Posted on 03/28/2006 2:37:59 PM PST by Conservative Coulter Fan
Why would it be *impossible* to overlook the cases in post 12?
Regardless of your opinion as to motive, what does their analysis of bacterial development of antibiotic resistance show -- if you had to rewrite the summary?
It would be impossible to ignore MRSA and vancomycin resistance in a study of antibiotic resistance because these are the two antibiotic resistances of major clinical significance today. MRSA renders a wide range of antibiotics ineffective and is commonly transmitted in hospital settings. My grandmother had MRSA cellulitis, which was successfully treated with vancomycin, which is essentially the last line of defense. Now we have vancomycin resistance passing around. Even worse, some vancomycin resistant MRSA strains have been found. At that point you just throw up your hands and hope for good luck, because there's nothing medicine can do.
So you're telling me in their exhaustive research they came across the resistance method for chloramphenicol, which has never had any major clinical use, and somehow overlooked the two most medically significant resistances?? I've read too many of these articles; I'm not feeling that credulous anymore.
Here's a good article discussing the danger of these infections. You'll notice they mention mecA. That is the novel gene I mentioned in my earlier post that came about by the combination of a staph gene with a gene from E. coli.
One possibility is that the gene existed in nature. And eventually someone was infected with that particular bacteria that had the gene which then got selected for when the antibiotic was used. We probably don't know but a tiny tiny fraction of the bacterial genes that exist in nature.
Of course Song might well be right. It might be a freak occurance where two genes spliced together to create a novel gene.
But I still appreciate the way Song puts it as a "probability" instead of the way evo's seem to always state their case as a certainty.
It's science-speak. Everything is always officially spoken of as uncertain--that's the way science works. Nothing can ever be proven absolutely conclusively, because there could always be some weird off-the-wall explanation that would never occur to you. So we keep testing things over and over again in different situations to make sure that the theory doesn't break down at certain points. Sometimes it does and we know it does, which means the theory is incomplete (for instance, what is inside a singularity?) Probably some of the reason that in debates we state things more firmly than the wording of the literature suggests is to combat this idea of lack of confidence on the part of science regarding evolution that stems from a misunderstanding of the language of science.
For some reason creationists have no trouble recognizing Arcaeraptor as two different fossils stuck together, but presented with a gene that is obviously two different genes stuck together their discernment evaporates. ;-) Evolution utilizes such freak occurances--gene duplications (not so rare), chromosomal inversions, gene splicing, gene theft, and fortuitous polyploidy. These events can introduce new information into the genome or aid in establishing reproductive isolation.
EXCEPT they IGNORED several examples of the evolution of new gene families imparting resistances. MRSA is about 30 years old, for example, and originated by splicing together two genes from two different species.
Sometimes YEC remind me of those little monkeys--See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil! If the contrary evidence is ignored or buried, does that mean it doesn't exist?
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