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Sulfur Bacteria, Unchanged for Billions of Years, Confirm Darwinian Evolution. Come Again?

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An organism’s staying exactly the same for 2 billion years — in other words, not evolving a bit — supports the Darwinian theory of evolution, say scientists who studied fossils in rocks from the waters off the West Australian coast and uncovered the “greatest absence of evolution ever reported.”

Nope, not The Onion. We read at Science Daily:

An international team of scientists has discovered the greatest absence of evolution ever reported — a type of deep-sea microorganism that appears not to have evolved over more than 2 billion years. But the researchers say that the organisms’ lack of evolution actually supports Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

The findings are published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The scientists examined sulfur bacteria, microorganisms that are too small to see with the unaided eye, that are 1.8 billion years old and were preserved in rocks from Western Australia’s coastal waters. Using cutting-edge technology, they found that the bacteria look the same as bacteria of the same region from 2.3 billion years ago — and that both sets of ancient bacteria are indistinguishable from modern sulfur bacteria found in mud off of the coast of Chile.

“It seems astounding that life has not evolved for more than 2 billion years — nearly half the history of Earth,” said J. William Schopf, a UCLA professor of earth, planetary and space sciences in the UCLA College who was the study’s lead author. “Given that evolution is a fact, this lack of evolution needs to be explained.”

Given that Darwinian theory is a “fact,” it must be shown that it is a “fact” regardless of evidence to the contrary. Well, given the premise, that would have to be so. The solution, please?

“The rule of biology is not to evolve unless the physical or biological environment changes, which is consistent with Darwin,” said Schopf, who also is director of UCLA’s Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life. The environment in which these microorganisms live has remained essentially unchanged for 3 billion years, he said.

“These microorganisms are well-adapted to their simple, very stable physical and biological environment,” he said. “If they were in an environment that did not change but they nevertheless evolved, that would have shown that our understanding of Darwinian evolution was seriously flawed.”

That was deft. It’s not what they expected. But then again, it’s exactly what they expected.

In summary, Darwinism is demonstrated when life evolves. It’s also demonstrated when it does not. If the bacteria had changed, what would they have said? Since Darwinian evolution is a fact, you can be certain that too would be reconciled with the theory, like all evidence, one way or the other, come hell or high water.

Image credit: “Section of 1.8 billion-year-old fossil-bearing rock,” by UCLA Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life.

David Klinghoffer

Senior Fellow and Editor, Evolution News
David Klinghoffer is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute and the editor of Evolution News & Science Today, the daily voice of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, reporting on intelligent design, evolution, and the intersection of science and culture. Klinghoffer is also the author of six books, a former senior editor and literary editor at National Review magazine, and has written for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Seattle Times, Commentary, and other publications. Born in Santa Monica, California, he graduated from Brown University in 1987 with an A.B. magna cum laude in comparative literature and religious studies. David lives near Seattle, Washington, with his wife and children.

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