Philosophy Discussion Forums

Discussion of antibiotic resistance requires a great deal of knowledge into how antibiotics work. Once again this is a not simple process.

Antibody implementation is natural which presents as a defense mechanism in organisms to kill competing organisms.

Those organisms which are resistant already exist prior to the deployment of the particular, specific, antibody. Now instead of those resistant organisms merely reproducing any specific resistance they also assist familiar organisms through a process of lateral or horizontal gene transfer. This process is also observed between completely different strains of bacteria.

I suggest you study bacterial life processes in order to gain better insight.

Antibody resistance is not an example of natural selection or evolution but a preexisting variation within bacterial organisms and therefore not "spontaneous".

No new information is produced, antibody resistance is simply a matter of existing physical (morphological) variances, natural between individual organisms, like having blue or brown eyes.

Incorrect. Antibiotic resistance can be created in the lab by stimulating random mutation [source]. Even if you're right, you cannot explain, for example, bacteria who can digest nylon--which is a man-made polymer--without allowing for beneficial mutations. Those bacteria would have had no way of surviving in the competition with bacteria who didn't waste resources on nylon-digestion capacity until humans came along to make nylon for them.

"Even if you are right"

Alun- its a blog written by an RN. Nothing against nurses but that is more of a patient care article than a treatise on bacterial life cycles which includes an understanding of lateral or horizontal gene transfer.

Nylon-eating bacteria are a strain of Flavobacterium that is capable of digesting certain byproducts of nylon 6 manufacture.

The flavobacterium is not a new species of bacteria but a strain of an existing bacteria with an inherent ability which did not manifest as a result of the creation of nylon but a pre-exiting innate ability for that strain.

Besides the bacteria doesn't eat nylon, a petroleum product, per se', but the byproducts of its production.


Alan H. Linton, bacteriologist: Looked for confirmed reports of primary speciation and concluded in 2001:

“None exists in the literature claiming that one species has been shown to evolve into another. Bacteria, the simplest form of independent life, are ideal for this kind of study, with generation times of twenty to thirty minutes, and populations achieved after eighteen hours. But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another.”

As I have tried to impress, natural selection, as a natural process which stimulates, regulates or produces new information which then allows for the successful progression of morphological vitality through an internal mechanism fails to fully explore the realities of the process.

The realities being that biologic change, if sure, is an internal process. Organisms have the ability to effect morphological change resultant of internally driven processes inherent in the design of those organisms.

We call these mutations. Mutations, when understood properly, suggest that it is more unlikely than likely that such a change will effectively incorporate "future" morphological determinates considering that mutations have been observed to be detrimental to the organism. This is not fantasy but reality.

Also we must realize that modern biologists confine themselves to about 600 million years of natural history and completely neglect about 540 million years consisting of the Cambrian explosion which Alun has been want to express.
In this sense does the ability of mutations to provide any definitive conclusion concerning the appearance and progression of life for evolution by a purely naturalistic mechanism make no sense unless one can provide direct observational evidence of its unchallengeable profundity.

The driving force of defining life is by the information life provides and directs.

Where is this information? How is it produced, transcribed, translated and disseminated?

These are completely internal processes needing no direction from external forces. Just look at the success of life and ask where are the randomized, non selected, failures?

Juice wrote

The flavobacterium is not a new species of bacteria but a strain of an existing bacteria with an inherent ability which did not manifest as a result of the creation of nylon but a pre-exiting innate ability for that strain.

Either the bacteria have an innate ability in which case they did not mutate as petroleum- by- product- eaters but always could eat petroleum by-products, or the bacteria in question mutated.The answer exists and is a matter of fact. There is no argument. The answer is published.

If we can view taxonomic ordering as an imprecise concept providing faultily defined classification for the purposes of hierarchal, biological progression from simple chemical reactions to what is observed of life today, in its totality, then what is actually noted are organisms which maintain typically, similar, functional, information modalities. Meaning a common information producing product with little or slight variations in common functioning. Does this provide current rationals for distinctions between taxonomic ordering?

In this respect neo-Darwinism fails to provide how a mechanism which strives and fights for maintaining its functioning morphology can create, produce, new information which "advances" morphological profundity towards morphological distinction creating taxonomic "nomenclature" without considering directed information ordering which provides the rational for taxonomic distinctions. This in light of the fact that mutations typically have a deleterious effect on organisms.

What is noted in the "appearance", "formation" of life is successful hierarchal, organizational, progression with very little, if any room for failure. Natural selection itself provides us with the rational for believing in the impetus for success, where a failure of the organism to survive external stresses and flux is a matter of extinction, (death), versus survival of individual organisms dependent on morphologic distinctions produced through internal processes creating morphological vitality.

By example; necessary information distinguishes the need to swim versus the need to ambulate. An organism cannot be equipped to swim on land nor, be equipped to walk in/on water for its survival. The physics are determined and life had no need to adjust but just followed a programmed process of real functionality and determined coordinated success.

What we see are purposeful organisms "uniquely" designed for survival in all considered, existing, conditions.

Neither natural selection, nor randomly produced morphologic variations can explain a directed responce for hierarchal generation or the creation of specified directed information production which produced the type of unnecessary taxonomic variations and theme specific organisms currently known to exist and have existed.

Juice wrote:"Even if you are right"

Which you are not, since mutations have been instigated which lead to antibiotic resistance. My ability to anticipate your disagreement does not somehow mean you're right. You still haven't shown any evidence for your claim that mutations must always be detrimental.

Juice wrote:The flavobacterium is not a new species of bacteria but a strain of an existing bacteria with an inherent ability which did not manifest as a result of the creation of nylon but a pre-exiting innate ability for that strain.

Really, and where did you read that? Why then, do you suppose that this strain of bacteria has not been found anywhere except in ponds of wastewater from a nylon plant?

Juice wrote:Besides the bacteria doesn't eat nylon, a petroleum product, per se', but the byproducts of its production.

Which are also man-made molecules.

Juice wrote:Alan H. Linton, bacteriologist: Looked for confirmed reports of primary speciation and concluded in 2001:

You're ignoring the fact that I've repeatedly posted plenty of examples which contradict Linton.

Juice wrote:The realities being that biologic change, if sure, is an internal process. Organisms have the ability to effect morphological change resultant of internally driven processes inherent in the design of those organisms.

Why do you keep emphasizing how 'internally driven' the processes are? I have never disputed this; are you saying an internal process could never effect positive change?

Juice wrote:Mutations, when understood properly, suggest that it is more unlikely than likely that such a change will effectively incorporate "future" morphological determinates considering that mutations have been observed to be detrimental to the organism. This is not fantasy but reality.

Erm. I understand mutations. Mutations are indeed more likely to do nothing or damage an organism than to help. But they do have a small chance of helping an organism, as the nature of mutations suggests. They are randomly changing information; yes, usually that results in garbage. But not always, and it is patently false to claim otherwise.

Juice wrote:Also we must realize that modern biologists confine themselves to about 600 million years of natural history and completely neglect about 540 million years consisting of the Cambrian explosion which Alun has been want to express.

Except, you know, in the first post. Also, why do you keep changing the subject? You know full well you haven't demonstrated mutations are always detrimental--you wrote 3 sentences about it, then went on to point out the irrelevant views of a faux biologist and the history of the Cambrian explosion. For the record, biologists do not ignore the Cambrian explosion, but I suppose it'd be too much to ask for you to back up another of your absurd allegations.

Juice wrote:These are completely internal processes needing no direction from external forces. Just look at the success of life and ask where are the randomized, non selected, failures?

Eh? What does 'non selected' mean? What sort of results do you expect evolution by natural selection to have which are lacking?

I am no longer motivated to respond, so I'm going to pass over your most recent post. Perhaps if you can make a serious argument for your factual claim that mutations are always detrimental (or explicitly abandon it and make a new argument), my interest will be renewed.

From WIKI, sorry

Flavobacterium is a genus of Gram-negative, non-motile, rod-shaped bacteria that consists of ten recognized species, as well as three newly proposed species.

Nylon-eating bacteria are a strain of Flavobacterium that is capable of digesting certain byproducts of nylon 6 manufacture.

When we get down to actually understanding the science and specifically the nomenclature used we see that the pro-evolutionist use terms to mislead.

Imagine a new form of life appearing, seemingly out of nowhere, the result of manmade intervention and barely a peep from the news media and biologists across the globe yelling "EUREKA" at the top of their lungs.

Why didn't this happen?

We throw the term "mutation" around as the holy grail of material evolution all the while knowing, by observation and countless experiments, that mutations in living organisms are always detrimental, unless inherent, "programed" in the design.

All the while forgetting that life and the byproducts of life are fundamentally carbon based.

What do we eat but the remnants of carbon based life forms, whether animal, vegetable or fruit.

What is petroleum but the long process of decomposition and geologic pressure on plants which convert carbon into oxygen.

Man intern can now utilize the products born on this great planet to his benefit. This includes carbon based petroleum and its byproducts which bacteria eat and have eaten for millennia.

So along comes a common bacteria called flavobacterium which just so happens to be able to eat what? Why "carbon" of course, which it converts to energy and low and behold it finds some in the byproducts of a carbon based petroleum product called nylon. And, we call it a mutation!! Not a discovery or a rediscovery mind you, but a mutation which then pricks the ears of every evolutionists until someone, which actually occurred very early in this "discovery", noted that this particular "strain" of flavobacterium is doing exactly what all the other strains, surreptitiously called species by the "nomenclaturists", do and that is fundamentally eat carbon in whatever form it can find as an inherent, morphological, design.

What happens here is "neglect". The evolutionist neglect to inform. Such is the extent and result of the forced orthodoxy of the evolutionists, neo-Darwinists.

The bacteria creates an enzyme inherent to its function which effects carbon, not manufactured nylon. This ability is achieved through lateral gene transfer which all bacteria are capable of providing.


I keep trying to tell you Alun that the science here is not as simple as you would believe. It is highly complex. There are numerous types of mutations, not all critical but normal to the process. I tried to talk about mutation rates before but my information got confused. Something spoken very little about is genomic decay and irreversible mutational faults.

Sorry Alun but you are being mislead by a well oiled propaganda machine.

So Juice,

It seems to me that your position is that all the information necessary for the appearance of all organisms from the past and into the future is already written.

This implies that the future is predetermined, that we are subjects of predestination.

The basic tenet of the Christian myth is that God, as omnipotent, is a deterministic force. Add to this that God has made an exception in the case of human beings to whom he donated Free Will to choose good (himself) or evil.

Therefore Juice is probably arguing from the Christian basis.Free Will doctrine is what allows for human freedom and human responsibility, if you are a Christian. It is more difficult to argue for human freedom and human responisibility, if you are an atheist. Spinoza has effectively done so, and done so in a way that can extend human freedom and responsibility to deterministic science.

Juice wrote:From WIKI, sorry

No, what I challenged is your claim that the strain existed before we made nylon-6 and its byproducts. Wiki just says it does exist, which is not in contention.

Juice wrote:Imagine a new form of life appearing, seemingly out of nowhere, the result of manmade intervention and barely a peep from the news media and biologists across the globe yelling "EUREKA" at the top of their lungs.

It isn't a new form of life. It's a bacteria that is a slightly modified form of another bacteria. Now if we could get a donkey to grow working wings, then maybe you'd hear about it.

Juice wrote:We throw the term "mutation" around as the holy grail of material evolution all the while knowing, by observation and countless experiments, that mutations in living organisms are always detrimental, unless inherent, "programed" in the design.

Your evidence for this is what? That biologists don't yell 'Eureka'? Just so we're clear, that is insufficient. I have given you papers that explicitly disprove your claims, and you're certain I'm wrong because nobody has yelled 'Eureka!' about it.

Juice wrote:So along comes a common bacteria called flavobacterium which just so happens to be able to eat what? Why "carbon" of course, which it converts to energy and low and behold it finds some in the byproducts of a carbon based petroleum product called nylon.

Well then I suggest you try to digest some coal, or nylon byproducts for that matter. After all, it's just carbon! Do you know what nylon is made of? Nitrogen and carbon (and oxygen and hydrogen). Do you know what cyanide is made of? Nitrogen and carbon.

See you around Juice; maybe we can talk about this when you're willing to discuss evidence, not lecture me on the complexities of science.

Juice in normal, my comments in bold:

If we can view taxonomic ordering as an imprecise concept providing faultily defined classification for the purposes of hierarchal, biological progression from simple chemical reactions to what is observed of life today, in its totality,

[what in the world does this mean? I do not view taxonomic ordering in that fashion, bur rather I view taxonomy as an artifical classification which is made to be congruent with our best reconstruction of the history of life on earth]

then what is actually noted are organisms which maintain typically, similar, functional, information modalities

[informational modalities?? a completely meaningless, undefined term] .

Meaning a common information producing product

[information producing product? More meaningless jargon]

with little or slight variations in common functioning. Does this provide current rationals for distinctions between taxonomic ordering?

[No, the basis for the taxonomic ordering I do is shared derived characters, which reflect common ancestry]

In this respect neo-Darwinism fails to provide how a mechanism which strives and fights for maintaining its functioning morphology

[natural selection does not strive to maintain its functional morphology - in fact, quite the opposite is true. Function changes as environment changes, and all natural selection is judged against its fitness for the particular environment the organism is actually in]

can create, produce, new information

[please define "information", and tell me exactly how you propose to measure it, before you throw around claims of new, or no new, information]

which "advances" morphological profundity towards morphological distinction creating taxonomic "nomenclature"

[natural selection doesn't create the nomenclature, human beings do - nomenclature is simply the arbitrary sequence of morphemes which we elect to stand in for a particular biological entity]

without considering directed information ordering

[another undefined term?]

which provides the rational for taxonomic distinctions. This in light of the fact that mutations typically have a deleterious effect on organisms.

[Not true. 27% of all single point mutations are absolutely neutral, due to redundancy in the coding system. Some mutations are delterious, perhaps many. Some are helpful in a particular environment, but that environment isn't the one the population is in at the time, so it is eliminated. Some, however few, do make the organism more "fit" for the environment it is in, and will sweep to characterize the entire population]

What is noted in the "appearance", "formation" of life is successful hierarchal, organizational, progression with very little, if any room for failure.

[Absolutely untrue if you understand anything at all about the history of life on Earth. Darwin himself noted, a century and a half ago, that the almost inevitable outcome of evolution is extinction. Environments change, and species either change to become new species, or they go extinct.]

Natural selection itself provides us with the rational for believing in the impetus for success, where a failure of the organism to survive external stresses and flux is a matter of extinction, (death), versus survival of individual organisms dependent on morphologic distinctions produced through internal processes creating morphological vitality.

[No idea what the two ideas you are trying to contrast here might be.]

By example; necessary information

[What is "necessary information"? Information doesn't create the need to swim, the environment does - shortage of food, or competition on land makes the water an attractive place to hide, and to feed]

distinguishes the need to swim versus the need to ambulate. An organism cannot be equipped to swim on land

[yes, they can. Have you never seen a sidewinder "swim" through sand?]

nor, be equipped to walk in/on water for its survival

[yes, they can - snapping turtles walk on the bottom of streams and lakes under water. Hippos walk underwater. Striding spiders walk on water] .

The physics are determined and life had no need to adjust but just followed a programmed process of real functionality and determined coordinated success

[another jargon terms which sounds impressive but means absolutely nothing].

What we see are purposeful organisms

[define this]

"uniquely" designed for survival in all considered, existing, conditions

[no organism is designed for survival in all existing conditions, but rather for survival in a particular existing condition. Change the condition, and the species either moves, changes or becomes extinct.].

Neither natural selection, nor randomly produced morphologic variations can explain a directed responce for hierarchal generation or the creation of specified directed information production which produced the type of unnecessary taxonomic variations and theme specific organisms currently known to exist and have existed.

[Absolute gobble-degook. What "directed response"? Aren't you assuming what you'd like to prove here?]

Alun,

Pleas define reproductive pressure.
I've not found ANY definition of this concept.
I can't make a comment before to know what you're talking about.

Reproductive pressure is any environmental sensitivity to organisms' traits which favors the reproduction of one trait over another. For example, imagine a flock of ducks lives in a pond, where there aren't many predators. Suppose some of these ducks are a dark brown color, while others a colored white. There is not any particular reproductive pressure on them to change color. But suppose now that a family of eagles moves into the territory, and the eagles occasionally attack the white ducks--but ignore the dark brown ducks. Now there is reproductive pressure on the duck population to be colored dark brown; dark brown ducks are more likely to live to reproduce.

Alun wrote:Reproductive pressure is any environmental sensitivity to organisms' traits which favors the reproduction of one trait over another. For example, imagine a flock of ducks lives in a pond, where there aren't many predators. Suppose some of these ducks are a dark brown color, while others a colored white. There is not any particular reproductive pressure on them to change color. But suppose now that a family of eagles moves into the territory, and the eagles occasionally attack the white ducks--but ignore the dark brown ducks. Now there is reproductive pressure on the duck population to be colored dark brown; dark brown ducks are more likely to live to reproduce.

That's environmental pressure then.
I saw some vague allusions to the concept of "reproductive pressure", but it seems an empty shell to me.

So, environmental pressure, then.

Does that mean, in your opinion, that some inidividuals in a species of any life form are able to decide subconciously to modify or select a specific gene for a specific purpose?

Do you understand the consequences?

I probably should've said environmental pressure on reproductive success, or something similar.

I do not think it means that. The section of the argument where I mention 'reproductive pressure' only means that there is some mechanism which responds to the pressure, not that the mechanism is a decision mechanism, a teleological mechanism, or any mechanism which does not involve those elements. Earlier parts of the argument (having to do with DNA and mutation) offer the evidence of how the mechanism operates--and I take them to show that it operates without deciding to pursue a purpose.