Sunday, 25 June 2017

The Chromosome Story

I am to some degree....fascinated by DNA and associated topics.  Over the past couple of months, I've been on a fair amount of reading about chromosomes.

You probably don't remember the pitch by our high school science teacher.....but humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes....totaling 46.  Apes have a total of 24 pairs of chromosomes....totaling 48.  What makes the key difference is that missing chromosome situation....but oddly enough, it's not really missing.  On the rear of 2nd row of the human the missing chromosome group....'fused' neatly onto the end.  In a way, it's not really's just slightly altered.

So this week, I came to this 'new' odd story (it's been around for seven years).  The Chinese have found this guy who has 44 chromosomes (a pair less), but it's the same story.....his missing chromosomes are also tightly packed and hidden within the 44.

How does he come to have 44?

After a fair amount of reading, there is a basic story to this.  He's living in a region where there aren't a lot of people, and some folks end up marrying cousins.  The general science story is that by this inbreeding.....the cousin-marriage after cousin-marriage situation....finally produced this one guy with the 44 chromosomes.  How many did it take?  No one really says.  You would think that some Einstein-PhD guy would be in the middle of this and asking a lot of questions....but it doesn't appear that way.  You could be looking at 40-odd cousin-marriages over the past 500 years to reach this stage.

For a new stage of humans to emerge out of the 44-chromosome guy?  The general explanation given by the science folks is that if he did have a kid with a normal 46-chromosome'd likely result in a 46-chromosome kid.  ONLY if he had a relationship with a woman with 44-chromosomes....would it likely result in a 44-chromosome unique kid.

So, this brings up a report where a 44-chromosome Turkish woman was found.  Her case isn't detailed as much.  The odds of an introduction of the Turkish gal and the Chinese guy?  No one suggests that but it would be a curious situation.

Across the globe?  That's the thing....most folks don't typically go and have DNA analysis done of themselves.  We might be shocked to find literally thousands of 44-chromosome folks existing.

But this brings us to the odd prospective of making evolution work from the Ape group to the human group.  You had to have numerous apes living in a very controlled numbers....and inter-breeding over and finally have one single 46-chromosome male or female, and then by luck....within a few have a second of the opposite sex, and that those two mated-up and had kids.

Does this story help or hurt the evolutionist?  It would suggest that evolution is a continual thing and not yet finished.  For the creationist?  They could claim that God is still at working and changing the dynamics.  For the realist, it simply means that a million-odd dynamics are continually at work....changing the world minute by minute.

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