Bacterial resistance to antibiotics- what is the Creationist explanation?

[chair]

As most of us are aware, many bacteria have developed resistance to antibiotics. The usual scientific explanation is an evolutionary one, with selection being the driving force to improved survival (of the bacteria). How do Creationists explain this phenomenon?
Yes, the selection here is caused by humans- but that doesn't make any difference as far as the mechanism is concerned. If you think random mutation and natural selection cannot generate improved traits- how does this happen? How do the bacteria become resistant to antibiotics?

 

[Stripe]

As most of us are aware, many bacteria have developed resistance to antibiotics. The usual scientific explanation is an evolutionary one, with selection being the driving force to improved survival (of the bacteria). How do Creationists explain this phenomenon?
Yes, the selection here is caused by humans- but that doesn't make any difference as far as the mechanism is concerned. If you think random mutation and natural selection cannot generate improved traits- how does this happen? How do the bacteria become resistant to antibiotics?

We can rule out randomness to the changes: If we create multiple cloned cultures and expose them to the same change in environment, we should see the same genetic alteration in the same timeframe. Much like any other experiment in chemistry, we should expect repeatable results, not randomness.

The immediateness of the changes would also rule out natural selection.

To show that the changes generally degrade the genetic integrity of the bacteria, put them back in the normal environment for a few generations and do the experiment again. As the process is repeated, the adaptability of the organism will decrease untill the change in environment either kills it or has no effect.

 

[chair]

We can rule out randomness to the changes: If we create multiple cloned cultures and expose them to the same change in environment, we should see the same genetic alteration in the same timeframe. Much like any other experiment in chemistry, we should expect repeatable results, not randomness.

The immediateness of the changes would also rule out natural selection.

To show that the changes generally degrade the genetic integrity of the bacteria, put them back in the normal environment for a few generations and do the experiment again. As the process is repeated, the adaptability of the organism will decrease untill the change in environment either kills it or has no effect.

Stripe, as you would say: pay attention to the challenge.

I didn't ask what is wrong with the evolutionary explanation. I asked "How do Creationists explain this phenomenon?...How do the bacteria become resistant to antibiotics?"

 

[Yorzhik]

Stripe, as you would say: pay attention to the challenge.

I didn't ask what is wrong with the evolutionary explanation. I asked "How do Creationists explain this phenomenon?...How do the bacteria become resistant to antibiotics?"

First, realize that it doesn't matter how YEC explain the phenomenon; common descent is still wrong.

Secondly, creationist's explanations just happen to be better than common descentist's. The answer is in the question - why are "super bugs" only found in hospitals? why can't they get out?

 

[Right Divider]

First, realize that it doesn't matter how YEC explain the phenomenon; common descent is still wrong.

At least in regards to a single universal common ancestor.

 

[chair]

First, realize that it doesn't matter how YEC explain the phenomenon; common descent is still wrong.

Secondly, creationist's explanations just happen to be better than common descentist's. The answer is in the question - why are "super bugs" only found in hospitals? why can't they get out?

So far, nobody has presented a Creationist explanation.

 

[Right Divider]

So far, nobody has presented a Creationist explanation.

Is your "googler" broken?

https://creation.com/antibiotic-resistance-not-evolution-in-action

 

[User Name]

In 1944, a Columbia University doctoral student in genetics named Evelyn Witkin made a fortuitous mistake. During her first experiment in a laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor, in New York, she accidentally irradiated millions of E. coli with a lethal dose of ultraviolet light. When she returned the following day to check on the samples, they were all dead — except for one, in which four bacterial cells had survived and continued to grow. Somehow, those cells were resistant to UV radiation. To Witkin, it seemed like a remarkably lucky coincidence that any cells in the culture had emerged with precisely the mutation they needed to survive — so much so that she questioned whether it was a coincidence at all.

For the next two decades, Witkin sought to understand how and why these mutants had emerged. Her research led her to what is now known as the SOS response, a DNA repair mechanism that bacteria employ when their genomes are damaged, during which dozens of genes become active and the rate of mutation goes up. Those extra mutations are more often detrimental than beneficial, but they enable adaptations, such as the development of resistance to UV or antibiotics.

-- Beating the Odds for Lucky Mutations

 

[Bradley D]

https://creation.com/superbugs-not-super-after-all

"When next you read about ‘supergerms’, remember that everything known about them is consistent with the Genesis creation of an originally good, complex world ruined by sin."

One view of science were that such bacteria becme resistance due to improper dose of medicine or that the patient did not finish all the medicine required of them

 

[Yorzhik]

So far, nobody has presented a Creationist explanation.

I actually did. Even though YEC doesn't need it for UCD to be wrong, the answer is that superbugs cannot get out of the hospital. The reason why should be simple for you but if you want me to spell it out I can. If you want a hint, read about Darwin Devolves by Michael Behe.

 

[Stripe]

I asked "How do Creationists explain this phenomenon?...How do the bacteria become resistant to antibiotics?"

They are programmed to respond to changes in their environment.

 

[User Name]

The reason why should be simple for you but if you want me to spell it out I can.

Witkin sought to understand how and why these mutants had emerged. Her research led her to what is now known as the SOS response, a DNA repair mechanism that bacteria employ when their genomes are damaged, during which dozens of genes become active and the rate of mutation goes up. Those extra mutations are more often detrimental than beneficial, but they enable adaptations, such as the development of resistance to UV or antibiotics.

-- Beating the Odds for Lucky Mutations

 

[Yorzhik]

Witkin sought to understand how and why these mutants had emerged. Her research led her to what is now known as the SOS response, a DNA repair mechanism that bacteria employ when their genomes are damaged, during which dozens of genes become active and the rate of mutation goes up. Those extra mutations are more often detrimental than beneficial, but they enable adaptations, such as the development of resistance to UV or antibiotics.

-- Beating the Odds for Lucky Mutations

Thanks for adding support to my point. Why did you post this twice?

 

[Stripe]

User doesn't have anything to contribute but what he can Google. And he doesn't understand any of it.

 

[WonderfulLordJesus]

This seems to beg the question why "creationism" precludes adaptation, what your point even is. You spend a long time in the sun, you get a tan and don't as easily burn. Manual labor leads to muscle growth and more strength. One gains antibodies through a bodily reaction to a foreign presence, hence one becomes disease resistant. Keep in mind there's no need to first become a baboon, before you can resist measles. Actually, to be frank, I can't find any sense in the notion omnipotent God couldn't design products with features, if idiot man can create a programmable remote control.

Perhaps it would be more relevant to ask other questions, if you're sold on evolution. Where is your species change evidence? Where has one creature reproduced to produce a different creature, also noting it's a non-starter to claim the fossil record supports transitional forms? Or perhaps you could explain to everybody how evolution nullifies entropy, what evidence there is of order being created, absent design and energy input, intelligence and work, as oppose to the natural, material order being to do nothing constructive, even drift into decay, on all levels. Tell us about the Big Bang, how, for instance, an explosion was ever used to build a building, as opposed to reducing said building to chaotic rubble, most highly unlikely to reconstruct itself: give us your examples of things you would arrange into order by an explosion, or tell everybody how a stainless watch evolved from iron ore. Perhaps tell us how even a single celled creature requires thousands of simultaneous, complex systems to live, how those systems could have even evolved, or what blood would do, absent the heart. And, please, if you're one of those that really believes a monkey and a typewriter, given enough time, would produce Hamlet or War and Peace, let's just well leave it at, "Never mind. Have a nice day." Whew...

You know, there are a lot of big questions YOU really need to deal with, first, before going after Christians over bacteria.

Matthew 23:24 Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.

 

[chair]

Is your "googler" broken?

https://creation.com/antibiotic-resistance-not-evolution-in-action

What I read is that the creationist world accepts the fact that selection can help bacteria adapt to their environment. What they do is pretend that there is something wrong with the story. That the bacteria are not good. They are damaged. They don't survive well outside of the antibiotic-heavy environment of the hospital.

"Far from being a ‘new improved model’, resistant cells also cannot take up the amounts of food substances that would normally enter via transporters that are now damaged or absent. Thus, in the absence of antibiotic, susceptible bacteria commonly out-compete resistant bacteria; so resistant ones comprise only a small percentage of the overall bacterial population."​

But this is precisely what the theory of evolution predicts. The bacteria that are best suited for their environment will survive and reproduce. There is no such thing as a "new improved model" in evolution. There are only "models" that are better suited to their environment.

 

[Right Divider]

What I read is that the creationist world accepts the fact that selection can help bacteria adapt to their environment. What they do is pretend that there is something wrong with the story. That the bacteria are not good. They are damaged. They don't survive well outside of the antibiotic-heavy environment of the hospital.

"Far from being a ‘new improved model’, resistant cells also cannot take up the amounts of food substances that would normally enter via transporters that are now damaged or absent. Thus, in the absence of antibiotic, susceptible bacteria commonly out-compete resistant bacteria; so resistant ones comprise only a small percentage of the overall bacterial population."​

But this is precisely what the theory of evolution predicts. The bacteria that are best suited for their environment will survive and reproduce. There is no such thing as a "new improved model" in evolution. There are only "models" that are better suited to their environment.

Both creationism and evolutionism share some understanding of the evidence.

Creationists have no problem with "descent with modification". What we do have a problem with is the wild speculation that tiny random changes can be "selected" to turn a single celled creature in to a man.

Those kinds of "changes" have never been observed and go against what we do know about genetics, etc.

 

[chair]

Both creationism and evolutionism share some understanding of the evidence.

Creationists have no problem with "descend with modification". What we do have a problem with is the wild speculation that tiny random changes can be "selected" to turn a single celled creature in to a man.

Those kinds of "changes" have never been observed and go against what we do know about genetics, etc.

Those changes have been observed. That's what we see in the fossil record.
But let's leave that alone for a moment.
What I am interested in here is where the line is between what creationists view as reasonable, and what they view as unreasonable.
Some (Stripe comes to mind) will deny that mutation and natural selection can be advantageous to an organism. The case of bacteria becoming antibiotic resistant shows that these mechanisms can make an organism more suited to its environment. I see that many creationists are willing to accept that. So for them, there is no reason to argue about the basic mechanism, as they accept it.

The question then arises- where is the line between what mutations and natural selection can "accomplish", and what they can't?

1. Bacteria can evolve resistance to antibiotics. Yes, that is accepted. At least by most creationists.
2. Can wolves evolve into dogs?
3. Can an ancient horse-ancestor evolve to give us donkeys, horses and zebras?
4. Can an ancient mammal ( say the morganucodontids) evolve into all the various types of mammals that we see today?
5. Can animals that live in the sea evolve into land-living animals?

Where exactly is the line? And why does that line exist?

 

[Right Divider]

Those changes have been observed. That's what we see in the fossil record.

The fossil record is only proof for the "true believer" in evolution. It has so many problems for evolution, but evolutionists just ignore them and brush them under the rug.

But let's leave that alone for a moment.

What I am interested in here is where the line is between what creationists view as reasonable, and what they view as unreasonable.
Some (Stripe comes to mind) will deny that mutation and natural selection can be advantageous to an organism. The case of bacteria becoming antibiotic resistant shows that these mechanisms can make an organism more suited to its environment.

These "advantageous" mutations come at a high cost to the integrity of the original code. They are NOT the "building blocks" that can turn an amoeba into a man.

I see that many creationists are willing to accept that. So for them, there is no reason to argue about the basic mechanism, as they accept it.

Once again, this is NOT a glorious pathway from a single celled creature to a man.

The question then arises- where is the line between what mutations and natural selection can "accomplish", and what they can't?

1. Bacteria can evolve resistance to antibiotics. Yes, that is accepted. At least by most creationists.

Damage to existing designs is a long-term downhill path and not the magnificent climb from amoeba to man.

Can wolves evolve into dogs?

Wolves are dogs. They can interbred.

Can an ancient horse-ancestor evolve to give us donkeys, horses and zebras?

Once again, they all appear to be descended from a general "horse kind".

Can an ancient mammal ( say the morganucodontids) evolve into all the various types of mammals that we see today?

We don't know for certain how many kinds there were or exactly what the true "tree of life" looks like. What we do know with a high degree of certainty is that they are not all descended from a single universal common ancestor.

Can animals that live in the sea evolve into land-living animals?

Not likely based on what we do know.

Where exactly is the line? And why does that line exist?

Unlike evolutionists, creationists will not claim to know all of the details about things that happened in the distance past.

But what we do know is enough to totally demolish the idea that all life is descended from a single universal common ancestor.

 

[Stripe]

Those changes have been observed.

No, they haven't.

That's what we see in the fossil record.

No, it's not.

But let's leave that alone for a moment.

Just don't assume the truth of your theory when analyzing ours.

The case of bacteria becoming antibiotic resistant shows that these mechanisms can make an organism more suited to its environment. I see that many creationists are willing to accept that. So for them, there is no reason to argue about the basic mechanism, as they accept it.

Observations of what happens do not tie people to an explanation.

Bacteria can evolve resistance to antibiotics. Yes, that is accepted. At least by most creationists.

None, in fact. Evolution is the idea that all life is descended by means of random mutations and natural selection from a universal common ancestor. No creationist accepts that. Darwinists like to define evolution as "change," which makes a rational discussion impossible.

Can wolves evolve into dogs?

No.

Can an ancient horse-ancestor evolve to give us donkeys, horses and zebras?

No.

Can an ancient mammal evolve into all the various types of mammals that we see today?

No.

Can animals that live in the sea evolve into land-living animals?

No.

Where exactly is the line? And why does that line exist?

Evolution is impossible for reasons that have been laid out thousands of times, but never engaged with sensibly. Darwinists need to learn what it is we disagree with, not equivocate using a useless definition of evolution to insulate their ideas against challenges.