Genome complexity: what genes do and don't do (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, February 17, 2019, 10:36 (1896 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: (re “bacterial resistance”) Science finds one percent are resistant to start with in many cases! In other cases they use gene transfer. How can that happen if the bacteria have to invent resistance by your favorite theory. Because antibodies are natural in nature and bacteria, molds and fungi use them all the time, resistance has naturally developed in the past. Penicillin, discovered in 1927 by Fleming, comes from the blue cheese mold!

dhw: Of course resistance has naturally developed in the past, as bacteria have learned to change themselves in accordance with new conditions! And of course they can use gene transfer to pass the new solutions on. Here is an (edited) article which seems to me to explain your one per cent and to support the view that bacteria work out their own ways of survival. I have bolded the bits that need no comment:

Some Bacteria Completely Immune To All Antibiotics
https://naturalon.com/some-bacteria-completely-immune-to-all...

A new study out of China had some very scary results. Some types of bacteria have actually breached our last walls of antibiotic defense. This study found that one gene in a strain of Escherichia coli (known to most of us as E. Coli) had no reaction to one of the last antibiotics that we have available to fight it.

dhw: Please note that the study refers only to one gene in one strain of E. coli. It is, therefore, an exception.

Researchers in this study found this gene, called mcr-1, in samples that were taken from infected people, pork products, and pigs. This gene protects the bacteria from the one antibiotic we have that still works against E. coli called colistin.
Mcr-1 was the most common gene found in samples taken from animals, which suggests that this mutation began in livestock. In China, it is common to administer the antibiotic colistin to their livestock animals.

dhw: Please note the proposal that the mutation had a beginning. The researchers are not suggesting that the beginning was instructions from 3.8 billion years ago.

Unfortunately, by giving animals antibiotics constantly, bacteria have learned to mutate and are no longer responding as they used to in the past.

Scientists have known for quite some time, and have been warning the public, that the overuse of antibiotics only stimulates bacteria to do what they have done for the past 3 billion years: Mutate and survive.

dhw:Yes indeed, the purpose or driving force of all these mutations is survival – whether your God designed the mechanisms or not.
[…]
When it comes to protecting themselves, bacteria are really good at what they do. Bacteria has been around for billions of years and they have been fine-tuning their defenses against other microbes that could harm or destroy them.[/b] (dhw’s bold) Many of the antibiotics we have created began as microorganisms, which means that we are playing in the stadium owned by bacteria. (David's bold)

dhw: No mention of automaticity, or of a 3.8-billion-year old library of information and instructions. Bacteria fine-tune their defences, and even the one example (a strain of E.coli) that is already resistant to new bacteria is believed to have originated on a farm in China.

DAVID: The bolded above that I created is a typo. " Many of the antibiotics we have created began as [creations by the] microorganisms, which means that we are playing in the stadium owned by bacteria" should read as I corrected it.

I have reproduced the article as written. In any case, I don’t see that your addition changes the argument for bacterial intelligence.

DAVID: You may be surprised but this article is exactly like all the ones I've read about bacterial resistance. The bacteria are here for 3.5+ billion years as the basis of future advances in evolution, and now actively play a modifying role in the human biome. A recent study suggest schizophrenia have a relationship to bacteria in our guts!

I am not in the least surprised. I have reproduced the article to support my contention and that of the earlier article that bacteria have continually created their own instructions on the hoof,"de novo", as opposed to your contention that 3.8 billion years ago your God provided them with a library of information and instructions to deal with every new situation for the rest of time. Why have you changed the subject?

DAVID: I've not changed any of my views from having reviewed it. Note again, E. coli are still E.coli. They have solved as immediate solution for their immediate survival. Survival does not cause speciation. Survival does not drive evolution. Evolution requires design.

Article after article points out that bacteria solve their own problems, but you have not changed your views and you prefer to ignore all the evidence which you kindly present to us. Instead you revert to the issue of survival which we are discussing on the “Big brain evolution” thread. Once again, please stop pretending that an “immediate driving force” (your own description of survival) is not a driving force and that the hypothesis of (possibly God-given) cellular intelligence excludes design.