The Greatest Show from Darwin 19- Proof of Darwin

To the beginning: http://proza.ru/2022/06/26/1108


19. Proof of Darwin's theory from the contrary.

In the disputes between Lamarckian adherents and Darwinists, the Luria—Delbruck test put an intermediate point 80 years ago. It's funny that this test was conceived to prove an adaptive hypothesis. What was the disappointment of the experimenters when the results of the experiment buried their hopes.

The results of the experiment were published in 1943. All sources assure that the experiment is very simple, but in reality, all simplicity ends there. It is very difficult for a person who is far from genetics to understand his logic.
In short, the essence of the Luria — Delbruck test is as follows: the very E. Coli bacteria that we know thanks to Dawkins' mention of the experiments of bacteriologist Richard Lenski were placed in test tubes with a liquid medium, and after several cycles of divisions they were added a killer antibiotic for them. After that, E. Coli was sown on a Petri dish with a solid medium and the surviving colonies were counted.

Two hypotheses common in the first half of the 20th century were subject to verification:
1. Mutations occur spontaneously, regardless of the external environment (Darwin).
2. Mutations arise as a result of adaptation to the environment (Lamarck).

The first version would be confirmed by a small number of surviving colonies having a chaotic distribution due to the occurrence of random mutations in several generations of E. Coli. The second hypothesis was confirmed if adaptive changes occurred upon contact with an antibiotic. Then the surviving colonies should be distributed more or less evenly.

However, the experiment, conducted repeatedly and in various variations, did not confirm the second hypothesis. The dispersion of the surviving colonies was monstrous. There was no need to talk about any adaptation to the environment.
Darwinists triumphed, Lamarck was forgotten for fifty years, until 1988, when John Kearns published an article in the journal “Nature” “On the nature of mutations”, which caused a great stir in narrow circles.

The Kerns experiment is quite similar to the previous one, with the only difference that the unfortunate E. Coli bacteria were no longer poisoned with an antibiotic, but starved. They took the same E. coli, but only not able to eat lactose and placed it in an environment containing one lactose. There was nothing else to eat. Either die, or switch to carbohydrates. And if on the first day the results of the experiment did not differ in any way from the results obtained in the Luria—Delbruck experiment, then on the second day new colonies appeared, independent of the first, and so on in linear progression.

What do you think? Scientists Luria and Delbrook were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1969 for proving Darwin's randomness, but Kearns, who sowed doubts about it, was not. Instead, the National Institutes of Health and the US National Science Foundation have allocated millions of dollars in grants to figure out what kind of nonsense is happening with E. coli.

And found out! It took about 15 years to explain the selectivity of changes in Kerns' experiments by stress. In just a few million dollars, it was found out that the stress caused in this case by fasting leads to hypermutability. That is, Escherichia coli, deprived of food, falls into depression, often divides, and, sharing, makes a lot of mistakes (mutations). Well, the more mistakes there are, the more likely it is that mutation that will allow you to eat lactose.
That's it! It's great after all.

The explanation of the changes by stress in the Kerns experiment is more than logical. You can, of course, deduce from this an idea with hypermutability, especially for several million dollars, but you can completely do without it.
This is so, by the way. And now the most interesting thing.
We will talk about a special CRISPR/Cas system in DNA. Almost all bacteria have it, with the exception of the highly respected E. Coli and some others. The CRISPR/Cas system consists of a section of DNA called a CRISPR cassette, in which 30 repeats of three turns of the DNA helix. The CRISPR cassette was opened in the last century, but until 2005, no one knew why it was needed. Next to these cassettes are usually genes called Cas. All that was known about these genes until recently is just their name.

Scientists Rudolf Barangu and Philip Horvath did not plan any scientific breakthroughs. Working for the company DANISCO, which produces starter cultures for the dairy industry (yoghurts, cheeses, etc.), they selected bacteriophage-resistant strains of the milk bacteria Streptococcus thermophilus.
In fact, scientists simply repeated the Luria-Delbruck test over and over again, but they were not going to prove anything to anyone. From the company's factories, they were sent "spoiled" crops, from which it was necessary to withdraw the same, but only resistant to external influences. Most strains died, but there were also some that successfully survived.

It turned out that the virus-resistant strains had their CRISPR cassette changed for some unknown reason. Namely, an identical site with the genome of the virus to which resistance was acquired was found in the cassettes. Roughly speaking, the virus ceased to recognize the bacterium as a victim and began to perceive it as its own. Here is such a military trick on the bacteriological front!
Scientists still don't know how all this happens. After all, to add a section of the virus genome to the CRISPR cassette of a cell, this cell must be infected. And this should lead to the death of the cell, but the cell does not die. Regardless of science's misunderstanding of these processes, there is now no doubt about the existence of non-random adaptive changes.

What follows from this? Firstly, it was only necessary to change the bacterium and a slender proof of the spontaneity of mutations fell like a house of cards. No, it is indisputable for E. coli, but the generalizations made from the Luria-Delbruck experiment are, to put it mildly, exaggerated.

After their experiment for more than half a century, it was believed that what was "true for E.coli is true for the elephant." Now we can say with confidence only for E. coli, and even for a few bacteria, that for them the Darwinian mechanism of random mutations exists. Even with regard to milk bacteria, this will be controversial.

But these are just bacteria. And they have a mechanism, so far incomprehensible to anyone, of responding to external influences. Moreover, the impact is not lasting, but instantaneous. It is, in fact, as if a person sentenced to death after the command "Fire!" simply caught a bullet flying into him.
Do you remember the movie "The Matrix"? So, the fact that people were so impressed in Neo, for the bacterium Streptococcus thermophilus is a common thing.

Secondly, if dairy bacteria have a lightning reaction mechanism, which even fanatical Darwinists will not turn to call random, then it is quite possible that there is more than one such mechanism. It is easy to assume that there may be many non-random adaptation mechanisms.

Meanwhile, there has been no revolution in scientific minds. Only some geneticists speak softly about the synthesis of Lamarck and Darwin. That's all.
Which is curious. Rudolf Barang and Philip Croat have not yet been awarded the Nobel Prize, although their discovery is of great practical importance not only in the production of Roquefort and Brie cheeses. Based on the mechanism they discovered, scientists expect to defeat cancer.

The mechanism of non-random DNA changes has been scientifically proven at the genetic level, but no one is shouting about it. Biology curricula are not being rewritten in schools, there is almost nothing on the Internet, not a word in the news. I doubt that anyone has ever heard of this, except for a limited circle of specialists. Wikipedia only has a special section "The problem of random mutations", in which it is extremely dryly reported about "targeted" mutations in the mechanisms of immunity of higher organisms.

Meanwhile, someone continues to fiercely argue and prove that there is no truth except from Darwin, and Richard Dawkins publishes in 2009 his new book "The Grandest Show on Earth: Evidence of Evolution", in which he writes: "I have not yet met a serious biologist who would point to an alternative to natural selection as the driving force of adaptive evolution."
And he's probably not lying - he haven't met.

* - I apologizes for my English. I would be grateful for the corrections.

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