As I was reading this article, I noticed a couple of things:
Apparently creationists accept evolution, unwittingly. And two, they love to project themselves when they call scientists "biased". Give me a break. Since when is describing data and interpreting it using well supported facts that are coherently explained (i.e. theory) biased? I know that scientists are human and will still commit error and be biased, but this is corrected through the peer review process and the replication of experiments. And ideas are also rejected if contradictory evidence comes along.
Well... Time to digest this. According to Georgia Purdom's Answers in Genesis article about Lenski's experiment:
"These bacteria may indeed be more fit in a lab setting, but if put in competition with their wild-type (normal) counterparts in a natural setting, they would not stand a chance." Uh... Is this supposed to disprove Lenski's findings, or is it just something that was mentioned as additional information? If it's the former, I wonder how did Dr. Purdom managed to get her degree. Obviously, the bacteria wouldn't survive in another environment outside the lab, because DUH! the environment to which these organisms are adapted is inside the lab... UNLESS, as Dr. Purdom doesn't want us to see, some organisms begin to have trouble in their current environment and those adaptations to survive out of the lab are selected for, allowing the organisms with these mutations to survive. Of course, if you take a few E. coli right out of the lab environment they will die, just as taking a few fish out of the ocean for a moment will kill them... Unless the fish had problems in the water due to scarce resources, or new predators, and beneficial mutations develop which enable the fish to survive on land as well and those organisms which have them manage to survive, reproduce, and pass the mutations along.
"Many evolutionists state that the bacteria are experiencing 'adaptive evolution.' However, this is not evolution but rather adaptation." Yeah, and adaptations are part of evolution. I loved this piece of logical vomit. It's like saying a bear isn't a mammal, but an organism with glands that secrete milk. lol.
"Molecules-to-man evolution requires an increase in information and functional systems. Instead, these bacteria are likely experiencing a loss of information and functional systems as has been observed in other mutant bacteria in Lenski’s lab. While these changes are beneficial in the lab environment, they do not lead to a net gain that moves bacteria in an upward evolutionary direction." No. As stated above, the bacteria were able to adapt to their new environment. This means that the mutations leading to the use of citrate in high instead of low oxygen conditions is the adaptation that this woman denies is evidence for evolution. Convenietly, Dr. Purdom seems to miss the point of the experiment, which wasn't to show that E. coli could survive put of the lab and "move in an upward evolutionary direction", whatever that means, but that a population of organisms changes over time due to mutations that are selected due to their beneficial effects. Just because the E. coli genotype and phenotype changed, doesn't mean no new information was added, and that no adaptive change occurred. Interestingly, Dr. Purdom mentions somewhere else in the article that the experiment shows how organisms gain "adaptive mechanisms" that allow organisms to adapt in a "fallen world", (yeah, she actually used that word, showing one more time creationists' lack of bias, not to mention their conspicuous lack of contradictions).
"Lenski’s lab has not yet identified the genetic alterations of the Cit+ E. coli line, but he believes that there are multiple mutations involved. Studies of the “fossil record” of this line indicate that one or more mutations occurred around generation 20,000 which he terms “potentiating” mutations that were necessary before additional mutations around generation 31,500 led to Cit+ cells. Lenski thinks that the mutations may have activated a “cryptic” transporter (a once functional transporter that has been damaged due to the accumulation of mutations) that can now transport citrate. However, he states, “A more likely possibility, in our view, is that an existing transporter has been coopted [sic] for citrate transport under oxic [high oxygen levels] conditions.”1 He believes this could be the same citrate transporter (citT) used in low oxygen conditions (inferring a loss of regulation) or a transporter for another substrate that has been modified to transport citrate (inferring a loss of specificity)." Lenski may have believed it, except that in 2012, a group of researchers (Lenski included), found this:
"Mutations including single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) as well as deletions, insertions, and some chromosomal rearrangements were identified (Supplementary Table 2) by comparing reads to the genome of the ancestral strain, REL60625. Inversions and other rearrangements that involved long sequence repeats would have escaped detection." (Blount, Barrick, Davidson & Lenski, 2012). Dr. Purdom's use of the word belief in the article is more evidence that God is the Truth!
"Since E. coli already possess the ability to transport and utilize citrate under certain conditions, it is conceivable that they could adapt and gain the ability to utilize citrate under broader conditions. This does not require the addition of new genetic information or functional systems (there are no known “additive” mechanisms)." Except that the 2012 study shows it does...
"Instead degenerative events are likely to have occurred resulting in the loss of regulation and/or specificity." But the Cit+ E. coli adapted well to their new conditions...
"Given the selective pressure exerted by the media of a limited carbon source (glucose) but abundant alternative carbon source (citrate), the cells with slightly beneficial mutations would be selected for and increase in the population." So do you accept evolution or not? I hope you do... I want to be your friend... *snif* I feel lonely....
Oh, this is my favorite part, the conclusion of the article:
"Obviously, presuppositions (human reason vs. God’s Word) play a major role in interpreting the evidence. Richard Lenski and I are looking at the same evidence but drawing different conclusions based on our source of truth—man’s ideas or God’s ideas. It is only possible to obtain truth about the past if we start with the only source of absolute truth in the present—the inerrant Word of God." Yes! Because believing whatever makes us feel good is unbiased and scientific Because the Bible is the ultimate science textbook, and because scientific ideas are ultimate and unchangeable.
Dr. Purdom is obviously a brilliant woman with an education, but reading this article with my paltry amount of knowledge about evolution suggests to me that she, like many religious people in modern times, is desperate to justify belief in obsolete fairy tales. Creationists, then, need to justify their beliefs in light of the contradiction that reality brings. How do they do this? It's hard to accept you are wrong, for all of us. So the easiest thing to do is to disparage the contradictory evidence and lo and behold! Cognitive dissonance is reduced. Cognitive dissonance exists in the modern religious man because on the one hand they know damn well that there is no evidence for their beliefs, yet they have spent time and money on them. Obviously this causes anxiety, and they will do anything to reduce it, including the promotion of pseudoscience and even it's production. Creationists are really good at believing they are scientific and at making gullible and lazy people believe everything they say. Self-justification is amazing yet very perilous at times. This article is proof that intelligent individuals can say the most vapid stuff ever uttered.
Sources:
A Poke in the Eye? | Answers in GenesisHas E. coli “evolved” new complex traits in the lab? Or is this more evidence of evolutionists grasping at anything to promote their ideas?
answersingenesis.org
Lenski and colleagues' 2012 article:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3461117
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