It's evolution alright, as in adaptive change, not evolution in the darwinian sense. This is more like survival of the most cooperative. Just like Alfred Russel Wallace's interpretation of natural selection, the cofounder of that theory and one of the fathers of modern ID. He was infact much more qualified than Darwin.

What's really interesting is It seems as though the yeast were directly involved, making sacrifices by dieing off as well as a sacrifice in fitness overall with reduced reproductive cycle. They are displaying cooperation and not competition. That's not Darwinism. There also doesn't seem to be anything random happening here.

Many species of yeast evolved originaly from a multicellular form. Seeing that it occurred within such a short time with very few generations it's fair to say this feature may have been simply dormant and reenabled through enviromental pressures and selecton although not the natural kind. The ability, considering the speed, I'm betting was already available within the genome.

It's good stuff overall. Experiments always trump the speculative stories that come along with evolution.

Originally posted by edmc^2

“What we’re doing right here, engineering via artificial selection, is something we’ve done for centuries with animals and agriculture.”

Nothing new.

Yes, evolution and natural selection(Which encompasses artificial selection and sexual selection), is nothing new. Been happening for a very long time.

Originally posted by edmc^2
In fact they admitted that:

true multicellularity remained elusive.

SO how is this proof of evolution again?

I'll say this straight up, without regards to if it'll sound rude.

You are a liar, and a very poor one at that. You're attempting to quote mine from an article we all have right here to read. It's painfully dishonest.

If you would have posted the full sentence, it was that a few other flawed experiments on the topic, failed to cause the multicellularity. It remained elusive until now. This experiment did cause true multicellularity.

Each strain had evolved to be truly multicellular, displaying all the tendencies associated with “higher” forms of life: a division of labor between specialized cells, juvenile and adult life stages, and multicellular offspring.

Before I read the article, you had me actually believing that there was something about these cells that weren't truly multicellular. It's absolutely disrespectful to use lies to decide what people will see as truth. I want to see the truth, to see the truth. I don't want to be lied to, and no one else here does either.,

Originally posted by edmc^2

SO how is this proof of evolution again?

Fact is - what they did is prove the basic rule / principle of creation - that is:

Life can only arise from pre-existing life.

I believe you're holding a fundamental misunderstanding here. "Life can only arise from pre-existing life." means nothing as far as evolution goes. This experiment, and topic, has nothing to do with life coming from inorganic matter.

Try an Abiogenesis topic for trying to make a claim, otherwise it's completely irrelevant.

~
As far as the topic. People get overly worked up over the word "artificial". Anything that can happen in a lab, can happen in nature. It's just a matter of likelihood.

And all that was artificial was the pressure to grow. Which is a pressure that occurs in nature as well.

The things this proves, is that the mutations that cause growth and multicellularity , can happen on their own, easily. That's the point of the experiment. It could of easily happened in nature as well. It did happen easily in nature as well.

We already knew that it happened already in nature. This is just another, of many, piece of conformitory evidence.

Originally posted by randomname
key word "artificial" pressure. meaning an outside source created this multicellular yeast infection.

it didn't happen spontaneously, or by accident.

this doesn't confirm evolution, it confirms that a power greater than that of the creature is required for it's creation.

i call that power God.

Well, then humans are God! We have the power of God!


All Hail Us!

Besides they started with a yeast then ended up with what --- tada - a yeast.

In fact they admitted that:

true multicellularity remained elusive.

back to the drawing board.

That's messed up dude. I cant believe you lied like that. You should be ashamed.

Originally posted by Son of Will
"Artificial pressure" just means pressure either higher or lower than the average pressure at current atmospheric conditions. A lot of you are getting thrown off by semantics.

In nature, there are ALL KINDS of bizarre environments where the temperature is wildly different, pressure is wildly diferent, exposure to light is different, etc. What if in nature, these yeast cells were under 1000 feet of water? That's totally natural pressure, but far greater than you'd find in a laboratory - to simulate that, you would need to create "artificial" pressure. The "artificial" environment is found ALL over nature - but to study it under laboratory conditions they have to use methods like this.

No, they are nit-picking to save their faith.
Just walk away and shake your head.

I support evolution but this is adaptation, not evolution. This is just cells clumping together to increase their survivability.

Also might want to check on what a Bio-film is, its similar but more complex.

Originally posted by Confusion42and while the latest work doesn’t duplicate prehistoric transitions, it could help reveal the principles guiding them.

Most important words there


"doesn't duplicate prehistoric conditions"

and

"could"


jeez, talk about overstating something

Originally posted by Confusion42This also brings a death blow to the morality argument used by religion folks...

You are suffering from some pretty huge delusions

This is funny. People post legitimate science experiments and creationists STILL can't resist coming into the thread and regurgitating the same nonsense about intelligent design and evolution. This experiment alone doesn't prove evolution, it is just a small pebble added to the mountain of evidence. Evolution is already proven, but at least creationist can't use the ol' "but single cells have never been observed evolving to multi cells". Sorry, it just happened. Anyone that disagrees is pretty much ignorant of the facts. The article even mentioned multi cellular offspring. Of course they simulate pressure similar to what it was in the early stages of the earth.

I support evolution but this is adaptation, not evolution. This is just cells clumping together to increase their survivability.

Obviously you DON'T support evolution if you are claiming this is only adaptation. Did you miss the part about multicellular offspring? If it can happen in a lab, then it could have happened in the real world. That's why we do these experiments in the first place.

Basically then they made happen what they wanted to happen.

They manipulated it so this is really just man made and not natural,therefore,not proof at all.

Evolution has already happened in that certain species have evolved to adapt to a new environment.

In that regard, this single cell did nothing more than evolve to adapt to pressure.

Evolution will not be proved until a single cell is observed making a change under natural circumstances... so you might have to have generations of teams observing this.


Not convinced.

Originally posted by nineix
It confirms that a single celled organism can be pressured into evolving under lab conditions.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all about the evolution.
ID/Creationism is Easter Bunny, Tinker Bell stuff unless you toss in something like OMGAliens tinkering in the past to create us.

I'll believe we were created by aliens quicker than some invisible dude that's gonna be upset and condemn me for all of eternity to unending torture if I don't acknowledge it's existence and kiss the feet. lolz.

Anyway, cool stuff!
It'll be fun to see how this pans out.
For now, however, the only thing this proves is that a single cell can be poked and prodded through artificial means in a lab into changing its habits into multicelular-ism.

The universe is the biggest laboratory there is.

To think that those lab conditions don't exist or haven't existed anywhere else says a lot about you.

The results show under one set of certain conditions cells can evolve. That is just one way out of potentially millions, if not billions.