Changes

Blount, Borland, and Lenski<ref> http://www.pnas.org/content/105/23/7899.full.pdf</ref> claimed that a key evolutionary innovation was observed during a laboratory experiment. That claim is false. The claim was based on incorrect measurements of statistical significance. Rather than using a test from the statistics literature, a flawed test was contrived and used to measure significance. The flawed test (“mean mutation generation”) produced artificially low p-values.

Blount, Borland, and [[Lenski]]<ref> http://www.pnas.org/content/105/23/7899.full.pdf</ref> claimed that a key evolutionary innovation was observed during a [[laboratory]] [[experiment]]. That claim is false. The claim was based on incorrect measurements of statistical significance. Rather than using a test from the statistics literature, a flawed test was contrived and used to measure significance. The flawed test (“mean mutation generation”) produced artificially low p-values.

The data from experiment one of the paper is shown below (see Table 1 of the paper). The expected outcomes under the null hypothesis (no evolutionary innovation occurs) are also shown.

The data from experiment one of the paper is shown below (see Table 1 of the paper). The expected outcomes under the null hypothesis (no evolutionary innovation occurs) are also shown.