Slashdot Mirror
Bacteria Make Major Evolutionary Shift In the Lab
Auxbuss sends us to New Scientist for news sure to perplex and confound creationists: scientists have watched a new, complex evolutionary trait develop in the lab. "A major evolutionary innovation has unfurled right in front of researchers' eyes. It's the first time evolution has been caught in the act of making such a rare and complex new trait. And because the species in question is a bacterium, scientists have been able to replay history to show how this evolutionary novelty grew from the accumulation of unpredictable, chance events."
It learned to eat oranges! Woohoo! God must be dead. I know if people saw me eating fruit they would swear hell froze over.
This is only micro evolution, this bacteria is still the same bacteria, wake me when macro evolution occurs and the bacteria becomes a whole new species.
Why do we correct our criminals but punish our children?
It's still micro-evolution which most creationists don't a problem with. Wake me up when puppies start having kittens.
A crack team of researchers make something happen, and the evolutionists clamor about how this is proof evolution exists! Pure crap. First of all, it didn't happen on it's own - the bacteria the had help of scientists. Sort of sounds like "intelligent design," if you ask me.
Second of all, and much more importantly, anyone who espouses creation and has really read up on it, will allow for reproduction "within kinds." What that basically means is that you take a collie and a beagle, you get something somewhere in between, but it's still a dog, just like these bacteria are still bacteria.
Furthermore, the creationist expects change. Breaking that down, God made a perfect creation, then something happened. On the spiritual side, sin entered in and brought death. The related physical manifestation is that the creation was corrupted by mutation. If the Universe is a closed system - as the evolutionist must conclude - then evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics, which states "The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium." This is exactly what the creationist believes - that the universe has been acted upon by outside forces and change happens inside - call it mutation.
I wish everyone could be a lot less dogmatic. The truth of the matter is that neither creation nor evolution represent valid theories, because, claim what scientist might, neither is observable nor testable. Don't kid yourselves, folks, evolutionists have just as much faith in evolution as creationists do in creation.
And you know what else, there's room enough for everyone to have a belief; don't be so righteously indignant, you insesitive clods!
The article definitely proves that a species can evolve, but it does not prove they can evolve outside of their species or genus.
:)
The bacterium in question were still bacterium, they just weren't e.Coli anymore. At least not a strain we are familiar with.
It's like the birds that Darwin observed in the Galapagos that had adapted to the kind of nut on the island. Sparrows on one island and long beaks while the sparrows on the other island had short beaks. Yet they had not ceased to be sparrows, but instead were very different sparrows.
Making the leap from observing evolution of a species and saying that such evolution shows that a mole can give rise to a whale is quite a leap indeed. Perhaps that's what they mean by "leap of faith"?
This study is definitely interesting, and will be even more so when they actually finish it and find what changed genetically and why.
Okay, *now* scientists can claim evolution is science, now that they've seen it in the lab. However, prior to this, evolution was just a theory, and quite possibly, a religious belief to the science-faithful.
All of you who believed in evolution prior to this belong in the same camp with the religious wingnuts: you both believed in something which hadn't been proven at the time.
But some of you, myself included, were waiting for proof of evolution before we believed it to be true. It's not that I doubted, but rather, believe that in the interests of science, and the scientific method, it is generally best to avoid believing something until proof exists. Those of you who believed before proof did so on faith alone, which - surprise! - gives you more in common with the creationists than you would like to admit.
This is how science is supposed to work, folks. Faith has no place in science - leave that for religion. Does it surprise anyone that arguments about tenets of faith go nowhere? Instead, concentrate on what can be proven.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
This is the biggest reason that there is a higher proportion of religious people in prisons, it allows people to escape responsibility for their crimes (and in so doing escape punishment). Whilst a lot of criminals convert to a Theistic religion in prison (to escape punishment and get a reduced sentance) many of them were devoutly religious to begin with. A non Theistic or non devout believer is far more likely to ask themselves weather they could live with the harm they are about to cause whilst a religious criminal is more likely to commit a crime without a second thought as they believe that what they are doing is alright with God and that only God can judge them. Many of our worst serial criminals (Think along the lines of David Berkowitz) were quiet religious.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
....The Roman Catholic church already accepts that microevolution happens...
They would also likely accept that intelligent scientists are able to do things that don't happen randomly in nature. Here some intelligent scientists DESIGNED an experiment and found that bacteria can adapt to using some other nutrients than what they were used to, before the scientists manipulated the nutrient source. Boy, what a monumental discovery! These e-coli bacteria were STILl e-coli bacteria and will forever remain e-coli bacteria, even though under duress from the experiment, expressed their innate ability to thrive on some other nutrients.
All theory is gray
....my brain is in danger of falling out....
Given that you are not willing to even look at information contrary to your made up mind, is a sign that your mind is hermetically sealed shut.
All theory is gray
....and I believe I have a soul....
You don't HAVE a soul or spirit, you ARE a living, immaterial, eternal spirit being that is housed temporarily in a material body, so you are able to interact with a material universe. That's what it really means to be made in the image of God. Jesus tells us that God is Spirit and they that worship Him must do so in spirit and truth. God reveals to us in Genesis that He personally breathed into the lifeless form of Adam's body and Adam BECAME (not received) a living spirit.
All theory is gray
....Because not having this ability....
How is it possible to tell that these bacteria did not have this ability all along, rather than expressing it at some point due to the extended pressure of the changed environment? Being able to utilize a different food source is nothing more than an adaptation.
Most of us do not normally eat worms, snails, insects, frogs and other creatures. However, people that have been lost in the wilderness have survived on such and other things. As populations have migrated to other regions of the earth, where their food sources have changed, but they have not evolved into some other species because that.
These bacteria were E. coli before and after the experiment and they will always be E. coli no matter what is done to them or how their abilities to utilize various substances is changed. Even after 35,000 generations, they did not evolve into a new species. This experiment is no proof of evolution.
All theory is gray