Changes

::::::: Argon, you have free will and it's clear to me that you are going to exercise it to the point of embracing absurdities.  This time you claim that "extremely low mutation rates" would not result in mutations that scale with sample size (of course they would), and that density completely alters mutation rate (if that silly claim were true, then Lenski's experiment was flawed from the get-go).  Your belief system is remarkable, but it's not logical.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:38, 15 July 2008 (EDT)

::::::: Argon, you have free will and it's clear to me that you are going to exercise it to the point of embracing absurdities.  This time you claim that "extremely low mutation rates" would not result in mutations that scale with sample size (of course they would), and that density completely alters mutation rate (if that silly claim were true, then Lenski's experiment was flawed from the get-go).  Your belief system is remarkable, but it's not logical.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:38, 15 July 2008 (EDT)

::::::::Fair enough, but let's be clear: It's my free will and that of most of the scientists who reviewed the paper, read the papers and commented upon the paper so far. For that matter, Michael Behe didn't call the data flawed, nor did those commentators at Dembski's Uncommon Dissent blog, nor did Dr. Georgia Purdom at Answers in Genesis. In contast, those who think the work is flawed appears to be limited mostly to you, Andy. It is true that 'scaling' was not seen in this case but as we've seen, the conditions were not quite the same and it is known that this can have an impact.  

::::::::Fair enough, but let's be clear: That's my take on the paper and that of most of the scientists who reviewed the paper, read the paper and commented upon the paper so far. For that matter, Michael Behe didn't call the data flawed, nor did those commentators at Dembski's Uncommon Dissent blog, nor did Dr. Georgia Purdom at Answers in Genesis. In contast, those who think the work is flawed appears to be limited mostly to you, Andy. It is true that 'scaling' was not seen in this case but as we've seen, the conditions were not quite the same and it is known that this can have an impact.  

::::::::However, the fact that the conditions were not identical doesn't detract from the fact that the emergence of Cit+ clones *still* correlated with the sampling of the later generations. What this means is that with three separate experiments and under three sets of conditions, the constant-rate-mutation hypothesis doesn't hold. What the differences between the second and third replay experiments demonstrates is that they were run under different conditions that affected the overall rate of conversion, not that the 'potentiated mutation' hypothesis is wrong. Those are actually distinct questions. Andy, the data simply does not support your claims that the cultures were contaminated (we'd expect random distribution), or that the 'scaling' variations ruined the experiment. In my opinion, you seem focused on red herrings to the exclusion of evaluating the data in the overall context of the experiment which demonstrates a correlation of Cit+ clones emerging from samples taken at later generations. Would you care to address that pattern and discuss why your 'contamination hypothesis' doesn't appear to hold up?--[[User:Argon|Argon]] 09:29, 16 July 2008 (EDT)

::::::::However, the fact that the conditions were not identical doesn't detract from the fact that the emergence of Cit+ clones *still* correlated with the sampling of the later generations. What this means is that with three separate experiments and under three sets of conditions, the constant-rate-mutation hypothesis doesn't hold. What the differences between the second and third replay experiments demonstrates is that they were run under different conditions that affected the overall rate of conversion, not that the 'potentiated mutation' hypothesis is wrong. Those are actually distinct questions. Andy, the data simply does not support your claims that the cultures were contaminated (we'd expect random distribution), or that the 'scaling' variations ruined the experiment. In my opinion, you seem focused on red herrings to the exclusion of evaluating the data in the overall context of the experiment which demonstrates a correlation of Cit+ clones emerging from samples taken at later generations. Would you care to address that pattern and discuss why your 'contamination hypothesis' doesn't appear to hold up?--[[User:Argon|Argon]] 09:29, 16 July 2008 (EDT)