Topic: Bacteria make major evolutionary shift in the lab

Good and quick read.
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html?feedId=online-news_rss20

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?It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.? Voltaire

Nice read!

Thanks for posting that.

Goodbye, ID.

WebShaman | The keenest sorrow (and greatest truth) is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.
- Sophocles

Behe has posted his usual convoluted illogic on the subject: http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK3U696N278Z93O

Very interesting observation to be sure. Thanks for the post.

Goodbye ID? puh-leeeze Goodbye "creationism" is more accurate.

. . . : : . . Innervating Your Eyes & Mind : . . .

Cool.

It would be amazing to see a similar long standing laboratory observation on multi celullar organisms.

poi, are you volunteering?

DL, I just read Behe's response. He makes an interesting point about how many mutations are required before we see a true benefit to an organism. I curious as to what exactly is your problem with his position and/or post?

. . . : : . . Innervating Your Eyes & Mind : . . .

Sorry I'm of the genus geekus programmitae not geekus biologicalamary. My experiments deal with tiny bits of code not tiny organisms.



(Edited by poi on 06-10-2008 21:43)

quote:

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Bugimus said:

DL, I just read Behe's response. He makes an interesting point about how many mutations are required before we see a true benefit to an organism. I curious as to what exactly is your problem with his position and/or post?. . . : : . . Innervating Your Eyes & Mind : . . .

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The problem is

1) that evolution on this level requires multiple mutations/selections building upon each other is well understood, is confirmed in this experiment, the confirmation of which is a strong argument in favor of darwinian evolution, and is a concept which is often used by creationists to argue *against* evolution - arguing that such cumulative mutations do not/could not happen. They do. Clearly.

2) He argues a pro-evolution argument, and then concludes that therefore evolution is not how it happened....


( And to recap: ID = Creationism. )

(Edited by DL-44 on 06-10-2008 23:10)

That's neat, but...

quote:

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Lenski's experiment is also yet another poke in the eye for anti-evolutionists, notes Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago. "The thing I like most is it says you can get these complex traits evolving by a combination of unlikely events," he says. "That's just what creationists say can't happen."

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...every time someone professing to know what evolution is makes fun of creationists for discounting evolution as a theory of creation - which it is not - God kills a future grower of bacteria.

quote:

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reisio said:

[...]God kills a future grower of bacteria.

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Which actually is the nice thing to do, with Karma being attributed by 'living entities' quanta - believe me, once you've killed
100 quantillion bacterio or fungi, you're very far down the cosmic ladder again. Better to start again over before
that happens

quote:

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In The Edge of Evolution I had argued that the extreme rarity of the development of chloroquine resistance in malaria was likely the result of the need for several mutations to occur before the trait appeared. Even though the evolutionary literature contains discussions of multiple mutations (5), Darwinian reviewers drew back in horror, acted as if I had blasphemed, and argued desperately that a series of single beneficial mutations certainly could do the trick. Now here we have Richard Lenski affirming that the evolution of some pretty simple cellular features likely requires multiple mutations.

If the development of many of the features of the cell required multiple mutations during the course of evolution, then the cell is beyond Darwinian explanation. I show in The Edge of Evolution that it is very reasonable to conclude they did.

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From Behe

Ermmm...well, it was measured, observed, and proved in the experiment that the features of the cell required multiple mutations here in the course of evolution. Obviously it is explained well by Darwinian Evolution.

As DL pointed out, Behe is confused. That is not news, however, and I think that he is really having problems with this new finding.

Of course, all Creationists/ID supporters will.

Lovin' it!

WebShaman | The keenest sorrow (and greatest truth) is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.
- Sophocles

quote:

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...every time someone professing to know what evolution is makes fun of creationists for discounting evolution as a theory of creation - which it is not - God kills a future grower of bacteria.

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...and every time a creationist dismisses evolution theory in favour of ID conjecture, Darwin rises from the grave to take a dump on their pillow while they're sleeping.

I once left a tiny piece of code by itself and when I returned it had developed the trait of crashing my computer. Such a cute little bugger.