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To: adorno
Wow, does reality intrude much into your world, do you actually read my responses, or just read what you want to read in them?

I never said a bacteria was “too smart”. That is your own misconception.

Evolution would work against your proposed mechanism, there is no “smart” required.

A change in the dangerous characteristics of an invading pathogen through introduction of new DNA into its genome would not work for the three reasons I already outlined, and there was no “smart” required from the bacteria in either....

1) unknown mechanism completely removed from anything observed in how the immune system works. This is obviously the weakest objection because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But it presupposes a rather complex and bizarre mechanism that has never been observed, Occum’s razor precludes taking this assumption seriously without any evidence. This MIGHT be evidence of what you suggest, but first we will have to see what the human DNA element is doing in the bacteria and if having it is advantageous or disadvantageous for the bacteria.

2) Even if the mechanism existed and was highly effective at introducing human DNA into the bacteria, natural selection would favor any that were not affected until they dominated each subsequent generation.

3) Selective pressure would work towards elimination or mutation of the foreign DNA sequence if it conferred a disadvantage.

It might be easier to deal with the arguments I didn't make, but it isn't exactly logical discourse at that point, is it? Can you deal with the arguments I actually DID make?

47 posted on 02/14/2011 6:42:41 AM PST by allmendream (Tea Party did not send the GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism.)
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To: allmendream
Look, I don't have the time right now, nor the desire to drag on this discussion, but, I'll just point out your statement to prompted me to draw the "smart" analogy from your argument...

they are ‘experts’ at getting rid of any DNA that isn’t ‘worth its salt’.

That word "expert" connotes a sort of "intelligence" or "smarts", and that's where I drew the smart analogy which has you all twisted out of shape.

Perhaps you should have used some other word or phrase, like "trait" or "characteristic" or "property" or "defense mechanism of the bacteria".

BTW, "natural selection"?

Do you not believe that there could be some very smart design in all living organisms, including even the bacteria in question?

Yeah, that's a whole other question, and perhaps we don't need to go there now.
48 posted on 02/14/2011 5:35:13 PM PST by adorno
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