Russell Williams
Well-Known Member
Evolution, microevolution, or change?
There are people who claim there is no such thing as evolution. They do not have a unified point of view. Some say there is no evolution. Some say that organisms change but do not evolve and some say that there is microevolution but not macroevolution. One of the difficulties is that those people objecting to the concept of evolution tend to quote mistakes of scientists rather than doing their own research. The following experiment would seem to have a bearing on the evolution discussion.
Mensa bulletin February 2014 page number 32
Quoting from science November 15, 2013 "The Man Who Bottle Revolution".
"Evolution takes thousands of generations to make noticeable changes in organisms. It would be difficult to demonstrate its effects in a lab setting unless you used an organism that bred very quickly. That's where Richard Lenski and his bacteria come in. Lenski allowed 12 different strains of E. coli to reproduce separately in his lab and then observed the way they changed over many years. When the contents of some containers became unexpectedly cloudy he decided to investigate rather than just eliminate them. He found that some of his bacteria had developed the ability to digest citrate as well as glucose, which normal bugs of that kind cannot do. Today, after 25 years of continuous experimentation, Lenski's bugs have experienced the equivalent of 1 million years of human evolution. He freezes samples at regular intervals so he can return to any stage of the process. He's found that evolution continues even when the environment doesn't change."
Discussion:
This is an experiment that creationists can do and find out whether or not they get the same or similar results. The question being would the bugs change over time although perhaps not in the same way that Lenski's bugs changed.
If the creationist's bugs change, and of course they will, is that change just change, microevolution, or evolution? If the creationists acknowledge that the bugs have changed but claim that it is micro and not macro evolution than the creationist experimenter needs to very clearly define macroevolution. What types of changes in a one cell animal would count as microevolution?
For creationist to simply say that they cannot define macro evolution but that they will know it when they see it and they are sure that they will never see it is not science.
There are people who claim there is no such thing as evolution. They do not have a unified point of view. Some say there is no evolution. Some say that organisms change but do not evolve and some say that there is microevolution but not macroevolution. One of the difficulties is that those people objecting to the concept of evolution tend to quote mistakes of scientists rather than doing their own research. The following experiment would seem to have a bearing on the evolution discussion.
Mensa bulletin February 2014 page number 32
Quoting from science November 15, 2013 "The Man Who Bottle Revolution".
"Evolution takes thousands of generations to make noticeable changes in organisms. It would be difficult to demonstrate its effects in a lab setting unless you used an organism that bred very quickly. That's where Richard Lenski and his bacteria come in. Lenski allowed 12 different strains of E. coli to reproduce separately in his lab and then observed the way they changed over many years. When the contents of some containers became unexpectedly cloudy he decided to investigate rather than just eliminate them. He found that some of his bacteria had developed the ability to digest citrate as well as glucose, which normal bugs of that kind cannot do. Today, after 25 years of continuous experimentation, Lenski's bugs have experienced the equivalent of 1 million years of human evolution. He freezes samples at regular intervals so he can return to any stage of the process. He's found that evolution continues even when the environment doesn't change."
Discussion:
This is an experiment that creationists can do and find out whether or not they get the same or similar results. The question being would the bugs change over time although perhaps not in the same way that Lenski's bugs changed.
If the creationist's bugs change, and of course they will, is that change just change, microevolution, or evolution? If the creationists acknowledge that the bugs have changed but claim that it is micro and not macro evolution than the creationist experimenter needs to very clearly define macroevolution. What types of changes in a one cell animal would count as microevolution?
For creationist to simply say that they cannot define macro evolution but that they will know it when they see it and they are sure that they will never see it is not science.
