Predicting Evolution: A Beginner's Model

Silance writes "According to ScienceDaily , Scientists have developed a method of accelerating evolution in the lab that accurately mimics natural evolution. Drug-resistant E.coli strains from the 1940's that were subjected to the evolutionary speed-up process indeed followed the same evolutionary path as their natural bretheren. It is believed that the process could be used to predict the future monkey-wrenches that evolution might lob our way. Neat-o!"

Comments

This only shows Natural Selection, not Evolution

[young-earth]

Natural selection is obvious, it's visible to all. And micro-evolution is the clear outcome of it, things like antibiotic resistance. But in most cases that's due to a loss of genetic information. Think about it - if you have your limbs removed you're resistant to handcuffs. But you lost something to achieve that.

That's why once the antibiotic is removed the population drifts back to the norm - the un-selected bacteria are more fit, have more diversity to draw on, in other situations..

Yet another headline that is a bit over the top

Re:Yet another sorry day for creationists.

[Verteiron]

Gentry did rule out long half-life isomers of polonium as a cause of the halos. However, his theory was supplanted in 1989 (Odom, L.A., and Rink; "Giant Radiation-Induced Color Halos in Quartz: Solution to a Riddle" Science 246: 107-109). This new theory completely accounts for all apparent violation of physical laws in a logical manner; thus, it in no way provides evidence for a near-instantaneous creation. Gentry has yet to publish a rebuttal, more than a decade after these new findings came to light. As for his "challenge", it has not appeared in any peer-reviewed scientific literature, which may account for no one bothering to rise to it. More information on this subject may be found here.

Of course, I've made no mention here of Gentry's notoriously sloppy methods and faulty assumptions (nice summary of these, with references, here), as I wouldn't want you to think I'm attacking him personally, rather than his conclusions.

As for the helium, a creationist named Roger Lenard recently re-presented this tired old argument. Unfortunately, he, like most creation "scientists", presented no evidence for this theory. He did state that "a prestigious university" found that the amount of hydrogen in biotite is "too high", but no one ever comes clear on what "too high" is. Nor will he tell anyone where these measurements were performed, the name of the university, or even provide the data he cites as his sole reference. The paper many creationists look to for support here is actually by our good friend Gentry; however, even his statements do more to prove that the levels of helium currently present are exactly right for an evolutionary timescale. The "too-much-helium" argument has been discredited for years. Science cannot help it if creationists choose to ignore this.

However, none of this has anything to do with my original post. You've employed another common Creationist trick, which is to dodge the question by supplying more "proof" that other unrelated evolutionary methods/theories are faulty. So allow me to get back to the subject at hand...

You use inaccuracies in dating Hawaiian volcanic rock as proof that all radiometric dating is flawed. And you are absolutely correct, I find, in stating that wildly inaccurate dates are determined from potassium-argon analysis of this rock. However, you've neglected to mention that geologists already thought that rocks formed under those particular conditions would give unreliable K-Ar ages because they would trap argon before it could escape. The studies in question were performed to confirm this under controlled conditions, and thus to confirm to the scientific community that this particular type of rock (and, by extension, most rock of seabed origin) is unsuitable for radiometric dating.

Oops.

In addition, I'd like to know how this disproves the accuracy of other dating methods (uranium-lead and rubidium-strontium, for example), since these methods will all produce the same results in rocks with well-understood geological context. Confidence in radiometric dating techniques comes from years of careful comparisons to other radiometric techniques and to relative age determinations from biostratigraphy (fossils in layered rocks). In some cases, there are multiple isotope systems that may be analyzed in the same sample. Since these different systems react differently to the processes that disturb age recording, if the systems disagree with one another the age significance of the data is suspect. If they all agree, then there is phenomal evidence for the accuracy of the dating.

As for the accuracy potassium-argon dating having any bearing on carbon-14 dating (the kind used to date organic artifacts up to 50,000 years old), this is ludicrous. The two methods have very little in common, and carbon-14 dating is known to depend on variations in atmospheric conditions.

So where's the leap of faith? The only one I've seen so far is the one that leads to your ghetto of scientific illiteracy.

For more references, information, and general illumination, read this very helpful document: The General Anti-Creationism FAQ
Here are rebuttals, with evidence and references, to all of the arguments you've thus far presented, as well as all of the other major creationist arguments.