RE: Did the Founding Fathers Intend for Separation of Church
Posted: 3/4/2010 9:24:44 AM
By: Comfortably Anonymous
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Topic: History of this planet
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I think it’s pretty darn relevant to evolution that the means of antibiotic resistance didn’t evolve recently but were there all along. Changing allele frequency is a far different thing than creating a new allele.

Experiments were purported to have “proven” that antibiotic resistance evolves de novo. Talkorigins makes this claim in multiple places. Therein lies the dead icon.

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RE: Did the Founding Fathers Intend for Separation of Church
Posted: 3/4/2010 9:24:44 AM
By: Comfortably Anonymous
Times Read: 1,398
0 Dislikes: 0
Topic: History of this planet

“Changing allele frequency is a far different thing than creating a new allele.”

Certainly, but then we have to ask where that initial variation came from. What produced the biological feature that conferred resistance?
If it arose de-novo *at some point* in the past via nonintelligent means, then it does not bother me so much that it did not arise in “real-time” on demand. As long as it can arise de novo from nonintelligent means, I am content that it can and does happen in principle; that suffices for evolution.

As I see it, there are only a few possible answers to the question of where the resistance trait came from. 1)the variation allowing for resistance arose de novo by nonintelligent processes at *some* point in the past and was present and available in some individuals when antibiotics were applied 2)it was present at the beginning as a designed feature for the purpose of antibiotic resistance or 3)it was present at the beginning as a designed feature but was not designed for antibiotic resistance. It was, however, subsequently co-opted for resistance.

Putting aside what has been claimed on talk origins (I haven’t read what they say there) all evolution ever requires is that some version of #1 be true. In this instance, #2 is not very attractive. #3 is interesting, but if you open the door for #3, #1 doesn’t seem like so much of a stretch anymore.

“One can certainly appreciate antibiotic resistance and take measures to deal with it without buying into an evolutionary history or evolutionary explanation for the phenomenon in question.” –eric anderson

As I’ve said elsewhere, I extend the term evolution to include microevolution, which in turn includes population dynamics and the process of an allele sweeping through a population or subpopulation. In this sense, I understand evolution to be highly relevant to the process in question, and there is a wealth of evolutionary literature and models that may be of use in helping to formally understand the dynamics of resistance. Many here reserve the term “evolution” for the de novo construction of new complex features. Yet the processes that we can experimentally observe are, as you’re well aware, of a far more modest nature. Yet I understand these modest changes as related to the larger, more dramatic changes, so I envision evolution as a whole spectrum of phenomenon, from allele frequency dynamics to the more difficult to imagine constructive feats.

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