RSS
Home
Basic evolution and bacteria
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
image via sandwalk.blogspot.com
There’s no doubt about it, biological evolution happens. Much of the debate concerning evolution is in regard to the theories we have about it. There are many people who believe in deity creation and some then dismiss evolution, because along with their creation story they are also told the story that evolution is supposedly in contest with creation, therefore as a believer they should not give it merit. There’s plenty to debate about in terms of whether or not deity creation and evolution clash or if they can coincide, but for those who believe in young earth creationism (six days/creation up to only 10,000 years ago) the two definitely clash. This belief has been allowed to thrive due to lack of education/understanding on the subject or plain denial of the evidence we have today (such as radiometric dating which tells us the earth is about 4.5 billion years old).
Biological evolution is simply the change in allele frequencies within the gene pool of a population over time.*
An allele is an alternate form of a gene, which is a section of DNA that serves a specific function in the genetic makeup of an organism.*
One example of evolution that we can observe today is that of bacteria. I name this example because it is easy to understand and easy to test over a short period of time. After less than a century (about seventy years) we now face a different breed of bacteria, which about 95 percent are resistant to penicillin.** This happened because when the antibiotic was first introduced it killed much of the bacteria it was meant to attack, but within the groups attacked, some survived, possibly out of luck (ex: founder effect), or due to a biological advantage in the genetic makeup of the organism, which allowed for its survival. Superior resistance to this antibody then allowed for those bacteria that were less fatally impacted (not selected out of the gene pool) by penicillin to multiply, creating more resistant strands.** This gradual evolutionary process of natural selection (in which the allele frequencies changed in favor of survivors' reproductive success) is not as slow as the gradualism/selection often discussed in human evolution, but nonetheless it has produced the penicillin resistant bacteria we have today. Our most basic understanding of evolution is not a far-fetched theory; it's a simple fact of life.
*Stein, Philip and Bruce Rowe. Physical Anthropology, ninth edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006.
**Taylor, D. Human Evolution/Physical Anthropology Lecture, 2009
More on evolution:
'Educated Americans are more likely to accept evolution'
For more on science and creationism click here.
If you would like to get involved with articles or the general non-believing community, add the Dallas Atheism Examiner on Facebook, and/or subscribe to receive email updates for new articles via the subscribe link at the top of this article. Thanks for reading.
Related Articles:
Comments
.png)
