Bacteria evolve...
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Don't you understand that one of the great strengths of science is that it is prepared to admit its mistakes and update itself in the light of new evidence?
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Of course I know that! ;) It was a joke geared towards those people who know how vehemently I've been arguing in favour of science lately. In reality I'm a huge science nerd (as dubbed by many a snotty peer).
:doh: Should have spotted that one!
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MRSA? Oh, I did some work at a sugar refinery in London and scientists came to sample yeasts there because they had evolved to survive better in such a specialised enviornment.
Visit http://www.notreadytogiveup.com/[^] and do something special today.
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Steve_Harris wrote:
Don't you understand that one of the great strengths of science is that it is prepared to admit its mistakes and update itself in the light of new evidence?
Why don't you explain this the The Dip?
Ilíon wrote:
Why don't you explain this the The Dip?
Ha HA! Like preserving an insect in amber. ;)
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Ilíon wrote:
Oh, poor thing! Can't even tell when his behavior is being mocked.
Not going to refute anything in my post, huh? Like I said, victory is mine and all too easy. :^)
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Michael Behe (on his Amazon Blog) discusses this: Multiple Mutations Needed for E. Coli[^]
... I discuss Lenski’s fascinating work in Chapter 7 of The Edge of Evolution, pointing out that all of the beneficial mutations identified from the studies so far seem to have been degradative ones, where functioning genes are knocked out or rendered less active. So random mutation much more easily breaks genes than builds them, even when it helps an organism to survive. That’s a very important point. A process which breaks genes so easily is not one that is going to build up complex coherent molecular systems of many proteins, which fill the cell. In his new paper Lenski reports that, after 30,000 generations, one of his lines of cells has developed the ability to utilize citrate as a food source in the presence of oxygen. (E. coli in the wild can’t do that.) Now, wild E. coli already has a number of enzymes that normally use citrate and can digest it (it’s not some exotic chemical the bacterium has never seen before). However, the wild bacterium lacks an enzyme called a “citrate permease” which can transport citrate from outside the cell through the cell’s membrane into its interior. So all the bacterium needed to do to use citrate was to find a way to get it into the cell. The rest of the machinery for its metabolism was already there. As Lenski put it, “The only known barrier to aerobic growth on citrate is its inability to transport citrate under oxic conditions.” (1) Other workers (cited by Lenski) in the past several decades have also identified mutant E. coli that could use citrate as a food source. In one instance the mutation wasn’t tracked down. (2) In another instance a protein coded by a gene called citT, which normally transports citrate in the absence of oxygen, was overexpressed. (3) The overexpressed protein allowed E. coli to grow on citrate in the presence of oxygen. It seems likely that Lenski’s mutant will turn out to be either this gene or another of the bacterium’s citrate-using genes, tweaked a bit to allow it to transport citrate in the presence of oxygen. (He hasn’t yet tracked down the mutation.) ... [Ilíon: bolding mine]
The Edge of Evolution is Behe's recently published book in which he sets out to determine just *what* "evolut
Ilíon wrote:
A process which breaks genes so easily is not one that is going to build up complex coherent molecular systems of many proteins, which fill the cell.
Same old simple minded creationist garbage. Mutations alone do not cause positive change in an organism. Natural selection is what causes increased complexity and positive changes, random mutations give natural selection something to work with. While it is highly unlikely that an organism will develop a positive random change, if it's odds of survival and reproduction are increased, then that positive mutation will be passed on to future generations while negative ones will be removed from the gene pool over time.
I'm a Christian: I *know* that I'm perverted. - Ilion
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Ilíon wrote:
A process which breaks genes so easily is not one that is going to build up complex coherent molecular systems of many proteins, which fill the cell.
Same old simple minded creationist garbage. Mutations alone do not cause positive change in an organism. Natural selection is what causes increased complexity and positive changes, random mutations give natural selection something to work with. While it is highly unlikely that an organism will develop a positive random change, if it's odds of survival and reproduction are increased, then that positive mutation will be passed on to future generations while negative ones will be removed from the gene pool over time.
I'm a Christian: I *know* that I'm perverted. - Ilion
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What utter ignorance and tripe (and also, intentional misreprestntation of others' positions/claims) you people are capable of spouting!
Ilíon wrote:
What utter ignorance and tripe (and also, intentional misreprestntation of others' positions/claims) you people are capable of spouting!
So instead of arguing against anything I said, you make generalizations about "you people" and act like you are assumed to be right? :|
I'm a Christian: I *know* that I'm perverted. - Ilion
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Ilíon wrote:
What utter ignorance and tripe (and also, intentional misreprestntation of others' positions/claims) you people are capable of spouting!
So instead of arguing against anything I said, you make generalizations about "you people" and act like you are assumed to be right? :|
I'm a Christian: I *know* that I'm perverted. - Ilion
DemonPossessed wrote:
So instead of arguing against anything I said, you make generalizations about "you people" and act like you are assumed to be right? :|
Can you put on your thinking cap, for once, and *try* to be reasonable and logical? And, also, just maybe, try to avoid being logically inconsistent? Or do you enjoy looking like a partisan shill and a hypocrite? You threw out a bunch of non sequiturs and misrepresentations. *AND* you "make generalizations about "[those] people" and act[ed] like you are assumed to be right." This is the sort of thing that you do. And, when you do, which is frequently, I either ignore it or I mock it. But I *never* dignify it by pretending it is other than just what it is.
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DemonPossessed wrote:
So instead of arguing against anything I said, you make generalizations about "you people" and act like you are assumed to be right? :|
Can you put on your thinking cap, for once, and *try* to be reasonable and logical? And, also, just maybe, try to avoid being logically inconsistent? Or do you enjoy looking like a partisan shill and a hypocrite? You threw out a bunch of non sequiturs and misrepresentations. *AND* you "make generalizations about "[those] people" and act[ed] like you are assumed to be right." This is the sort of thing that you do. And, when you do, which is frequently, I either ignore it or I mock it. But I *never* dignify it by pretending it is other than just what it is.
Ilíon wrote:
Or do you enjoy looking like a partisan shill and a hypocrite?
I don't particularly care how I appear to a self absorbed fundamentalist Christian.
Ilíon wrote:
You threw out a bunch of non sequiturs and misrepresentations
I am still waiting on you to refute my post. Self-righteously making unsupported claims doesn't cut it.
I'm a Christian: I *know* that I'm perverted. - Ilion
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Ilíon wrote:
What utter ignorance and tripe (and also, intentional misreprestntation of others' positions/claims) you people are capable of spouting!
So instead of arguing against anything I said, you make generalizations about "you people" and act like you are assumed to be right? :|
I'm a Christian: I *know* that I'm perverted. - Ilion
DemonPossessed wrote:
So instead of arguing against anything I said, you make generalizations about "you people" and act like you are assumed to be right?
Does this come as a surprise? :laugh: If I had a dollar for every time Ilion offered up sound reasoning to back up his position, I'd be no better off at all.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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DemonPossessed wrote:
So instead of arguing against anything I said, you make generalizations about "you people" and act like you are assumed to be right?
Does this come as a surprise? :laugh: If I had a dollar for every time Ilion offered up sound reasoning to back up his position, I'd be no better off at all.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Oakman wrote:
Does this come as a surprise? [Laugh]
Not at all. :laugh: That is his only way of trying to defend his indefensible position. I think he is doing this more in an attempt to prove his superiority to himself than to actually convince anyone.
I'm a Christian: I *know* that I'm perverted. - Ilion
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Oakman wrote:
Does this come as a surprise? [Laugh]
Not at all. :laugh: That is his only way of trying to defend his indefensible position. I think he is doing this more in an attempt to prove his superiority to himself than to actually convince anyone.
I'm a Christian: I *know* that I'm perverted. - Ilion
DemonPossessed wrote:
I think he is doing this more in an attempt to prove his superiority to himself than to actually convince anyone.
When he feels weak, he creates imaginary situations where he can feel strong. In other words, he trains himself not to be stronger or more adequate but only to appear stronger in his own eyes. His efforts to fool himself are only partially successful. However much he deceives himself, the real feelings of inferiority remain. They are the same old feelings of inferiority provoked by the same old situations. They constitute a permanent undercurrent of his psychological make up.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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DemonPossessed wrote:
I think he is doing this more in an attempt to prove his superiority to himself than to actually convince anyone.
When he feels weak, he creates imaginary situations where he can feel strong. In other words, he trains himself not to be stronger or more adequate but only to appear stronger in his own eyes. His efforts to fool himself are only partially successful. However much he deceives himself, the real feelings of inferiority remain. They are the same old feelings of inferiority provoked by the same old situations. They constitute a permanent undercurrent of his psychological make up.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Oakman wrote:
When he feels weak, he creates imaginary situations where he can feel strong. In other words, he trains himself not to be stronger or more adequate but only to appear stronger in his own eyes. His efforts to fool himself are only partially successful. However much he deceives himself, the real feelings of inferiority remain. They are the same old feelings of inferiority provoked by the same old situations. They constitute a permanent undercurrent of his psychological make up.
Looks like you hit the nail on the head.
1.00/5 (1 vote)
... and someone didn't like it. :laugh:
I'm a Christian: I *know* that I'm perverted. - Ilion
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Oakman wrote:
When he feels weak, he creates imaginary situations where he can feel strong. In other words, he trains himself not to be stronger or more adequate but only to appear stronger in his own eyes. His efforts to fool himself are only partially successful. However much he deceives himself, the real feelings of inferiority remain. They are the same old feelings of inferiority provoked by the same old situations. They constitute a permanent undercurrent of his psychological make up.
Looks like you hit the nail on the head.
1.00/5 (1 vote)
... and someone didn't like it. :laugh:
I'm a Christian: I *know* that I'm perverted. - Ilion
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Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
Well, it's a good thing then that science has so consistently proven itself to be completely false.
Waiting for a "science" worshipper to remind Ravel that "science never proves anything" . . . Oh! Silly me! I'm glad I wasn't also holding my breath!
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Michael Behe (on his Amazon Blog) discusses this: Multiple Mutations Needed for E. Coli[^]
... I discuss Lenski’s fascinating work in Chapter 7 of The Edge of Evolution, pointing out that all of the beneficial mutations identified from the studies so far seem to have been degradative ones, where functioning genes are knocked out or rendered less active. So random mutation much more easily breaks genes than builds them, even when it helps an organism to survive. That’s a very important point. A process which breaks genes so easily is not one that is going to build up complex coherent molecular systems of many proteins, which fill the cell. In his new paper Lenski reports that, after 30,000 generations, one of his lines of cells has developed the ability to utilize citrate as a food source in the presence of oxygen. (E. coli in the wild can’t do that.) Now, wild E. coli already has a number of enzymes that normally use citrate and can digest it (it’s not some exotic chemical the bacterium has never seen before). However, the wild bacterium lacks an enzyme called a “citrate permease” which can transport citrate from outside the cell through the cell’s membrane into its interior. So all the bacterium needed to do to use citrate was to find a way to get it into the cell. The rest of the machinery for its metabolism was already there. As Lenski put it, “The only known barrier to aerobic growth on citrate is its inability to transport citrate under oxic conditions.” (1) Other workers (cited by Lenski) in the past several decades have also identified mutant E. coli that could use citrate as a food source. In one instance the mutation wasn’t tracked down. (2) In another instance a protein coded by a gene called citT, which normally transports citrate in the absence of oxygen, was overexpressed. (3) The overexpressed protein allowed E. coli to grow on citrate in the presence of oxygen. It seems likely that Lenski’s mutant will turn out to be either this gene or another of the bacterium’s citrate-using genes, tweaked a bit to allow it to transport citrate in the presence of oxygen. (He hasn’t yet tracked down the mutation.) ... [Ilíon: bolding mine]
The Edge of Evolution is Behe's recently published book in which he sets out to determine just *what* "evolut
Ilíon wrote:
In his new paper Lenski reports that, after 30,000 generations, one of his lines of cells has developed the ability to utilize citrate as a food source in the presence of oxygen. (E. coli in the wild can’t do that.) Now, wild E. coli already has a number of enzymes that normally use citrate and can digest it (it’s not some exotic chemical the bacterium has never seen before). However, the wild bacterium lacks an enzyme called a “citrate permease” which can transport citrate from outside the cell through the cell’s membrane into its interior. So all the bacterium needed to do to use citrate was to find a way to get it into the cell. The rest of the machinery for its metabolism was already there. As Lenski put it, “The only known barrier to aerobic growth on citrate is its inability to transport citrate under oxic conditions.”
Congratulations. This is known as pre-adaptation. It is fundamental to evolution and was described by Darwin in 1859. Good to see Behe is finally catching up.
John Carson