re: #625 Cato

re: #621 Salamantis

Richard Lenski did not do that. He has performed his e coli evolutionary experiments with rigid controls designed to eliminate any such presuppositions. He began with twelve lots of e coli and has allowed each of them to cycle through tens of thousands of generations (more than 40 thousand, at last count). In one of these lots but ot the others, around generation #31,500, a spontaneous mutation occurred that allowed those e coli to metabolize citric acid (the inability to do so has long been an identifying marker of e coli). Since he froze members of each of the lots every few generations, he can unfreeze members of the mutating lot that were stored before the mutation occurred, and replay the mutation at will.

myxo.css.msu.edu

Likewise, the genome sequencing that led to the discovery of shared artifactual retroviral DNA sequences in humans and great apes was not undertaken with such a discovery anticipated in advance. However, their discovery has conclusively demonstrated, via massive empirical evidence, common ancestors of macroevolutionarily distinct species beyond rational statistical doubt. In fact, extinct retroviruses have actually been reverse engineered and brought back to life on the basis of such shared sequences.

newyorker.com