Mexican blind cavefish (Astyanax mexicanus)

[evograd (Blogging Graduate Student)]

@r_speir

Forgive me, but I am overcome with a certain degree of amazement at the numbers. They tell me that determinism must be eliminated first if possible.

Why do you think those numbers are evidence for determinism?

[T_aquaticus]

@r_speir

They tell me that determinism must be eliminated first if possible. If not possible, then I am not sure where to go quite yet.

We are telling you that the evidence does not support the idea that mutations are deterministic. We are trying to show you that evidence. However, natural selection is much more deterministic, if that is what you are referring to.

[r_speir]

@T_aquaticus

So why do you think that random mutations could not interrupt a vital DNA sequence and lower the fitness of the bacterium harboring that mutation? Do we say lightning isn’t random because it strikes people and harms them?

Not interesting in lightning. I want to know what I am dealing with here. Randomness suits you just fine. I want a more elegant answer if there is one.

[T_aquaticus]

@r_speir

Randomness suits you just fine. I want a more elegant answer if there is one.

Nature has this odd feature of not conforming to what we want at times.

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

@r_speir

@T_aquaticus

All of the bacteria in the experiment were grown from a single bacterium.

5. You do not know that perhaps a single bacterium will always provide a mix of resistant and non-resistant strains as it grows. And you may be entirely wrong to call this normal activity a random event.

You don’t know that this type experiment is a common exercise for undergraduates in biological sciences, and so gets repeated thousand of times every year.

You don’t know that a standard version involves growing two cultures from the same initial bacterium, demonstrating that one of those cultures contains no bacteria resistant to a strong dose of antibiotic, then exposing the other to gradually increasing doses until it has evolved resistance to the level of dosage that the first culture did not survive.

All of this is besides the point and easily overcome if I am correct. Don’t you know it would be easy to falsify my idea? Just put one of these non-resistant bacterium under the right conditions and watch it multiply. And there you have it - either I am right or I am wrong.
…
Then run the experiment again, and again, and again. Run it 100,1000 times. A million times. Each time notate how many resistant strains the single bacterium is providing for survival. Then average the ratio. You should find some kind of pattern in the numbers. That would indicate deliberateness rather than randomness.

You don’t know that variations on this experiment have been run hundreds of thousands of times. Maybe even millions of times.

You don’t know that your above claim has already been refuted.

@r_speir

@evograd

Is the outcome of the roll of a die “directed”?

The correct answer has to be yes simply because the number of dots on the dice was pre-directed.

(My point is, dice will not win your argument here. Dice are by nature man-made.)

You don’t know how little you know.
You don’t know how much more others do know.
You don’t know how poor your arguments are.

[AllenWitmerMiller (Semi-Expired Professor & Minister.)]

@r_speir

Randomness suits you just fine. I want a more elegant answer if there is one.

Why do you consider randomness to be less elegant in some way? Also, do you not agree that God created a universe where randomness plays major roles?

The Bible speaks of God being sovereign over randomness. Are you nevertheless uncomfortable with that idea? If yes, why? (I’m trying to get a handle on your position.)

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

@T_aquaticus

So what did Luria and Delbruck get when they ran this experiment? Exactly what is described above. Some cultures had a lot of mutatns, some cultures only a few, and some cultures none at all.

Look at pg 504 in the paper below. There is a table that exactly matches your description of randomness.

https://www.genetics.org/content/genetics/28/6/491.full.pdf

Thanks. I hadn’t realised how old Luria & Delbruck’s research was.

[T_aquaticus]

@Roy

Thanks. I hadn’t realised how old Luria & Delbruck’s research was.

Indeed. It is amazing that they were able to tease out some of the mechanics of genetics 1 year before Avery published his paper identifying DNA as the molecule of heredity. The fluctuation test is one of the great experiments in biology because it seems obvious in hindsight, and such a simple experiment taught us so much.