Well, dear Bob,
Bob Enyart said:
Morphy: “Well, if a red blood cell is malaria resistant what is it if not improvement???”
To which, I reply: Broken. Also:
It may be broken but it is also an improvement.
Let me give you another example: your tires are probably not nail - resistant, right? And if you get a brand new tire what is totaly invulnerable to nails, what is it if not improvement?
Even if you have to pump it more often, it is an improvement of one feature.
This is what I tell you: if it wasn't an improvement the sickle cell anemia gene would be as rare in Africa as it is in Europe. If it is much more common it simply means: it is an improvement i.e. it is useful. The nature is the judge in this particular case.
Bob Enyart said:
A dead blood cell is malaria resistant. That’s not an improvement.
That is not an argument since sickle cell anemia gene doesn't kill all red blood cells.
Bob Enyart said:
A quadriplegic is resistant to tennis elbow. Ditto.
A quadriplegic cannot play tennis.
A person with sickle cell anemia gene (a carrier) can do almost everything other people can do (except for things like hiking, but this is not what 99.99% blacks in Africa like do to).
Bob Enyart said:
A disease that preempts a worse disease is still a disease.
Have I ever said the sickle cell anemia isn't a disease?
If we restrain to discuss theories we believe in it will save our time.
Bob Enyart said:
Morphy: “If you give me detailed genetic codes of all human ancestors from the first alive, primitive prehistoric cell to the human genome I won't resort to diseases. …positive mutations are extremely rare, like 1:1.000.000? Or maybe even rarer.”
Yes, I guess you could get one out of a million, considering that you morph a mutation-caused disease into something positive.
How about bacterial genes coding resistance to antibiotics? Do they cause any diseases for bacteria? No? Are they positive? Undoubtly since they can survive in such hostile enviroment like human body toxicated with antibiotics.
As you see one out of million is enough if it "morphs" into something positive.
Am I right? If no - prove where I am mistaken.
Bob Enyart said:
Morphy: “If you add that there is natural selection - then it is enough to prove there is evolution.”
Morf, you’re describing change, not Darwinian evolution. Darwinian evolution is not a synonym for the word change, it is a claim that a certain type of change has occurred, namely a change that adds genetic information to produce increasingly complex organisms. (It seems as though the evolutionists in this thread have gone senile, forgetting that Darwinism is supposedly PROVED by the evolutionary progression of SIMPLE to COMPLE organisms).
Darwinian theory is as similar to modern theory of evolution as Wright's airplane to contemporary space ships.
We have at least one obvious example of getting from a simple to comple organism: a bacteria which have become resistant to more and more new drugs.
Bob Enyart said:
If you had a lot of evidence for evolution, you could easily concede our point that disease is not excellent evidence for molecules-to-man evolution. But because of the absence of “excellent evidence” for evolution, you guys parade around evidence for de-evolution.
Is getting a new ability - antibiotic resistance - an example of de- evolution also?
Bob Enyart said:
News flash: Both sides believe in mutations, and that they often cause changes, including disease and death.
To provide evidence for molecules to man evolution, you’re going to have to show mutations that increase the information content of a genome, NOT evidence of disease, because that’s just too funny and easy for us creationists to explode.
We have a lot of examples. One of them, which has nothing to do with diseases (except causing them) is above.
Bob Enyart said:
And finally, you asked about drug resistance, which results from different known mechanisms including mutations, transfers, etc. I’ll describe a common mechanism, which is a mutation and a loss of information. The streptomycin antibiotic is a three-dimensional molecule that interlocks with a bacteria's ribosome (as in Mycobacterium tuberculosis), interfering with its protein synthesis and thus killing the bacteria that causes tuberculosis. If Mycobaterium has a ribosome mutation (breakage), and therefore its ribosomes are deformed and become less effective at assembling proteins (this actually happens), then the streptomycin molecule cannot attach as it did to the healthy ribosome because it's shape no longer fits into the deformed shape of the mutated ribosome. We call this a resistant strain, which it is, although at the cost of a broken ribosome which is fortuitous to the antibiotic, bad for its host, and making all a little bit worse off for the mutation. I realize you asked for more particulars, but I suggest you read Spetner’s book. If you’d like, I’ll mail you a copy. By the way, he was with the Applied Physics Laboratory at John Hopkins University and in the Hopkins biophysics department.
Dear Bob, there are much more ways bacteria gain resistance to antibiotics. The evolution works fine even when you don't believe it.
Let me just mention (not describe, we would need a book) some others:
- changing the target molecule: if the antibiotic attacks a certain enzyme in a bacterium, the bacterium can adapt by using a different enzyme to accomplish the same function.
- enzymatically inactivating or decomposing the antibiotic.
- storing the drug by creating alternative chains of reactions in bacterium
- preventing the drug from entering bacteria
- pumping out the antibiotic as quickly as it enters the bacterium.
If a bacterium, due to spontanic mutation, is able to 'digest' an antibiotic (it creates an enzyme destroying the antibiotic molecule), what is it if not:
- increase of information;
- gaining new ability;
- remaining healthy;
Bob Enyart said:
And Morphy, since you invited me, I’ll post a defense for my Evolve.exe evolution refutation program. Coming soon to a thread near you!
-Bob Enyart
I'd love to!
As you see, evolutionists love science: it backs us up!!!