Having a BLAST: The Torley Saga, Cont.

There has been an ongoing discussion between Dr. Vincent Torley, a philosopher writing at Uncommon Descent, and myself on the subject of pseudogenes, synteny, and common descent. These are technical terms and the arguments may seem abstruse, but the topic is important because of its implications.

Those who hold to common ancestry accept that, at the very least, each major group of animals is descended from a common ancestor, and some hold that the common ancestry goes all the way back to th...