notMichaelJackson

At Christian Forums you said that the biotechnology industry would not exist if it were not for evolution.


http://www.christianforums.com/threads/34634-2.html

Please explain.

RufusAtticus

The biotech industry is based on producing transgenetic organisms. Those are organisms that have modified genetic codes. Specifically ones that produce a desired product. Bacteria like E. coli are one of the work horses in the industry.

How do you make a transgenetic bacterium? Well you cut open its DNA with restriction enzymes and then splice your DNA sequence into it. However, this does not always work and you need to be able to retreive the few bacteria for which it does work. This is done through selection. By splicing in a selectable marker along with the target sequence, then only transgenetic bacteria will survive. This is usually done by plating the bacteria on an antibiotic and using a resistance gene as the selectable marker.

To sum up, without the knowledge of darwinian mechanisms and the actual usefulness, the biotech industry would not be able to produce transgenetic organisms. In other words, no evolution . . . no biotech indudustry, no profits, and no improved health care.

tgamble

But it's still bacteria! That doesn't prove that rocks turn into people giving trillions of years! Cats don't give birth to dogs! It's just variation! Evolution is a lie of Satan! IS SO! IS SO! IS SO! IS SO! IS SO! IS SO! IS SO! IS SO! IS SO! IS SO! IS SO! IS SO! IS SO! IS SO! IS SO!

notMichaelJackson

This sounds much more like artifical selection, which existed before Darwin formulated his theories. The study of evolution is not necessary for artificial selection, so how is it necessary for the biotech industry?

notMichaelJackson

Can you tell me the name of the dictionary where you obtained that definition?

Doubting Didymus

If you're studying selection, you're studying evolution. If you deny that selection works, then the biotech industry would not produce results.

You think our modern understanding of selection techniques comes from pre-18th century dog breeders? It is the theories of darwin and mendel that are being used in selection these days, as closely tied to evolutionary theory as any biological feild can be.

tgamble

The dictionaries, like the scientific journals, are controlled by the Darwinist establishment.

RufusAtticus

There is no difference between "artifical" selection and "natural" selection. The distinction is simply an artifact of history. Yes evolution happens even if we didn't know about it, but it is unlikely that the biotech industry could make use of the process if it didn't understand it.

KC

The Devil's Dictionary, of course

KC

Oolon Colluphid

Strongly seconded. Artificial selection is not an analogy for natural selection, it is a subset of selection, period.

Natural selection operates by allowing only those organisms that are most suited to their environment to get their heritable material into the next generation. What counts is phenotypic suitability to the environment -- whatever that contains.

It doesn’t matter in the slightest, to the selectees, whether selection is for ability to withstand heat (eg deserts), salinity (eg fish), wind (eg coastal plants), antibiotics (bacteria), parasites, predation (most things), or for suitability to human aesthetics (eg dogs, pigeons) or requirements (grain crops, cattle, Rufus’s bacteria). As far as they are concerned, it’s quite simple: some get to reproduce, others don’t.

Selection is just selection, whatever its cause.

Cheers, DT