Episodes

  • What is a chronogenealogy?
    Jun 4 2024
    In this third installment in our series on biblical genealogy, Dr Rob explains why the data in Genesis 5 and 11 are so important. These are not just lists of names. The added ages allows us to piece together a timeline of biblical history. Problem is, you can't directly connect the two passages. A several-year ambiguity is created when you try. There are other interesting factoids that pop out when one studies the chronogenealogies, so you will enjoy this episode much. Links: SCAPER (a creationist organization in Norway) Undeland Mission farm The biblical minimum and maximum age of the earth Biblical chronogenealogies LXX vs MT articles Length of the Egyptian Sojourn
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    Less than 1 minute
  • Getting started with Biblical Genealogy
    May 28 2024
    In this second installment on biblical genealogy, Dr Rob explains why all those names (or at least most of them) in the Bible are so important. This should be encouraging to anyone who struggles to read the Bible for comprehension.
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    Less than 1 minute
  • Ancestor vs descendant trees
    May 21 2024
    This is the first in a multi-part series on biblical genealogies. To understand what we are dealing with, we first need to know that there are two completely different types of name lists in the Bible. The first, an ancestor tree is easy. Ancestor trees are balanced and have a known number of people at each level. Even better, nearly all biblical ancestor trees only list fathers, so there is but one person at each level. The second, descendent trees, are the stuff of genealogical nightmares. Dr Rob makes it all easy. Here are some helpful images. Ancestor trees: 2. A descendant tree: 3. A mixed tree:
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    Less than 1 minute
  • What is the longest match between the human and chimpanzee genomes?
    May 17 2024
    Human-chimpanzee similarity is a hotly-debated topic in the evolution-creation wars. Are we 98, 95, 90, or 85% similar? One way to get at the question is to ask what is the longest stretch of DNA that is shared between the two species. This is a very difficult question to answer! But, unperturbed, Dr Rob set out to answer it. Will our fearless hero be able to pull it off? Spoiler alert: not quite, but the path of discovery is still very interesting. LastZ github.com/lastz/lastz LastZ chaining github.com/hillerlab/make_lastz_chains Mummer4 mummer4.github.io/ Blast blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi Telomere-to-Telomere Consortium primate projects github.com/marbl/Primates Python python.org/ Standard Bases: A: Adenine C: Cytosine G: Guanine T: Thymine (in DNA) U: Uracil (in RNA) Ambiguous Bases (IUPAC Codes): These codes are used when there is ambiguity in the nucleotide present at a particular position: R: A or G (puRine) Y: C or T (pYrimidine) S: G or C W: A or T (Weak) K: G or T (Keto) M: A or C (aMino) B: C, G, or T (not A) (B comes after A) D: A, G, or T (not C) (D comes after C) H: A, C, or T (not G) (H comes after G) V: A, C, or G (not T) (V comes after U; U is replaced with T in DNA) N: Any base (A, C, G, T) (N for any nucleotide) Silver Comet Trail silvercometga.com/
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    29 mins
  • Junk or genius? How functional is the human genome? Part 2
    Mar 19 2024
    https://youtu.be/-jpoxCZgZKQ Is the human genome highly functional or mostly junk? This is a question that is not only being asked in the creation-evolution debate; it is a question raging in the ivory tower as well. The 'old guard' is much more likely to resist any claim that large swaths of the genome are useful. The 'young punks' in science is more willing to accept the obvious fact that the genome is highly functional. Who is going to win? In this episode, Dr Rob puts a few more nails in the coffin of junk DNA.. Notes and links:' Carter 2023 What proportion of the human genome is actually functional? And how much variation is tolerable? Chen et al. 2023 A genomic mutational constraint map using variation in 76,156 human genomes Moran 2023 What's in your genomes? 90% of your genome is junk
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    16 mins
  • DNA – highly functional or mostly junk? Part 1
    Mar 3 2024
    Is the human genome highly functional or mostly junk? This is a question that is not only being asked in the creation-evolution debate; it is a question raging in the ivory tower as well. The 'old guard' is much more likely to resist any claim that large swaths of the genome are useful. The 'young punks' in science is more willing to accept the obvious fact that the genome is highly functional. Who is going to win? In this episode, Dr Carter highlights four new studies that ratchet the argument toward high function. Notes and links:' Carter 2023 What proportion of the human genome is actually functional? And how much variation is tolerable? Zhang et al. 2023 FOXP3 recognizes microsatellites and bridges DNA through multimerization Walter 2024 Are non-protein coding RNAs junk or treasure? Stepankiw et al. 2023 The human genome contains over a million autonomous exons Chen et al. 2023 A genomic mutational constraint map using variation in 76,156 human genomes Moran 2023 What's in your genomes? 90% of your genome is junk
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    28 mins
  • The Incredible Shrinking Human Genome
    Feb 13 2024
    No, the size of the genome has not changed, but the number of genes we thought it contains certainly has. After lots of double checking, there are fewer known protein coding genes today (~19,000) than there were when the human genome was first published, and even that count (~23,000) was shockingly small, according to the predictions of the world's top geneticists. The nature of the genome has consistently surprised people, but mostly because they applied Darwinian concepts to it. Instead, the genome is a wonderful testimony to the engineering prowess of God, who built something unexpected. LInks: GeneSweep One-gene-one-enzyme Central dogma of molecular biology Amaral et al. 2014 The status of the human gene catalogue, Nature 622(7981):41-47. What on earth is a ‘gene’? Slicing and dicing the genome The Barrier has been breached: new discoveries are challenging neo-Darwinism
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    14 mins
  • James 3 vs the anticreationists
    Jan 16 2024
    A slew of videos has recently come out arguing for and against the work of Dr Jeffrey Tomkins, who claims humans and chimps are only about 85% similar. His detractors have made some massive blunders and I attempt to document them here. This is not to gloat, however. I understand that all humans are bigoted, biased, myopic, jealous, envious, etc., including all scientists. So, we'll apply James 3:1 ("Not many of you should presume to be teachers...for know that we will be judged more strictly) and Philippians 2:3... (Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit...) to the situation as we outline multiple lapses of logic and analysis that have been done in an attempt to discredit Tomkins' work. To be fair, though, the main person in my crosshairs has admitted to making these mistakes. I am only documenting things for posterity. Notes and links: James 3:1–2 patternsofevidence.com/patterns-plus The 3rd Commandment Dr Jeffrey Tomkins Blast Gutsick Gibbon, A Professional Creationist Agrees with Me: Tomkins Wrong, 30 Dec 2023. Roohif, Jeffrey Tomkins is allergic to controls, 29 Dec 2023. Note: I made several mistakes when describing Roohif's results. First, he was looking at older trace read datasets, not the contig database I (and Gutsick Gibbon, and Tomikins in his 2018 paper) have been working with, so his conclusions about vector, etc., contamination do not apply here. Second, I stated that he only tested a few of the problematic areas, but he actually performed several thorough tests. Third, I also conflated his analysis on non-aligning subsequences in Blast matches with his analysis of the sequences for which Blast failed to find any alignment at all. After being challenged on a few of these points, and upon re-watching the video, paying attention this time (!) I stand corrected. Yet, that was but a small portion of my presentation and I included it almost as supplementary information, trying to cover all bases. In retrospect, I could easily have left it out entirely. Gutsick Gibbon's Blast program on Github: GGBlast Philippians 2:3–11
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    31 mins