An atheists world (2)

[EternalDragon]

So now basic education is brainwashing?

If it includes historical science guesses that have no basis in truth, yes. If it can't be observed, repeated and tested it should not be in science class at school.

 

[kellhus]

If it includes historical science guesses that have no basis in truth, yes. If it can't be observed, repeated and tested it should not be in science class at school.

Evolution meets your criteria, incidentally.

 

[rikerjoe]

If it includes historical science guesses that have no basis in truth, yes. If it can't be observed, repeated and tested it should not be in science class at school.

So that would rule out ID and creationism then. Good!

 

[EternalDragon]

Evolution meets your criteria, incidentally.

I've not seen any concrete evidence as yet. The evidence is basically down to similarities.

 

[EternalDragon]

So that would rule out ID and creationism then. Good!

Yes, it would. Include all theories or none at all and allow discussion of the objections.

 

[kellhus]

I've not seen any concrete evidence as yet.

Here's one for starters

http://m.pnas.org/content/105/23/7899

The LTEE populations are transferred daily into fresh medium, and the turbidity of each is checked visually at that time. Owing to the low concentration of glucose in DM25 medium, the cultures are only slightly turbid when transferred. Occasional contaminants that grow on citrate have been seen over the 20 years of this experiment. These contaminated cultures reach much higher turbidity owing to the high concentration of citrate in the medium, which allows the contaminants to reach high density. (When contamination occurs, the affected population is restarted from the latest frozen sample.) After ?33,127 generations, one population, designated Ara-3, displayed significantly elevated turbidity that continued to rise for several days (Fig. 1). A number of Cit+ clones were isolated from the population and checked for phenotypic markers characteristic of the ancestral E. coli strain used to start the LTEE: all were Ara-, T5-sensitive, and T6-resistant, as expected (2). DNA sequencing also showed that Cit+ clones have the same mutations in the pykF and nadR genes as do clones from earlier generations of the Ara-3 population, and each of these mutations distinguishes this population from all of the others (30). Therefore, the Cit+ variant arose within the LTEE and is not a contaminant.
The evolved Cit+ variant grows to high density in DM0 (a citrate-only medium), produces vigorous colonies on minimal citrate (MC) agar plates, and causes a positive color change on Simmon's citrate agar, all of which indicate that it can use citrate as a sole carbon source. In DM25, Cit+ cells undergo a period of rapid growth on glucose that is followed by slower growth on citrate (Fig. 2). Also, growth on citrate is inhibited by the citrate analog 5-fluorocitrate (data not shown), as was observed for the one previously reported Cit+ mutant of E. coli (42, 43).

Cit+ clones could be readily isolated from the frozen sample of population Ara-3 taken at generation 33,000. To estimate the time of origin of the Cit+ trait, we screened 1,280 clones randomly chosen from generations 30,000, 30,500, 31,000, 31,500, 32,000, 32,500, and 33,000 for the capacity to produce a positive reaction on Christensen's citrate agar, which provides a sensitive means to detect even weakly citrate-using cells. No Cit+ cells were found in the samples taken at 30,000, 30,500, or 31,000 generations. Cit+ cells constituted ?0.5% of the population at generation 31,500, then 15% and 19% in the next two samples, but only ?1.1% at generation 33,000. It appears that the first Cit+ variant emerged between 31,000 and 31,500 generations, although we cannot exclude an earlier origin. The precipitous decline in the frequency of Cit+ cells just before the massive population expansion suggests clonal interference (47), whereby the Cit- subpopulation produced a beneficial mutant that out-competed the emerging Cit+ subpopulation until the latter evolved some other beneficial mutation that finally ensured its persistence. The hypothesis of clonal interference implies that the early Cit+ cells were very poor at using citrate, such that a mutation that improved competition for glucose could have provided a greater advantage than did marginal exploitation of the unused citrate.
Indeed, the Cit+ clones isolated from generations 32,500 and earlier grow much more slowly on citrate than those from 33,000 generations and later. After depleting the glucose in DM25, the earliest Cit+ clones grow almost imperceptibly, if at all, for many hours before they begin efficiently using the citrate (data not shown), whereas later Cit+ clones switch to growth on citrate almost immediately (Fig. 2). Thus, the population expansion between generations 33,000 and 33,500 (Fig. 1) was triggered by one or more mutations that improved citrate utilization, rather than by the growth of the original Cit+ mutant. This finding also raises the question of whether weak Cit+ mutants might exist in any other LTEE population. We therefore screened the other 11 populations, in most cases by using samples from generation 41,500. None of 220 cultures inoculated with heterogeneous population samples grew in glucose-free DM0, nor did any of >3,500 clones show a positive reaction on Christensen's citrate agar.

 

[kellhus]

Yes, it would. Include all theories or none at all and allow discussion of the objections.

Your double standard and back pedaling is adorable.

 

[EternalDragon]

Here's one for starters

PNAS | Mobile

That's about the weakest example ever. Is it the E. Coli thing again? Certain E.Coli could already do that. Nothing new happened, in fact something was lost and they were less fit after the experiment.

I though you guys had "mountains of evidence"?

 

[kellhus]

That's about the weakest example ever. Is it the E. Coli thing again? Certain E.Coli could already do that. Nothing new happened, in fact something was lost and they were less fit after the experiment.

No, they couldn't do that before, which you'd have figured out if you had the ability and intellectual honesty to read my post.

To estimate the time of origin of the Cit+ trait, we screened 1,280 clones randomly chosen from generations 30,000, 30,500, 31,000, 31,500, 32,000, 32,500, and 33,000 for the capacity to produce a positive reaction on Christensen's citrate agar, which provides a sensitive means to detect even weakly citrate-using cells. No Cit+ cells were found in the samples taken at 30,000, 30,500, or 31,000 generations

This finding also raises the question of whether weak Cit+ mutants might exist in any other LTEE population. We therefore screened the other 11 populations, in most cases by using samples from generation 41,500. None of 220 cultures inoculated with heterogeneous population samples grew in glucose-free DM0, nor did any of >3,500 clones show a positive reaction on Christensen's citrate agar.

 

[kellhus]

I though you guys had "mountains of evidence"?

Why bother when you aren't literate enough to read one as well written and relatively simple as this?

 

[rikerjoe]

Yes, it would. Include all theories or none at all and allow discussion of the objections.

Sure, ALL theories are included. Discussion on relevant objections are included where appropriate.

When, if ever, ID comes up with a scientific theory, it too can be included.

 

[rikerjoe]

I've not seen any concrete evidence as yet. The evidence is basically down to similarities.

That doesn't mean much now, does it? You sound like Behe did in the Dover trial...

 

[createdtoworship]

I'm an atheist, and a militant atheist when religion starts impacting on legislation.- Daniel Radcliff

G.K. Chesterton made this point: “Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative.”

G.K. Chesterton, Twelve Types (The Echo Library, Middlesex, U.K., 2008), 29.

God does not exist is a universal negative and cannot be proven.

If X does not exist we must go to the entire universe and have unlimited knowledge to find out if this is true or not. The universal negatives like atheism become unprovable as long as we remain finite, and not omniscient.

 

[kellhus]

I'm an atheist, and a militant atheist when religion starts impacting on legislation.- Daniel Radcliff

G.K. Chesterton made this point: “Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative.”

G.K. Chesterton, Twelve Types (The Echo Library, Middlesex, U.K., 2008), 29.

God does not exist is a universal negative and cannot be proven.

If X does not exist we must go to the entire universe and have unlimited knowledge to find out if this is true or not. The universal negatives like atheism become unprovable as long as we remain finite, and not omniscient.

Atheism is not the subject of this thread. Don't derail it.

 

[createdtoworship]

I am having anxiety pains just watching the cognitive dissonance over in gradyll's head.

Usually when a rock gets thrown at a pack of scientific wolves, the one that barks the loudest is the one that got hit.

So what point was it that I made that caused you spill over like this?

just wondering.

carry on.

 

[kellhus]

Usually when a rock gets thrown at a pack of scientific wolves, the one that barks the loudest is the one that got hit.

So what point was it that I made that caused you spill over like this?

just wondering.

carry on.

You're confusing disgust and pity for outrage, I think.

 

[EternalDragon]

No, they couldn't do that before, which you'd have figured out if you had the ability and intellectual honesty to read my post.

The only thing that happened there is a reduction in specificity, not an increase. And wild E.coli did in fact already have the capacity to ingest citrate.

By examining the DNA sequence of the E. coli in the neighborhood surrounding the IS [insertion sequence] elements, the investigators saw that several genes involved in central metabolism were knocked out, as well as some cell wall synthesis genes and several others. In subsequent work, Cooper et al. (2001) discovered that twelve of twelve cell lines showed adaptive IS-mediated deletions of their rbs operon, which is involved in making the sugar ribose. Thus, the adaptive mutations that were initially tracked down all involved loss-of-FCT.

Richard Lenski's Long-Term Evolution Experiments with <i>E. coli</i> and the Origin of New Biological Information (Updated) - Evolution News & Views

 

[Subduction Zone]

The only thing that happened there is a reduction in specificity, not an increase. And wild E.coli did in fact already have the capacity to ingest citrate.

By examining the DNA sequence of the E. coli in the neighborhood surrounding the IS [insertion sequence] elements, the investigators saw that several genes involved in central metabolism were knocked out, as well as some cell wall synthesis genes and several others. In subsequent work, Cooper et al. (2001) discovered that twelve of twelve cell lines showed adaptive IS-mediated deletions of their rbs operon, which is involved in making the sugar ribose. Thus, the adaptive mutations that were initially tracked down all involved loss-of-FCT.

Richard Lenski's Long-Term Evolution Experiments with <i>E. coli</i> and the Origin of New Biological Information (Updated) - Evolution News & Views

I am sorry, but the Discovery Institute has been caught lying too many times to trust anything from them.

Can you find some real science that backs up this claim?

 

[kellhus]

The only thing that happened there is a reduction in specificity, not an increase.

Which doesn't disprove my point.

And wild E.coli did in fact already have the capacity to ingest citrate.

In anoxic conditions? Really? Proof please.

In any event, not relevant since Lenksi use a line characterized by its inability to metabolize citrate anoxically.

 

[EternalDragon]

I am sorry, but the Discovery Institute has been caught lying too many times to trust anything from them.

Can you find some real science that backs up this claim?

Whatever floats your boat.

You got any other spectacular examples?