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Is antibiotic resistance
proof of evolution?
It is true that certain
bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics. On the surface,
this may seem like evidence for evolution. After all, these
bacteria seemed to have “gained” something—a resistance which
they didn't have before.
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It?s easy to see how a student could be intimidated
by teachers who push evolution by declaring that bacteria have
gained a resistance. Thus, they supposedly evolved.
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But,
when you study the matter at a molecular level and understand
how this resistance came about, it becomes obvious that it has
nothing to do with molecules-to-man evolution.
Dr.
Georgia Purdom explains:
Mutation and natural
selection, thought to be the driving forces of evolution,
only lead to a loss of functional systems. Therefore, antibiotic
resistance of bacteria is not an example of evolution in action
but rather variation within a bacterial kind.
For evolution in the
Darwinian sense to occur, an organism has to gain information—information
that previously did not exist. Bacterial resistance has nothing
to do with a gain of information: it can be inherited from information
that already existed, there could be a loss of information,
or there could be an exchange of previously existing information
from another bacterium. However, none of this has anything whatsoever
to do with molecules-to-man evolution.
For references and more
information see Antibiotic
Resistance of Bacteria: An Example of Evolution in Action? |
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