The Gene Changes Needed to Give Humans Big Brains Points to Design

There is a board I once frequented where I asked to quit getting notifications when I no longer wished to be associated with the board. In so doing, all my comments there got deleted, which I have no objection to and said so at the time. Still, I am glad a preserved some choice comments from a couple of threads. One thread concerned a study which reported on some amazing findings about the genetic differences between us and apes. On the thread I tried to point out that these differences aren't likely to be the product of mere chance with these comments about things said in the study. Quotes from the study in a white background and my comments on it shaded tan background below...

" they also didn’t see it in orangutans and found only truncated, inactive versions in our closest relatives, gorillas and chimpanzees." 

This is not a mere duplication. This is a crucial gene which does not exist except in chimps and gorillas, and then only in a truncated and inactive form. They said it somehow got “repaired” somewhere in the hominid line. You would think an inactive gene that was already truncated would collect more and more mutations until it was a real mess. But in this case when it gets turned back on it increases brain size? 

And check this quote out: 

"“What’s amazing is that there are many signaling pathways that control the development of the embryo and are completely conserved between species. The Notch signaling pathway is the oldest one. You can find it in every animal you look at. It has been used by developing embryos for as long as animals have existed. And yet, there is a very recent innovation in this pathway specifically in the human lineage, through NOTCH2NL,”

So the pathway is conserved in every animal species for hundreds of millions of years yet this quantum leap forward happened so far as we know just this once 3 million years ago? Is it not astounding that a path can be stable and essential for so long and then a game-changing improvement comes about via a repair to a long-deactivated and truncated gene? 

And that happening once is astounding enough, but did you catch this one?.. 

“The Vanderhaeghen team developed a tailored RNA sequencing analysis for specific and sensitive detection of human-specific genes in human fetal cerebral cortex. This allowed them to identify a repertoire of 35 genes unique to humans that are active during development of the cerebral cortex in humans, including NOTCH2NL genes.” 

THIRTY-FIVE functional genes unique to human linneage just on the development of our cerebral cortex. That they know of....

And it goes on like that. For those who will allow themselves the capacity to question whether humans are strictly the result of what we call "natural" evolutionary processes I think the results of the research point toward the answer being a resounding "no".

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