My "evolutiondidit" comments are in response to atheists over reaching the explanatory power of evolution. Trying to use it to explain things like morals or religion or self awareness. Things that there is no real evidence to support evolutions involvement. It has nothing to do with whether or not biological evolution happened or not.

And the atheist hand waving comment has nothing to do with evolution.

Hahaha, you're getting much better than you used to be.

My point is that the morphological adaptations do not appear to differentiate the species (as the article sez in its opening salvo before delving into the experiment). It appears that the genetic information necessary for the bacteria to adapt to the boundry conditions of the test sample is actually a defining characteristic of the species.

BTW - I did a litle cross-research on pseudomonas fluorescens and it appears that the hetrogeneous setup (unpretrubed) gives rise to the three main morphologies, but if the hetrogeneous sample is subsequently preturbed and becomes homogeneous, then only the SM morphology persists. I take that as verification that the morphological adaptation is not a permanent one and that the article erroneously refers to the varying morphologies as different species throughout the text.

Refer to slides 3 and 4 of the following .ppt file:
http://classshares.student.usp.ac.fj...0evolution.ppt

In order to go in-depth on this, I think we're going to need the actual experiment as reported by the scientists and not the science news report. My best guess is that in the 18 predator innoculated samples were in a continuous state of perturbation, execpt for the period of transfer. Apparently, 6 transfer rates were utilized (presumably across 3 samples/rate).

This is where the article gets particularly fuzzy for me: since the predators and prey were subjected to a homogeneous environment, how could the predators adapt to the WS and FS morphologies? They should not have been present in the homogeneous environment.

My best guess is that the transferred samples were injected into a hetrogeneous environment, allowing for the study of the predator-prey relationship across morphologies briefly before freezing the sample. To me, this is a very important point to understand and I can't make it out from the article (I also don't want to pay some of the sites I found to download the actual text).

I'm not convinced that we can draw the conclusion that evolution has occurred in this instance. However, this type of framework is much much better IMO than the 'fit the narrative to match the fossil record' approach to the topic.

Yeah in cases like this I usually decide to just wait until the results are circulated widely enough for the scientific community to start challenging/affirming it, cause the back and forth that follows requires less effort than reading the entire experiment.

Obviously my answer wasn't really intended to satisfy your concerns with the experiment (I doubt I got any more from the article than you) but to prevent the inevitable splendour/pletho/erf post quoting yours and proclaiming the debate over

Edit: I also don't really think this is going to be groundbreaking stuff for someone like yourself who is obviously knowledgeable in the subject. The really important part for them I'm sure was predator microbes vs. ABs. It is a good tool for explaining and demonstrating natural selection to people who are new to the idea, but AB-resistant bacteria illustrate a similar level of evolution to what I think they are claiming happened here.

Are you saying that I used to constantly make these claims and now make less?

And I see you got your title changed to "god mod". To that I say, good show sir, good show.

No, just congratulating you own pwning rize. Your distinctions about evolution are getting more valid, where they used to be full of misconceptions.

Two things - when you accept the obvious fact that evolution can, does, and did happen, it is, at least at this point, perfectly reasonable to presume that all biological phenomena resulted from its processes until further data arises. When you operate with the assumption that even if evolution occurs, you know there is a God, then naturally you would be looking to see where he came in. I have no idea why you could accept that God could start the evolutionary process but then somehow still need him to inject, say, consciousness into the process artificially.

And while it doesn't take a thorough reading of evolutionary psychologists' claims to realize that they are occasionally reaching, you are better suited staying away from the morality argument, as the evolution of some sort of morality in animals is being explained at a relatively rapid rate. Obviously morality has a social component, and the more that evolutionary psych gets into the social science realm, the weaker it gets, but to say there is "no real evidence" that evolution impacts our morality is ridiculous.

Thank you. I have come a long way from when I started posting here. That is why I stay. It is nice to have everyone tell you that you are wrong and force you to study things.

When I started I thought that I had a grasp on evolution, but I was very wrong. At least now I have a decent grasp on it, but still have a long way to go. I now find myself correcting other Christian, irl, about evolution. Never thought that would happen, lol.

How common a topic of discussion is evolution among the Christians you know?

Well, I don't know that many Christians to begin with, so not that common. But my father talks about it from time to time. But we talk about just about everything that is an "issue" in the christian world. So most of our conversation deals with doctrinal subjects, but it will turn to evolution from time to time. He is not very good at anything science or math related. He is an extremely brilliant man, but these are not strong suits for him. I have been trying to turn him on to various theist evolution sites.

I was just saying why I think this article won't convince any theistic person..filling gaps in knowledge with Goddidit is obviously counter-productive and quite incompatible with a scientific attitude because it isn't actual inquiry.