Comments by "Ginny Jolly" (@ginnyjollykidd) on "Are YOU Missing a Muscle??? | Here's a Test to Find Out!!" video.
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@hughcrew
No, actually our bodies don't "weed out" any traits. We have plenty of errors and throwback things. We still develop things as an embryo that were in common ancestors from way back, such as gill slits (which become eyes, ears, nose and mouth), a tail, and webs between our digits. We also have eyes that evolved backwards and aren't nearly as good as fishes or even octopuses. And look up any explanation of the recurrent laryngeal nerve to see how ridiculous it is. Our ankles are cobbled from easily - breakable parts. Why don't our feet have a ball - in - socket joint?
No, parts aren't gotten rid of on purpose. As long as the genes remain in the gene pool, they will be expressed. And some people will have tiny gill slits, some will have a couple of extra tits, and some will have a little more tailbone than the rest of us do.
And there will be people who have the palmeris longus and those who don't. As long as it doesn't interfere with survival, the gene will stick around.
And strangely enough, the genes responsible for organisms making their own vitamin C interfered with our survival, so some time ago, common ancestors to us and a few other primates lost these genes. Or the part of our population that had it didn't live to pass it on. So we who survived don't have it.
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I've definitely got the palmeris longus on both arms. I wasn't sure at first, but I wasn't flexing enough. And I checked and made sure it wasn't the other one. But during the test I wasn't sure if I did, and I wondered if it could be only on one side, and you showed that yes! It could be!
But I'm a throwback. I'll leave that genetic change to the kiddos.
And yes, I believe religion and science can coexist.
In fact I think of someone commanding "Let there be light!" and the Big Bang with all its catastrophic splendor and cacophony happens!
But science —The Standard Model —has been studied and built for thousands of years at least. And not only has evolution been going on these billions of years, we are seeing it in realtime. Any time a microbe changes genetics, that's evolution. Anytime a species dies out, that's evolution. We found out we have useless microbial DNA in our genome. That's evolution. We can use our own genome to track evolutionary changes of microbes as much as changes in our own phenotypes.
That's evolution.
Methylation has appeared, methyl groups placed on DNA that have to do with gene expression. That's evolution in realtime.
That we are multicellular animals with cells that seem like prokaryotes slipped in and took up residence inside. Even mitochondria have their own interstitium and DNA. That is evolution.
But we are aware of ourselves and our surroundings, and we as individuals are always studying "what makes me me?" what makes me different from you but the same as you? Why do we get along, take care of each other, and let each other - help each other - live? What is it about ourselves that can think of these things? Feel these things? Consciously grab and study things? What is consciousness? What is it that makes us live? Where does this come from? I can only think that contemplating such things is religion.
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