Species/Kinds (for Peg...and others)

Hi Peg, Can I suggest Peg that if you wish to debate genetics with some actual understanding of the subject that you invest in a genetics text-book - your knowledge of the subject is more than a little wanting I'm afraid.However meantime I'll throw my tuppeny-worth into the ring and try and help you see how it fits together.What the other posters have been telling you is that bacteria only have one chromosomal set, and that they reproduce asexually, theoretically reproducing that exact chromosome set. It's a bit like me giving you a copy of your bible, a pen and a load of paper and asking you to write out a copy of said bible without making a single spelling mistake, punctuation error or transposition of data. Biological systems are good....in fact extraordinarily good....but even those systems cannot replicate to that degree of excellence where there are no copying errors.That is mutation. It is a fact of all genetic copying operations and it happens all the time. Mostly the errors are tiny and not of significance to the individual. Sometimes the error is deadly and the individual dies - either at conception stage (yes even for bacteria), sometimes later.The hard facts of life mean that to be "successful", a copying error must not affect an individual's mortality before it has a chance to reproduce itself.So, back to the colony of bacteria. Every now and again a mutation will occur that will alter the cell wall structure enough to make that individual resistant to say an antibiotic. If the antibiotic is not in the vicinity this will not be necessarily an advantage to the altered individual. In fact it could be a detriment. For example, an altered cell wall membrane that repels an antibiotic might also be less sensitive to other chemicals - say nutrients which the cell does need. In a colony where others are competing fiercely for resources (and there's nothing like a colony of expanding bacteria for fierce competition), our altered cell could easily perish - one reason maybe why the altered condition doesn't necessarily become standardised throughout the colony.Can you see that these mutated conditions arise in isolated individuals all the time? There is no "evolution seeing that something is needed" business at all. This is just routine mutation, happening all the time for the sole reason that the copying process simply is not perfect and millions of altered phenotypes happen all the time. Some die, some live and reproduce.Now we come to the second part of what the ToE is all about - Natural Selection. The phrase is a bit unfortunate as the word 'selection' implies something done with intention ....nothing could be further from the truth. If an antibiotic gets into our colony, then the bacteria with no defence begin to die. The few individuals that had the mutation....and with billions of individuals there will always be a handful at any one time with the mutation....suddenly find themselves in luxury. They can handle the poison, and all the resources are now theirs for the taking. In the absence of competition they multiply - passing on the mutation to the vast majority of their offspring (some could mutate back the old form - but they are doomed for the same reason the original colony was doomed) and hey presto - the mutated condition has allowed resistant bacteria to survive and evolve.And all because there was a change in the outside environment (antibiotic arriving on scene) that happened to favour a mutated individual carrying that protection.....it's not even unlikely - there are billions upon billions of bacteria, millions of them have various mutations that have happened through chance copying errors and all we need is one with the right resistance to this one antibiotic and we are away. (Ever wondered why whenever we invent new stronger antibiotics, they end up only being effective at a very high level at first. In time resistance spreads because for every antibiotic, there is a copying error on a bacterial chromosome that can lead to resistance against that antibiotic.....it's a game we thought once we could win....I don't think the medics and geneticists believe that anymore...unless one of our learned posters corrects me).However this is the essence of Natural Selection - the environment allowing individuals with the right mix of phenotype to survive and breed, and culling the ones that don't. And phenotypes come from genotypes.....which themselves are subject to random mutation effects as a result of imperfect copying errors.There are no 'traits' to pass on as there is only one bacterial chromosomal data set - it all should be passed on.....but it couldn't have been otherwise all the colony would be wiped out. Mutation is a huge part of genetics - you, I and every plant and animal simply couldn't be here without it.Please try and absorb what these guys are telling you...honestly we have geneticists here....Wounded King for example. These people have worked for years in the field - it's hard stuff, and it's a gross insult for a layperson (who doesn't even know enough to distinguish between asexual and sexual genetic reproduction [basic 3rd year biology at the school I went to by the way] to waste time arguing from ignorance because they can't be bothered to do the basic subject learning).Sorry to sound harsh. But you could save everyone, including yourself, a lot of time by doing a little reading in the field first.By the way, Happy New Year Peg.Edited by Drosophilla, : typoEdited by Drosophilla, : addition of material

Hi Peg, I think Rhain has done an admirable job of answering the first question re bacteria still being bacteria.I want to expand on his question to youIf 1+1=2, why can't 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1=10?As Rhain says, there is nothing whatsoever to stop a chain of mutating events carrying on. And species changes will occur as a result of such sequences.There is one big difference between 1+1 and 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1 (apart from the sum total of changes at the end) and that is the time needed for the sequence to run.I believe therein lies your (and your creationist ilk) biggest problem. You only believe Earth (the universe in fact) has only about 6000 years to achieve change. If I also believed that, I too would have difficulty believing in evolution.Did you know that before geology started to pin down the age of the earth more accurately, and physics sussed out nuclear fusion as the means of supporting the sun's longevity, most scientists of Darwin's age also seriously doubted the time available for evolution to take place.Well we've moved on considerably. The age of the earth is supported by geology, both large scale (plate tectonics) and small scale (erosion of deep canyons etc). By cosmology (big bang and the degradation of background radiation temperature, age of sun via nuclear fusion). By palaeontology, biochemistry, immunology, genetics... The list goes on....And what is the current best estimate of life on earth supported by all those methods? Well the earliest living things would have left no fossil evidence so the best we can go on is the life that did leave evidence.I see from your avatar that you are from Australia so it's rather ironic that the oldest fossilised remains of life come from your continent. They are called stromatolites and the oldest ones known are approx 3.45 billion years old (Pilbara region, Western Australia)Page Not FoundTo maintain, against all the evidence that the earth is only 6,000 years old means you have an error factor of at least 3450,000,000/6,000 = 575,000 error factor (this is a very low estimate since life would have been around well before the comparatively complex stromatolites).I don't know which part of Australia you come from, but the distance from Sydney to Ayres Rock is 2150 Km.http://www.ultimate-adventure-vacations.com/...ock-tour.htmlThis means Peg, in your creationist vision if we factor in the error factor, that you are saying the distance from Sydney to Ayres Rock is in fact:2150/575,000 = 3.73 cm!!!Now I've never been to Australia but I'm pretty sure Sydney Opera house is more than a fingernail stretch from that famous red rock.Do you see the scale of error your kin invoke when using biblical data? Worse, because you insist on using it, it clearly throws out any sensible working from the world of science as meaningless.How long to change from a bacteria to something else?Answer: As long as the vast, vast stretch of time allows.....you really have no idea of the vastness of time available to do the job.To quote Dawkins: "If you hold your arm fully outstretched to your side, and the centre of your body represents the beginning of earth and your fingertip is today.....then all recorded history over the past 2,500 years vanishes with a single pass of a nail file over your fingernail end!"

Hi Peg, If you studied basic biology with a couple of chapters on embryology and anatomy (nothing much higher than ordinary high school biology) you would know why scientists maintain that vertebrates are related at phylum level.I can't believe you are so ignorant to rant and rave at experts in these fields when you are so incredibly scientifically illiterate....it's arrogance bordering on gross stupidity. Would you go and tell a brain surgeon how to perform a hydrocephalus operation? Would you tell a rocket propulsion specialist his thrust-lift formula was wrong?The life-science specialists are just as scientific and professional....you besmirch the work of many on this site....and I'm not just aiming this at you but at all those who are too lazy to do the necessary reading to critique the science under question here. If you are going to try and argue science points you MUST do the required reading (peer-reviewed literature, not retarded creationist piffle). In short you must UNDERSTAND what it is you are arguing about first before you are in a position to put up a SCIENTIFIC counter argument. If you cannot then you waste everyone's time. You can only argue with an "I believe" argument in the faith threads. A science thread must only have science arguments - so you must do the research first. And that is going to take you some time......By the way....don't just try and cherry pick items from scientific papers - that's called quote mining and is most unscientific. You need to thoroughly understand each scientific process that is being described. You need to understand what data set is being used, what are the control variables where control conditions can be used, what are the predictions. What does a scenario predict will NOT happen....this is even more important that predicting what will happen - this is how science is falsifiable. A theory that cannot predict something wont' happen (like ID for example) is utterly useless.