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Dr. Richard Lenski and his two associates at Michigam State University, in mid-2008, published the results of their 22 year long experient. In that benchmark study, he provided a species with it's normal environment, plus an environment unusable to the original species.
At one point (# 31,500), well into the experiment that logged about 44,000 generations, (all saved in the freezer for subsequent study, or as proof to the dis-believers...) the test organism mutated (by chance) in its ability to move into that new but previously unusable niche. Since DNA records things for all future offspring, and this one wasn't lethal, this adaptation was reliably expressed from that point on.
This was using bacteria because you can produce tens of thousands of generations in a relatively short period of time. You know, the same organisms we originally came from. This study, supported inerrantly by the spectacular new science of DNA genome mapping, allows anyone to look at the sudden changes in DNA patterns that allowed this species' migration into the new niche.
This is Evolution, clean and simple. Any arguments to the contrary will be but deflections, or the "Oh Yeah? Well, it was only a bacterium! I wanna see a giraffe turn into a bear, overnight!" type. In other words, arguments coming from the scientifically and genetically illiterate.
Well, again, isn't it the YEC/Creationists who claim we didn't come from "no stinkin' bacteria?"
Sorry. Here's exactly how it started. And it's whayyyyy more convincing, common-sense and logical, since it in fact happened, than some nonsense "Insta-Poof" argument; one moment nothing was here, the next, EVERYTHING was. Now that surely makes a lot of sense, no?
To quote an observer:
"Lenski's experiment is also yet another poke in the eye for anti-evolutionists, notes Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago. "The thing I like most is it says you can get these complex traits evolving by a combination of unlikely events," he says. "That's just what creationists say can't happen."
And yet....
PS: THIS THREAD IS NOT ABOUT El Toro FIGURINES, ICE CORES IN ANTARCTICA, THAT SILLY ARK, ETC. ETC. JUST THE INNERANT CONCLUSIONS THAT RATIONAL READERS MUST COME TO AS REGARDS DR. LENSKI'S AMAZING STUDY. CLEAR ENOUGH?
Last edited by rifleman; 04-17-2009 at 10:47 AM..
Reason: typos, clarity
Absolutely. When one is teaching the newcomer to science, one must start with the basics.
And, as the story goes: primordial broth, chance chemical minglings of organic precursors; simple cellular components in that broth; a single celled organism (bacteria) arises; then a multi-celled organism (like our ancestors, only much simpler) and, then, after multi-millions of years, everything you now see.
Of course, no rational supporter of Evolution says that it started with a bunch of dogs, antelope, giraffes, sloths, sabre-toothed tigers, chimps, etc., already in existance, and expanded from there. That's silly!
We started from bacteria, and those cute little guys then took advantage of new or previously unavailable niches. Just as Dr. Lenski proved.
BTW, you're an amazingly fast reader, kd! My post time: 9:41; you read it all, did some additional curiousity-driven on-line research to look for ways to de-bunk all of the good doctor's work, thought about it, couldn't find anything, and thus responded with your thoughtful one-line comment, at 9:44.
Wow! Impressive! Obviously you're taking this seriously.
(And now, off I go to work, partly to afford to buy some more Evolution text books for the kids I'm dragging into the 21st Century, despite the efforts of my local Church to suppress me..)
That's not evolution. That's mutation. I don't think anyone disputes mutation and selection of the fittest. It's the idea that life evolved from dead matter that just happened to spring to life one day and then evolved into us that's the issue. Proving that one thing can change, which we already knew so this was a waste of paper and time, doesn't prove that you can go from dead matter to live matter and then make the jump to complex organisms without help along the way.
My personal question is how we got from single celled organisms that divide to reproduce to male/female organisms that must mate to reproduce. Let me know when your bacteria get to that step. You'll have my attention then.
Also, if you really want to prove evolution, wouldn't you need to start with dead matter and have it, spontaneously, come to life? Starting with bacteria is kind of cheating as it's already alive.
BTW, you're an amazingly fast reader, kd! My post time: 9:41; you read it all, did some additional curiousity-driven on-line research to look for ways to de-bunk all of the good doctor's work, thought about it, couldn't find anything, and thus responded with your thoughtful one-line comment, at 9:44.
Wow! Impressive! Obviously you're taking this seriously.
That's not evolution. That's mutation. I don't think anyone disputes mutation and selection of the fittest. It's the idea that life evolved from dead matter that just happened to spring to life one day and then evolved into us that's the issue. Proving that one thing can change, which we already knew so this was a waste of paper and time, doesn't prove that you can go from dead matter to live matter and then make the jump to complex organisms without help along the way.
My personal question is how we got from single celled organisms that divide to reproduce to male/female organisms that must mate to reproduce. Let me know when your bacteria get to that step. You'll have my attention then.
Also, if you really want to prove evolution, wouldn't you need to start with dead matter and have it, spontaneously, come to life? Starting with bacteria is kind of cheating as it's already alive.
You are yet another who doesn't even know the definition of evolution.
Evolution definition.... development: a process in which something passes by degrees to a different stage (especially a more advanced or mature stage)
(biology) the sequence of events involved in the evolutionary development of a species or taxonomic group of organisms
That's not evolution. That's mutation. I don't think anyone disputes mutation and selection of the fittest. It's the idea that life evolved from dead matter that just happened to spring to life one day and then evolved into us that's the issue. Proving that one thing can change, which we already knew so this was a waste of paper and time, doesn't prove that you can go from dead matter to live matter and then make the jump to complex organisms without help along the way.
My personal question is how we got from single celled organisms that divide to reproduce to male/female organisms that must mate to reproduce. Let me know when your bacteria get to that step. You'll have my attention then.
Also, if you really want to prove evolution, wouldn't you need to start with dead matter and have it, spontaneously, come to life? Starting with bacteria is kind of cheating as it's already alive.
Huh? Where on Earth did you get this as your definition of evolution? I have a suggestion for you. Read Charles Darwins' On the Origins of Species to get a general conceptualization of his theory. It's been a while, but I don't think I remember him discussing life from non-life at all.
That's not evolution. That's mutation. I don't think anyone disputes mutation and selection of the fittest. It's the idea that life evolved from dead matter that just happened to spring to life one day and then evolved into us that's the issue. Proving that one thing can change, which we already knew so this was a waste of paper and time, doesn't prove that you can go from dead matter to live matter and then make the jump to complex organisms without help along the way.
My personal question is how we got from single celled organisms that divide to reproduce to male/female organisms that must mate to reproduce. Let me know when your bacteria get to that step. You'll have my attention then.
Also, if you really want to prove evolution, wouldn't you need to start with dead matter and have it, spontaneously, come to life? Starting with bacteria is kind of cheating as it's already alive.
Ah, the same tired old misconception that evolution is the same as abiogenesis. Go study up on the differences between the two, and then come on back.
Dr. Richard Lenski and his two associates at Michigam State University, in mid-2008, published the results of their 22 year long experient. In that benchmark study, he provided a species with it's normal environment, plus an environment unusable to the original species.
At one point (# 31,500), well into the experiment that logged about 44,000 generations, (all saved in the freezer for subsequent study, or as proof to the dis-believers...) the test organism mutated (by chance) in its ability to move into that new but previously unusable niche. Since DNA records things for all future offspring, and this one wasn't lethal, this adaptation was reliably expressed from that point on.
This was using bacteria because you can produce tens of thousands of generations in a relatively short period of time. You know, the same organisms we originally came from. This study, supported inerrantly by the spectacular new science of DNA genome mapping, allows anyone to look at the sudden changes in DNA patterns that allowed this species' migration into the new niche.
This is Evolution, clean and simple. Any arguments to the contrary will be but deflections, or the "Oh Yeah? Well, it was only a bacterium! I wanna see a giraffe turn into a bear, overnight!" type. In other words, arguments coming from the scientifically and genetically illiterate.
Well, again, isn't it the YEC/Creationists who claim we didn't come from "no stinkin' bacteria?"
Sorry. Here's exactly how it started. And it's whayyyyy more convincing, common-sense and logical, since it in fact happened, than some nonsense "Insta-Poof" argument; one moment nothing was here, the next, EVERYTHING was. Now that surely makes a lot of sense, no?
To quote an observer:
"Lenski's experiment is also yet another poke in the eye for anti-evolutionists, notes Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago. "The thing I like most is it says you can get these complex traits evolving by a combination of unlikely events," he says. "That's just what creationists say can't happen."
And yet....
PS: THIS THREAD IS NOT ABOUT El Toro FIGURINES, ICE CORES IN ANTARCTICA, THAT SILLY ARK, ETC. ETC. JUST THE INNERANT CONCLUSIONS THAT RATIONAL READERS MUST COME TO AS REGARDS DR. LENSKI'S AMAZING STUDY. CLEAR ENOUGH?
Wow...Here's a visual proof of evolution to go along with your newly found facts...
Wow...Here's a visual proof of evolution to go along with your newly found facts...
No, it's not mutation, it's mutilation.
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Now that surely makes a lot of sense, no?
