple sub-telemeric duplications; the telemeres that don't belong and low and behold, the centremere which is inactivated corresponds to chimp chromozome number 13.

It's there. It's testable. It's confirms the prediction of evolution. How would ID explain this? Only one way. By shrugging and saying, "That's the way the designer made it. No reason. No rhyme. Presumably there is a designer who designed human chromozome number 2 to make it look like it was fused by the fusion of a primate ancestor."

I'm a roman catholic. I'm a theist in the broadest sense. I would say I believe in a designer but you know, I don't believe in a deceptive one. I don't believe in one who would do this to try to fool us. And therefore I think that this is authentic and I think it tells us something about our ancestors.

LINKS:

• Initial sequence of the chimpanzee genome and comparison with the human genome
• Genome
• Chimpanzee Genome Project
• Diagramatic representation of the location of the fusion site of chromosomes 2A and 2B and the genes inserted at this location.
• The chromosome image below is the online version of chromosome 2 depicted on the Human Genome Landmarks poster.
• Human Chromosome 2 is a fusion of two ancestral chromosomes
• Comparison of the Human and Great Ape Chromosomes as Evidence for Common Ancestry

"If the question is put to me would I rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessed of great means of influence and yet who employs those faculties and that influence for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion—I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape." - Thomas Henry Huxley

Hey! Hey! We're the Monkees!

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