Posted on 10/01/2015 6:16:47 AM PDT by lasereye
On February 24, 1988, evolutionary biologist Richard Lenski began an ingenious ongoing experiment to test and demonstrate evolution. He and his coworkers have nursed thousands of generations of the common gut bacterium Escherichia coli, feeding them broth with limited nutrients. The team watched for decades to see if the germs might evolve a solution to this low-nutrient challenge. After about 31,500 generations, some finally cracked the code and changed. Evolution promoter Richard Dawkins wrote that this was “a beautiful example of evolution in action,” and that “creationists hate it.”1
The Harvard Gazette recently wrote, “Though the bacteria were originally genetically identical, they have evolved.”2 How could anybody doubt statements like this in light of what happened? But two genetic details topple this “beautiful example of evolution.”
Lenski’s team adds an energy molecule called citrate to the bacteria’s broth. All normal E. coli have a protein gate that brings citrate into the cell by trading out another chemical, but only when oxygen is absent. In wild E. coli, molecular switches interact with the gate genes’ promoter region to build more gates when oxygen levels drop. After about 31,500 generations, the germ’s cellular machinery cut out and pasted these genes into another spot on the bacteria’s DNA. The new location already contained an “on” promoter. These new mutants began promoting gate production even with oxygen present. This “evolved” bacterium could now import and use citrate in the presence of oxygen but was “surprisingly weak when it first appeared.”3
What really happened here? A mutation caused a loss of regulation. In the scientists’ special soup, bacteria with this loss grow for a little longer than others that could still regulate their citrate-gate production.
After about 33,000 generations, something dramatic changed. Those mutants’ descendants suddenly grew like gangbusters, consuming more citrate. When researchers first described this development in 2012, they speculated that mutations constructed new and complicated cellular machinery, but others have since revealed that the second change was not nearly that impressive.4
Instead of gaining new features, the bacteria lost regulation over an additional gate protein—one that pumps the sugar succinate into the cell. A mutation damaged its genetic “off” switch. Cells with both mutations now have two unregulated genes, both producing transport gates. One gate imports citrate by trading out a succinate, and the other pumps in more succinate that can then be traded. By these losses of regulation, citrate lands on the menu even with oxygen present, and the bacteria grow faster than previous generations.
Normal E. coli with intact genetic regulators retain the tools to cope with ever-changing conditions. But throw these mutants into any natural environment and they would fade to the back of the pack as they waste energy making so many extra gates.
So, did Lenski’s bacteria evolve? Well, mutations did help them use more citrate, but only by losing healthy regulation. Molecular biologist Michael Behe wrote,
This is evolution by degradation. All of the functional parts of the system were already in place before random mutation began to degrade them. Thus it is of no help to Darwinists, who require a mechanism that will construct new, functional systems.5
We could say that a man who lost both arms “evolved” the ability to wriggle through a small pipe leading to a new food source, but how would he fare among robust peers with arms? It is the same with these “evolved” bacteria. Lenski’s experiment has now surpassed 50,000 E. coli generations. After all those opportunities to prove evolution can construct something new, these germs have merely shown beautiful examples of degradation in action.
References
why would God Need to “use” “evolution” having created the entire universe.
micro evolution mutants are usually degenerate...
and if God used “evolution” as In macro evolution...
why would God have chosen to Gamble??
Things change.
However things are now, they changed from something before.
Some of us would like to understand what things were like, and how they changed to what they are now.
Looking at fossils, things were very different at some point in the past; evolution is the best sensible guess we have at what was then and how it all got to now.
Just because you don’t understand something doesn’t mean it’s wrong, and doesn’t mean what happened didn’t happen.
“using evolution as a mechanism ...”
I don’t think the scriptures allow that possibility, but natural selection within species is evident and possible.
Best
Who am I to know God’s reasoning behind the universe? All I can do is look at what is, and based on that make a sensible theory about how it got that way. As an engineer, I create things that have a starting configuration and proceed on their own to a ready state; makes sense to me that God do the same, rather than build it all already “in flight”.
I would certainly think that as God controls everything... Atoms... Molecules DNA...which is not a simple clump of jelly....he could do virtually anything.
Inventing Gravity comes to mind, and as Im sure youre aware we still dont even know what gravity is.
This was alleged to be some very impressive evidence for evolution. Most people who believe macro-evolution have this idea that there is all this impressive proof, like this experiment was alleged to be. People hear this stuff and think evolution is a fact but it isn’t.
Your analogy with the crazed gunman and this experiment makes no sense.
Can you actually identify anything wrong with what he said? That’s a rhetorical question.
LOL
Tactic? Club? What? He analyzed the results of the experiment. Why is that a problem for you?
You sound like what the climate alarmists talk about global warming skeptics.
Alternate theory?
Just more wheel spinning.
Your arguments are weak, misdirected and illogical.
If you accept the loss of information as evolution, you’re going to have to start calling it devolution.
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two words: irreducible complexity
Freegards
Devolution as a theory has more merit for me. The evidence seems to be saying we are losing genetic information and species, not gaining....................
When researchers first described this development in 2012, they speculated that mutations constructed new and complicated cellular machinery,
It show’s lack of thinking for “new and complicated cellular machinery.”
When I came through school in the ancient days, this was called gene expression. The information was there but for some reason expressed.....................
The question then became, what is causing it to be expressed.
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Absolutely correct!
Men have lost about half of their cognitive capacity over the last 6000 years.
Just look at how much more intelligent the apostles were, and that is just 2000 years.
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bkmk
Yet we’re the ones sending probes past Pluto and they were sitting around in huts.
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Boring!
They lived almost 1000 years, and knew that sending probes to Pluto was an absurd waste of money and time.
And nobody knows what they lived in.
It was the pagans like yourself that were living in the huts.
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