Is this paper on JSTOR yet? Also, person on my Facebook, when I said we "discovered an arsenic-utilizing bacteria" and said "Evolution, 4.54 billion. Intelligent Design, Zero.":
Not really, 'discover', more like, 'invented'. It would be fun to tally this up to evolution, but we sort of cheated. "The newly discovered microbe, strain GFAJ-1, is a member of a common group of bacteria, the Gammaproteobacteria. In the laboratory, the researchers successfully grew microbes from the lake on a diet that was very lean on phosphorus, but included generous helpings of arsenic. "
I bring the heat:
The mechanism was already in place; we didn't invent it. This particular strain of the bacteria is a known extremophile. Expression of the enzymatic activity necessary to incorporate arsinate groups into the structures of various compounds normally using phorsphorus is only observable when phosphorus is absent. It's the same concept as E. coli not utilizing lactose except in the absence of glucose, except on a far more mindblowing and important scale.
We're almost to the point where we can code activity from scratch, but not yet. This one was selected for by evolution. Mono Lake has the highest concentration of dissolved arsenic on earth and has for millenia; the astrobiology team that discovered used it to try and see if arsenic-utilizing life existed, and it did. Now, to say we triggered it when it's not always (if ever?) active in the environment is totally fair.
"I just found something gross in the back of the fridge... and I think it blinked at me. I will be holding a press conference at 7 p.m. EST to discuss my findings. This could impact the way we research cheese-based life forms."
I'm not sure that this would really phase religious types at all. I think that they're very likely to say something like, "This proves God's abundant love of life" or "This is proof that the evolutionists don't know everything they think they do", or "This just goes to show that those science types can't explain the mysteries of God", or "If evolution was such a good theiory, it should have predicted this bacteria. It didn't because evolution cannot comprehend the glory of God."
What do you think? How would you respond to those statements?
If the person with whom I am debating is reasonable, I debate to change their mind.
If the person with whom I am debating is not rational, I will debate to simultaneously Buzz Aldrin them and use them as an example for others. That is to say, I will debate intelligent people in public or private, but irrational people only publicly, where I can use them as a ready-made straw man to display how ludicrous their position is to others who may yet be saved.
It is unlikely that I will meet a rational person who would make those arguments, so my only plan is an Aldrinning.
Seriously, though - if the religious thing enrages you, imagine instead that someone asked, in a non-religious way, exactly why this would tend to disprove creationism or intelligent design. What would you say?
I'm just sure that people like Kirk Cameron and the banana guy are going to say that this tends to prove intelligent design. I'd like to have good responses ready that don't primarily rely on Aldrining.
You can't disprove creationism or ID. There's nothing to "disprove." They're conjectures, not theories. I'd need a much more specific claim in order to call it into question. For the most part, though, you can dismiss any creationist or ID argument by asking for evidence.
This discovery, however, provides yet another level of support for the framework of evolution.
Okay. How does it supply yet another level of support for evolution? Please keep in mind that I'm not trolling. I honestly want to know something a little deeper than the mere statement that it tends to prove evolution.
Okay. How does it supply yet another level of support for evolution? Please keep in mind that I'm not trolling. I honestly want to know something a little deeper than the mere statement that it tends to prove evolution.
Natural selection. These bacteria dwelled entirely in a phosphorous-poor and arsenic-rich environment. We've demonstrated their ability to substitute arsenic for phosphorous in pretty much all of its biomolecules. This mechanism has never been demonstrated in any other life form.
Thus, we have an extreme environment which makes phosphorous utilization difficult. Evolutionary theory predicts that something which could circumvent the need for phosphorous would gain a competitive advantage and thrive. We found that very thing.
This is relevant to my interests. Please do science faster.
My PhD thesis will actually be "On the synthesis of autonomous Grace Park-based biologic robots by means of scaffold tissue growth and brain-machine interfaces."
My PhD thesis will actually be "On the synthesis of autonomous Grace Park-based biologic robots by means of scaffold tissue growth and brain-machine interfaces."
Comments
More than likely, the proper term would be "arsenilation," but "arsenation" sounds much more entertaining.
What do you think? How would you respond to those statements?
I have to entirely distinct modes of debate.
If the person with whom I am debating is reasonable, I debate to change their mind.
If the person with whom I am debating is not rational, I will debate to simultaneously Buzz Aldrin them and use them as an example for others. That is to say, I will debate intelligent people in public or private, but irrational people only publicly, where I can use them as a ready-made straw man to display how ludicrous their position is to others who may yet be saved.
It is unlikely that I will meet a rational person who would make those arguments, so my only plan is an Aldrinning.
I'm just sure that people like Kirk Cameron and the banana guy are going to say that this tends to prove intelligent design. I'd like to have good responses ready that don't primarily rely on Aldrining.
This discovery, however, provides yet another level of support for the framework of evolution.
Thus, we have an extreme environment which makes phosphorous utilization difficult. Evolutionary theory predicts that something which could circumvent the need for phosphorous would gain a competitive advantage and thrive. We found that very thing.
You heard it here first!