Disabling Bacterial Resistance

Not really. It certainly demonstrates that mutation rates are tied in to the cellular environment and that an enzymatic change to that environment can affect the rate of mutation, but it doesn't mean that any specific mutation is occurring at a higher frequency so the position and nature of the mutation is still as random, in as much as it is stochastic, as ever.Of course no one who is actually familiar with molecular genetics claims that mutations are completely random in frequency and character but we will elide over that strawman for the moment.TTFN,WK

I'm not sure why this is a problem. Certainly such an assumption is often made, but it is certainly not currently represented as based upon a weight of evidence. Rather it is an assumption for conveniences sake. There is plenty of current research on variable rates of mutation and variable 'molecular clocks' but to account for such variability in any long evolutionary time scale would be a pretty mammoth task.It seems a reasonable approach in a small population scale genetic study to assume a relative constancy in mutation rates given a homogenous environment for that population.TTFN,WK

You just seem to be endlessly repeating a tautology.Obviously if an organism lacks something which it needs to survive then it will not survive. You haven't shown any way in which this has any relevance to evolution. What you would have to show is that all of the organism's ancestors would also have needed that same thing in order to survive.So, in fact, it is just the same old irreducible complexity argument yet again since to make sense you need be able to show that the integrated systems could not co-evolve from rudimentrary precursors. What do they need? If you have found out what the minimal requirements are for something that could be called living then you should really let us all know. Can you show that the neccessary components for a primitive self replicating system could not arise from inorganic material?TTFN,WK

So in fact your argument is completely empty, in that it is not only hypothetical but that it can never be anything other than hypothetical. There are numerous examples of pathways for the evolution of irreducible complexity (depending of course on which flavour of IC is doing the rounds this month). Where is even a hypothetical barrier to their evolution? well, yes. That seems to pretty much sum up your argument. In your opinion it couldn't happen, and that should be good enough for everybody. How lovely and disingenuous, what about all the evidence which does suggest such systems are evolveable, such as the many extant examples of systems which represent rudimentary forms of more complex systems in other organisms? Or the experiments where amino acids have arisen from a simulated prebiotic atmosphere organic or self replicating nucleotides have been generated? You are the one making a claim, if it is a claim which has no evidence to support it then we know how much credence we should give it.TTFN,WK