I read with great interest an article claiming that evolution — specifically, the evolution of the ability of E. coli to eat citrate, something they have never been able to do before — has been seen in the lab. This isn’t my field, of course, but I had some thoughts about it… then read Carl Zimmer’s article which lays everything out very clearly. This is a fascinating development… and of course is yet another slap in the face to creationists. Not that it matters: they’ll never, ever admit that there’s any evidence that what they’re saying is so much eyewash. Why would this particular evidence in a lab under controlled conditions make them want to drop their blinders any more than the already existing nearly endless stream of evidence they are so well practiced at ignoring?
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Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
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June 11th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Well the creationist will say this is microevolution and they agree with that, but not macroevolution.
June 11th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
In my mind, something like this should completely shatter the worldview of a creationist, but of course it won’t as you say.
I can’t help but wonder if the battle is more or less lost when it comes to adults that are already in complete denial of all the scientific data available? Is there ANY argument that you could come up with that could possibly sway a creationist with a strong conviction? It seems like everything has been done, microevolution is obviously shown, this experiment does a great job as well, i seem to remember macro-evolution features in lizards over a period of only 30 years being reported just a few months ago as well, but nothing seems to slow down the juggernaut of ignorance that is creationism.
June 11th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
“no new information”, eh creationists?
June 11th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Does take out their “evolution cannot generate new ‘information’ ” argument though.
Mind you, we’ve known that since the discovery of the nylon-eating bug.
Count-down to mind-numbing creo trollness in 10, 9…
June 11th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Snap!
June 11th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
I can see it now: “But they’re still bacteria!!”
Seriously, this will not cause any dent whatsoever in creationist belief. The fact that e coli does not evolve into a whale will be sufficient for them to dismiss this evidence out of hand.
And as for the “no new information” schtick, for some reason a bacterium gaining an ability that it never had before won’t get much traction either. We’ve been here before, with nylonase.
This will be water off an anatida’s back.
June 11th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Obviously, as any evolutionary biologist will tell you, there is a magical barrier that prevents small changes like this from accumulating. Though it seems obvious to laymen that repeated small changes would have to add up over time, that would violate the fundamental disconnect between micro and macroevolution. A violation of this fundamental law of nature would cause a black hole which would devour the Earth from within. I’m pretty sure.
June 11th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
If you make fun of or predict an on coming troll this automatically scares of the trolling at least for a little while.
The creationists will say of course the scientists think it is evolution because they a part of cult of Darwain.
June 11th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
I want to hear the refute to the “no new information” issue. Can someone post a link?
June 11th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
but…but….teh microEVILution!!11!1
June 11th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
>>>”Seriously, this will not cause any dent whatsoever in creationist belief.”
It’s difficult to make a dent in solid sponge. (shrug)
>>>”I want to hear the refute to the “no new information” issue. Can someone post a link?”
IT JUS CAN’T MAKE NEW INFOMATION, OKAY?!? AMEN! SEE U IN HELL EVO’S! ACTUALLY NO I WON’T HA-HA! OWNED!!!!
June 11th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
P.Z. Myers put up a nice review of the paper Tuesday.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/historical_contingency_in_the.php
George
June 11th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
The Skeptics Guide to the Universe did an interview with Carl Zimmer who wrote Microcosm a couple of weeks ago. Microcosm is all about E. coli. Fascinating little critters… even if they haven’t evolved into cats.
June 11th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
@Kari, just a friendly comment. There is no real difference between what is termed micro and macro evolution. It is all simply changes in genes. The problem with those terms is that they lend credence to the talk of ‘kinds’ as anything other then categorization devices. The difference between a dog and a wolf and dog and a lizard, is not a difference of kind, but of degree.
June 11th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Its awesome that this sort of long term experiment has paid off, and that someone had the patience to complete it.
The infuriating thing is, no matter how much evidence and science like this that we present to the Creationist nut jobs, they will always refuse to agree with the conclusions we draw from the evidence at hand.
Like Randi says, its an Unsinkable Rubber Duck – if you prove their belief in the literal interpretation of the Bible to be wrong, it would mean their whole belief system is wrong. And people tend to defend their beliefs quite vigorously.
June 11th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
is it true that the terms micro and macro evolution didn’t exist until creationists coined them?
June 11th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
sunny nope, the terms were coined by a russian in the 1920’s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microevolution#Origin_of_the_term
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroevolution#Origin_of_the_Term
June 11th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
@Simon
I don’t have a link off hand, but I know I’ve seen refutations of the ‘no new information’ “argument” on youtube.
Really it needs little refutation, genes DO duplicate, we know this. Once there are two copies of a gene, of course, they are free to mutate. There are four nitrogenous bases that represent “information” in the DNA: adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. These four bases from the nucleotides, which we call A, G, C, and T. The order of these nucleotides is what determines the gene’s “instruction.” So… in a sense there is “no new information” in that there will only ever be four nitrogenous bases, but their order is what matters.
Really, the argument is not coherent. It’s equivalent to saying, no new software will ever be written, because there are only 0s and 1s, and there is “no new information,” in that there will never be a 2. The argument would just be a simple misunderstanding of computing: it’s the order of the 0s and 1s that matters.
June 11th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Just have to say…that is so freakin’ cool!
June 11th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
While drama’s on the subject, why are they called ‘bases’? Are they actually basic (as in, alkaline) in nature, or is it that they form the ‘basis’ on DNA, or something else?
June 11th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
This won’t sway the Creationists (or the IDers). Recently I decided to download some podcasts made by Creationists to get an idea of what they believe and the arguments that they make. In one such podcast, they discussed whether or not the adaptation of bacteria to antibiotics meant that evolution was real. Not surprisingly, the answer was no, The line of reasoning was that the mutation to gain immunity to the antibiotic weakened the organisms ability to reproduce as quickly and that when the antibiotic was removed from the system, the older version of the bacteria reproduced more quickly than the newer organism and this showed that evolution cannot be true because a more fit organism did not come about. (Sorry for the run on sentence). This article has a similar situation where the authors state that the new E. Coli cannot consume the same sugars as before. Using the same argument, this will be seen as a failure to produce a more fit organism once both the old and new must feed off of the original glucose.
In the first case (and the second if they make the argument I’m guessing), I think the logic is twisted to make sure it reaches the outcome they want.
Oh, and I forgot. The scientist making the critique (anti-evolution) had a PhD in Astophysics!
June 11th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
LOLE.Coli iz in ur refrigerator drinking ur oranj juse
June 11th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Well, I’m a Christian and I find this article interesting. I believe it. And I still believe in God. It’s certainly not going to make me change my mind about God.
I doubt a committed atheist would be convinced to believe in God because of this level of evidence against evolution. If there weren’t any changes in the bacteria after 40,000 generations, would Dawkins start thinking that evolution is false? What about 1,000,000 unchanged generations?
A lot of the conversation here kind of touches on the ‘war’ between science and religion. I’ve been reading Heddle’s blog where he’s sharing his notes on his church class on science and faith. If you’re interested in getting a view of what many Christians should think about science, check out: http://helives.blogspot.com/2008/05/sunday-school-on-science-and-faith.html
I’d really like to have a truce on the whole issue. I learn tons here and really enjoy most of the posts. I’m really not for teaching creationism in the class room. I don’t really even have a warm fuzzy about ID. The whole thing seems kind of dishonest and sneaky. And many of the ID gang seem to whine way too much.
June 11th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
really, I use that word too much.
June 12th, 2008 at 12:29 am
I learned to eat solid food when I was a toddler, does that mean I evolved?
Robert
June 12th, 2008 at 12:30 am
Oh, Mike, there’s no need to make any kind of peace, they’re just using straw man arguments anyway, unless of course, you want them to make peace with the endless straw men they’ve been knocking down lately!
Freedom to straw men!
June 12th, 2008 at 1:32 am
Creationists really need to learn what the term “fitness” means.
Just because one organism is fitter in one environment than another doesn’t mean it is fitter in *all* environments. Evolution is not a one way street. Genes are conserved in the gene pool if they confer a reproductive advantage (and being alive to reproduce is one of the biggies), but if they confer no advantage, they gradually disappear. If they cause a large disadvantage (helps survival when exposed to an antibiotic, but interferes with the ability to utilize an important food source), they will disappear very rapidly in an environment not exposed to that antibiotic, to be replaced by the residual ancestral form of the gene which is still present in the gene pool. On the other hand, in an environment rich in the antibiotic but poor in the food source the bacteria has lost the ability to metabolize, the ancestral form of the gene will eventually disappear entirely, so if the environment changes back (no antibiotic, lots of the now unusable food), the bacteria can’t evolve back except by a random mutation that reverts the gene (unlikely but not impossible if it’s a single base-pair mutation), or another gene evolves that can perform the function of the original lost gene. This is all a normal and expected part of evolutionary theory, and is well observed in the lab and in nature.
In the cases where the environment doesn’t remain stable long enough in either state to completely eliminate either variation of the gene, the population can oscillate between the two states. See Dawkins’ computer models.
Speaking of Dawkins, Mike R asks how many generations of bacteria without changes would be necessary before he decided evolution wasn’t true… This is a moot point since changes in bacteria and other organisms have been observed hundreds of times in very few or even only one generation. Time to get a snack. I think I’ll have a Granny Smith apple.
June 12th, 2008 at 2:52 am
Hardly anything anyone can ever say can convince them, because they don’t have any sense of prespective really. You can’t afford to have a sense of prespective and believe that the earth is 6000 years old cause that’s an error of Epic proportion (13.73E9-6000)/6000
June 12th, 2008 at 3:19 am
“Why would this particular evidence in a lab under controlled conditions make them want to drop their blinders any more than the already existing nearly endless stream of evidence they are so well practiced at ignoring?”
For the very simple reason that it IS a laboratory controlled experiment not an observation from nature. The would argue what the difference is there between a controlled experiment and Intelligent creation. A lab experiment, no matter how “hands free” is still controlled by an intelligence.
By the way, there is no endless stream of evidence. This is one of the first empirically derived evidences that I have come across. The so-called endless stream of evidence is generally no more than hypotheticals upon hypotheticals.
Given that it took 33000 generations to develop this new evolutionary trait, this would translate to over 825000 years if the generation time was 25 years as it is for humans.
As for a 6000 year old earth? Quite possible. Ask any theoretical physicist and they could say that is it possible to have 6 billion years of evolution in a 6000 year old earth, purely from the warping of time and space. Remember, time is not a constant. Perhaps the biblical line “A day to God is as a thousand years to man” is closer to quantum physics than we give it credit for.
June 12th, 2008 at 3:30 am
Apologies for my typos.
June 12th, 2008 at 3:42 am
You should apologise for your ignorant drivel more than your typos.
June 12th, 2008 at 3:44 am
MPG:
Wheres your science Ph.D. sport?
June 12th, 2008 at 3:46 am
Where’s yours?
June 12th, 2008 at 3:48 am
MPG:
In a frame in my office.
June 12th, 2008 at 3:52 am
Mine too.
June 12th, 2008 at 4:11 am
For the very simple reason that it IS a laboratory controlled experiment not an observation from nature. The would argue what the difference is there between a controlled experiment and Intelligent creation. A lab experiment, no matter how “hands free” is still controlled by an intelligence.
When I first read this, I thought you were doing a parody of a creationist, and I laughed. Then, after reading the rest of your comment, I realized you were being sincere. (Yikes.) I once did a parody of creationist thinking along the same lines by saying that if a bacteria blows onto some plastic and evolves to digest it, it’s still ID because humans caused the global warming that caused the gust of wind – and that makes it “controlled by an intelligence”. Seriously, have you even heard of Poe’s Law?
By the way, there is no endless stream of evidence. This is one of the first empirically derived evidences that I have come across. The so-called endless stream of evidence is generally no more than hypotheticals upon hypotheticals.
Uh right. Human Adult Lactose Digestion, bacteria evolution against antibacterials, HIV evolution against antivirals, Bacteria that eats nylon, Bacteria that eats plastics, … (And those aren’t under the “laboratory controlled” conditions that allow you to dismiss this new bit of evidence.)
Given that it took 33000 generations to develop this new evolutionary trait, this would translate to over 825000 years if the generation time was 25 years as it is for humans.
(1) “this new evolutionary trait” is hopelessly vague. What is a “trait”? One point mutation? A whole complex of new genes? You can’t compare a new mutationally-complex evolutionary trait in yeast to a new mutationally-simple evolutionary trait in humans. We’ll have to work out the details to figure out what the situation is, but your one-to-one comparison is an assuption on your part.
(2) The appearance of new traits is dependent on the population size. Think about this and you’ll realize that it’s far less likely to produce a new trait in a species with a constant population size of 2 than with a constant population size of 1 million. (You have more opportunities for mutations.) The yeast population was repeatedly put through population bottlenecks each time they were transfered to a new petri dish. Effectively speaking, the yeast was kept to a very small population size – hence, it was less likely to produce any “new evolutionary traits”. Thus, your math calculation, which assumes that you can compare humans and yeast, is based on fatally flawed assumptions.
As for a 6000 year old earth? Quite possible. Ask any theoretical physicist and they could say that is it possible to have 6 billion years of evolution in a 6000 year old earth, purely from the warping of time and space. Remember, time is not a constant. Perhaps the biblical line “A day to God is as a thousand years to man” is closer to quantum physics than we give it credit for.
Surely, you’re joking here, but it’s hard to tell when you argue earnestly a paragraph earlier.
June 12th, 2008 at 4:45 am
That rather depends. By ‘learned’ do you in fact mean ‘acquired a new trait by genetic mutation?’ I’m guessing no.
June 12th, 2008 at 4:46 am
Keyword: this.
Your extrapolation to 825,000 years is meaningless. E. Coli reproduction is completely different from human reproduction, and there’s a slightly bigger gene ‘reservoir’ to provide the background from which complex traits can evolve.
June 12th, 2008 at 4:54 am
That’s utterly irrelevant. We do controlled experiments precisely because they tell us about nature. The laws of physics don’t magically change just because an experimenter is involved.
What a load of old cobblers. How many physicists have you actually asked?
June 12th, 2008 at 4:56 am
Quite. It’s not as if these are the only three mutations that occurred in the entire experiment, after all.
June 12th, 2008 at 5:24 am
Ask any theoretical physicist and they could say that is it possible to have 6 billion years of evolution in a 6000 year old earth, purely from the warping of time and space.
Whisky Tango Foxtrot?
OK, lets play along… If we assume that the Earth was created 6000 years ago according to some other frame of reference, but that due to relativistic time dilation (or something similar) 6 billion years have passed in the terrestrial frame of reference, then the Earth is 6 billion years old. That’s the whole freaking point of relativity!
Unless you’re proposing that the evolution has occurred in a different frame of reference from the rest of the Earth… Say, perhaps, by loading all life on Earth into a spaceship and whizzing it around the Universe at a speed very close to c before bringing it back. Puts a new spin on Noah’s Ark, I guess.
I’m guessing your PhD isn’t in physics…
June 12th, 2008 at 5:48 am
Why can’t a groundbreaking story about micro-evolution stand on its own? Why even bring up the creationist implications? You are preaching to the choir. Baiting the 6,000 year-old earthers does nothing more than lend credibility through acknowledgement. I say ignore them and let science speak for itself.
Actually I understand why you attack them (they are a force in public education). Its just frustrating for the people who just want to read the science to have to listen to the tongue lashing.
June 12th, 2008 at 5:48 am
How is this a “strawman argument”.
June 12th, 2008 at 5:49 am
Dunc: I’m guessing his “Science PhD” is as real as god and original sin. (Which is, of course, as real as the flying rods, the jungles of Venus and Santa Claus.)
It’s also telling that they have no basic understanding of relativity which, as far as I know, is a pretty basic scientific theory and not difficult for the average person to understand. That would, to me, imply that Richard, who claims to be a scientist, lacks the ability to understand basic concepts of the subject in which he claims a doctorate.
“Richard” is either a troll, or simply a liar. I’m going to go with the choice of “liar” since it seems to be a very popular hobby for the folks who fear science and the understanding of the universe.
June 12th, 2008 at 5:50 am
Let me add that I don’t see this experiment having any bearing on the existence of God as some seem to raise here. It certainly seems to have implications to those who literally interpret the bible, but nothing more. I would also point out that not all creationists subscribe to the 6000 year old Earth.
June 12th, 2008 at 6:23 am
I love the link on the satire website BBSpot.
He’s got a link to this story, and when you mouse over the link, it says “The sound you hear is the heads of creationists exploding.”
June 12th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Phil, you’ve got to think like a creationistID’er…
This is “proof” that “intelligent design” works! After all, the E.coli didn’t “evolve” on their own — it took an “intelligent designer” (in this case, the scientists running the experiment) to create this “new” form.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:09 am
Just throwing this out there, but when you keep saying “ha, this will show those other people!” rather than, say, celebrating what the findings actually mean, you sound a lot more like politicians than scientists.
Just sayin’. That’ll show those Republicans/Democrats/others!
June 12th, 2008 at 8:25 am
MPG:
Did Richard give you permission to keep your Ph.D. there?
June 12th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Richard: “MPG:
In a frame in my office.”
Proof that a diploma does not necessarily give one the ability to think clearly.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:33 am
You know what’s funny? Jews wrote the old testament…and if these Christian fundamentalists would bother to speak with rabbis, they would find that most of them regard the Bible stories as parables. Not to be taken literally.
It’s getting sad.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Told ya.
>>>”A lab experiment, no matter how “hands free” is still controlled by an intelligence.”
At which point, every fundie who argues against “life from non-life” will suddenly change their argument to “Look! PROOF that life was Intelligently Designed!” if abiogenesis was ever reproduced in the lab.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:55 am
Ok. I do not have a Ph.D. At least I haven’t completeted it yet. But I do have a bachelor in Applied Science (biology) from Curtin University and a Bachelor of Science with Second Class Honours Division A form Murdoch University Western Australia.
Now, as for trolls. You little trolls obviously did not read correctly or could not read (due to your blinkered view) correctly what I originally wrote. I started with how the Creationists will justify dismissing the work being reported. Now, I alluded to a couple of recent (and not so recent) theories in Physics.
1. An observer may have an influence on a system through the simple process of observing (New Scientist some time this year). Just by conducting the experiment, the researchers influence the outcome of the experiment (pretty heady stuff).
2. Time may actually not exist in the fundamental sense. http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/in-no-time
Therefore, whether the earth is 6000 years old or 12 billion means nothing because time is as malleable as clay and only has structure in the human mind.
another good read:
Molecular clocks run out of time: The theory that we can date the birth of new species by charting the steady accumulation of mutations over evolutionary time is in serious trouble
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12517033.900-molecular-clocks-run-out-of-time-the-theory-that-we-candate-the-birth-of-new-species-by-charting-the-steady-accumulation-ofmutations-over-evolutionary-time-is-in-serious-trouble-.html
So. What I was trying to stimulate in debate certainly drew out the true believers of evolutionism (as opposed to evolutionary theory). Evolutionism, just like Creationism is a belief structure. Evolutionism is no more science than is religion. In fact evolutionism is a religion with its obvious zealots and thought police.
I accept evolutionary theory as a valid theory. I accept god as a valid spritual entity. However, I am open-minded on the actuality or otherwise of evolution as well as god. So, quell your religious ferver oh evolutionists. And creationists.
June 12th, 2008 at 9:08 am
“Actually I understand why you attack them (they are a force in public education). Its just frustrating for the people who just want to read the science to have to listen to the tongue lashing.”
You just gave the answer yourself, David 6. These 14th century knotheads want to take over education, and indeed the entire government. They must be fought at every turn or they will eventually succeed. Look at what they (through their neocon brethren) have done to the country already!
If you ignore them, the problem just gets worse.
June 12th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Where did the rock we “evolved” from originate? Before the “big bang” that is?
Skeptic of Skeptics
“Why aren’t skeptics skeptical of skeptics?”
June 12th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Nice rant, Richard. It still doesn’t make your 825000 any more meaningful.
Will you post a message from jail when the thought police has picked you up? Have to get back to zealot class now, have a nice one.
June 12th, 2008 at 9:59 am
@Crux Australis
Yes, they are called bases because they are basic (in the “opposite of alkaline” sense).
Also, I don’t see “This is a fascinating development… and of course is yet another slap in the face to creationists.” as an attack at all, it’s simply the truth, in the way that Earth’s shadow on the moon is a slap in the face to flat-earth believers. It will be quite evidently a “slap in the face” when they inevitably explain it away, as we’ve seen hundreds of times before.
They still claim “no observed speciation” despite all the observed speciation… the ulex molestus is a mosquito exclusive to the underground of London, being isolated there from it’s parent C. pipiens a century ago. ulex molestus prefers different prey, and can not interbreed with C. pipens. It is a different species, but to a creationist, of course, it’s “still a mosquito!”
European mice were accidentally brought to the island of Madeira on a 15th century Portuguese ship, today there are six species of mice descended from those original mice. But of course, despite the inability to interbreed, different number of chromosomes, “they’re all still mice!”
In the end they say “yeah, well mice from mice is microevolution, to prove evolution show me a mouse giving birth to an elephant!” Which I always find ironic, as a mouse giving birth to an elephant would completely topple evolution, and require a complete reevaluation of evolutionary processes.
Another ironic argument I find is “science is religion!” or “evolution is religion” etc. This is amusing in that by saying “science is actually religion, and religion is actually science,” they themselves are saying that religion is bad thing, and science is good thing. The missed point here is that creationism is more of a political ideology, so, like in politics, proponents are more likely to be insulted by contrary evidence, rather than convinced.
Scientists don’t WANT the Earth to be 4.5 billion years old, they just want to know HOW OLD it is, and since various methods of testing agree on a there is conflicting evidence.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Thanks slang. I am signing off on this subject. I think I have been beaten up enough on this one!! All the best you Noble Knights of the Darwinian Order.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:08 am
@Skeptic of Skeptics
“Where did the rock we “evolved” from originate? Before the “big bang” that is?”
Since time started in the big bang, there is no logical definition of “before the “big bang”"
This is equivalent to asking “what animals live north of the north pole?” There is no logical answer because it is not a logical question.
In truth, I don’t think we’ll ever know what “caused” the universe (if it had a cause), since we cannot see outside of it, however, this is rather off-topic and I don’t see what this has to do with evolution.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Sorry, at the end of my large post where I say “and since various methods of testing agree on a there is conflicting evidence.” I meant to say “and since various methods of testing agree on a 4.5 billion year age, it will remain that way unless there is conflicting evidence”
June 12th, 2008 at 10:16 am
“Thanks slang. I am signing off on this subject. I think I have been beaten up enough on this one!! All the best you Noble Knights of the Darwinian Order.”
Nice…if you can’t defend your position, launch a final ad hom and bolt.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:53 am
‘Seem’ is literally in the eye of the beholder. Nobody said that.
However, as far as I can tell nothing in nature has any bearing on the existence of god.
So you lied.
Lets all act surprised.
Ad homming your audience and blaming them for your failure to communicate is bad form and counterproductive.
I’d stay out of politics if I were you.
Biology is not quantum physics.
The term observer does not refer to a sentient being. Anything that observes is an observer, i.e. any ol’ photocamera will do.
June 12th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Blimey.
June 12th, 2008 at 11:26 am
” Lenski started off with a single microbe. It divided a few times into identical clones, from which Lenski started 12 colonies. ”
Do you think the members of the twelve colonies believe in the gods or will they learn to assent to the will of the one true creator god after the nanobots they created rebel, nearly wiping them out?
June 12th, 2008 at 11:57 am
What i find amazing is the pure desperation of those who seek to use this as nothing more than to have a go at creationism.
Such over the top evangelism is due to an individual not having real confidence in what they really believe.
I’m referring of course not just to the content of these post but the snide delivery that is nothing more than an attempt to add authority where non exist.
And the reason non exist is because most if not all here have not had time to digest the claims let alone read other thoughts on the research not just from creationist but others in the wider scientific community.
Many real scientist believe in creation and will not find the mentioned test has anything to offer to create doubt. Some because they will never change their mind and others for more considered reasons.
Of those who would never change their mind all i can say is there are those who believe regardless of any evidence on both sides of the fence. Many of the above posters here fit that category and are no better than those they desperately seek to ridicule.
Yes you may well be completely wrong. That unnerves you does it?
June 12th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
@ Chris Fawkes
Was there anything in that rambling, pointless drivel you just posted that even came anywhere close to resembling a researched, studied fact?
Hold on… let me look again… searching… searching…
Nothing makes me chuckle more than when a person makes a completely senseless rant, pats himself on the back, and then proceeds to smugly assume a reaction from the readers… eg, “That unnerves you does it”? Heck no. There was nothing substantive enough in it to “nerve” me… let alone “unnerve” me.
June 12th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Chris Fawkes: you, sir, are a fool. First, you cite no evidence that “many real scientist [sic] believe in creation”; this is bologna, “real” scientists know that the evidence not only suggests theories such as evolution and big bang, but that the evidence directly disputes ALL creation myths.
Second, over the top evangelism is directly due to individuals having such confidence; they believe so strongly in their mythology that they are willing to lie, cheat, and otherwise scam their ideological nonsense into secular schools. A lack in confidence would lead someone to be quiet and stand back.
Now, let’s talk about “evidence on both sides of the fence”; evolution has not just evidence, but a sh!%load of evidence, all of which has never, and I repeat NEVER, been refuted by any other other theory. QED. So, I’d like you to outline the evidence on the “other side of the fence”, ignoring of course that you’ve presented a demonstrably false dichotomy. I believe you folks have had at least 2000 years, which has really only seen the lessening of that whole god of the gaps argument.
And the snide comments? Yes, you deserve ridicule and no respect whatsoever. You are a hypocrite. Or did you pray for that computer you are using, the house you live in, the car you likely drive, or any other modern convenience? When you sit there and employ the very tools made possible by science, for the purpose of putting forth anti-scientific garbage, you deserve to be ridiculed.
There is no chance, and I repeat again, no chance, that evolutionary theory is wrong. We will continue to refine the theory as we learn more and more about it. We will be adding pieces to the puzzle, but the overall picture will not change; detail will simply be revealed.
June 12th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Nice rant.
To laugh at creationism. There’s a difference.
A cite please, for this ridiculous claim.
Your qualifications for making this authoritive claim?
Not everyone sees this story here for the first time, and you really shouldn’t apply your thinking speed to others. Would you believe that some biologists were already following this research? Nah, probably not. How could they, they had only been running it for a measly 20 years.
Now where was the typo, many, real, or the missing s? It matters not.
Can you, without re-reading the story (that would be cheating!), summarize here what you think is the significance of this research?
Wait, there’s evidence on the other side of the fence? Really? Let’s see some, please.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
It’s not very difficult. Honest.
Not at all.
June 12th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Sorry about that everyone. I posted a link on a Star Trek forum about this thread. I had no idea that it was going to attract such a rude response from a creationist nutcase. You’d think that someone on a science fiction website would be a little more informed… but obviously not.
At least Chris DID prove the B.A.’s original assertion: creationists will NEVER be able to change their opinions.
June 12th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Darnit slang, you stole my (forgotten) Princess Bride quote!
June 12th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Joe, don’t apologize, it’s fun
And I’m sure that amongst the nutcases it may bring some people that are actually genuinely interested.
I’d say sorry Richard, but I wouldn’t mean it :p
June 12th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Halcyon Dayz: Actually Mike R had brought that up which I interpreted as a response to something a previous post said. But whatever.
June 12th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Yeah Joe, don’t feel bad, the troll is simply putting the “fun” in fundamentalist
But I did check out his site and he seems to be a very good photographer. Too bad he doesn’t have the same passion for science.
June 12th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
FYI, Louisiana passed a bill yesterday allowing teachers to slip creationism into science classes – by a 94-3 vote!!!
http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/19813589.html
You might want to bring back that “Louisiana, doomed” graphic and replace the cat with a lion!
June 12th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
@ slang
‘Anybody want a peanut?’
June 12th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
You guys surely don’t mean any…*harm*…
June 12th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
A couple of points. They talked about freezing the bacteria every 500 generations and then rethawing them later. Can you actually freeze a bacterium without destroying it? I thought lowering the temperature below 0 degrees Celsius causes the water within the cell membrane to expand thus rupturing the cell and killing it. Maybe by freeze they don’t mean going below 0 degrees Celsius but very close?
Apparently 20 years of clock time is 44,000 generations of E. coli which means that one generation is about 4 hours. In terms of Homo sapiens if we let one generation equal 25 years then 44,000 generations would be about one million years, so about the time that Homo erectus evolved and started leaving Africa.
I’m not sure how the experiment supports classical natural selection since for 33,127 generations apparently nothing much happened. Then, all of a sudden the flask turned cloudy. In that line of bacteria the first citrate eaters appear at generation 31,500 but nearly went extinct at generation 33,000. Then, in only the next 120 generations (0.3 percent of the duration of the experiment) the citrate eaters took over the population.
It seems to support Gouldian punctuated equilibrium where the population is stable for long periods of time and then all of a sudden a phase transition happens and a new species takes over the world. But it’s definitely a very interesting experiment.
June 12th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
This research proves that it becomes easier to evolve certain traits depending on earlier mutations. The study was done on E. Coli, an organism that is nothing like a human with respect to reproduction and DNA size. You can’t just apply the amount of generations it took for this particular trait to pop up in this type of organism to a completely different organism, and multiply by years.
I suggest you read PZ’s story on this, it’s linked early in the thread.
June 12th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
The interesting thing is if it is speciation, not biologists separation of mechanisms. (Where AFAIU macroevolutionary mechanisms never have been proven, so the usual evolutionary mechanisms explains all of evolution.)
According to some biologists this could be speciation, since before gene sequencing bacterias were ordered from their characteristics, which includes such ecological traits as if they will survive in an environment with citrate as feed media (new bacteria) or not (old bacteria). This holds up even with sequencing, since using evolutionary environmental information combined with the evolutionary genetic information still makes for the best resolution of populations (and their history).
Of course, a creationist is only interested in the bacteria ‘kind’. Until he gets an infection, and the type of bacteria suddenly matters, as well as the science on antibiotic resistance.
Anyway, here they have just the experiment they asked for earlier, a lab experiment with speciation. Now see them move the goal posts.
June 12th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
@ Mike R:
You seem to confuse positive evidence with evidence for other hypotheses, so called false choice.
First, evidence for or against evolution isn’t affecting atheism, which is at its widest a non-interest in religion. Evidence for supernatural acts would be different, though.
Second, evolution rates differs, so a negative result wouldn’t (easily) affect any known prediction. You would have to look for a prediction, and falsify it. For example of something that would falsify evolution would be a population of precambrian rabbits. Evolution predicts nested hierarchies and that population would break that.
June 12th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
(OT the inital thread)
Oh, many organisims are perfectly fine with being frozen. If you’ve ever bought a goldfish, chances are it arrived to the store in a block of ice. Bacteria and single celled life forms have no problem with freezing temps. It’s only when you get into really complex animals, (and especially warm blooded critters) that you start having trouble with freezing. Ice crystals form in the spaces between the cells and the result is a leathal freezer burn.
There is some research on suspended animation which may bear fruit for us, however. Seems haydrogen sulfides lower our metabolic rates to almost nothing, with few if any ill effects. Add to this some lower (but not freezing) temps, and you could keep someone in hybernation for years before bringing them back out of it… so we’re getting closer to the units we saw in Kubrick’s 2001.
June 12th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Giffy: Right you are
I guess i should have been more specific, i merely meant it as a way to point out that there has been definite evidence of large scale evolution both miscroscopic and macroscopic creatures.
June 12th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
@ Richard:
You have very funny ideas of how science operates. No scientist would agree with you.
The laboratory is part of nature – this is why we can make particle experiments in accelerators which confirms what happens in the same conditions in atmosphere collisions. The prediction from evolution is that new traits can be fixated, which we see in nature and also here.
That an experiment is “controlled” means that the parameters are controlled, not that the process is performed by scientist demons pushing particles around during collisions. When the same parameters occurs in uncontrolled in nature, the same process will occur. That is the very definition of a repeatable process, obviously.
“Empirical” means roughly “try it and see”, that is experiment and observation. The largest experiment a scientist can observe is nature.
As for evidence, this is collected by testing predictions of a theory. It is very easy to find 1000s of such successful tests in biology papers every day, and 100s of them will be on evolution. Here is ~ 30 such evidences for speciation by evolution collected for biological laymen</. You can’t have looked very hard.
June 12th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
@ Richard:
You have already got an answer, but since there is new information that can actually tell us what happens, I will pitch in (or on, as it were):
1. Humans have been observed to evolve new traits:
- Lactose tolerance in europeans 8000 years ago, and independently in Kenya/Tanzania 2800 years ago due to cattle use.
- Sickle-cell disease due to selective pressures from malaria.
and others.
2. Human evolution is now known to have accelerated 100 times from earlier rates due to population increase. (Selection becomes more effective in larger populations.)
The current rate of ~ 3 selected variants/generation means that an earlier rate of ~ 0.01 selected variants/generation fits well with the observed genetic distance of ~ 1000 variants between ourselves and chimps and a timespan of ~ 5*10^6 years since speciation; ~ 500 variants to a common ancestor would make 10^6 years, which fits comfortably within the actual time span.
June 12th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
“Why can’t a groundbreaking story about micro-evolution stand on its own? Why even bring up the creationist implications? You are preaching to the choir. Baiting the 6,000 year-old earthers does nothing more than lend credibility through acknowledgement. I say ignore them and let science speak for itself.”
Simple. Because if creation is true, evolution isn’t, and that’s the biggest threat there is to athiestic evolutionism. If God suddenly appears, everything they believe, live for, and have created goes *poof*! Evolutionists have simply traded one religion for another. As someone pointed out, this experiment simply shows that scientists (intelligent ones, presumably) can cause evolution. Cool. Now let them create their own dirt!
Robert
June 12th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
lol.. thanks for the laugh. good night!
June 12th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
I read PZ’s article and was having trouble discerning what he was saying.
Seems to me that the “earlier predisposition” would just be an earlier mutation, so what in effect is the difference? I finally figured out the difference was comparing whether there was 1 single very rare mutation involved (option A) or a string of mutations (option B). That makes more sense.
Simon said:
> I want to hear the refute to the “no new information” issue. Can someone post a link?
The claim about “no new information” is that mutation involves making coding for proteins faulty, and thereby turning off some function, rather than allowing new functions to exist. Some examples of mutation do follow this pattern, turning off a function or trait. However, sometimes the mutation can code for a different protein, and lead to a new ability, such as the mentioned ability to digest citrate. Another example is bacteria that can digest nylon. Since nylon is entirely man-made, it did not exist before the 20th century, yet already there are bacteria that digest it. New capability.
Mike R. said:
> Well, I’m a Christian and I find this article interesting. I believe it. And I still believe in God. It’s certainly not going to make me change my mind about God.
Why should it? How is this article or the linked ones aimed at disproving God?
The debate over this topic is not about belief in god, however many people try to confuse the issue. The debate is over the question of how life develops over time. Common descent and accummulation of changes is the standard scientific understanding – Evolution. Creationists of all stripes want to refute that, but the only alternative offered is instantaneous appearance of different lifeforms. ID is a muddled position that on the face of it accepts some Evolution but then in the same breath rejects evolution and says there was magic involved.
Richard said:
> “Why would this particular evidence in a lab under controlled conditions make them want to drop their blinders any more than the already existing nearly endless stream of evidence they are so well practiced at ignoring?”
> For the very simple reason that it IS a laboratory controlled experiment not an observation from nature. The would argue what the difference is there between a controlled experiment and Intelligent creation. A lab experiment, no matter how “hands free” is still controlled by an intelligence.
I’m sorry, this is a muddled hash. The question was worded as “how would this change their minds” and your answer was worded “because it shouldn’t change their minds”. Uh, what? And the argument itself is rubbish. The whole point of a laboratory experiment is to eliminate the exteranous side issues to focus on the one principle under investigation. But the scientist doesn’t guide that part of the experiment, or it invalidates the whole thing. The whole point is to “see what happens on its own”. The controls applied are just used to ensure the right cause is being attributed.
MPG said:
> Wheres yours [science Ph.D.]?
Richard said:
> In a frame in my office.
Well let him out! He can’t breathe in there.
Kate said:
> It’s also telling that they have no basic understanding of relativity which, as far as I know, is a pretty basic scientific theory and not difficult for the average person to understand.
That’s an amusing position, that Relativity is basic science and easy to understand. Relativity may be science that has gripped popular attention and thus become somewhat commonly followed, but it is not basic science and is fairly complicated to understand. Most Physics classes save Relativity to late in the game, and start out with some good old Newtonian motion.
> “Richard” is either a troll, or simply a liar. I’m going to go with the choice of “liar” since it seems to be a very popular hobby for the folks who fear science and the understanding of the universe.
Not a particularly useful post. All you are doing is creating an environment of hostility. Seems counterproductive to the idea of learning.
Richard said:
> Now, as for trolls. You little trolls obviously did not read correctly or could not read (due to your blinkered view) correctly what I originally wrote.
Ignoring your response to the hostility aimed your way, I would argue that the problem was that you communicated your intent poorly. You made a vague reference to Relativity and a muddled reference to Quantum physics. If you were going for a nuanced understanding of the applications, you should have presented them in a more nuanced manner.
> 1. An observer may have an influence on a system through the simple process of observing (New Scientist some time this year). Just by conducting the experiment, the researchers influence the outcome of the experiment (pretty heady stuff).
Quantum mechanics. Not sure how that is supposed to apply at a macroscopic level. Sorry, you are misapplying QM if you think it applies at the scale of cell growth.
>2. Time may actually not exist in the fundamental sense. http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/in-no-time
Therefore, whether the earth is 6000 years old or 12 billion means nothing because time is as malleable as clay and only has structure in the human mind.
Read the article, it does not support your assertion. While physicists are still trying understand the nature of time, how it arises, and how it fits into the fabric of existence, time is the measure of the arrow of entropy. Not just humans, but all life and indeed all chemistry “experience” time by virtue of changing states. Our measures of time are tied to the changing of states, though not necessarily created by it. But within the realm of time, there is certainly a solid foundation for distinguishing between 6000 years and 12 billion years.
> Molecular clocks run out of time: The theory that we can date the birth of new species by charting the steady accumulation of mutations over evolutionary time is in serious trouble
Does absolutely nothing to relate to the issue of whether life on Earth is 6000 or 4 billion years old. All that long article refutes is the notion that measuring rates of mutation in a species can be used as a reliable means to date diversity. Indeed, rates may not be consistent even for one parameter.
> So. What I was trying to stimulate in debate certainly drew out the true believers of evolutionism (as opposed to evolutionary theory). Evolutionism, just like Creationism is a belief structure. Evolutionism is no more science than is religion. In fact evolutionism is a religion with its obvious zealots and thought police.
If you were trying to spark genuine intellectual debate, you did a singularly and spectacularly poor job of it. Rather, it appears you created just the kind of disturbance to allow you to deride “evolutionism”.
> I accept evolutionary theory as a valid theory. I accept god as a valid spritual entity. However, I am open-minded on the actuality or otherwise of evolution as well as god. So, quell your religious ferver oh evolutionists. And creationists.
Then what was the point of defending a 6000 year young Earth?
Skeptic of Skeptics said:
> Where did the rock we “evolved” from originate? Before the “big bang” that is?
1. Evolution is not the Big Bang.
2. How life originally formed is not Evolution.
3. Biologists are actively studying the origins question.
4. Cosmologists are contemplating the Big Bang issues.
5. The source of original life begins in the hearts of stars and in supernovas creating all the various elements that make up matter. This matter was distributed across space, and coalesced under the presence of gravity to form our Sun and planets. Simple organic molecules formed through any number of processes, including processes that create nebulae in space. It is possible the arrived on Earth via comets. Another proposition is that they formed on Earth through some combination of heat and pressure and perhaps seeding by clay particles helping create structures on which to form. Simple molecules combined to form more complex molecules over time, until some complex molecules became able to replicate themselves. That is the birth of life on Earth. From there, small changes accummulated over time and different locations had different conditions that guided changes in different directions.
> “Why aren’t skeptics skeptical of skeptics?”
We’re to busy being skeptical of skeptics skeptical of skeptics.
Drama said:
> Since time started in the big bang, there is no logical definition of “before the “big bang””
This is equivalent to asking “what animals live north of the north pole?” There is no logical answer because it is not a logical question.
I personally find that an unsatisfying and incomprehensible answer. The very question has a temporal assumption, but the answer is that the temporal assumption is invalid. Human minds just don’t seem prepared to understand that. YMMV.
buck09 said:
> Do you think the members of the twelve colonies believe in the gods or will they learn to assent to the will of the one true creator god after the nanobots they created rebel, nearly wiping them out?
Excellent!
Richard Wolford said:
> Chris Fawkes: you, sir, are a fool. First, you cite no evidence that “many real scientist [sic] believe in creation”; this is bologna, “real” scientists know that the evidence not only suggests theories such as evolution and big bang, but that the evidence directly disputes ALL creation myths.
I would argue this. There are real scientists who are creationists. That they are ill-informed and arguably self-blinded does not invalidate them being scientists. Also their expertise may be in a different area (say, a pschologist, an archeologist).
I would also caution that there is a difference between believing creation and believing in God. Confusion on that matter is rampant, and it appears that Chris Fawkes is suffering from it. Don’t get drawn in yourself.
Torbjörn Larsson, OM sid:
> According to some biologists this could be speciation, since before gene sequencing bacterias were ordered from their characteristics, which includes such ecological traits as if they will survive in an environment with citrate as feed media (new bacteria) or not (old bacteria). This holds up even with sequencing, since using evolutionary environmental information combined with the evolutionary genetic information still makes for the best resolution of populations (and their history).
The very notion of species is complicated, and unicellular organisms have some different characteristics than large scale organisms. Creationists do rely on these distinctions to justify their “microevolution” vs. “macroevolution” claims. I feel their claims are unjustified, but I also am leery of overly relying on macroorganism scale measures to evaluate microfauna.
June 12th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Robert said:
> Simple. Because if creation is true, evolution isn’t, and that’s the biggest threat there is to athiestic evolutionism. If God suddenly appears, everything they believe, live for, and have created goes *poof*! Evolutionists have simply traded one religion for another. As someone pointed out, this experiment simply shows that scientists (intelligent ones, presumably) can cause evolution. Cool. Now let them create their own dirt!
So much confusion, so little time.
I think the biggest flaw in your thinking is equating believing in God with Creationism.
A second flaw is equating evolution with atheism, though admittedly there are plenty of people on both sides who do that.
A third flaw is equating acceptance of a scientific understanding of processes inherent in nature with a system of worship.
A fourth flaw appears to be understanding just what role the scientists in this article played in the evolutionary process demonstrated. It’s not like they dialed in a genetic change to see what would happen. In this case, they ran bacteria through a long term project of controlled environment and analysed the outcome. Still, I will allow you some leeway and agree this does show that scientists can monitor evolution and not create matter from emptiness.
Of course, if I really want to be facetious, I could point out that there is no proof God can, either.
I suspect there are other flaws embedded here, but am too tired to try to dig further.
June 12th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Seems I’ve joined in the fray too late. My reply to Richard’s “By the way, there is no endless stream of evidence” would have been a simple two words: “Fossil record”.
In a previous life as a curator of paleontology I used to sneak back into the stacks and just browse through thousands and thousands of fragments of fossils. We had scads of Burgess fossils – which are just plain weird. And rhipidistians and early tetrapods (my area).
But there’s “no evidence” and “no transitional forms”.
Sigh.
June 13th, 2008 at 6:04 am
Richard
>>>”Thanks slang. I am signing off on this subject. I think I have been beaten up enough on this one!! All the best you Noble Knights of the Darwinian Order.”
No, Richard! Don’t go! I want you to stay here and defend yourself! I want to prove myself as a Noble Knight! Oh, and I also wanna be a full fledged evolutionist believer! I wanna know what the “doctrines” of evolution are! Cuz uh, my fellow knights never told me…
Robert
>>>”Because if creation is true, evolution isn’t, and that’s the biggest threat there is to athiestic evolutionism.”
What’s atheistic evolutionism? Is it what Richard was talking about? Aw, nobody told me I had to be an atheist! Now no-one will like me!
June 13th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Then religion becomes scientific–naturalistically interrogable–and religion is subsumed by science. Fideism and sola fide would die, and, additionally, God’s wisdom as revealed in word would be proven to be inconstant:
Emphasis mine.
In short, science wins.
June 13th, 2008 at 9:27 am
@ Irishman
Concerning Richard:
you said:
“> “Richard” is either a troll, or simply a liar. I’m going to go with the choice of “liar” since it seems to be a very popular hobby for the folks who fear science and the understanding of the universe.
Not a particularly useful post. All you are doing is creating an environment of hostility. Seems counterproductive to the idea of learning.”
I agree with you in principal… however I think the criticism was based on Richard’s initial tone. And since he later exposed himself as a liar (by admitting he did not have a PH.D. after claiming without hesitation that he did), I guess the poster was right after all… in fact, it was RICHARD who called out another poster asking for his Ph.D. credentials. And after doing so, lied about his own, claimed it was in a frame in his office, and then later admitted he made the whole thing up. So I guess I have a hard time defending pretty much anything Richard says at this point, or giving frief to any commentor who wishes to take Richard to task. I’m afraid he’s lost any credibility with that stunt, and therefor lost my interest in even engaging in the discussion…
And no, it’s not because he doesn’t have a Ph.D… (I don’t either), it’s because he was intentionally smugly dishonest about it, and prefaced an attack on another poster with that dishonesty. Not interested in engaging in an important discussion with someone of that mettle, thanks.
June 13th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Torbjorn, you’re numbers are not making any sense. If we use your number of ~5 million years for the human/chimpanzee split and ~25 years per generation then that’s ~200,000 generations. If there are indeed ~1,000 selected variants between humans and chimpanzees then the rate is ~0.005 selected variants per generation, not the value of ~3 which you cite. That’s a factor of 600 between the two values.
June 13th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
PZ’s article is at
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/historical_contingency_in_the.php#more
So PZ actually does compare 500 generations of hominid time (~10,000 years) to 500 generations of E. coli time (~80 days). He says “that’s what this experiment is like”. So nice of folks to quote PZ’s opinion on the matter without actually reading his entire article. BTW, that is the only comparison to human beings that PZ makes in the entire article.
June 13th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Celtic_Evolution said:
> I think the criticism was based on Richard’s initial tone. And since he later exposed himself as a liar (by admitting he did not have a PH.D. after claiming without hesitation that he did), I guess the poster was right after all… in fact, it was RICHARD who called out another poster asking for his Ph.D. credentials. And after doing so, lied about his own, claimed it was in a frame in his office, and then later admitted he made the whole thing up.
Well, admittedly his actions do undercut the principle of my post.
Tom Marking said:
> So PZ actually does compare 500 generations of hominid time (~10,000 years) to 500 generations of E. coli time (~80 days). He says “that’s what this experiment is like”. So nice of folks to quote PZ’s opinion on the matter without actually reading his entire article. BTW, that is the only comparison to human beings that PZ makes in the entire article.
The original criticism was about taking how long it took for 1 change to develop in this sample and project that it would therefore take 20 gazillion years for all the variety and complexity of human form to evolve. Whereas, PZ is analogizing taking samples of the population at various intermediary points and preserving them for future comparisons of all the myriads of changes occurring. Not quite the same thing.
June 13th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
I’ve read PZ’s entire article and nowhere in there does he say something to the effect that you can’t compare 44,000 generations of E. coli to 44,000 generation of Homo sapiens in terms of mutation rate, amount of evolution, etc., etc. That assertion is simply NOT in PZ’s article which is what someone claimed.
June 13th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
I didn’t assert that. I suggested reading it as I found it a clear explanation of the meaning and value of the research. Sorry for that not being clear on that.
June 13th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Argh.. my kingdom for an edit button!
I meant I didn’t mean to assert that it was in PZ’s article, which is why I put that suggestion on a separate line, instead of in the same paragraph.
June 14th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Here are some results of a Monte Carlo program I wrote which simulates point mutations in a DNA sequence of some particular length:
Program to compute statistics for DNA point mutations
Total number of point mutations to run = 10000
Initial number of amino acids = 100
Initial number of nucleotides = 303
Mutations with no change in amino acid sequence: 24.5%
Mutations with one change in amino acid sequence: 70.4%
Mutations with truncated amino acid sequence: 4.1%
Mutations with extended amino acid sequence: 0.9%
Average number of amino acids truncated = 49.6
Average number of amino acids extended = 23.0
Consecutive mutations in the same gene
Total number of consecutive mutation runs = 1000
Avg # of consec. mutations for length to change = 19.4
So just looking at point mutations in a DNA strand of length 303 (codes for a protein of length 100 amino acids) we see that about one fourth of them don’t cause any phenotype changes at all. About 4 percent of them cause the protein to be truncated (on average it is cut in half) which is a catastrophic change. About 1 percent of them result in the protein being lengthened (this is the answer to the creationist question of where does new information come from).
Considering consecutive mutations in the same gene, by the time you get 19 of them you can expect the protein to be either truncated or extended. So in terms of the E. coli experiment what these results mean is we expect about 1.3 non-selectable mutations for every 1 that is selectable. Thus, if the citrate digestibility trait took 3 selectable mutations to occur then the total number of mutations should be about 4.
June 17th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
I knew that name Carl Zimmer as soon as I saw this, and once I read the (highly interesting) article I knew why. Only two days ago I was on a transatlantic flight, reading his Article in SciAm (”What Is a Species?”) – which was also fascinating.
That speeded-up video is amazing.
June 20th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
FWIW, catching up on old threads:
@ Robert:
False choice. Evolution being wrong wouldn’t make creationism right, as is your basis for the above reasoning. There were other alternatives, for example Lamarckism.
But even if creationism “is true”, you haven’t explained what it is (because you rely on false choice), so both could then be a fact.
June 20th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
FWIW, catching up on old threads:
@ Tom Marking:
I was using the earlier rate (and a generation time of 20 years which I left out as it was possible to deduce): 500*20/0.01= 10^6.
June 27th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
to Tom Marking,
its not about the temperature, but the rate in the change or temperature. If the the E. coli is cooled rapidly from room temperature to below 0 C, no large crystals will form and the cells can survive.