Experimental Evolution

[Dale]

Creationists on CF keep saying that evolution hasn’t been observed in controlled experiments. This is not entirely fair. There are whole areas of science, including astronomy, where controlled experiments are not feasible. What if the process of evolution can be seen in a controlled experiment? The article linked below should give creationists something to think about.

“Copepods are among the most important organisms in the ocean. The millimeter-small animals are food for many fish species … ”

“ … the small crustaceans can indeed adapt to the new conditions over the course of about 25 generations—which corresponds to a period of just over one year, since several generations of crustaceans can mature in a year at moderate water temperatures.”

“ … gene variants become prevalent in the copepods' genome that result in the animals being better able to withstand environmental stress.”


Article:
Experimental evolution: Marine copepods can genetically adapt to changing ocean conditions

Link
https://phys.org/news/2022-09-experimental-evolution-marine-copepods-genetically.html

 

[SavedByGrace3]

I am a creationist, and I agree, there is a lot of evidence of evolution. I just say that God created the earth with all the mechanisms to carry out that evolution. It is genius and beyond the ability of many to fully understand and duplicate the process. If all life were to cease on the earth, those mechanisms would kick in, and life would spring anew.

 

[BobRyan]

Creationists on CF keep saying that evolution hasn’t been observed in controlled experiments. This is not entirely fair.

If the definition is "switched" to "change over time" then fine - my finger nails are apparently "evolving" since I do observe "Change over time" in that case.

But if evolutionists propose that dust-rocks-gas and sunlight will eventually come up with a horse or rabbit given enough mass, time and chance -- well then that has not been observed along with not observing such a sterile environment come up with even so much as a prokaryote.

There are whole areas of science, including astronomy, where controlled experiments are not feasible.

And yet "sunlight, dust, gas and rocks" are readily available both in a vacuum and also in the presence of atmosphere of one's choice.

Also - every "story" told along those lines deals with very very small "just so" interactions not a giant planet that turns into a monster bacteria. So it is not like one needs to have the giant proto planet first - in order to find a small molecule or a just-so interaction with this or that acid.

What if the process of evolution can be seen in a controlled experiment? The article linked below should give creationists something to think about.

Let's start by proposing that they did not have bacteria turn into prokaryotes in a "small controlled simulation" or anything of the kind - and see if our proposal gets disproven. We are talking about a very simple single celled organism - the most basic starting point.

“Copepods are among the most important organisms in the ocean. The millimeter-small animals are food for many fish species … ”

And are multi celled (not single celled) and already have a complex DNA structure with complete eukaryote cells that already have a nucleus. They have entire "systems" for reproduction, adaption and error correction already in place - in that example of a "starting point".

So you propose we "start" with a highly complex highly designed "system" to see if it's design allows it to adapt?

“ … the small crustaceans can indeed adapt to the new conditions over the course of about 25 generations

Did they add new genes or did they simply "express" genes that were not previously expressed due to changes in epigenome?

25 generations? I will go you orders of magnitude better than that.

10's of thousands of generations of observation disproving evolution's main story line.

50,000 generations of bacteria prove that evolution never stops


“In a remarkable experiment that's been going on for nearly a quarter century, biologists have shown that lab-grown bacteria — even in a stable, unchanging world — will continue to evolve in a way that makes it increasingly good at reproducing.”

Instead of "show simple prokaryotes evolving into eukaryotes and thus ascending the ladder of taxonomy as evolution stories predict"

Prokaryotes that REMAIN prokaryotes over 50,000 generations of observation is taken as "proof" that evolution happens??? Seriously??

All of humanity supposedly "evolved" in fewer generations than that!!

 

[SavedByGrace3]

God created the earth, by best estimates, about 4+ billion years ago.
Life did not come into existence for several hundred million years, long after the orb cooled.
3.7 + billion years is a long time. Some suggest there was life before Gen 3, called the gap. The point is, the earth and seas are God's life-generating machines. Yes, He is the origin of all life. But elephants did not just pop out of the side of hills and fish did not just zap into existence. Adam is the only creature that God created immediately. But God commanded the earth and the sea to "Bring forth life." His words did not return to Him void. Life sprang forth over a long period of time and adapted to environmental changes as it did. In no way do these facts threaten creationism or our faith. They actually enhance my faith because it shows forth His handiwork and is awe-inspiring. What a God we have to create such a life-generating machine that can handle massive changes on the planet. Hit the earth with an asteroid? No problem, just pick up where it left off. Let the planet turn into a "snowball earth." Not to worry, God planned for that contingency, and it is all in the design to deal with it.
I am completely satisfied with the universe I see as the work of our God and savior. It is evidence of the genius of our magnificent and glorious God.

If the definition is "switched" to "change over time" then fine - my finger nails are apparently "evolving" since I do observe "Change over time" in that case.

But if evolutionists propose that dust-rocks-gas and sunlight will eventually come up with a horse or rabbit given enough mass, time and chance -- well then that has not been observed along with not observing such a sterile environment come up with even so much as a prokaryote.



And yet "sunlight, dust, gas and rocks" are readily available both in a vacuum and also in the presence of atmosphere of one's choice.

Also - every "story" told along those lines deals with very very small "just so" interactions not a giant planet that turns into a monster bacteria. So it is not like one needs to have the giant proto planet first - in order to find a small molecule or a just-so interaction with this or that acid.




Let's start by proposing that they did not have bacteria turn into prokaryotes in a "small controlled simulation" or anything of the kind - and see if our proposal gets disproven. We are talking about a very simple single celled organism - the most basic starting point.



And are multi celled not single celled and have a complex DNA structure with complete eukaryote cells that already of a nucleus. They have entire "systems" for reproduction already in place.

So you propose we "start" with a highly complex highly designed "system" to see if it's design allows it to adapt?



Did they add new genes or did they simply "express" genes that were not previously expressed due to changes in epigenome?

25 generations? I will go you orders of magnitude better than that.

10's of thousands of generations of observation disproving evolution's main story line.

50,000 generations of bacteria prove that evolution never stops


“In a remarkable experiment that's been going on for nearly a quarter century, biologists have shown that lab-grown bacteria — even in a stable, unchanging world — will continue to evolve in a way that makes it increasingly good at reproducing.”

Instead of "show simple prokaryotes evolving into eukaryotes and thus ascending the ladder of taxonomy as evolution stories predict"

Prokaryotes that REMAIN prokaryotes over 50,000 generations of observation is taken as "proof" that evolution happens??? Seriously??

All of humanity supposedly "evolved" in fewer generations than that!!

 

[The Barbarian]

I am a creationist, and I agree, there is a lot of evidence of evolution. I just say that God created the earth with all the mechanisms to carry out that evolution. It is genius and beyond the ability of many to fully understand and duplicate the process.

God is far wiser and more powerful than we can comprehend. I think you have this precisely right.

If all life were to cease on the earth, those mechanisms would kick in, and life would spring anew.

I believe that is a likely possibility. I'm don't think that the conditions on Earth today would favor this, but after some time, there would probably be a reducing atmosphere again, and thereby conditions for life to emerge.

 

[The Barbarian]

If the definition is "switched" to "change over time" then fine - my finger nails are apparently "evolving" since I do observe "Change over time" in that case.

Individuals don't evolve. Populations do. The definition is "change in allele frequency in a population over time." Or as Darwin wrote "descent with modification. You've confused normal body processes with evolution. No wonder you don't like it.

 

[The Barbarian]

But if evolutionists propose that dust-rocks-gas and sunlight will eventually come up with a horse or rabbit given enough mass, time and chance -

And here, you've confused abiogenesis with evolution. If God had magically poofed the first living things into existence, evolution would still work the same way. Darwin just assumed that God created the first living things.

You would probably do a lot better if you took some time to learn what these things are, before telling us about them.

 

[BobRyan]

And here, you've confused abiogenesis with evolution. If God had magically poofed the first living things into existence...

I was using the criteria that atheist evolutionists would be stuck with ... there are other kinds of evolutionists as you point out.

Your own quote of my statement has me saying "IF evolutionist propose that.."

But if God was in the "poofing" business as you suggest - then might as well just do it in the 7 day time frame He specified in legal code in Ex 20:11 and claimed in Gen 2:1-3


====================================

Dale said: ↑
Creationists on CF keep saying that evolution hasn’t been observed in controlled experiments. This is not entirely fair.

If the definition is "switched" to "change over time" then fine - my finger nails are apparently "evolving" since I do observe "Change over time" in that case.

But if evolutionists propose that dust-rocks-gas and sunlight will eventually come up with a horse or rabbit given enough mass, time and chance -- well then that has not been observed along with not observing such a sterile environment come up with even so much as a prokaryote.

So the IF presumes that Atheist evolutionists DO exist and that they are indeed stuck with their own limiting doctrine on what does and does not exist.

You would probably do a lot better if you took some time to learn what these things are, before telling us about them.

IF you pay attention to each of the details above you might not have made the faulty assumption you just made about who does or does not know what these things are.

 

[BobRyan]

Individuals don't evolve. Populations do. The definition is "change in allele frequency in a population over time."

If no individual changes - the group will never change. As we all know.

You already admit that rocks will not "pop out a prokaryote" bacteria.

Now the next step is -- a bacteria is not going to come up with a rabbit or a horse no matter how many bacteria you lump together, no matter how much time and chance they have to do it. Bacteria adapting to their environment so as to eat new and different foods - will never get you to a horse. Neither will bacteria resistance to various pathogens.

 

[The Barbarian]

If no individual changes - the group will never change. As we all know.

Well, let's test that assumption. If there's a population of 10 individuals and a new one is born with a new mutation, the allele frequency of the population has changed. That was easy. You're wrong.

You already admit that rocks will not "pop out a prokaryote" bacteria.

Since God says life was brought forth from the Earth, who are we do deny it? But as you just learned, that has nothing to do with evolution, which is about the way populations of living things change over time.

Now the next step is -- a bacteria is not going to come up with a rabbit or a horse

If that happened, evolutionary theory would be in big trouble. Remember when I suggested you learn about this stuff before trying to lecture us on it? It just bit you in the wallet pocket, again.

Bacteria adapting to their environment so as to eat new and different foods - will never get you to a horse.

But endosymbiosis will get you eukaryotes that did eventually lead to metazoans, and chordates, and vertebrates and tetrapods and mammals and horses and rabbits. Would you like to learn about that? BTW, evolution by endosymbiosis has been directly observed. Want to learn about that?

 

[The Barbarian]

And here, you've confused abiogenesis with evolution. If God had magically poofed the first living things into existence evolution would still work the same way.

I was using the criteria that atheist evolutionists would be stuck with .

No. That's wrong, too. Evolutionary theory makes no assumptions about the origin of life. Again, if you'd learn something about it, this kind of thing wouldn't be constantly tripping you up.

But if God was in the "poofing" business as you suggest - then might as well just do it in the 7 day time frame He specified in legal code in Ex 20:11 and claimed in Gen 2:1-3

As you learned earlier, the text itself says that it's not a literal history. Would you like me to show you that, again?

IF you pay attention to each of the details above you might not have made the faulty assumption you just made about who does or does not know what these things are.

You've made it abundantly clear that you don't know what these things are. Maybe it's time to do some reading so that you don't keep stumbling over your misunderstandings.

 

[Dale]

If the definition is "switched" to "change over time" then fine - my finger nails are apparently "evolving" since I do observe "Change over time" in that case.

But if evolutionists propose that dust-rocks-gas and sunlight will eventually come up with a horse or rabbit given enough mass, time and chance -- well then that has not been observed along with not observing such a sterile environment come up with even so much as a prokaryote.



And yet "sunlight, dust, gas and rocks" are readily available both in a vacuum and also in the presence of atmosphere of one's choice.

Also - every "story" told along those lines deals with very very small "just so" interactions not a giant planet that turns into a monster bacteria. So it is not like one needs to have the giant proto planet first - in order to find a small molecule or a just-so interaction with this or that acid.




Let's start by proposing that they did not have bacteria turn into prokaryotes in a "small controlled simulation" or anything of the kind - and see if our proposal gets disproven. We are talking about a very simple single celled organism - the most basic starting point.



And are multi celled (not single celled) and already have a complex DNA structure with complete eukaryote cells that already have a nucleus. They have entire "systems" for reproduction, adaption and error correction already in place - in that example of a "starting point".

So you propose we "start" with a highly complex highly designed "system" to see if it's design allows it to adapt?



Did they add new genes or did they simply "express" genes that were not previously expressed due to changes in epigenome?

25 generations? I will go you orders of magnitude better than that.

10's of thousands of generations of observation disproving evolution's main story line.

50,000 generations of bacteria prove that evolution never stops


“In a remarkable experiment that's been going on for nearly a quarter century, biologists have shown that lab-grown bacteria — even in a stable, unchanging world — will continue to evolve in a way that makes it increasingly good at reproducing.”

Instead of "show simple prokaryotes evolving into eukaryotes and thus ascending the ladder of taxonomy as evolution stories predict"

Prokaryotes that REMAIN prokaryotes over 50,000 generations of observation is taken as "proof" that evolution happens??? Seriously??

All of humanity supposedly "evolved" in fewer generations than that!!

Bob,

As Barbarian said, you are trying to change the subject from evolution of species to abiogenesis, the origin of life from nonliving matter. Since you brought the subject up …

In post #3, you said that science pictures life emerging from “dust-rocks-gas.” While that makes the generation of living things sound unlikely we do know a few things about the prevalence of the necessary elements and even simple organic molecules.

Early in earth’s history, it was bombarded by comets. Some think that is where the oceans came from, that the earth was a chunk of rock before numerous impacts by icy comets gave it enough water to form seas. Comets are known to contain substantial amounts of organic molecules and other ingredients of life. Here are a couple of quotes from an article about the Rosetta mission, which landed on a comet and sampled it.

“… much more complex organic molecules such as ethanol (C2H5OH), formamide (NH2CHO), glycolaldehyde (CH2OHCHO), and acetaldehyde (CH3CHO) have been detected ... Even glycine, the simplest amino acid, and phosphorous (P, predominantly traced back to PO) were detected by the Rosetta mission.”

Nitrogen is one of the key elements for life and it has also been found.

“However, it should be noted that comets are also rich in non-organic species, such as carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2) and ammonia (NH3), that, despite not being strictly organic, are still important in the formation of prebiotic molecules.”


It looks like the ingredients were there from the beginning.


Article: Organic Matter in Cometary Environments

Link
Organic Matter in Cometary Environments

 

[Andre_b]

Creationists on CF keep saying that evolution hasn’t been observed in controlled experiments. This is not entirely fair. There are whole areas of science, including astronomy, where controlled experiments are not feasible. What if the process of evolution can be seen in a controlled experiment? The article linked below should give creationists something to think about.

“Copepods are among the most important organisms in the ocean. The millimeter-small animals are food for many fish species … ”

“ … the small crustaceans can indeed adapt to the new conditions over the course of about 25 generations—which corresponds to a period of just over one year, since several generations of crustaceans can mature in a year at moderate water temperatures.”

“ … gene variants become prevalent in the copepods' genome that result in the animals being better able to withstand environmental stress.”


Article:
Experimental evolution: Marine copepods can genetically adapt to changing ocean conditions

Link
https://phys.org/news/2022-09-experimental-evolution-marine-copepods-genetically.html

First, what is the definition of evolution? Because based on what you just posted, it doesn't fit that definition. Unless you have a different definition.

 

[The Barbarian]

First, what is the definition of evolution?

Darwin's theory is "descent with mofidicaton." After the re-discovery of Mendel's work, it is "change in allele frequency in a population over time."

Because based on what you just posted, it doesn't fit that definition. Unless you have a different definition.

I think Dale is quite aware of the definition, and yes, it can be directly observed and experimented on.

I think possibly you have confused evolution with agencies of evolution like mutation or consquences of evolution like common descent.

 

[Andre_b]

Darwin's theory is "descent with mofidicaton." After the re-discovery of Mendel's work, it is "change in allele frequency in a population over time."



I think Dale is quite aware of the definition, and yes, it can be directly observed and experimented on.

I think possibly you have confused evolution with agencies of evolution like mutation or consquences of evolution like common descent.

Well evolution has multiple definitions, these people that made up these definitions need to use other words because this is the problem.

Evolution from common descent vs natural selection are different things. One is observed, the other is implied and imagined.

 

[Dale]

First, what is the definition of evolution? Because based on what you just posted, it doesn't fit that definition. Unless you have a different definition.

Here’s more of the article.

“The researchers found that as water temperatures rise and conditions become more acidic, gene variants become prevalent in the copepods' genome that result in the animals being better able to withstand environmental stress. "These mechanisms help, among other things, to ensure that copepod eggs develop properly despite unfavorable environmental conditions and that important metabolic processes continue," says Reid Brennan.”


Does that answer your question?

 

[Andre_b]

Here’s more of the article.

“The researchers found that as water temperatures rise and conditions become more acidic, gene variants become prevalent in the copepods' genome that result in the animals being better able to withstand environmental stress. "These mechanisms help, among other things, to ensure that copepod eggs develop properly despite unfavorable environmental conditions and that important metabolic processes continue," says Reid Brennan.”


Does that answer your question?

No, it simply shows natural selection and adaptation. Unless that's your definition of evolution?

 

[The Barbarian]

Well evolution has multiple definitions

In biological science, it's "change in allele frequencies in a population over time.

Evolution from common descent vs natural selection are different things.

No. Common descent is a consequence of evolution, it's not evolution.

 

[The Barbarian]

No, it simply shows natural selection and adaptation. Unless that's your definition of evolution?

You're still having trouble with the definition. And you've conflated adaptation with evolution. Let's look at why that holds you back from understanding:

1. if you spend a lot of time in the sun and you skin gets darker, that's adaption, but it isn't evolution. Evolution only happens to populations, not individuals.

2. If a neutral mutation occurs in a population, but neither harms nor helps the organisms having it, the new allele is evolution, but not adaptation. The allele frequencies change, but it doesn't produce any benefit or harm.

3. If natural selection tends to remove certain alleles and increase the frequency of others, that is evolution and adaptation. In this case the change of allele frequencies (evolution) lead to improved fitness of the population (adaptation).

Does that help?

 

[Andre_b]

No. Common descent is a consequence of evolution, it's not evolution.

Where is this a consequence of evolution?

Common descent isn't observed as a consequence of evolution...

Also, why do the majority of people state that this is evolution? When clearly the definition you provided isn't.

Here's another definition of evolution:
"A gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex or better form."

Now that's an extremely vague definition and the imagination can get carried away with it.

And another:
"process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex, or better state"

Haven't see this observation in the scientific method. I'd like to see an observation of e-coli becoming something other than e-coli. People can add the word "populations" but that means nothing. a population of humans, different than other humans, simply means they are humans with different characteristics to other humans. Still human.