Changes
Reply to ASchlafly
:::: If you're serious, then please provide some quotes and links to back up your statements. Also contribute to entries rather than violating the [[90/10 rule]].--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 20:32, 26 June 2008 (EDT)
:Reply to Aschlafly's comment of 19:33, 26 June 2008 (EDT) --
:''"LarryFarma raises an excellent question about whether a goal of Lenski and Blount's project was to generate citrate-eating E. Coli bacteria. ('''I did not find the answer in the paper.''')"'' (emphasis added) I asked Zachary Blount to clarify his statements about whether evolution of Cit+ (citrate-eating) E. coli bacteria was a goal of the experiment. He answered by asking me to go on a wild goose chase by reading the whole paper, which has 8 pages of fine print -- this is called "bibliography bluffing." And when people balk at going on these wild goose chases, they are accused of not wanting to learn.
:''"Did the researchers figure out, after many years of fruitless attempts, how best to promote the percentage of citrate-eating E. Coli bacteria in a population?"'' As I said, I asked Blount whether favoring Cit+ evolution was the purpose or one of the purposes of the glucose-cycling (giving the bacteria insufficient supplies of glucose so as to create alternating glucose feeding and glucose starvation), and he did not answer.
:''"They should turn over the data for public scrutiny so that questions can be resolved."'' I disagree with you here, for the reasons stated at the end of my first comment in this talk page.[[User:LarryFarma|LarryFarma]] 05:25, 28 June 2008 (EDT)
::::People need to stop asking to "turn over the data for public scrutiny" before they've fully read and comprehended the papers and information released to date. E. Coli don't live off of citrate - it's a characteristic of the species - so there was no "goal to promote the percentage that could do it". The fact that a certain population were able to after after thousands of generations of reproduction in a controlled, monitored setting was the key observation, and Lenski's team is still investigating the specifics of when and how that characteristic was enabled. It reflects poorly on an online encyclopedia that the leadership is still questioning whether sufficient data to understand the experiment has been released. The most relevant data from the experiment is the actual bacteria itself, and Lenski has publicly offered to share samples of them with any scientist qualified to handle them, who follows the proper, professional protocols. The Consevapedia community has yet to see a specific, professional response to Professor Lenski's second letter other than a flippant remark about attitude and a continued insistence that data has not been revealed when it clearly has.
