For years now the growing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics has been claimed as evolution in action. However recent now show that antibiotics resistance existed long before the antibiotics were invented.
After studying the DNA in bacteria found in permafrost that had been dated to 30,000 years the researchers found the same set of genes that are responsible for antibiotics resistance showing that the predated the antibiotics. This shows that antibiotics resistance did not evolve in response to antibiotics but was already present in the population.
The net result is that antibiotics resistance can no longer be claimed as evolution in action. It does represent an shift in the population but not new information added to the genome but long existing information come into dominance.
Your interpretation of this research are not in congruence with the actual findings.
ReplyDeleteSpecifically:
You state, "antibiotics resistance existed long before the antibiotics were invented." No, that's incorrect, selected mechanisms (DNA) were in place that enabled organisms to attain resistance quickly. No organisms were resistant before exposure - else antibiotics would have never worked at all.
You also state, "the net result is that antibiotics resistance can no longer be claimed as evolution in action." Again you've completely missed the significance of the study, and you don't seem to grasp evolution either. To be more precise, where you state "It does represent an shift in the population but not new information added to the genome but long existing information come into dominance." THIS IS EVOLUTION IN ACTION for crying out loud - not proof contrary to it.
You are actually squabbling over technicalities. The point is that the ability to resist antibodies preexisted the antibodies even if in the most technical sense the actual resistance did not exist until exposure. For the recorded I base the way I stated it on the way the article that I read about this in did.
ReplyDeleteThe problem in the use of the term evolution is not that I do not understand it. We were each using the term differently. My use of the term evolution in the article was referring to the idea that all life on Earth is descended from one common ancestor. You on the other hand were using it in a more minimalist manner that only refers to shifts in population. The problem is that the term “evolution” is used in several different ways making it easy to get confused. The fact is that evolution in the microbe to man sense of the term needs lots of new information to be produced. On the other hand the type of evolution you are referring includes cases where information is being lost to point of extinction.
Please note that I wrote the article in layman’s terms and most when scientific layman read evolution they see it in the microbe to man sense of the term. Even saying that resistance to antibodies preexisted the antibodies was using layman’s terms. I wrote this in layman’s terms for scientific layman and not in technical terms for a scientific journal.