Well I understand your desire to trivialize this as a "distraction," but bacteria have a definite biological need to rapidly adapt to ever changing environments and food sources. As I said, one of the main ways that they appear to have been designed to do this, is through plasmid mutations. And no, I don't at all deny that some have had beneficial mutations take place within the chromosomal DNA. But I think the exact mechanism is controversial because some results suggest a directed mutation specifically enabling adaptation to the environment. A conclusion which is drawn in part by the fact that the mutation rate occurred at a much higher rate than random mutations could produce.
And even though most of these chromosomal mutations involves certain environmental conditions that make these mutations phenotypically beneficial, they frequently eliminate or reduce pre-existing cellular systems and functions. Therefore they require the prior existence of the targeted cellular systems, rather than providing a genetic mechanism that accounts for the origin of biological systems or functions.
You've made a number of gross assumptions and unfounded leaps in your claims here.
#1) Not all bacteria rapidly adapt to ever changing environments and food sources. Some do. Some don't.
If this is your criteria for design, then they ALL must behave as if designed to do so. You can't have them be designed so that some do and some don't, seemingly at random. That's not design.
#2) You are claiming that the results suggest a "directed mutation" because a mutation arises which "fits" an environment. In order to make this assertion, you would have to be able to sample ALL the mutations which occur in an entire population of bacteria over and given time period and check them against ALL POSSIBLE mutations which potentially could occur.
Only then can you conclude that -
a) Only beneficial mutations occurred, or that they occurred at a SIGNIFICANTLY higher rate than neutral or negative mutations.
b) That the BEST POSSIBLE mutation occurred rather than a seemingly random adaptation which happens to work out better than average.
Once you can demonstrate BOTH of these, repeatedly, in multiple experiments, with multiple kinds of bacteria, in multiple environments -- THEN we can talk about your results.
#3) You are drawing a conclusion based on: "the fact that the mutation rate occurred at a much higher rate than random mutations could produce. "
Have you provided evidence which examines ALL potential source of mutation? Where is your control group? How do you determine what the random mutation rate is and what it can produce? How have you measured your alternative mutation rate and determined that it is higher? How much higher?
This sounds exactly like a claim you've made up out of whole cloth and are trying to pass off as fact. Where's the EXHAUSTIVE research demonstrating the claim?
#4) You claim that mutations "frequently eliminate or reduce pre-existing cellular systems or functions".
What do you mean by "frequently"? 50% of the time? Have you demonstrated this?
Again, in order to make this judgment you have to know ALL the mutations which occur in a given population over time.
If the ONLY mutation which occurs does this and no other mutations occur, then great. That's very supportive of your claim.
However, if in a population of a billion bacteria, 50,000 mutations do what you are saying and 125,000,000 mutations don't. That's pretty damning.
The ONLY way to accurately judge is to decode the DNA of the parent bacteria from which the population spawns, and ALSO have each and every member of subsequent generations decoded to monitor changes.
Now, that's not impossible - in theory.
The problem is, the proponents of ID have absolutely no interest in running ANY experiments, let alone expensive intense experiments which would prove their claim.
You know why? Because they don't care about the facts. The ID movement is a religious/political movement. All they want to do is "raise questions" and "teach the controversy". It's totally irrelevant to them that they are 100% wrong on the issue.
Why bother collecting evidence which MIGHT prove you wrong when you can just make a baseless claim for free and hope the public can't tell the difference?
™ Version 4.2
(1)