Darwin - Half Right

[sjastro]

Every once in awhile, I slip a doosey in!

Like this one, about the earth changing poles:

Your doosey indicates you are not very good at arithmetic.
The last major magnetic field reversal was the Laschamp excursion which occurred around 42,000 years ago.

​

An event 42,000 years ago does not equate to it occurring in 58 AD.

 

[AV1611VET]

An event 42,000 years ago does not equate to it occurring in 58 AD.

It was a joke.

 

[sjastro]

It was a joke.

Trouble is no one can tell from your serious Biblical references to topics which invariably are just as irrelevant.

 

[AV1611VET]

Trouble is no one can tell from your serious Biblical references to topics which invariably are just as irrelevant.

So if I said Jesus walked on water, no one would bat an eye; but if I said God took the Flood waters off the earth, much like He did in Genesis 1, that would raise eyebrows ... right?

 

[Hans Blaster]

Nature disagrees with you OP.

Lizards Undergo Rapid Evolution After Introduction To A New Home

This is my favorite speciation story.

 

[driewerf]

However in the 150 years since Darwin first presented his ideas, no one has observed a favorable mutation in a plant or animal. Mutations do occur such as with cancer and tumors. However, for a favorable mutation one would need millions of coincidental changes to all take place at the same time and in a reproductive cell so that those changes could be passed on.

Wrong. And you can see it too.

The post below is a kind of combination of three posts I posted on a different board, so it's not always consistent. Yet I think it's cool:

A simple and elegant way to show evolution in action was set up by professor Kishony and his team. A gigantic petri dish was divided in lanes with increasing concentration of antibiotics, from (0 , no antibiotics: 1 just enough to kill all bacteria, gradually up to 1000 x the concentration of 1). Different strains of Escherichia Coli were spotted in the 0 lane. As this lane got filled and the places for new bacteria got depleted the bacteria were pushing against the boundary of the 10 lane. Only those bacteria and their descendants that got the suitable mutations for surviving in a higher concentration of antibiotics made it to the next lane. The experiment filmed over 11 days shows clearly that bacteria can evolve a resistance to a 1000 fold stronger concentration of antibiotics than the wild type bacteria.​

Here you have the same experiment, but with professor Kishony explaining the experiment

It shows that evolution is cumulative. Each mutation increases the resistance to the antibiotics in an incremental way (see how the growth of the culture pauses at every boundary and how the growth always start at one tiny spot).

It is also very good at refuting a misunderstanding about the phrase “Survival of the fittest”. This is often misunderstood as killing all other competitors. But that is more often not the case. The fittest here are obviously these bacteria that can survive in a more hostile environment (a petri dish with antibiotics), not against each other.

Finally it answers the “refutation” used by some creationists “if we descend from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?”. Well here we see that the resistant bacteria descend from lesser resistant bacteria, that continue to stay in the environment (the lane) in which they can survive.

a technical paper published by the team

Spatiotemporal microbial evolution on antibiotic landscapes

the website of Roy Kishony's research institue:

Home - Kishony lab

The OP described an experiment performed by Roy Kishony and his team in which bacteria (Escherichia coli) were gradually exposed to increasing concentrations of antibiotics; and the bacteria evolved a growing resistance to these antibiotics. There is a practical application to this experiment. The administration of medication to patients, and especially the administration of different drugs together.

The experiment as described in the OP confronted E coli with gradually increasing concentrations of antibiotics. Kishony et al tested the reaction of a bacteria population when confronted with a 2000 fold concentration in one single step. There the population wasn't able to evolve the resistance against the antibiotics. The adaptation had to be gradually.

But with a mix of medication drugs can have different effects. The can act additives, i.e. each drug contribute as if it acted alone (2 +3 = 5, so to speak). They can act synergistically, i.e; the two drugs reinforce each other (2 + 3 = 6). Or they can show an antagonism, weakening each other’s working, (2+3= 4). From different experiments it has been shown that when, for medical reasons, a small dose of medication needs to be applied for a longer time, the danger of having antibiotics resistance is the highest with drugs that act synergistically. Against all intuition, for small prolonged doses an antagonistic mix of drugs might work better.

To have better understanding of how drug resistance evolves in bacteria is a cool and useful application of the Kishony experiment, and will give medical staff better tools to cure patients and avoid the emergence of drug resistance in the batcteria they fight.

sources:

Accelerated evolution of resistance in multidrug environments

Spatiotemporal microbial evolution on antibiotic landscapes

Suppressive drug combinations and their potential to combat antibiotic resistance

https://www.researchgate.net/profil...ated-antagonistic-antibiotic-interactions.pdf
We have seen beneficial mutations going through populations in real time. Your point is debunked.

 

[dlamberth]

Trouble is no one can tell from your serious Biblical references to topics which invariably are just as irrelevant.

I could tell that AV was just messing around. So there's at least one person.

 

[sjastro]

So if I said Jesus walked on water, no one would bat an eye; but if I said God took the Flood waters off the earth, much like He did in Genesis 1, that would raise eyebrows ... right?

Why not stick to an example you quoted in this thread.

I even believe the fallen angels experimented with it (evolution) in Genesis 6.

It finally hit a brick wall in the mid nineteenth century though and stalled.

What makes this serious and Nero blaming Christians for a magnetic reversal in 58 AD a joke when both could have been constructed by a random sentence generator?

 

[dlamberth]

This is my favorite speciation story.

Interesting read. Thanks.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Well, the network that makes us human for example, would take a lot more than random genetic mutations, to get from primate to man. Any significant change in body structure or brain structure would require the reprogramming of the whole system. It's not as simple as changing a few letters or numbers. Each cell has millions of actively operating RNA and protein molecules. Layer upon layer of information more complex than any computer we can come up with. To believe they somehow came about by trial and error is absurd.

Add that to the fact that there are very rarely truly beneficial mutations.

So an argument from incredulity ('I can't see how it could have evolved so it couldn't have evolved') is all you have.

And there are beneficial mutations, if you simply look. An increased resistance to malaria in the population of Burkina Faso due to a mutation in the hemoglobin HbS is a brilliant example.

 

[dlamberth]

That's nice.

Yep. That's how God creates new life forms.

 

[Shemjaza]

That's simple adaptation. Not new genetic information.

Except that "genetic information" as used by Creationists is a meaningless term.

There is not objective method of measuring this information and no metric for it to be measured in.

If something can't be measured then it is impossible to tell if it has increased or not.

 

[AV1611VET]

What makes this serious and Nero blaming Christians for a magnetic reversal in 58 AD a joke when both could have been constructed by a random sentence generator?

Perhaps you should pray for discernment?

 

[sjastro]

Perhaps you should pray for discernment?

 

[Frank Robert]

That's simple adaptation. Not new genetic information.

You continue to regurgitate creationist apologetics. Genetic entropy and genetic information by Carter and Sanford are ill defined and they do not appear interested in engaging with their critics.

Here is a response by a critic:
Stern Cardinale: Response to Price, Carter, and Sanford on Genetic Entropy

Conclusion
The takeaway here is that this does not read like a serious attempt to engage with the specific, technical critiques of the genetic entropy hypothesis. If PCS were interested in this idea gaining widespread acceptance within the scientific community, the way to do that would be to engage with critics, and make a concerted effort to address their concerns. You can convince me I’m wrong by showing that my math is wrong, not by saying I haven’t thought this through and probably haven’t even read the book I’m critiquing.

But I suspect PCS are not interested in such conversations. I reached out to CMI to invite Mr. Price, Dr. Carter, and/or Dr. Sanford for a conversation about this response. I think face-to-face conversations are the most productive for things like this because we can clarify points of misunderstanding in the moment. None of the authors were interested in such a conversation, despite Mr. Price publicly debating this very topic on YouTube recently. I don’t know what to make of that accept that while PCS seem happy to promote their ideas to nonscientific audiences there seems to be a reluctance to engage with actual scientists in the relevant fields (or perhaps I should have invited the authors for a debate, instead). Of course, nobody is under any obligation to engage with anyone in any specific way, but if PCS ultimately want this idea taken seriously by scientists, they are making odd choices in terms of how they are going about it.​

 

[Subduction Zone]

So if I said Jesus walked on water, no one would bat an eye; but if I said God took the Flood waters off the earth, much like He did in Genesis 1, that would raise eyebrows ... right?

Even some Christians have doubts about the miracles of the Gospels. But Jesus walking on water is a minor miracle. God hiding the flood would take endless miracles. It means that God had to plant false evidence, that is a form of lying. Most Christians do not believe that God can lie. That is probably why most Christians do not seem to believe that story.

 

[Frank Robert]

Well, the network that makes us human for example, would take a lot more than random genetic mutations, to get from primate to man. Any significant change in body structure or brain structure would require the reprogramming of the whole system. It's not as simple as changing a few letters or numbers. Each cell has millions of actively operating RNA and protein molecules. Layer upon layer of information more complex than any computer we can come up with. To believe they somehow came about by trial and error is absurd.

Add that to the fact that there are very rarely truly beneficial mutations.

You should read Sanford and Carter. Basically they are claiming that genetic information is front loaded and over time the accumulation of slightly delirious mutations will outperform any beneficial mutations leading to extinction. Their math is not realistic.

 

[AV1611VET]

...

Well, that'll insure you won't grow in discernment, won't it?

Okay, let's try this:

Try asking the person who's making a claim you've never heard before if he is joking or not.

You know, investigate before you communicate?

Here's a thread I started that will help you: Setting the Record Straight

Note specifically Number Nine.

 

[AV1611VET]

Even some Christians have doubts about the miracles of the Gospels. But Jesus walking on water is a minor miracle. God hiding the flood would take endless miracles. It means that God had to plant false evidence, that is a form of lying. Most Christians do not believe that God can lie. That is probably why most Christians do not seem to believe that story.

I can understand why they wouldn't believe it, if they thought like you do.

Cleaning up after yourself is not the same thing as "hiding the flood and planting false evidence."

Don't get me wrong, a thief might clean up after himself, so he won't get caught.

Like wiping fingerprints off of a doorknob.

But on the other hand, a thief wouldn't leave a note detailing what he did, when he did it, how he did it, what order he did it in, how long it took him to do it, and who the eyewitnesses were by name.

 

[renniks]

You should read Sanford and Carter. Basically they are claiming that genetic information is front loaded and over time the accumulation of slightly delirious mutations will outperform any beneficial mutations leading to extinction. Their math is not realistic.

Well they are genetic scientists, are you?