“It turns out that some cases of antibiotic resistance in bacteria were not caused by antibiotic-resistant genes. Instead, they were caused by the deterioration of genes that exist for other purposes.”
That’s still a genetic adaptation. The mutation that would seem to have been for some other purpose provided an unexpected advantage for an individual in a given circumstance and that individual was then better suited to have offspring.
“This allows the bacterium to survive the antibiotic, but the degraded gyrase gene causes the bacterium to reproduce much more slowly.”
Seems to go in the opposite direction from “natural selection” theory.
“That’s still a genetic adaptation.”
Not of the type necessary to support the production of new genetic information, which is a key point evolutionists need to demonstrate to support their thesis.
“The mutation that would seem to have been for some other purpose...”
There are no predefined purposes behind mutations. Evolution is supposed to be an unguided, blind, unthinking process. Purpose only comes from intelligence, or processes designed by intelligence.
” I was taught (as definitive fact) that bacteria evolved resistance to antibiotics as a result of the production of antibiotics.”
This guy’s teacher was an idiot, or this guy didn’t really understand what the teacher was saying.
Genetic mutations occur all the time. The penicillinase mutation has no value if there is no penicillin around. It might even be deleterious. However, if penicillin is around, those bacteria that do have this mutation will out-reproduce those that don’t, leading to a strain that is resistant to that antibiotic.