Your cartoon is typical evolutionist propaganda. Drug resistant bacteria has always been around. It existed long before the drugs were developed. Your mutation theory makes about as much sense as a can of worms.
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I can actually understand the argument here. JohnR7 is arguing that there have always been various strains of the same bacteria and drugs eliminated all but those strains that were resistant to a given drug. Now that we see our drugs no longer working it is only because we've killed off all the strands that the drugs worked on, but those that remain now have more "growing room" so seem more prevailant as if the normal bacteria have mutated or evolved.
The proof you need here is a pure breed of bacteria that has no resistance to a particular drug to suddenly develop a resistance to that drug. Or a better explanation, i freely admit I only know enough information in this area to get me into trouble. But I can see where someone could stick to their guns with this argument.
Here's the interesting thing though. . . If there are strains of the bacteria that are and strains that aren't resistant to the drug, and one is SELECTED for, what do you think has just happened?
I'll give you a hint, it starts with "e" and ends with "volution".
Jeremy, If the resistant strains exist before the introduction of drugs then all you have done is wipe out their competition and give them free reign to grow. That is not evolution, that is more along the lines of natural selection or survival of the fittest. For evolution you need to see an actual change in one of the non-resistant versions into a resistant version.
It's like filling a basket with balloons and balls. Drop in some needles and the balloons pop. Each time you dump in balloons and balls you have more and more balls and less balloons filling the space. This is not because the balloons have changed to balls its because you are eliminating the balloons.
This is not to say that mutations and changes do not occur. I believe there has been documented cases of it happening (nylon eating bacteria). JohnR7's argument is valid on the point of natural selection over evolution in his statement. However natural selection (or even artifical selection due to the introduction of man made chemicals) does not eliminate the possibility of evolution.
Just Rick,
It is possible to start a bacterial culture from a single bacterium (in fact, this is common practice). Growing such a culture under selective pressure quickly results in strains that differ from the original bacterium. Because there was no variation to begin with, the new strains and their genetic information arise through mutation and selection.
This way of introducing variation is sometimes used as a research tool, for example here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15451114&query_hl=11&itool=pubmed_docsum
Don’t bother relaying this information to a creationist though, as they will reply that this doesn’t count because the bacterium still belongs to the “bacteria-kind”.
Just Rick,
Spontaneous mutations that give rise to reisistance has been demonstrated (as Plyss said). Also, the resistance has jumped from one species to another through plasmid exchange, which puts a whole new twist on co-evolution of species.
Just Rick, that is evolution. In the biology class I took last semester, we did just such an experiment to study evolution in action.
Evolution, as TLC pointed out, is the change in frequency of alleles in a population.
Got this example (other than bacteria evolving an enzyme from junk DNA to feed off nylon) from Prof Ken Miller's presentation on ID.It involves bacteria being able to feed off TNT.
I suppose the question to be asked is this. Since TNT was a 20th century invention, how the hell is it supposed to have survived all this time without TNT to feed off?
Far be it for me to claim extensive knowledge in biology. I probably know just enough to get myself into trouble. The point I was trying to make was the difference between a brand new strain appearing from no where and simply clearing space for a lesser known strain to more easily survive.
If I understand what Plyss is saying, then getting variations in bacterium after starting with a single bacterium strain would really not be evolution would it? As bacteria are asexual (and I'm really stretching my knowledge to its limits here) then those changes would merely be variations in genetic traits - much like the differences between sibblings and their parents. While neither parents had blue eyes, blue eyed children could show up because of resessive genes? Evolutional mutation could only be declared if some new trait never previously experienced in the "parent" entities or their genetic line were to appear in newer generations. Like the ability to suddenly ingest a previously uneatable food source (nylon, TnT).
So, if you add a chemical to a bacterial culture and it kills off 99.9% of that culture then why did that remaining .1% survive? Bad application or resistance to the chemical? If it is resistance then I cannot see how that could be called evolution if more and more bacteria with that resistance appears. We are simply seeing a previously rare trait suddenly become more useful and only bacterium with that trait will tend to survive under the chemical conditions. Nothing new has mutated.
However, if the chemical is 100% effective in cleaning out the bacteria, then one day it suddenly stops being 100% effective then I can see that as evolution.
To be honest, I looked at your link. After cleaning up the blood that began leaking from my ears from trying to understand that inforamtion I decided that I really am not suited for that kind of detailed information.
Again, I hate to sound so pathetically stupid, but just tried to figure out what was meant by the term "allele" and it just is too much technical jargon for me. I don't have enough relevant background material to take it in.
I do not doubt that spontaneous mutations occur in bacterium as demonstrated in both the nylon eating bacterium and noself's mentioned TNT bacterium. I was merely trying to pinpoint the difference between mutation/evolution and sellection/survival for my own understanding. I fully agree that this simple distinction might be beyond my comprehension in this particular field and apologize if I am arguing a case that I simply "don't get".
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So, if you add a chemical to a bacterial culture and it kills off 99.9% of that culture then why did that remaining .1% survive? Bad application or resistance to the chemical? If it is resistance then I cannot see how that could be called evolution if more and more bacteria with that resistance appears. We are simply seeing a previously rare trait suddenly become more useful and only bacterium with that trait will tend to survive under the chemical conditions. Nothing new has mutated.
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No, nothing has mutated. That's true. However, Evolution, defined as simply as possible, is "any change in gene frequencies in a population accross generations". So, if generation P, the group before the addition had a .01 occurance rate of the drug-resistant phenotype, and the generation F1 had a frequency of 1.0, evolution has in fact happened.
There are many kinds of evolution, and they happen in many different ways. An advantageous mutation (drug resistance making a first appearance) is another kind.
Right, drug resistant species of bacteria were around before the drug even existed. I think you mean individuals, who then became more common in the population as natural selection removed all the ones without the resistance gene.
"Doc, I'm gonna have to get you, like, a proverb book or something... this mix'n'match shit's gotta go."
OK, the mutation theory might make just as much sense as equipment for fishing, but the fact that we see more and more drug resistance is a sign of natural selection (and a bit of unnatural selection too, perhaps, as antibiotics are mostly man-made), which is the other part of evolution.
We have other cartoons too, that are typical heliocentrist propaganda, and some that are gravitationist propaganda. We even have a few revolutionary anti-stork propaganda cartoons.
“Your cartoon is typical evolutionist propaganda.”
Looks like you just can NOT dumb science down far enough for John.
“Drug resistant bacteria has always been around. It existed long before the drugs were developed.”
To a degree, yes.
"Your mutation theory makes about as much sense as a can of worms.”
You’ve never been in the military, have you? Part of pulling into a foreign port is the briefing about how the STDs that our fathers got in that city could be cured with a stiff dose of penicillin, but we had to be careful today, because the great-great-great-great-grand-bacteria of those diseases had evolved to eat penicillin like cheese dip.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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