Large-Scale Metagenomic-Based Study of Antibiotic Resistance in the Environment

Reported as:

Antibiotic-Resistant Germs, Lying in Wait

by Carl Zimmer 5/8/14

Excerpt: “Their resistance hinted that antibiotic-resistance genes were not just the product of modern medicine, but an ancient part of nature.”

See also:  Horizontal Gene Transfer Regulation in Bacteria as a “Spandrel” of DNA Repair Mechanisms

Excerpt: “DNA uptake control might be linked in part to nutrient requirements [32]. Whether the mechanism associated with DNA uptake defines the fate of the DNA once introduced into the cell is less clear, but the possibility that DNA uptake began as a nutrient uptake mechanism cannot be discounted [32].”

My comment: The nutrient uptake-dependent pheromone-controlled physiology of reproduction in microbes, which is clearly linked to antibiotic resistance, has been discounted by evolutionary theorists who have touted pseudoscientific nonsense about mutations and natural selection in the context of evolution and biodiversity.

We now see an accurate representation by Carl Zimmer (above) of how ecological variation in the supply of nutrients enables biophysically constrained ecological adaptations in species from microbes to man via conserved molecular mechanisms.

James Shapiro seems to already have implied that DNA uptake enables ecological adaptations in the context of natural genetic engineering. However, like other theorists who have failed to provide experimental evidence of mutation-driven evolution, Shapiro did not detail the mechanisms that enable either evolution or ecological adaptations. Will Carl Zimmer detail the mechanisms that enable mutations to cause evolution after his refutation of mutation-driven evolution in the context of antibiotic resistance?

Of course not! A day later, he’s touting mutation-driven evolution again. 

The Case for Junk DNA

Excerpt: “…it is imperative that those who claim that the vast majority of intergenic transcription is functional test their hypotheses. In the absence of this evidence, the declaration that we are in the midst of a paradigm shift with regards to eukaryotic genomes and gene expression [120] seems premature.”

Reported as

The Case for Junk DNA

by Carl Zimmer  5/9/14

Excerpt 1): “If a mutation alters junk DNA, it doesn’t do any harm because the junk isn’t doing us any good to begin with.”

Excerpt 2): “Even if ninety percent of the genome does prove to be junk, that doesn’t mean the junk is unimportant to our evolution. As I wrote last week in the New York Times, it’s from these non-coding regions that many new protein-coding genes evolve.”

My comment: Zimmer’s  story line becomes progressively more difficult to understand. One day, he inadvertently supports natural genetic engineering in the context of antibiotic resistance. The next day, he tells us that mutation-altered junk DNA may be important to our evolution, and cites his article about new protein-coding genes that somehow evolved.

Did genes for antibiotic resistance evolve in bacteria? NO!

Does any experimental evidence of biologically-based cause and effect suggest that new protein-coding genes evolve from junk DNA? NO!

Does natural genetic engineering explain antibiotic resistance in the context of ecological variation and nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled ecological adaptations. YES!

Nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled ecological adaptations: from atoms to ecosystems

How can it be “…imperative that those who claim that the vast majority of intergenic transcription is functional test their hypotheses,” when ideas about mutations, natural selection, and evolution have never been supported by experimental evidence and the claims of theorists continue to be based on the untested null hypothesis?