Bacterial resistance is the one most likely to be encountered at a cocktail party. Philosopher and photographer Laszlo Bencze, soon to be the victim of cocktail buttonholes, offers to explain his approach:
Jonathan Wells provides the best possible list of evidence for evolution in his Icons of Evolution (crib sheets) He also disposes of each of these quite handily and shows why they are not pillars of evidence at all.
However, in the current world view, I would have to say that bacterial evolution is probably the most solid foundation for evolution in action. Scientists point to the fact of various bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics as clear, unassailable evidence that random mutations occur and that such mutations are sometimes helpful to a species. It is true that bacterial mutations do lead to antibiotic resistance. But what Darwinists fail to point out is that ALL such mutations involve LOSS of information. The resistant bacteria do not succumb to the antibiotics because they have in some way become more generalized and less specific.
Lee Spetner discusses this at length in his two books which are well worth study. It is impossible to understand how organisms that steadily lose information can lead to the vast diversity we see today. And in fact when antibiotics are removed from the bacterial ecology, the bacteria revert to their non-resistant, ancestral forms because those forms are more robust and reproduce more rapidly.
Regardless of these damning facts, bacterial evolution is constantly trotted out as proof of Darwinism. So I would say it is the evidence most likely to be encountered at a cocktail party. ( Spetner crib here)
See also: Horizontal gene transfer: Sorry, Darwin, it’s not your evolution any more (It’s quite possible that most such bacterial resistance is gained through horizontal transfer of genes. It’s easier and faster. )
O’Leary for News would like to take this opportunity to thank Laszlo Bencze for his many interesting contributions this past year.
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