Evolution?

[Wiccan_Child]

If the nature could not make E.Coli evolve to a non-E.Coli in 4 billion years, I don't think we can do that either in no-matter-how-many years.

Indeed. But then, evolutionary theory implies that descendants of E. coli will always be E. coli, regardless of how much they evolve. Just as the descendants of mammals will always be mammals, so too will the descendants of humans always be humans. It's just that, a million years from now, "H. sapiens" will cease to be the name of a species, and instead refer to the name of a taxon under which a number of species are grouped. 'Mammal' was once a species, but has since speciated immensly. While all its descendants are all mammals, individual species have evolved in their own right.

In any case, your original post claimed that fungi and bacteria do not evolve. This is demonstratably false, since we have observed bacterial evolution in a matter of decades.

Note that, in the case of Flavobacterium, they evolved their Nylon-eating ability of their own accord; no human interfered with their evolution, and their discovery was purely accidental.

In the case of E. coli, the scientists merely seperated a single population of nearly identicle E. coli bacteria into seperate flasks and observed their changes. After ~33000 generations, one particular strain of E. coli was observed to have evolved a way to ingest the citric acid in the medium. While the strain was still E. coli (and always will be E. coli)

If you do not agree, then tell me which bacterium is evolved from E.Coli?

All of them. They are all E. coli, but they have also all evolved from E. coli ancestors.

 

[Tomk80]

Yes, it is what I am thinking. What is wrong with that? Should everything evolve with time? Numerous plants did that, numerous animals did that, why not bacteria?

Again you assert that bacteria do not evolve. Despite having been corrected on this multiple times.

Yes, I heard it. Bacteria changes. But it does not change (evolve) like plants and animals. It stayed the same in such a long long time. Why?

Bacteria did not stay the same. So your question is irrelevant. Even with respect to morphology, new structures have arisen, like flagella. They aren't as obvious because we cannot see them with the naked eye, but that is a problem of scale.

Let's see it this way: Do we expect bacteria to evolve into something which is not bacteria any more?

No.

I believe many evolutionists are working on it. That means the answer is yes.

Sorry, the answer is still no. We expect new structures to arise, we expect bacteria to diversify further. We do not expect them to become anything else then bacteria, just as we don't expect mammals to become anything other than mammals.

That also means we do not have any reason to believe that bacteria will not evolve. But it did not.

It did. Why do you keep making incorrect claims even after you have been corrected on them?

 

[thaumaturgy]

My big question is "why would a perfectly adapted life-form that fulfills its niche quite effectively need to have evolved into something else?"

Isn't that the whole point of Evolution? Not just change for the sake of change but change that is sufficiently passed along to the exclusion of a previous "version" of the lifeform (hence the "natural selection" criteria).

Obviously as has been pointed out in this thread numerous times (but apparently ignored by Juvenissun) bacteria adapt and fundamentally change their abilities to survive in what were formerly toxic environments numerous times over the course of history. The fact that E coli don't have "Trogdor arms" sticking off of them now doesn't mean that they haven't "adapted", but it also does mean that there really isn't a point to them having changed in some arbitrary way that would make Juvenissun happy.

What, exactly, does he want?

 

[juvenissun]

If you compare the total percentage of humans killed by bacteria to the total percentage of bacteria killed by humans, I think you'll find that bacteria are winning the war.

From the evolutionary perspective of the bacteria, what is so great about being multicellular?

That is the question. So, bacteria is a "more survivable" form of life. If so, the whole idea of life evolution is wrong.

 

[CACTUSJACKmankin]

Isn't this just a version of "if we evolved from apes, why are there still apes"?

The other point to this is that everything is the sum of its ancestry so nothing really becomes NOT what it evolved from. we are really just differentiated colonial organelled bacteria. we still retain several features of our fish ancestry (skeletal system) and our amphibian ancestry (5 digits and well-developed lungs) and our reptilian ancestry (keratinous epidermal layers). we are still apes, at some point we had an ancestor that was an ancient monkey and we retain several genes and features from that ancestor that we share with modern day monkeys. birds are still dinosaurs.

bacteria dont have to become something completely new like multicellular organisms, they just have to evolve. anyway bacteria are probably too simple to be multicellular. multicellularity has developed multiple times in the eukaryotes. even that doesnt guarantee that all eukaryote groups are destined to become multicellular. the only rule for evolution is that it must occur or extinction does in its place.

But it is one of the major misunderstandings creationists have. People like Juvenissun don't realize that nothing in evolution ever "leaves" it's ancestral group. Rather, the ancestral group diversifies into different directions. A human is still an ape, a mammal, a quadruped and a eukaryote. We still belong to all ancestral groups we evolved from. My guesstimate is that at least half of the creationist misunderstandings we get on this forum are of this kind.

Yes, it is what I am thinking. What is wrong with that? Should everything evolve with time? Numerous plants did that, numerous animals did that, why not bacteria?

Yes, I heard it. Bacteria changes. But it does not change (evolve) like plants and animals. It stayed the same in such a long long time. Why?

Let's see it this way: Do we expect bacteria to evolve into something which is not bacteria any more? I believe many evolutionists are working on it. That means the answer is yes. That also means we do not have any reason to believe that bacteria will not evolve. But it did not.

why must you ask questions to which you already know the answer?

 

[juvenissun]

Again you assert that bacteria do not evolve. Despite having been corrected on this multiple times.


Bacteria did not stay the same. So your question is irrelevant. Even with respect to morphology, new structures have arisen, like flagella. They aren't as obvious because we cannot see them with the naked eye, but that is a problem of scale.


No.

Sorry, the answer is still no. We expect new structures to arise, we expect bacteria to diversify further. We do not expect them to become anything else then bacteria, just as we don't expect mammals to become anything other than mammals.

It did. Why do you keep making incorrect claims even after you have been corrected on them?

Because you talked like a creationist. Based on the quoted post, you are qualified to apply for a job at AiG. Are you saying that one "kind" of life will not evolve into another "kind"? Tentatively, you may take bacteria as a "kind" of life which is defined as it is now in cell biology.

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Tentatively, you may take bacteria as a "kind" of life which is defined as it is now in cell biology.

You might want to read up on the diversity in the Eubacteria domain because I don't think you realize the implication of what you are suggesting. If bacteria was a "kind" of life (in the Biblical sense) then all the animals, plants, people, protists, fungi, etc, would collectively constitute another "kind" of life.

 

[juvenissun]

why must you ask questions to which you already know the answer?

I don't know the answer. I only have a sense of direction toward the answer. I like to know what biology experts (in this forum ) can say about this puzzle. I believe this is a problem that science (and atheism) could not answer.

What I really like to see is someone provides a genetic argument to this question. There are a lot of people studying bacteria. I don't think we have one here.

 

[juvenissun]

You might want to read up on the diversity in the Eubacteria domain because I don't think you realize the implication of what you are suggesting. If bacteria was a "kind" of life (in the Biblical sense) then all the animals, plants, people, protists, fungi, etc, would collectively constitute another "kind" of life.

Fine. So how would this classification answer the question? I think it only enhances the problem.

 

[CACTUSJACKmankin]

I don't know the answer. I only have a sense of direction toward the answer. I like to know what biology experts (in this forum ) can say about this puzzle. I believe this is a problem that science (and atheism) could not answer.

What I really like to see is someone provides a genetic argument to this question. There are a lot of people studying bacteria. I don't think we have one here.

we are STILL bacteria. "something else" is a problematic thing to ask about in evolutionary terms. everything evolves so nothing is exactly like its ancestral populations so by that definition, everything becomes "something else". and nothing be becomes something ENTIRELY different, we are still fish after all, so in that sense nothing becomes "something else"

 

[juvenissun]

Indeed. But then, evolutionary theory implies that descendants of E. coli will always be E. coli, regardless of how much they evolve. Just as the descendants of mammals will always be mammals, so too will the descendants of humans always be humans. It's just that, a million years from now, "H. sapiens" will cease to be the name of a species, and instead refer to the name of a taxon under which a number of species are grouped. 'Mammal' was once a species, but has since speciated immensly. While all its descendants are all mammals, individual species have evolved in their own right.

I don't think this is a good one.

If so, then the descendant of reptile is always reptile. Then where did the mammal come from? It "evolved" from reptile. Right?

 

[Naraoia]

Yes, it is what I am thinking. What is wrong with that? Should everything evolve with time? Numerous plants did that, numerous animals did that, why not bacteria?

Bacteria did that. But now I'm wondering if you understand something different by "evolve".

Yes, I heard it. Bacteria changes. But it does not change (evolve) like plants and animals. It stayed the same in such a long long time. Why?

They haven't stayed the same, as many people have pointed out many times.

I think Tom put it best: it's a matter of scale. Big and complex organisms can change more spectacularly than small and (relatively) simple ones.

Let's see it this way: Do we expect bacteria to evolve into something which is not bacteria any more?

In the taxonomic sense, no, for the same reasons that we don't expect eukaryotes to evolve into something that isn't an eukaryote.

In the sense you probably mean the question: I don't know. I don't exactly expect them to evolve, say, eukaryotic cells again* (I get the impression that's not an easy transition to make, but I haven't studied this subject in any detail) but I wouldn't be surprised (only very, very excited) if some did.

I believe many evolutionists are working on it.

Hmm, I don't know, does anyone know of such work?

That means the answer is yes. That also means we do not have any reason to believe that bacteria will not evolve. But it did not.

You could ask the same questions on every scale. Why have lungfish not "evolved" into something else since the Devonian? Why have ferns not evolved flowers? Why have lampreys not evolved jaws? Inuit, a thick fur?

The precise answers probably change with the situation, but there are two broad reasons.

First, they didn't need them. Someone's also said this: every problem has more than one solution. Inuit didn't re-evolve fur because they could wear other animals' fur instead - and that was much quicker than any genetic adaptation. Lampreys don't need jaws to function as parasites.

Second, the right mutations just didn't come. Mutation is random, it doesn't follow your wishes or needs, and some changes may require many or rare mutations and lucky coincidences. This is the case with the citrate-eating E. coli: it's likely that "potentiating" mutations were needed to evolve the ability. While most strains didn't have the right stuff, the one that originally gave rise to the citrate-eating bacteria was more likely to produce them again when they "replayed" the experiment from earlier, frozen generations. It was a matter of sheer luck.

And often you don't strictly need a certain novelty to survive, even though it gives you an advantage in your current environment and/or access to new territory if you have it. That's probably the situation with fish and legs. Fish are fine in the water, some of them are fine in shallow water. They don't exactly need legs. But once they have something similar the land awaits.

I hope that makes sense

------
*the organisms that originally did that would've been archaea, not bacteria AFAIK, but I don't think the distinction is majorly important in this case.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

I don't think this is a good one.

Which one, and why?

If so, then the descendant of reptile is always reptile. Then where did the mammal come from? It "evolved" from reptile. Right?

Note quite. First, there were amniotes (descendants of amphibians). Then, these split into two groups: the synapsids and the sauropsids. The former are the ancestors of mammals, and the latter are the ancestors of lizards, dinosaurs/birds, etc.

We did not evolve from reptiles, but rather from mammal-like pseudo-reptiles.

 

[Naraoia]

I don't think this is a good one.

If so, then the descendant of reptile is always reptile. Then where did the mammal come from? It "evolved" from reptile. Right?

Yes. Mammals are a subtype of reptiles (or more precisely, amniotes).

 

[[serious]]

does the evolution of bacteria (well, bacteria like life) into eukaryotes and multicelluar organisms like plants and animals count?

If not, I'd also put forward quarum sensing (chemical "communication" between bacteria in order to cooperate with one another and synchronize actions such as the formation of biofilms. This could be the start of a new branch of multicellular life)

 

[juvenissun]

Yes, I heard it. Bacteria changes. But it does not change (evolve) like plants and animals. It stayed the same in such a long long time. Why?

They haven't stayed the same, as many people have pointed out many times.

I think Tom put it best: it's a matter of scale. Big and complex organisms can change more spectacularly than small and (relatively) simple ones.

I think my question is: why don't we see any multiple cell bacteria, after 4 billion years of evolution?

I do get many answers. But none of them hits the point. Bacteria change, but they do not evolve. (biological evolution is MORE than just change. It turned monkey to human)

 

[paug]

I think my question is: why don't we see any multiple cell bacteria, after 4 billion years of evolution?

I do get many answers. But none of them hits the point. Bacteria change, but they do not evolve. (biological evolution is MORE than just change. It turned monkey to human)

But we do. Look at cyanobacteria:

The cells adhere to each other through a common cell wall, forming long multicellular filaments. Other species of cyanobacteria form different groups of cells; for example, Glaucocystis (upper right) has four cells together in a single sheath

And myxobacteria:

The myxobacteria are dramatic example of multicellular bacteria.
...
Under certain conditions the single cells of myxobacteria come together to form fruiting bodies that consist of hundreds of cells. In the most extreme examples, some cells form the stalk, some cells form sprangia and others form spores. These are multicellular bacteria with specialized differentiated cells.

This is just two examples.

 

[Tomk80]

Because you talked like a creationist. Based on the quoted post, you are qualified to apply for a job at AiG. Are you saying that one "kind" of life will not evolve into another "kind"? Tentatively, you may take bacteria as a "kind" of life which is defined as it is now in cell biology.

Exactly. As everybody else has been saying on this thread, juvy. Or hadn't you noticed?

 

[Tomk80]

I think my question is: why don't we see any multiple cell bacteria, after 4 billion years of evolution?

As Paug showed, we do. Why they don't get very big possibly has to do with the fact that they lack cell organelles like mitochondria, but that is just a guess.

I do get many answers. But none of them hits the point. Bacteria change, but they do not evolve. (biological evolution is MORE than just change. It turned monkey to human)

Biological evolution is just the change in genetics of a population over time. Nothing more, nothing less. Diversifying apes into different groups (chimps, orangutans, gorillas and humans) is a an example of this change that is big, but the evolution of HIV resistance in humans is evolution as well, even though you won't really see that unless you pay attention. It doesn't have to be big to be evolution.

 

[[serious]]

I think my question is: why don't we see any multiple cell bacteria, after 4 billion years of evolution?

I do get many answers. But none of them hits the point. Bacteria change, but they do not evolve. (biological evolution is MORE than just change. It turned monkey to human)

Biofilms, toxin production only at specific population densities, lux gene activation controlled by quorum sensing, obligate intracellular bacteria (very similar to our own mitochondria), these are all examples of bacterial cooperation. We have even observed programmed cell death in bacterial colonies. These all, of course, indicate that a degree of multicellularity is present in some bacteria. While not bacteria per se, slime molds offer a glimpse of organisms that may progress towards true multicellular organisms. (some already consider them to be truly multicellular).

And as for "turning a monkey into a human", that's like saying "turned a car into a Honda Civic" Yes, a group of monkies did evolve into a specific type of monkey called humans. Likewise, humans are a specific type of mammal, vertibrate, animal, and eukaryote.