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Speciation: The triumph of hope over evidence

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From Jonathan WellsThe Myth of Junk DNA:

British bacteriologist looked for evidence of speciation and concluded in 2001: “None exists in the literature claiming that one species has been shown to evolve into another. Bacteria, the simplest form of independent life, are ideal for this kind of study, with generation times of twenty to thirty minutes, and populations achieved after eighteen hours. But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another … Since there is no evidence for species changes between the simplest forms of unicellular life, it is not surprising that there is no evidence for evolution from prokaryotic [e.g., bacterial] to eukaryotic [e.g., plant and animal] cells, let alone throughout the whole array of higher multicellular organisms.” (p. 12) (Original here.)

File under: More stuff you still can’t say in school.

Comments
Just want to make sure I understand your comments. Are you saying that we shouldn't expect to see speciation in the bacteriology experiments because the bacteria are reproductively isolated? If so, why would that be? Second, are you saying that eukaryote speciation has been clearly observed and is abundant? Of course we always have the challenge of defining species. This is one of the big points Darwin focused on in The Origin, and he argued that the difficulty in defining species pointed to the fact that there is no real boundary. Incidentally, I don't think most folks dispute that things like geographical isolation can result in slightly different phenotypes over time. The question is, how far does that go. What has actually been observed, as opposed to hypothesized after the fact . . .Eric Anderson
September 21, 2011
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DrREC, Perhaps you need to look closer at the Lenski Long Term Evolution Experiment of e-coli, at 50,000 generations, (equivalent to about a million years of human evolution) to see just how detached from reality your paltry evidential base truly is for establishing anything that would merit note??
Michael Behe's Quarterly Review of Biology Paper Critiques Richard Lenski's E. Coli Evolution Experiments - December 2010 Excerpt: After reviewing the results of Lenski's research, Behe concludes that the observed adaptive mutations all entail either loss or modification--but not gain--of Functional Coding ElemenTs (FCTs) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/12/michael_behes_quarterly_review041221.html Mutations : when benefits level off - June 2011 - (Lenski's e-coli after 50,000 generations) Excerpt: After having identified the first five beneficial mutations combined successively and spontaneously in the bacterial population, the scientists generated, from the ancestral bacterial strain, 32 mutant strains exhibiting all of the possible combinations of each of these five mutations. They then noted that the benefit linked to the simultaneous presence of five mutations was less than the sum of the individual benefits conferred by each mutation individually. http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/1867.htm?theme1=7
Shoot DrREC, let's just go full bore on the bacterial evidence here and try to see what the almighty power of evolution can do over for as far back in time as we can get evidence on bacterial 'evolution':,,
The Paradox of the "Ancient" (250 Million Year Old) Bacterium Which Contains "Modern" Protein-Coding Genes: “Almost without exception, bacteria isolated from ancient material have proven to closely resemble modern bacteria at both morphological and molecular levels.” Heather Maughan*, C. William Birky Jr., Wayne L. Nicholson, William D. Rosenzweig§ and Russell H. Vreeland ; http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/19/9/1637
These following studies, by Dr. Cano on ancient bacteria, preceded Dr. Vreeland's work:
“Raul J. Cano and Monica K. Borucki discovered the bacteria preserved within the abdomens of insects encased in pieces of amber. In the last 4 years, they have revived more than 1,000 types of bacteria and microorganisms — some dating back as far as 135 million years ago, during the age of the dinosaurs.,,, In October 2000, another research group used many of the techniques developed by Cano’s lab to revive 250-million-year-old bacteria from spores trapped in salt crystals. With this additional evidence, it now seems that the “impossible” is true.” http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=281961
Dr. Cano's work on ancient bacteria came in for intense scrutiny since it did not conform to Darwinian predictions, and since people found it hard to believe you could revive something that was millions of years old. Yet Dr. Cano has been vindicated:
“After the onslaught of publicity and worldwide attention (and scrutiny) after the publication of our discovery in Science, there have been, as expected, a considerable number of challenges to our claims, but in this case, the scientific method has smiled on us. There have been at least three independent verifications of the isolation of a living microorganism from amber." https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/reductionist-predictions-always-fail/comment-page-3/#comment-357693
In reply to a personal e-mail from myself, Dr. Cano commented on the 'Fitness Test' I had asked him about:
Dr. Cano stated: "We performed such a test, a long time ago, using a panel of substrates (the old gram positive biolog panel) on B. sphaericus. From the results we surmised that the putative "ancient" B. sphaericus isolate was capable of utilizing a broader scope of substrates. Additionally, we looked at the fatty acid profile and here, again, the profiles were similar but more diverse in the amber isolate.": Fitness test which compared ancient bacteria to its modern day descendants, RJ Cano and MK Borucki
Thus, the most solid evidence available for the most ancient DNA scientists are able to find does not support evolution happening on the molecular level of bacteria. In fact, according to the fitness test of Dr. Cano, the change witnessed in bacteria conforms to the exact opposite, Genetic Entropy; a loss of functional information/complexity, since fewer substrates and fatty acids are utilized by the modern strains. Considering the intricate level of protein machinery it takes to utilize individual molecules within a substrate, we are talking an impressive loss of protein complexity, and thus loss of functional information, from the ancient amber sealed bacteria. Here is a revisit to the video of the 'Fitness Test' that evolutionary processes have NEVER passed as for a demonstration of the generation of functional complexity/information above and beyond that which was already present in a parent species bacteria:
Is Antibiotic Resistance evidence for evolution? - 'Fitness Test' - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3995248
According to prevailing evolutionary dogma, there 'HAS' to be 'major genetic drift' to the DNA of modern bacteria from 250 million years ago, even though the morphology (shape) of the bacteria can be expected to remain exactly the same. In spite of their preconceived materialistic bias, scientists find there is no significant genetic drift from the ancient DNA. In fact recent research, with bacteria which are alive right now, has also severely weakened the 'genetic drift' argument that evolutionists use from time to time:
The consequences of genetic drift for bacterial genome complexity - Howard Ochman - 2009 Excerpt: The increased availability of sequenced bacterial genomes allows application of an alternative estimator of drift, the genome-wide ratio of replacement to silent substitutions in protein-coding sequences. This ratio, which reflects the action of purifying selection across the entire genome, shows a strong inverse relationship with genome size, indicating that drift promotes genome reduction in bacteria. http://genome.cshlp.org/content/early/2009/06/05/gr.091785.109
I find it interesting that the materialistic theory of evolution expects there to be a significant amount of genetic drift from the DNA of ancient bacteria to its modern descendants, while the morphology can be allowed to remain exactly the same with its descendants. Alas for the materialist once again, the hard evidence of ancient DNA has completely betrayed their expectations. And when we look at the morphology of bacteria, over long periods of time, once again the evidence betrayed the prior expectations that the neo-Darwinists had:
Static evolution: is pond scum the same now as billions of years ago? Excerpt: But what intrigues (paleo-biologist) J. William Schopf most is lack of change. Schopf was struck 30 years ago by the apparent similarities between some 1-billion-year-old fossils of blue-green bacteria and their modern microbial microbial. "They surprisingly looked exactly like modern species," Schopf recalls. Now, after comparing data from throughout the world, Schopf and others have concluded that modern pond scum differs little from the ancient blue-greens. "This similarity in morphology is widespread among fossils of [varying] times," says Schopf. As evidence, he cites the 3,000 such fossils found; http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Static+evolution%3A+is+pond+scum+the+same+now+as+billions+of+years+ago%3F-a014909330 AMBER: THE LOOKING GLASS INTO THE PAST: Excerpt: These (fossilized bacteria) cells are actually very similar to present day cyanobacteria. This is not only true for an isolated case but many living genera of cyanobacteria can be linked to fossil cyanobacteria. The detail noted in the fossils of this group gives indication of extreme conservation of morphology, more extreme than in other organisms. http://bcb705.blogspot.com/2007/03/amber-looking-glass-into-past_23.html
DrREC, this consistent evidence is not good for you guys. You claim you got proof, but alas, when I dig deeper into the evidence your claims always turn out to be mere bluster with no real substance. Why is this DrREC??? Why do you so dogmatically defend such a bankrupt theory? Not to mention the completely pointless, nihilistic, materialistic philosophy behind it???bornagain77
September 21, 2011
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"with the most likely candidate(s) for speciation" I think the cleverness of the quote is that it looks at those LEAST likely for speciation (in the sense of reproductive isolation). Evidence for Eukaryotic speciation is clearer to interpret, and as far as I know, much more abundant.DrREC
September 21, 2011
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Very interesting statement.Collin
September 21, 2011
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That is, obviously, assuming one human generation is 25 years.Eugene S
September 21, 2011
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It would be nice to know for certain how many successive generations of bacteria were supervised over those 150 years in the single longest experiment. I've been told of an estimate of 10^4 generations per year for one particular species. But I don't know the duration of the longest continuous period of supervision, which would be good to have. Assuming a one year long continuous experiment, we have 10,000 generations, which is equivalent to 250,000 years for the human race.Eugene S
September 21, 2011
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I think Wells is pretty good with his research and pretty careful with his ideas, but I'd like to clarify one definitional point, particularly because this is a point we've been discussing the last few days on another thread. Specifically, when Wells says there is "no evidence" for species changes, what he means is that either: (i) the overall evidence, taken as a whole, does not support species changes, or (ii) there is no direct observational evidence of species changes. In the context of his discussion in the quote above, he seems to be talking about the latter. I think we need to be clear on this definition, because there is evidence for species change, at the very least in the sense that there is some evidence that is *consistent with* the idea of species change. Whether or not the evidence, as a whole, supports the idea is another question. In making this technical clarification/correction, I don't detract from Wells' larger point, which is that after decades of research with the most likely candidate(s) for speciation, we still have no direct observational evidence that it does, or even can, occur. This is a very important point that should give pause to anyone proclaiming the powers of change by evolutionary mechanisms.Eric Anderson
September 21, 2011
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Strange quote, given the difficulty in even defining a bacterial species due to recombination between distant species. Total reproductive isolation is a tall order. This difficulty means there are more clear cut cases of eukaryotic speciation known. Nevertheless, some scientists have studied prokaryotic speciation: The effect of DNA sequence divergence on sexual isolation in Bacillus http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8325477 Temporal Fragmentation of Speciation in Bacteria DOI: 10.1126/science.1144876 Recombination and the Nature of Bacterial Speciation DOI: 10.1126/science.112757 Also in simple eukaryotes: Starvation-Induced Reproductive Isolation in Yeast DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-12340-5_3DrREC
September 21, 2011
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