MRSA - would you?

Except that many creationists (usually YECs) have no problem with microevolution, or small-scale changes of alleles frequencies in a population, but have major problems with macroevolution, or the evolution of separated gene poolsThe problem is that they're both the same process, except on different time scales, i.e. micro is within a few generations and macro is one the scale of thousands of years, but many creationists separate them because while they are willing to accept changes that occur within a species, they cannot accept that changes accumulate over time to produce speciation.That is a consequence of the extreme distaste many creationists have of the fact that we all share a common ancestor.

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott
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Marge, just about everything is a sin. (holds up a Bible) Y'ever sat down and read this thing? Technically we're not supposed to go to the bathroom. - Reverend Lovejoy
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You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. - Marcus Cole

Never underestimate the tenacious stubbornness of that book. I've seen people trot out explanations left and right that don't make sense according to the evidence but appeals to them because it supports that book.The problem is while many creationists accept that changes do occur, they arbitrarily draw a line and say, "but it stops here." As of yet, I haven't heard a good scientific reason for why the process can't go farther back to the beginnings of life, but I would be interested in discussing that.Regardless, I would absolutely believe that creationists, accepting that small-scale changes do occur, would definitely take the new drugs rather than the old one.

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott
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Marge, just about everything is a sin. (holds up a Bible) Y'ever sat down and read this thing? Technically we're not supposed to go to the bathroom. - Reverend Lovejoy
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You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. - Marcus Cole

But a designer isn't an option because no one has proven a designer exists. In order to make a designer an option, you first need to prove a designer. But you can't prove or disprove a designer. So it becomes pointless to try to argue that premise.Good science is being able to prove something false. In science, we can never really prove something true, but we can always prove something false. The Theory of Evolution may not necessarily be true, but as of yet, it hasn't been proven false. That's why evolution is credible - we can prove it false. And so far, all the evidence suggests that evolution occurs with one of the more recent evidence being the evolution of Staph A. to methicillin-resistant Staph A. That is evolution on a small scale and that's what evolution predicts would happen when you change the environment of an organism.But that's why arguing a designer is bad science. A designer can never be proven false and that's why it should never be used to explain anything in science.

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott
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Marge, just about everything is a sin. (holds up a Bible) Y'ever sat down and read this thing? Technically we're not supposed to go to the bathroom. - Reverend Lovejoy
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You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. - Marcus Cole

But that's my point. You've arbitrarily drawn a line and said that changes can't accumulate over time to produce something that is much different than what it was before. But we know that accumulated changes can make something different than what it was before, most notably, machines. A phone from 20 years ago is much different from a phone now because of the accumulated changes we've made to the phone. But both phones still perform the same basic function. In nature, we see how an accumulation of small changes can produce something different. Mountains shrink into hills because of erosion. Flat land is turned into a valley by rivers. Mountains are created from flat land through plate tectonics. There are forces that are constantly working to produce changes and as changes accumulate, the thing becomes something different. So why not living things? We can't see it happening, but we can infer from the evidence that such a process has occurred and is occurring. Why? Because we know small accumulation of changes do change something into something a bit different. We see it in nature all the time. But you've arbitrarily drawn a line and said that even though we know it happens elsewhere in nature, it doesn't happen to living things. There is no alternative because you haven't proven an alternative. Your alternative is unprovable and can't be used, else we may as well explain everything to God. Planes fly because of God, would you accept that explanation? And if I built a plane that physics says won't fly, would you fly in it?In the natural world, we can't have God as any explanation, otherwise we'll have God as every explanation. But having God as an explanation doesn't help us to understand the natural world. If we say birds fly because of God, that explanation doesn't help us to understand the dynamics of flight and any planes built upon the explanation that things fly because of God would never work.

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott
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Marge, just about everything is a sin. (holds up a Bible) Y'ever sat down and read this thing? Technically we're not supposed to go to the bathroom. - Reverend Lovejoy
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You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. - Marcus Cole

I told you, the idea of a designer is unprovable. That means science can't falsify it. That's why science forgoes the idea that there is a designer - science doesn't concern itself with the existence of a designer. It concerns itself with naturalistic explanations of what we see, because naturalistic explanations can be falsified. No, this would prove creationism, because, through evolution, a human will never, ever, ever give birth to a monkey. Evolution only says changes over time will produce a new species, not an instantaneous change from one species to the next. An instantaneous change will be evidence for creationism. And how do you know? This is an unprovable statement and brings nothing to the discussion.

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott
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Marge, just about everything is a sin. (holds up a Bible) Y'ever sat down and read this thing? Technically we're not supposed to go to the bathroom. - Reverend Lovejoy
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You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. - Marcus Cole

A downward trend? Then how do you explain MRSA? This is bacteria that previously didn't have resistance to an antibiotic but now does. Doesn't that suggest an upward trend in information content? Aha! so your world of decreasing information content is hypothetical. That means micro-evolution does encompass additions and deletions of genetic information as MRSA proves. Since organisms can add information, as MRSA did by becoming resistant to an antibiotic, then macro is possible because, as you said

quote:

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On the other hand, macro is impossible without an increase in information. New organs, new proteins, etc.

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and MRSA is clearly a case of new information being added, i.e. resistance to an antibiotic.

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott
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Marge, just about everything is a sin. (holds up a Bible) Y'ever sat down and read this thing? Technically we're not supposed to go to the bathroom. - Reverend Lovejoy
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You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. - Marcus Cole

You have arbitrarily drawn a line. Science only draws lines when the evidence shows that certain situations cannot be explained by the current theory. In those cases, scientists either improve upon the existing theory, or make a new hypothesis that explains the old observations and the new. You, however, have no reason to draw such a line. If you do, then what is that reason? You say that evolution isn't happening because there is no direct evidence of speciation. By your reckoning, there is no God because there is no direct evidence of anything he has done. Isn't that right? Let me draw the parallel again - Evolution doesn't exist because no one can directly observe it; God doesn't exist because no one can directly observe God. If this is wrong, then tell us how we can directly observe God. I can infer by seeing that small changes over time accumulate to change something into something new. Take cell phones:The earliest cell phones were huge compared to the ones today, and they served to do only one thing - call people. As technology advanced, we made changes to cell phones that accumulated over time. New methods of miniaturization allowed cell phones to become more compact. Advances in memory allowed phones to begin to store data, like addresses and ring tones. As technology continued to advance, the cell phone began to acquire new functionality until today, where we have cell phones that function, not only as a phone, but as multimedia centers, handheld gaming systems, daily planners, GPS systems, etc. It has changed so much that calling it a cell phone is no longer accurate - it would be more accurate to call it something else. The same concept applies to biological beings, which are nothing more than organic machines. A population of bacteria will accumulate changes over time until the result is a new species of bacteria. If you say that of Macroevolution, then you MUST say it of Design. Your arguments would serve to put Design into that category as well. Fine, then stop calling ID science. Don't argue the "science" of ID. Call it what it really is - religion.

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott
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Marge, just about everything is a sin. (holds up a Bible) Y'ever sat down and read this thing? Technically we're not supposed to go to the bathroom. - Reverend Lovejoy
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You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. - Marcus Cole

I don't think I've ever heard directed panspermia ever advocated by evolutionary biologists as part of the Theory of Evolution. In fact, evolutionary biologists don't usually argue about how life began, as far as I know.However, directed panspermia could theoretically be falsified if humans began exploring the galaxy, as it requires the presence of some physical intelligence. Even panspermia could be tested by drilling into comets to see their chemical makeup. Those are answers based on the natural world. But an invisible, incorporeal designer is unprovable and unfalsifiable. Really, how are you going to test for an invisible, incorporeal being? Something like that is outside our natural world and thus is not scientific. I would disagree with Perdition on this point. A human bearing a monkey child would require some very specific changes to the genome. For that to happen would more likely need to be designed rather than evolved. As Perdition said, an event like that has a one-in-a-gajillion shot of happening, essentially saying that the odds are so astronomical as to be zero. For a scientist to see an event like that, two possibilities arise: 1) it's a hoax; or 2) it was designed to happen, and if number 2 is correct then two possibilities arise from that: 1) the designer is a physical being; or 2) the designer was a non-physical being. As scientists can't test for a non-physical being, the most logical conclusion would be that a physical being designed such an event to happen. Keep in mind that I said it was the most logical conclusion, not necessarily the right one.My opinion is that I don't think ToE could explain that. You are right, reality doesn't change. The existence of God could be a distinct possibility. But science doesn't try to define reality. Science tries to explain the causation. Things fall because of gravity. Gravity is because of curved spacetime. Leaves change color because of chemical processes. Science is about causation. When our observations conflict with our explanations, then we find a new explanation to address the new observations. That's why science never proves, only falsifies. That's why falsification is necessary. As far as Kantian philosophy is concerned, I'll address it once I've read more into it.

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott
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Marge, just about everything is a sin. (holds up a Bible) Y'ever sat down and read this thing? Technically we're not supposed to go to the bathroom. - Reverend Lovejoy
----------------------------------------
You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. - Marcus Cole

As you said, macroevolution is just adding on more information. The bacteria added more information and therefore macroevolved. See, you can't do that. Evolution is a step-by-step process that takes time. Nothing magically becomes something else; that's an argument for creationism (e.g. dirt into man, rib into woman). Evolution is the accumulation of changes over time to produce something new. What this bacteria has done has evolved, but it is still on the road to becoming something else. Given time, I have no doubt that it will become a new species of bacteria, which evolution predicts.Look at another disease - swine flu. The current swine flu likely evolved from three strains of influenza that reassorted themselves into a new strain. This could happen because of factory farms which put animals in close quarters allowing viruses to spread faster and allow for greater chances of intermingling. That's evolution in process - make changes to the environment and the organism changes because of the new environment. If enough changes occur, then a new species is "born." Again, evolution is a slow process, but adaptation to the environment is one step in that process.

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott
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Marge, just about everything is a sin. (holds up a Bible) Y'ever sat down and read this thing? Technically we're not supposed to go to the bathroom. - Reverend Lovejoy
----------------------------------------
You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. - Marcus Cole

Antibiotics have been in use for several decades now. If antibiotic resistance had been in the genome of the bacteria population, then the antibiotic resistance would have been found much earlier. The fact that the drug has now been discovered to be less effective, or even ineffective, against this bacteria, it's pretty clear that this is an evolved strain.

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott
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Marge, just about everything is a sin. (holds up a Bible) Y'ever sat down and read this thing? Technically we're not supposed to go to the bathroom. - Reverend Lovejoy
----------------------------------------
You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. - Marcus Cole

I apologize for saying that you think that ID is science.That said... This has been explained ad nauseum and is also off-topic. The question is, how can creationism explain the apparently sudden adaption of antibiotic resistance?

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott
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Marge, just about everything is a sin. (holds up a Bible) Y'ever sat down and read this thing? Technically we're not supposed to go to the bathroom. - Reverend Lovejoy
----------------------------------------
You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. - Marcus Cole