::::::::::::Science is tentative at the cutting edge. I do not think for one moment that the paper is the "be all and end all" of all research on the subject or that every detail has been exhaustively investigated. I do question the paper, like all first papers in a research topic, but on the whole, I think the conclusions are *reasonably* supported. In my work with bacteria I have seen very different results from what I initially presumed were relatively insignificant changes. Later later experiments suggested why the experiments were unexpectedly sensitive to those changes. For the Cit+ work from Lenski's lab, I'm pretty confident that later experiments will either more solidly confirm or deny the conclusions of the Blount paper. The best data will come from sequencing work being planned now. But at least for now, I think theirs a reasonable conclusion, given what they've encountered so far. YMMV. | ::::::::::::Science is tentative at the cutting edge. I do not think for one moment that the paper is the "be all and end all" of all research on the subject or that every detail has been exhaustively investigated. I do question the paper, like all first papers in a research topic, but on the whole, I think the conclusions are *reasonably* supported. In my work with bacteria I have seen very different results from what I initially presumed were relatively insignificant changes. Later later experiments suggested why the experiments were unexpectedly sensitive to those changes. For the Cit+ work from Lenski's lab, I'm pretty confident that later experiments will either more solidly confirm or deny the conclusions of the Blount paper. The best data will come from sequencing work being planned now. But at least for now, I think theirs a reasonable conclusion, given what they've encountered so far. YMMV. |