> Bill, exactly why is antibiotic resistance not beneficial to a bacterium?
Antibotic resistance is not a mutation, as is commonly assumed by many.
"What about trying for four related mutations? 10^28. All of a sudden
the earth isn't big enough to hold enough organisms to make that very
likely. And we're only talking about four mutations. It would take many
more than that to change a fish into a philosopher, or even a fish into
a frog.
It was at this level (just four related mutations) that microbiologists
gave up on the idea that mutations could explain why some bacteria were
resistant to four different antibiotics at the same time. The odds
against the mutation explanation were simply too great, so they began to
look for another mechanism - and they found it. First of all, using
cultures that are routinely kept for long periods of time, they found
out that bacteria were resistant to antibiotics, even before the
antibiotics were "invented." Genetic variability was "built right into"
the bacteria. Did the nonresistant varieties get resistant by
mutation? No. Resistant forms were already present. Bacteria have
little rings of DNA that they trade around among themselves, and they
passed on their resistance to antibiotics in that way. It wasn't
mutation at all - just ordinary recombination and variation within
kind." from _Creation - The Facts of Life_, by Gary Parker, pp 63-64.
The next three points may also be examples of variation built into Adam
and Eve, and not examples of beneficial mutations as you assume.
>
> Exactly why is a mutation in an Italian family that makes them immune to
> bad cholesterol not beneficial?
>
> Blond hair appears to give protection against frostbite. Exactly why is
> that mutation not beneficial in the northern part of Europe?
>
> Black skin appears to give some protection against ultraviolet rays and
> helps prevents melanoma. Exactly why is this not beneficial in the tropics?
>
> And the sickle cell gene gives some protection from malaria if it is
> heterozygous. Are you saying that it is better for more people to die from
> Malaria than for fewer people (the homozyous) to die from sickle cell
> anemia? If it saves lives in a malaria infested environment, exactly why is
> it not beneficial?
Sickle cell anemia is a disease which kills 25% of the children of
carriers of sickle cells. The sickle cell disease does protect from
another disease, marlaria, in 50% of the sickle cell population. If you
want to claim that the sickle cell disease is a beneficial mutation,
I'll grant you that one, Glenn, but I tend to think of both diseases as
part of the curse from the Garden of Eden. You appear to be in a bit of
an awkward position, using a degenerating disease to support
macroevolution. Your theory points up, but your data points down.
Bill