Is there any proof of beneficial mutations?

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Not true, since wingless beetles on islands are a perfect example of the environment effecting mutation.

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Oh good, the doc is here. Please, explain how the environment did not affect which beetles would survive. I'm interested.

That's not what he said. He said that mutations weren't influenced by the environment.How you came to the conclusion that he was saying something completely different is a mystery to me.

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The reason is that the copying mechanisms in the cell can't think --- they can't say to themselves ... hmm, the environment is like this

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I disagree. But what would it be like in here if I didn't...lol.Many bacteria are physically designed to be adaptable (I know, designed is a God word, but bear with me, I have a point). Their surrounding layers and the genetic information for these and other structures associated are capable of alteration. Some alterations are temporary, disappearing when the particular environment or situation changes. Other alterations are perminent and can be passed on through generations of bacteria. I perfect example of this is penicillin. After it was brought to market in the 1990's, over 80% of strains of Staphylococcus aureus were resistant.There have also been documented examples of bacteria changing to adapt to differing levels of temperature, pH, and concentrations of ions such as sodium. Some bacteria (including E. Coli) have instant responses to heat shock, which changes the growth temperature of the bacteria.Bacteria can, and DO respond to their environment intelligently (I know, the God word).Though I agree with the good Dr. that the cell copying mechanisms themselves do not have a 'brain' of their own, they are controlled by an intelligent source, that makes decisions that effect the bacteria as a whole.

read post directly below the one you just sent me. Or I can copy and paste it for you...

Everything you describe in that post is due to mutations and selection. No intelligence is required.

I don't want to quote your entire post, dennis780, but if you ascribe conscious thought or even specifically directed mutation for the results you mention, then everything in your post is wrong.There are cases where environmental factors cause differences in growth and offspring traits, but that is not mutation or evolution.

That alteration occurs by random mutation and natural selection. Right - the bacteriocidal effect of penicillin produced a selection pressure for resistance, and the mutation that produced resistance came to dominate the Staph aureus population because non-resistant individuals were killed. There's nothing intelligent about it. Bacteria mutate all the time. Constantly. For every bacteria that have mutated to gain resistance to antibiotics in an antibiotic environment, millions mutate to be more susceptible (and are killed), millions mutate to be resistant to a completely different antibiotic that isn't even present (and are killed), millions mutate to become auxotrophs to various metabolites that may not be in the culture media (and are killed), millions mutate in ways that have no phenotypic effect whatsoever (and are killed.)It's literally the result of chance that any bacteria are initially resistant to an antibiotic when it's added. They were resistant before it was added, as a result of mutations that were completely neutral in an environment with no antibiotic.Add the antibiotic, and you're very suddenly looking at a population of bacteria that are resistant to it - because everything else is dead. They don't affect bacteria as a whole; otherwise every bacteria would instantly mutate as soon as the antibiotic was added. But what we see when we add an antibiotic to microbial culture is that 99.8% or so of individuals are immediately killed by it, and only the small fraction that had, by chance, mutated to gain resistance survive.Then they re-establish the population from their descendants, which necessarily contain the mutant gene for resistance. It's not a process where all bacteria sudden;y switch on resistance; it's a process where only resistant bacteria survive, and their rapid growth results in a population generally resistant to the antibiotic.

What we observe is that alterations of the genetic information is random with respect to fitness. These mutations then pass through natural selection, either becoming more common in the population or less common depending on the environment. A perfect experiment to illustrate how this occurs is the Lederbergs' plate replica experiment: .pdf formatIn this experiment the Lederbergs demonstrated that mutations were responsible for spectinomycin resistance in the E. coli they used in the experiment. Even more importantly, they demonstrated that these mutations occurred in the absence of antibiotics. That is, mutations conferring antibiotic resistance occurred before the bacteria were exposed to antibiotics. These mutations were not a response to the presence of antibiotics. Rather, these mutations were random with respect to the presence of antibiotics. These mutations occurred at the same rate in both the absence and presence of antibiotics. I would describe it more as bacteria acting like automatons . . . like robots. They do not display an intelligence on par with humans, that is for sure. If you disagree, then please cite an example and demonstrate that a deity is making those decisions. I note that you cite no evidence to back up this claim, but with that being said . . .This creates an ethical problem. It is a known fact that children are born with genetic diseases. We know that these are due to mutations because the parents are asymptomatic and lack the mutation seen in these children. Your claim can only leave us with one conclusion, God is purposefully making these children suffer some very painful and awful diseases. Some of these diseases are quite lethal, and others (e.g. hemophilia) create serious health problems throughout life. Would you consider giving children deadly and painful diseases an "intelligent" decision?

Hi dennis, Penicillin was first used in 1871 but was not mass produced until just before the invasion of Normandy. It was great for colds in the 50's.So bacteria had 40 years to raise immunities before the ninties.Now where those immunities came from is another question.God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Not really. It came from mutations.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Hi jar, Well that is not what the experiments show.Experiments show that if you take a couple of plates and spread out bacteria on them and let them grow into several different colonies .Then stamp the original plates with cloths and stamp two new plates that contains the antibiotic penicillin.Many of the bacteria will die.Many will survive.Those that survive already have an immunity to the penicilin. They did not create a mutation that produced the immunity.The immunity was already in their DNA.So my statement where did those immunities come from.Evolutionist says they had acquired a mutation prior to being exposed.I say the DNA information contained the immunities when they were created.I read somewhere there was bacteria cultures from frozen bodies that were resistant to antibotics that were developed 100 years later.Why did these immunities have to be produced by a mutation?Why couldn't those that died have had a deletious mutation that removed their immunity to the anibotic?God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Because we know that mutations can cause such changes and no other model has ever been demonstrated.Right now the ONLY model that exists and has any evidential support is the Theory of Evolution.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

As a result of mutation. Remember all the bacteria are clones of a single individual. If that original clone had antibiotic resistance than all subsequent individuals would have as well, and therefore none would have died.But most do die. This is proof that the resistance is a trait acquired in generations after the original, and the only possible source of that trait is random mutation. If that's the case, why would any of the colonies die? They all should have been resistant if resistance was a trait present in the founding individual. Remember bacteria are haploid so there's no Mendelian characteristics here - no dominance or recessiveness. Because the founder was not resistant, we know that the resistance (and not the loss of resistance) was the trait acquired by mutation. Oh, I love "I read it somewhere" as a source for claims. Always convincing!

Hi crash, How do you know the trait was acquired rather than lost?God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

The above argument is exactly why I started the Genetic variability in a bacteria species topic. Only 6 messages there so far, so not much catch up reading.Moose