I can’t even picture something that “under no circumstance would be classified the same.” We classify organisms at so many different levels! Based on what you’re saying, it sounds like you will hold out for a totally alien organism.
You’re free to prove me wrong by suggesting specifics, of course. Then I will probably try to describe roughly how many bacteria were historically involved in such a transition, and ask you how a lab is expected to simulate that many generations. After which I honestly can’t predict your response, save that you will probably still not be convinced of common descent.
I guess that’s what I’m afraid of: that this won’t be a productive avenue of truth-seeking. But hey, never let it be said that I’m not game to try!
Really? Take apes as Baseline and humans as descendants. At one point, we can find a Threshold hominid that is closer to humans than apes. Only this lab test will be done on E.coli or similar and Threshold may be a known organism or may be a totally new one…
That’s what labs do. That’s precisely their job. How many times do I have to say this?
So how come Richard Lenski and Barry Hall and Paul Rainey and Miller Urey and etc. etc. have tried just this avenue? Only they failed.
I can picture a lot of circumstances in which humans would be classified as apes, though. In fact I’ll do it right now: humans are a variety of ape. We are also mammals, vertebrates, animals, and multi-cellular organisms. I can keep going.
Labs are subject to the constraints of reality, sadly. Unless we can do the whole thing by computer simulation, which isn’t a bad idea, come to think of it.
I can’t speak to what others hoped to accomplish and whether or not they did it. I note that the only concrete suggestion you have provided is that at one point we will reach an organism which is closer to a different species than what it started from. How do you define a different species from E. Coli?
So you are back? And I see you have brought @Grog with you. You two seem almost the very same person, in your determined effort to categorize science as so much saliva stored at room temperature.
The experiment you wish would be done has already been done at Harvard . . . though on a short time frame. I certainly think a longer run of the same kind of experiment would be excellent!
But what’s the point of the experiment if you don’t even understand what it is showing? You seem to think that “drift” is not mutation. And yet you construct a scenario where bacteria just Sits there … and you want it to turn into something different… while you are still alive???
Your ignorance of basic Evolutionary science is dramatically revealed all throughout this thread. If you want to speed up evolution, you have to stress the organism… and here’s what they do at Harvard. Below is a quote from an earlier posting of mine:
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I am copy/pasting this from another thread:
Using movie technology developed in Hollywood, these scientists developed an impressive way to show how the environment can induce rapid changes in the genetics of a bacteria population!
It is living proof that as a population becomes stressed and almost wiped out (in this case, just in the frontier region of a giant bacteria culture!) … small changes in chromosomes can quickly spread throughout the stressed region, and create a new genetic baseline for normalcy in the population.
The cyclical process repeats itself every time it bumps into a new concentration of toxic antibiotic chemicals in their environment.
No “intelligence” here … just the constant interplay between life form and environment!
Actually, they are plenty dissimilar. Put the multicellular strains back in an environment where they no longer have a selective advantage, and the unicellular strains come out on top.
There is a significant difference between the two strains if they can be selected for. In other words, it is decidedly not a “social studies” experiment in which the organisms behave differently under different conditions. There are real genetic differences between the multicellular strains and the unicellular strains.
Indeed. This is not easy, but must be done properly. Pass/Fail conditions have to be established before the test.
No computer simulation - that’s BS, not science. Computers have their very limited role that many don’t understand.
To my knowledge, this proposal is much more than anyone has ever done. I am trying to raise awareness to proper science. Doing a test without defining the scope and target in advance and then interpreting the results however way it better fits the narrative is not proper science. Also discarding the results that disagree with the person’s prejudices is not acceptable.
If you propose something which is much more than anyone has ever done before, you had better understand why it hasn’t been done before.
Since you are reluctant to propose details, here is a definition I just grabbed off of Wikipedia: Escherichia coli is a gram-negative, facultatively anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium.
If we produce a new organism for which any one of those descriptors no longer applies, will that prove common descent to your satisfaction?
NonlinOrg: What about Common Descent? How do you test for that?
[quote=“benkirk, post:115, topic:34703”]By analyzing sequence data for nested hierarchies. I know that anyone who blows this off as vague similarity isn’t looking at the evidence.
[/quote]
Why are you doing the Gish Gallop? Did you notice that I pointed out that “anyone who blows this off as vague similarity isn’t looking at the evidence,” NonlinOrg? Why did you delete that from the quote and then go on to do exactly that?
Unless of course there’s an entire field of biology that uses computational methods to do research. Luckily, there’s a couple of scientists around here who have a PhD in “BS”, as you put it. @Swamidass@Kathryn_Applegate
In other words, when you so casually dismiss an entire field of science as “BS”, you discredit yourself and your ideas.
It’s not my “satisfaction” that matters.
Maybe it’s easier to see what other known bacteria are related to E.coli, yet clearly different and to analyze what makes them different. Then to look for a combination of those factors.
Didn’t Lenski get a strain to use citrate? Don’t know if aerobic or not. Would you classify that strain as anything else other than E.coli? I think not.
I also said “Computers have their very limited role that many don’t understand”, meaning results are only as good as the assumptions and interpretation. Do you disagree with that?
That’s not dismissing ‘computational methods to do research’, it’s just being aware of the limitations.
We would not get too far without computer modeling in this day and age …if this makes you feel better.
You want to replace direct testing with “analyzing sequence data for nested hierarchies”? What possibly can be your justification? Are you aware that these nested hierarchies are a human construct?
E[quote=“NonlinOrg, post:131, topic:34703”]
It’s not my “satisfaction” that matters.Maybe it’s easier to see what other known bacteria are related to E.coli, yet clearly different and to analyze what makes them different. Then to look for a combination of those factors.
[/quote]
Well, common descent has already been proven to my satisfaction, and to many others’ as well. I don’t know if you can speak for anyone else’s conclusions following this experiment but your own. So yes, your satisfaction is the factor in question.
You mean known, related bacteria like salmonella? Ok. So what makes salmonella (or a different bacteria of your choice) different from E. coli?
Maybe! Depends how you define the species. Pretty sure that was @DennisVenema’s point.
If the strain does not successfully mate with other populations equally as well as bacteria that are not of that strain … then we are half way to speciation.
Over time… just a few more changes … and voila … we have something new … that cannot reproduce with any other life other than with it’s Own Kind.
[quote=“NonlinOrg, post:133, topic:34703”]
Are you aware that these nested hierarchies are a human construct?
[/quote]Protons, neutrons and electrons are human constructs, too. If the human construct explains the data well, though, it is good science.
“essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful” - George Box
Does that mean you’re not interested in defining differences between bacteria anymore?
A proper analysis will determine if a nested hierarchy is just a human construct that sort of resembles the data, or if a nested hierarchy is actually the best fit explanation for the data. But honestly I don’t know why you would need a detailed study to prove this; all you have to do is look at any number of categories of animals, like vertebrate, tetrapod, mammal, rodent, house mouse, and you see nested hierarchies. Genesis doesn’t describe why ‘mammal’ is a real category, but that doesn’t mean it’s not describing the real world.
So basically, either God created animals in nested hierarchy categories that looked like a pattern of descent, or animals all actually descended from common ancestors. This is only confirmed, and strongly, when you look at the genetic data. If you’re interested in actually looking at such a study, there was discussion of one here not long ago:
[quote=“NonlinOrg, post:133, topic:34703”]
You want to replace direct testing with “analyzing sequence data for nested hierarchies”? [/quote]
That is direct testing. Common descent makes robust predictions, not just of vague similarities.
Science!
[quote] Are you aware that these nested hierarchies are a human construct?
[/quote]No more than any other mathematical fitting of the data. Common descent predicts them, you see.
Honestly laughed out loud when I read this. Pure entertainment.
I wonder how many Nobel Prizes have been granted for largely computational work? Their have been several. In a field adjacent to mine, most recently Karplus was awarded one in 2013: https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2013/karplus-facts.html With some of the fundamental advances in machine learning, it would not be shocking if we saw a Nobel Prize for Deep Learning in our lifetime too.
Going back to the beginning (of science), Kepler and Newton were just computational researchers too.
Stepping out of mainstream science, there are a lot of ID and YEC people that do computational work. Jeff Tomkins, Todd Wood, Kirk Durston, John Sanford, etc. Given that most do not do anything at all resembling bench science, glibly rejecting computational work does not seem strategically wise.
Regardless, disparaging quality computational work is akin to disparaging math. We are the people that take intuitive notions into quantitative frameworks with mathematical principles.
The real challenge is that it is hard for non-experts to recognize the difference between quality computational simulation and poor simulation. That is the real danger here. The right response is to get more understanding, not to dismiss the whole field.
