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To: MRMEAN
Two points: First, the scientists have not determined the ability to digest nylon is the result of a mutation. They just don't know.

Second, I personally believe in evolution. I think the intelligent design or purpose is inherent in the universe, and there is some deeper reason why life exists and is evolving. That reason is beyond me and science, and begins to look like the design of God. IMHO, God is unknowable by man and there are things unknowable to science. That is where science and religion are destined to find a common path.

247 posted on 09/28/2005 9:53:39 PM PDT by Williams
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To: Williams
... the scientists have not determined the ability to digest nylon is the result of a mutation. They just don't know.

Well the scientists believe that they do know it is a mutation, and have identified the original genes.As for your second point, you are no doubt correct that if God is directing the evolution of the universe that information will be beyond human science to understand.


1: Nature. 1983 Nov 10-16;306(5939):203-6. Related Articles, Links Evolutionary adaptation of plasmid-encoded enzymes for degrading nylon oligomers.

Okada H, Negoro S, Kimura H, Nakamura S.

Flavobacterium sp. KI72 metabolizes 6-aminohexanoic acid cyclic dimer, a by-product of nylon manufacture, through two newly evolved enzymes, 6-aminohexanoic acid cyclic dimer hydrolase (EI) and 6-aminohexanoic acid linear oligomer hydrolase (EII). These enzymes are active towards man-made compounds, the cyclic dimer and linear oligomers of 6-aminohexanoic acid respectively, but not towards any of the natural amide bonds tested. The structural genes of EI (nylA) and EII (nylB) are encoded on pOAD2, one of three plasmids harboured in Flavobacterium sp. KI72. This plasmid contains two kinds of repeated sequence (RS-I and RS-II); one of the two RS-II sequences, RS-IIA, contains the nylB gene, while the other, RS-IIB, contains a homologous nylB' gene. From comparisons of the nucleotide sequences and gene products of the nylB and nylB' genes, we now conclude that EII enzyme is newly evolved by gene duplication followed by base substitutions on the same plasmid. PMID: 6646204 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

249 posted on 09/28/2005 10:23:48 PM PDT by MRMEAN (Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of congress;but I repeat myself. Mark Twain)
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