evolution caught...
Posted by anyman on Feb 28, 2004 at 10:56
(219.139.213.211)Re: Evolution Caught In The Act (DA Morgan)
very interesting...nice find, thanx
i will look forward to seeing how this develops and what shakes out
several thoughts come to mind...
adaptation/variation does not necessarily equate to evolution in the sense of the word necessary for a darwinian paradigm to become a reality
the information used was already extant so nothing new on that front; it was simply reshuffled (recombined) in a slightly different way...for darwinian evolution in any of its various forms you need brand new information, a net increase of overall info
it is possible that this enzyme is not new but has just never before been observed (ie, just newly discovered)
more likely, is that this protein has always had this potential theoretically, but just never encountered the necessary environmental stimuli to manifest itself
it also seems that this may well be support for the thesis of "non-random" mutations (the thesis is lee spetner's (biophysicist), not mine, although i am inclined to agree with his thesis)
the way to test this would be to apply the scientific method of experimentation...ie, reproducibility
if given identical environmental conditions and following the same procedures in every way one is able to reproduce the same results (ie the same mutation, rearrangement, recombination, etc) in the protein and get the same response, then that would indicate that this is NOT a random event, but rather a NON-RANDOM, preprogrammed response to given specific environmental conditions (see: spetner, _not by chance_, chap 7, p175ff
and that would tend to demonstrate the designer's massive intellect and foresight in designing bacteria to be highly adaptable to a very (cf, "extremophiles") broad variety of conditions
if this protein (enzyme) is not just newly discovered but actually new, then there is still the problem of the fact that it did not occur naturally
this would mean that it was the result of an intelligently designed experiment using intelligently designed apparatus/apparatuses (both are plural forms of the word), in an intelligently designed labratory, making it the result of intelligent design from intelligent mind(s)
finally, while the bacteria adapted, varied, mutated, it and all of its descendants are still and will always remain...bacteria
hmm...
bacteria evolve into bacteria
now that's newsworthy
this actually is very newsworthy information, but not for the reasons claimed
there is little if anything in this development to lend much needed and largely absent support to the evolutionary hypothesis
just a few off the cuff thoughts
then again, it is always possible that i could be wrong...guess we'll just have to wait and see, eh :-)