The first is that it isn't inthe Bible.
Well, neither is the metal mercury, which was avaliable to the ancients. Do you doubt that thermometers exist? Somehow I doubt the Bible is supposed to be an exhaustive catalogue of All That Exists.
But the second thing is that its never happened yet as far as anyone can see.
Sure it has. In fact you can do it in your own bio lab:
quote:
Here's an experiment you can do in the privacy of your own bio lab. It doesn't cost very much and the materials can be acquired from any decent biological supply house.
Take a single E. coli bacterium of K-type. This means the bacterium is susceptible to T4 phage. Let this bacterium reproduce until it forms a lawn. Then, infect the lawn with T4 phage.
What do we expect to happen? That's right, plaques should start to form and, eventually, the entire lawn will die. After all, every single bacterium in the lawn is descended from a single ancestor, so if the ancestor is susceptible, then all the offspring should be susceptible, too.
But what we actually see is that some colonies of bacteria in the lawn are not affected by the phage.
How can this be? Again, the entire lawn is descended from a single ancestor. They should all behave identically. If one is susceptible, then they're all susceptible. If one is immune, then they're all immune. This can't be an example of "adaptation" because if one could do it, they all could do it.
But since there is a discrepancy, we are left with only one conclusion: The bacteria evolved. There must be a genetic difference between the bacteria that are surviving and those that died.
Indeed, we call the new bacteria K-4 because they are immune to T4 phage.
But we're not done. Take a single K-4 bacterium and repeat the process: Let it reproduce to form a lawn and then infect the lawn with T4 phage.
What do we expect to happen? That's right: Absolutely nothing. All of the bacteria are descended from a single ancestor that is immune to T4 phage. Therefore, they all should survive and we shouldn't see any plaques form.
But we do. Plaques do, indeed start to form. How can this be? Again, all the bacteria in the lawn are descended from a single ancestor that was immune to T4 phage, so they shold all behave identically. If one is immune, then all are immune. There must be something else going on.
Something evolved, but the question is what. What evolved? Could it be the bacteria experiencing a reversion mutation back to K-type? No, that can't be it. Suppose any given bacteria did revert back to wild. It is surrounded by K-4 type who are immune to T4 phage. As soon as the lawn is infected, those few bacteria will die and immediately be replaced by the offspring of the immune K-4 bacteria. We would never see any plaques forming because the immune bacteria keep filling in any holes that appear.
So if it isn't the bacteria that evolved, it must be the phage. And, indeed, we call the new phage T4h as it has evolved a new host specificity.
Thanks to Rrhain for introducing this to me - I've shamelessly quoted him here.
Maybe some of those petri dishes made a bacteria into a frog or something?
Why would they have to, to prove evolution true? That's not what evolution says happened.
Someone here said the earth was billions of years old.
Yeah, four billion. The universe is about 13 billion years old.
But how can that be? If we've only been around since Adam, then the earth can't be older than that.
Or, alternatively, the Bible and/or your interpretation of it are in error.
If you start doubting that then there is a lot more at stake.
The Bible doesn't have to be 100% true for the important parts to still be true. In fact not a single thing in the Bible has to
actually have happened for it to have meaning in your life. It's sad that someone's faith could be so deficient, really.
You've really proved the point of this thread: That the basis for the creationist argument is not a desire to find out the truth but rather a desparate need, as a result of a lack of faith, to "scientifically" confirm the inerrancy of the Bible.