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Bacteria make major evolutionary shift in the lab
New Scientist ^

Posted on 06/10/2008 12:07:34 PM PDT by mnehring

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.

(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...


TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: 48to46chromosomes; apologistfordarwin; belongsinreligion; crevo; crevolist; evolution; lamarckwasright; notasciencetopic; propellerbeanie; spammer
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To: PugetSoundSoldier

The original Hebrew and Greek texts of the 66 books of the Bible, for which we have an unmatchedly rich manuscript tradition.


61 posted on 06/10/2008 1:26:46 PM PDT by BibChr ("...behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD, so what wisdom is in them?" [Jer. 8:9])
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To: MrB
And, why would a Being outside of the constraints of linear time attempt to literally describe the required timeframes...
Which also begs to bring forward the question (if you ignore the fact that Yom, the word for 'day' also means 'age') whose day? The term or measurement of a 24 hour day is a human, earthly measurement, however, God is not constrained by the Earth. If one takes the Bible's modern English translation as the literal final word with no chance of figurative or pesher description, then what were the days measured by before the 'day' in which the earth was created? Could this be universal days not Earthly days? Solar System days? Milky Way days? We really need to stop applying man's rules and image to God.
62 posted on 06/10/2008 1:27:06 PM PDT by mnehring
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To: BibChr

Look up Quirinius in the Gospel of Luke, that’s a good start.


63 posted on 06/10/2008 1:27:45 PM PDT by GunRunner
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To: MrB
Genesis is an allegorical description of Creation<

Moses, Jesus and Paul explicitly say otherwise. I'll go with them. Thanks for slinging your opinion out there, though.

64 posted on 06/10/2008 1:28:52 PM PDT by BibChr ("...behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD, so what wisdom is in them?" [Jer. 8:9])
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To: BibChr
as contrasted with the solipsistic, circular speculations of naturalistic scientism

Yow - Can I use that as a Title for a Breakfast Cereal? It could be like little round pop tarts or something.

65 posted on 06/10/2008 1:31:21 PM PDT by shineon
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To: mnehrling

The Creation had to be described to people with no mathematical foundation, no concept of the time periods involved, no ideas about cosmology - use of the “day” to delineate the stages of Creation is, obviously, considering the Author, the best way possible to describe it.


66 posted on 06/10/2008 1:33:21 PM PDT by MrB (You can't reason people out of a position that they didn't use reason to get into in the first place)
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To: PugetSoundSoldier
Which Bible is inerrant?

The one that sits on my coffee table.

67 posted on 06/10/2008 1:35:30 PM PDT by shineon
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To: BibChr

And light from a galaxy some hundred million light years away? Why can we see it? How long did that light have to travel to reach us?

And how do you KNOW that the age of the earth doesn’t approach millions or billions of years? Faith in what the Bible says is one thing, faith in the interpretation of a translation which everything else indicates is false is something else entirely.

“The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Christian, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false.”
Saint Thomas Aquinas


68 posted on 06/10/2008 1:40:41 PM PDT by allmendream (Life begins at the moment of contraception. ;))
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To: BibChr
Moses, Jesus and Paul explicitly say otherwise

Post chapter & verse & I'll have a look.

This is dangerous territory when you hang your faith on something like this that may or may not reflect the objective truth.

Science is based on the concept that Creation is orderly and consistent. There is no reason for a consistent and Good Creator to leave evidence of a very OLD earth when it isn't true.

69 posted on 06/10/2008 1:42:40 PM PDT by MrB (You can't reason people out of a position that they didn't use reason to get into in the first place)
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To: MrB
Guess you haven’t heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls which independently verify the content and the history of when the Bible was written.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were written around the first century. I've never read that they contain information about the history of the writing of the Old Testament. They do contain complete copies of certain books in the Bible (such as Isaiah), which closely conform to much later copies, but all of the Old Testament was written centuries before the Dead Sea Scrolls were written and that's where things get unclear. Things are especially murky when the Torah is examined; it appears to be composed of several threads written between the 9th century BC and the 5th century BC. This becomes obvious when you observe that the Torah contains numerous doublets and even triplets (retellings of the same story, often with noticable differences). These appear to be the result of different traditions (e.g., those of the Northern Kingdom and those of the Southern Kingdom) being edited together. (Specific theories as to who wrote each thread and when are the matter of vigorous debate, but most modern scholarship accepts multiple authorship.)

Nevertheless, you might be right; the Bible might be inerrant. But I think it's only honest and fair to say that this is in dispute (among Christians as well as secular scholars), and therefore we cannot rely on the Bible to do science.

70 posted on 06/10/2008 1:44:04 PM PDT by megatherium
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To: shineon
The one that sits on my coffee table.

The bacteria don't know any better. They can't read yet.

71 posted on 06/10/2008 1:44:23 PM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: shineon
The one that sits on my coffee table.

The bacteria don't know any better. They can't read yet.

72 posted on 06/10/2008 1:44:34 PM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: tacticalogic
The bacteria don't know any better. They can't read yet.

Be patient with the bacteria. Pretty soon they will grow into more bacteria.

73 posted on 06/10/2008 1:46:32 PM PDT by shineon
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To: allmendream
Micro-changes to DNA over millions of years = the 2% genetic and 6% genomic difference between humans and chimps = “macro” evolutionary change.

And you're trotting out those figures after they have been widely discredited, and the differences are found mostly in non-coding regions or "junk DNA" that turns out to be a lot more important than we originally thought.

In the end, if you compare the 1.5% of the DNA that codes directly to proteins, you can get the 2% difference that you state. So 98% of 1.5% of human and chimp DNA are the same, or 1.47%. Not very impressive.

No one argues that humans have wildly different proteins in our species than in chimpanzees, but the most important part, the blueprints--the control code of our DNA is vastly different.

74 posted on 06/10/2008 1:49:41 PM PDT by dan1123 (If you want to find a person's true religion, ask them what makes them a "good person".)
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To: megatherium
we cannot rely on the Bible to do science

Wouldn't dream of it...

Our science and social experimentation, however, have been pretty consistently proving that the principles in the Book are correct.

75 posted on 06/10/2008 1:52:11 PM PDT by MrB (You can't reason people out of a position that they didn't use reason to get into in the first place)
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To: megatherium
therefore we cannot rely on the Bible to do science

Are you sure we have established this as a fact? How about if you read the Bible on the side. Like after work hours or something, is that OK?

Or what if you are doing science and then because you are getting frustrated or fatigue sets in, you just want a little inspiration, kind of like a second wind.

Is it ok at that point to read the Bible, Thank God for your lucky stars and then get back to work with a clear and refreshed mind?

Or are scientists required to read Carl Sagan (billions and billions and billions...)?

76 posted on 06/10/2008 1:53:42 PM PDT by shineon
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To: shineon

77 posted on 06/10/2008 1:54:51 PM PDT by shineon
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To: mnehrling
It's the first time evolution has been caught in the act of making such a rare and complex new trait.

So is it still E Coli or not? Physicians are aware of changes in bacteria that cause disease such as resistance to antibiotics, but staph and strep don't change into pseudomonas and proteus.

78 posted on 06/10/2008 1:56:31 PM PDT by mjp (Live & let live. I don't want to live in Mexico, Marxico, or Muslimico. Statism & high taxes suck)
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To: shineon
Archeologists are pretty happy with it though.

Not really. It turns out that it's pretty much impossible to verify specific events using archeology, especially regarding the Torah. For example, archaeologists have tried very hard to verify the Exodus but with little luck. The Bible describes hundreds of thousands of Hebrews spending many years in the Sinai. The Biblical time-line puts the Exodus in about the 14-13th century BC, but there is no evidence of that scale of human presence in the Sinai in that time frame. Worse, at that time Egypt had military bases throughout the Sinai. The Egyptians never mention the Exodus in their writings. So the Exodus may have happened, but archeology is unable to verify that it did.

79 posted on 06/10/2008 1:59:16 PM PDT by megatherium
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To: shineon

< shrug >

It’s not copyrighted.

(c;


80 posted on 06/10/2008 1:59:38 PM PDT by BibChr ("...behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD, so what wisdom is in them?" [Jer. 8:9])
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