Quote:
Originally Posted by baket
hopefully evolution has presented an ACTUAL proof of evolution based on science textbook. then there will be no more need to doubt it.
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Actually, we have. And we don't doubt it. Lenski (2008):
Bacteria make major evolutionary shift in the lab - life - 09 June 2008 - New Scientist
Dr. Lenski did an amazing 22 yr long (!!!!!!!!!! Wowzers!) experiment in which he watched his bacterial culture generations and saved each and every generation's DNA in his freezer. How could he have known about the upcoming spectacular tool of DNA genome mapping? What good fortune for him, huh?
Also, just two days ago I watched a Discovery Channel series on a new photogrammetric + a mini-super-computer system for separating and documenting an organism's DNA. It was so compact it was onboard an oceanographic research vessel, and they deep-sampled and discovered,
in one afternoon, 20 new species, all unrelated.
As well, on The History channel this weekend, they documented the tracking of King Tut's family heritage through samples of Tut's and other's DNA. Now even I am surprised they could pull DNA out of ancient (3500 yr old) tissue samples (which ,BTW, handily precedes and contradicts a lot of the bibles' "inerrant" history. All documented, not some "oral tradition" stuff) but trust science to always surprise us, eh?
After all, only the Church wants the advancement of knowledge to be halted, after all.
Also, there's an recently started effort now to retrieve DNA samples from dino remains (obviously not fossils, but from frozen remains). It's been done in several cases, and now, it'll be widespread. Ditto for mastodon / mammoth remains, which will clearly show their lineage in relation to the modern elephant. Can you imagine what this work will tell us about the evolutionary lineage of elephants,
baket?
Anyhow, Richard Lenski was able, in 2007,[published in 2008] to map those chromosomes and determined (about generation 21,200 I recall?) a significant genetic mutational change that allowed the
genesis of a new branch of this bacteria, able to do something in it's environment that it's predecessor could not. Ergo;
a new species, defined.
BTW, since the publication of that monumentally significant paper, he's gone on to witness or document several additional mutations that were sort of "waiting in the wings", so to speak, awaiting the key facilitating mutation that then allowed them to express themselves. This accounts for the variation in the speed of observed speciation in nature.
So how does Answers in Genesis, desperately and frantically scrambling to debunk this one, react? Answer: Typically and Predictably.
"It's only a bacterium!" (Well duh! Where do you think we all came from, AiG?)
"It's not reproductively isolated" (to which I'll add: "just wait!")
...and the best quality put-down of them all
(you guys should be truly proud of this sort of thinking on your side...)...
"This doesn't prove anything!" (hands over ears, yelling "NahNahNahNah!")
Well sorry boys. Scientists get to define Evolution, not AiG or The Church, and this one fits the bill, exactly. A new organism, capable of reliably transmitting it's new-found previously unknown advantages to it's offspring, who then demonstrate the new capability. Meantime, the original species remains, having it's own comfortable niche to continue to enjoy. and the exact point of the exact mutation, easily seen in the printout, available for any skeptic. and, to put the final boot to it, Dr. Lenski has made the pre-species and post-species samples available to anyone who cares to replicate it. How's about it,
baket? Or maybe you could suggest it to your church, why dont'cha?
Oddly, no religious group
ever takes up that challenge. They prefer to hunker down in the Darkness and yell
"It doesn't prove anything! It DOESN'T, It DOESN'T, It DOESN'T, It DOESN'T!"
Of course, the intellectually honest have left the room at that point.
Now, if the later species type learns to
also utilize the original niche better than it's ancestor, what will we see? The same thing we've seen and documented in the fossil and living species on this planet. It will out-compete the original, and it may go extinct.
Of course the value in Lenski's study is that it
PROVES an already established and documented mechanism. It's mostly for the benefit of the naysayers, and to refine the technique for the
next experimental setup, but as we've seen, the Christian apologists have gotten pretty creative (and wrong..) in frantically denying it. As you'd expect from them in the face of
an absolute proof of something they claim to be a nutball fantasy.
Sorry. Too late. And more's on the way! QED (do look THAT up as well,
baket).
Have a good'n!
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A bit of education, again.
