sparc
Posts: 2088
Joined: April 2007
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EN&V reacted as well (on September 9 already but I don't go there too often): | Quote | The key to understanding the paper is its Figure 3C. There it shows the genes that have undergone more than one mutation across tested bacteria. They break the mutations down into silent changes, changes of amino acids (point mutations), and insertion-deletion or nonsense mutations, which almost certainly are loss of function (LOF). Over half of genes contain such LOF mutations, along with some point mutations, which likely also degrade or destroy function. In other words, devolution.
Moreover, as the paper in Science points out in its conclusion, "The MEGA-plate is not intended to directly simulate natural or clinical settings," but "its relative simplicity and ability to visually demonstrate evolution makes the MEGA-plate a useful tool for science education and outreach." In other words, the MEGA-plate does not correspond to the real world and may be irrelevant to medicine. Instead, its value will be primarily to indoctrinate students in evolution.
Despite its dubious relevance to medicine, the second author, Tami Lieberman (an "evolutionary microbiologist," not a physician), told NPR: "Getting more people to understand how quickly bacteria evolve antibiotic resistance might help people understand why they shouldn't be prescribed antibiotics." Now that's downright irresponsible, at least as the comment is phrased. As Dr. Lieberman knows, properly used antibiotics save lives. |
Behe is embarrassing himself by making the same devolution argument in the podcast mentioned above.
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"[...] the type of information we find in living systems is beyond the creative means of purely material processes [...] Who or what is such an ultimate source of information? [...] from a theistic perspective, such an information source would presumably have to be God."
- William Dembski -
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