Want to hear something depressing? Type this into google: “humans apes 46 48 chromosomes”. If you’re knowledgeable about biology, you know that humans have 46 chromosomes, while gorillas, chimps and orangutans have 48. Further, human chromosome #2 looks very much like two chromosomes have fused together into one — neatly explaining where the “missing” chromosome went – and revealing that at one time humans had a chromosome layout just like our ape ancestors. It’s pretty darn good evidence for common descent. (Here’s a video by Ken Miller explaining it.)
But, what happens when you type those terms into google? You get these results:
1. (Young Earth Creationist) Answers in Genesis: A Tale of Two Chromosomes (Oddly, the page is blank, but the internet archive has a copy.)
2. (Creationist) Does anyone remember when humans had 48 chromosomes ? – Yahoo! Answers
3. (Neutral) Chromosome – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
4. (Pro-Evolution) Apes vs Human Chromosome Relationship
5. (Intelligent Design) And the Miller Told His Tale: Ken Miller’s Cold (Chromosomal …
6. (Intelligent Design) Evolution News & Views: And the Miller Told His Tale: Ken Miller’s …
7. (Blocked Access; You have to pay to read the article) Orthologous numbering of great ape and human chromosomes is …
8. (Pro-Evolution) Do all Primates (except humans) have 48 Chromosomes? – Evolution …
9. (Pro-Evolution powerpoint) Fusion Event
10. (Pro-Evolution powerpoint) Evolution: Part 2
Creationist spin controls the highest ranked articles, and the pro-evolution articles in the top eight do a poor job of explaining this as evidence for evolution to the common reader. It’s dismal, especially when evolutionists definitely have this nailed as evidence for evolution. I’d much rather see articles like this at the top. My guess is that google is favoring the most recent articles over earlier ones.
Here’s another video explaining the same evidence.
Also, Ken Miller explains this evidence at the Dover trial, but unfortunately this website is not working now. It’s going to be fixed soon.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/day1am2.html
I’m not surprised the Christian creationist organization called the Discovery Institute has their (as usual dishonest) explanation for human chromosome #2. They know they’re lying about everything (unless they really are just plain stupid), but that’s how they make a living, lying for Jeebus.
I typed “humans apes 46 48 chromosomes” into Google and got this page as the top hit! Good going! You should do some internet consulting!
Google’s new buttons allowing you to delete or ascend search results are supposedly just for your own personal searches, but I have to assume that since Google aggregates all data some way and somehow, popular polling and click-thrus of search results will affect other people’s future searches. I guess we need to nix those creationist/ID ones and ascend the others.
Uh, wow. I wasn’t expecting to see that. Although, I guess I now have the most recent article, plus I have that exact sequence of words.
I still find it bizarre when I search for a topic on google, and occasionally find one of my posts within the first page or two of results. Part of me still thinks that someone’s playing a prank on me.
Unfortunately, a depressing number of people have only seen the Creationist version of these topics. I like to think popular science today as existing in two entirely different states: the ‘real’ version and Creationist one. Ideas move strictly from the former to the latter, after they’ve moved through a filter of ignorance.
tinyfrog-
I might be missing something, but- if 2 chromosomes fused into 1, that would reduce the chromosome count from 48 to 47?
> I might be missing something, but- if 2 chromosomes fused into 1, that would reduce the chromosome count from 48 to 47?
Well, no. You have 46 chromosomes, or 23 pairs of chromosomes. The way that the chromosomes work is this: you get half your chromosomes from your mother and half your chromosomes from your father.
So, your mother’s contribution to your chromosomes is: Chromosome 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 + one X Chromosome
If you’re a male (like me), then your father contributed the following to your chromosomes: Chromosome 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 + one Y Chromosome.
Add them all up and you have 46 chromosomes. Apes, on the other hand, have two chromosomes in place of our Chromosome 2. (We refer to them as Chromosome 2a and Chromosome 2b.) And since we have two copies of chromosome 2, they have two copies of 2a and two copies of 2b – for a total of 4.
Got you. Thanks for taking the time to explain-
And so, chromosomes just seem to like to ‘fuse’? And just how common is this ‘naturally fusing’ phenomena in other species? Kindly relate to us all the other species in which ‘fusing’ of chromosomes has occurred. Just trotting out a pseudo-feasible explanation is about one-click away from junk-science.
Basics: How can chromosome numbers change?
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/04/basics_how_can_chromosome_numb.php
Here’s a case of a woman with a bizarre chromosome fusion/fission that she passed on to her daughter:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/02/life_will_find_a_way.php
And comparisons of human and putterfish genomes suggests that since our common ancestor, we’ve had lots of chromosome fusions and fissions:
http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/pufferfish_and_ancestral_genomes/
Hello tiny frog person,
Your answer to Gary about chromosome fusion isn’t quite right, because it presumes the same fusion of two separate chromosomes occured at the same time in the same cell, which is not at all likely. A better explanation can be found here:
http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/luskins_ludicrous_genetics/
Although it appears that Dr. Myers is wrong about it being a Robertsonian translocation. Nobody’s perfekt
Anyway, I know I am a year late, but I think that’s better than never, don’t you?
Look up the Summarians. I am doing a speech presentation for class. According to the Summarians, humans or what the Anunaki called us the ‘Adam’ were genetically engineered from homoerectus and we were created in their likeness. They fused the two chromosomes together and created us to mine gold and do their chores. Eventually the revolt of ranks of these beings that created us had to do with ‘The Fallen’ or ‘The Watchers’ mating with human females or the ‘Adam’ female thee ‘Eve’. That created nephilim, the half breeds that with birth defects. Pretty cut and dry but if you do the research you’ll find this is why we have 46 chromosomes and two are fused together. There is no missing link.
If you look at ancient scripture you will notice there is somthing missing from the bible. It is the story of Lilith. Lilith was before Eve. Adam wanted Lilith to be under Adam, and when she refused and went back to god punished him. That is when Adam went to god, god then agreed to let him sleep, took his own rib and made Eve. Now he could make Eve under him so technicly that is all the same story. I saw this on the History or Science channel.
nice to know ,we are all a product of inbreeding.
lol
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Isn’t 24 + 24 with 2 merged 47? So shouldn’t humans have 47 chromosomes by this “fusion” logic, not 46? Unless we descended from apes but lost a chromosome in addition to the fusion?
No, if one of the regular chromosomes fuse, then both copies are fused. This brings 48 chromosomes down to 46.
(In other words, you have one copy of the chromosome from your father and one copy of the chromosome from your mother. Since they are fused on both lineages, you end up with 2 fewer chromosomes.)