The Nature article actually does confirm this but the HHMC quote might be misleading in that the ultraconserved element isn’t the closest match. The ultraconserved element is a retrotransposon. It is ultraconserved amongst mammals and is also present (highly but not ultraconserved) in coelacanths. The retrotransposon in question inserts copies of itself into the genome of its host. There are many copies of it in all the organisms mentioned. Insertions of it that appear in the human genome are closer in sequence to some insertions in the coelacanth than they are even to other insertions in the human genome. Thus if you are comparing a copy of this retrotransposon in humans to copies in other organisms you get a closest match in the coelacanth. The only misleading part of the HHMC quote is that the copies are ultraconserved between human and coelacanth.

Thanks for your interest but in regard to me making any correction in the blog post – there is nothing to correct. Anything misleading in regard to HHMC’s use of “ultraconserved” has been addressed in the commentary.

“One of these, a more than 200-base-pair ultraconserved region, 100% identical in mammals, and 80% identical to the coelacanth SINE …”

Nowhere in the Nature article do the authors claim that ultra-conserved DNA in the coelacanth is closer to Humans than is any other animal.

As genes are proported to undergo convergence, I am sure that sometimes the analysis of genes would create a situation where the evolutionary scientist would have a tough time telling the difference between the two.

However, your example is of cells, not genes. In this case, I think it pretty clear that we are encountering convergence. I do, by the way, consider the rediculous extent of convergence to be excellent evidence in favor of intelligent design. I do not believe that MET can do a reasonable job of explaining it.

[/sarcasm]

BTW, the prediction I made in post #53 has already come true – again.

See this article in the New York Times:

“This was just totally out of nowhere, ,” Dr. Meng said in an interview at the museum this week, while pointing to the fossil’s telling features.

In the journal report, Dr. Meng and colleagues wrote, “This discovery extends the earliest record of gliding flight for mammals at least 70 million years earlier in the geological history and demonstrates that mammals were diverse in their locomotor strategies and life styles.” …

“The semi-aquatic mammal Castorocauda and the new gliding mammal,” Dr. Luo said, “literally stretch the boundary of paleontologists’ imagination about what would be possible for the earliest mammals.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12.....tner=MYWAY

Pretty soon we might actually have rabbits in the cambrian

“Humpback whales have brain cells also found in humans”

Horizontal gene transfer?

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_.....112006.php

bFast, I don’t know if a majority of the other genes line up as a phylogenic tree. In fact I doubt any of them line up 100%. If you recall the article Patrick posted, different genes give you different trees.

If so, these guys have a lot of work to do figuring out how all of this HGT is happening. At the moment, my bet is with little green men with microscopes and very sharp needles.

When is this theory going to shatter? How loud will the explosion be?