[allmendream]

No e.coli ever observed has the ability to digest citrate except the citrate plus strain that was observed to evolve in the lab. This is a complex metabolic pathway, the kind of increased complexity that many claim is impossible; now that it has been observed suddenly it is dismissed as not a big deal, but it is.

The rise of eukaryote was thought to take about a billion years, so if such was observed to happen in the lab over a few decades it would make us all rethink how evolution happens rather than being what one would expect.

Indeed such a rapid evolution is only proposed by Creationists who think all modern species were derived from a few pairs of animals loaded onto Noah's ark.

[Sopater]

No e.coli ever observed has the ability to digest citrate except the citrate plus strain that was observed to evolve in the lab.

Tell that to this guy: Cloning and DNA Sequence of a Plasmid-Determined Citrate Utilization System in Escherichia coli

This is a complex metabolic pathway, the kind of increased complexity that many claim is impossible; now that it has been observed suddenly it is dismissed as not a big deal, but it is.

Actually, E.coli does have the ability to digest citrate. The only problem was that it can't get it into it's mouth. According to Lemski's article, he himself said:

E. coli is not wholly indifferent to citrate. It uses a ferric dicitrate transport system for iron acquisition, although citrate does not enter the cell in this process (37, 38). It also has a complete tricarboxylic acid cycle, and can thus metabolize citrate internally during aerobic growth on other substrates (39). E. coli is able to ferment citrate under anoxic conditions if a cosubstrate is available for reducing power (40). The only known barrier to aerobic growth on citrate is its inability to transport citrate under oxic conditions (41–43).(emphasis added)