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Creationists often argue against evolution by noting that we cannot observe evolution occurring on a grand scale today. In response, evolutionary scientists like to point to bacteria.

Many scientists argue that evolution is happening all the time in bacteria. Bacteria, with their brief life cycles and their ability to reproduce vast multitudes of generations within a nice, short, observable time frame, give scientists a chance to demonstrate "evolution in a Petri dish". The ability of bacteria to develop resistance to antibiotics has been trumpeted as evidence of the driving force of evolution and the ability of gene swapping and mutations to make these organisms better able to survive.

However, while bacterial resistance to antibiotics is a reality, it falls far short of demonstrating the theory that all things descended from single-celled organisms billions of years ago. In fact, bacteria that become resistant to antibiotics often do so at the cost of their "relative fitness" and can lose pre-existing cellular functions.

Bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics in several ways:

Natural resistance:
Bacteria already naturally have some degree of protection against antibiotics, which they need when they run into these enemies, like penicillin, out in the great big world. This resistance only goes so far, and most bacteria will be killed off when faced with large doses of antibiotics for a significant period of time. The bacteria with the greatest resistance ability sometimes survive, though, going on to reproduce and make a plethora of antibiotic-resistant offspring. This is why doctors warn patients to take their entire antibiotics prescription and not stop halfway after the symptoms go away. Failing to take the entire course can allow the strongest bacteria to stick around and reproduce, paving the way for the superbugs we see today.

Of course, the resistance is already present in the bacterial gene pool. While these super strong bacteria offer a basic survival-of-the-fittest demonstration, their resistance to antibiotics is not an essentially new development and therefore doesn't prove evolution in a grander sense.

Horizontal gene transfer.
Bacteria have a tremendous ability to swap genes with each other. This is vital for the health of bacteria, since they reproduce by binary fission (dividing into two parts) and do not benefit from the recombination of genes found in sexual reproduction. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria can exchange their genes with other bacteria, and thus pass on the ability to thumb their bacterial noses at modern medicine. Once again, the resistance is already there in the bacterial gene pool and is not an essentially new development.

Mutations. Mutations occur in bacteria in a variety of ways, including copy errors in the bacterial DNA and exposure to mutagens (chemicals or ionizing radiation) that affect bacteria's genetic material. Mutations have also enabled bacteria to resist antibiotics or chemical cleansers in some interesting, but not necessarily truly beneficial, ways.

For instance, some bacteria naturally produce the enzyme penicillinase, which they use to inactivate penicillin when they run into it in nature. If a bacterium has a problem with the gene that codes for shutting off the production of penicillinase, that bacterium will just keep producing the enzyme. This is great for the bacterium in the presence of a penicillin-based antibiotic regimen; in a human body filled with penicillin, this bacterium can survive to reproduce while the normal bacteria around it die. In normal life, though, the bacterium has a problem. It's putting a lot of energy into producing penicillinase, and because it can't turn the valve off, so to speak, it will have trouble doing all the other things it needs to do and will eventually penicillinase-produce itself to death.

Many bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics because something has gone wrong and they simply are not functioning properly. The loss of regulatory proteins is a big one. Some bacteria also lose full functioning in transport proteins. Transport proteins are necessary for bringing certain items into the cell.  Bacteria that are resistant to Kanamycin get that way because they aren't correctly producing a transport protein, and therefore the Kanamycin can't get through the cell membrane into the bacterial cell to destroy it. If a transport protein is not functioning right, that means something is wrong with the cell, even if that lack of function does protect the bacteria from Kanamycin.

In short, broken genes can help bacteria survive in some circumstances, but we always find they do so at the expense of the general health of the bacteria. In a normal environment, these bacteria die off much more quickly than their normal, healthy relatives.

Gaining An Ability? Citrate in E coli:
In 2008, evolutionary biologist Richard Lenski of Michigan State University in East Lansing found that a population of E coli, after thousands of generations, had started having trouble metabolizing glucose and instead had started to metabolize citrate. This was a big deal, and was touted as an important evolutionary step for the E coli. As New Scientist put it,

"…But sometime around the 31,500th generation, something dramatic happened in just one of the populations - the bacteria suddenly acquired the ability to metabolise citrate, a second nutrient in their culture medium that E. coli normally cannot use."

To the common reader, that sounds as though E coli mutated a brand new trait out of thin air. Especially since New Scientist goes on to say, "Indeed the inability to use citrate is one of the traits by which bacteriologists distinguish E. Coli from other species."

It is true that regular old E coli doesn't normally metabolize citrate. However, it does have the ability to do so under specific conditions. In August 1998, the Journal of Bacteriology published an article on the ability of E coli to convert citrate to acetate and succinate under anoxic conditions (the absence of oxygen) when an oxidizable cosubstrate like glucose is present. In other words, if sugar is present and oxygen isn't, E coli does have the capacity to "eat" citrate.

Discovering exactly what happened to "up" this ability is up to Dr. Lenski's team. He has samples of E coli populations from thousands of generations over the years, and he can pinpoint the specific changes that led to make E coli's already existing citrate carrier expand its horizons.

We just find it interesting that these citrate-munching E coli have also lost a lot of their ability to eat glucose, their normal food.

Evolutionists argue that evolutionary change doesn't always have to be a drive upward. They say that evolutionary change can offer benefits at the same time as losing other useful functions. That's fine. Except that we never see any examples of truly upward "change." If there is a new or improved ability in an organism, we find that it was always tucked away there in the genetic code. Otherwise, "new" traits tend to come with a loss of information, a loss of function, a mistake, an error that might temporarily offer some benefit to the creature at hand, but in the long run harms it. The man with no esophagus will have a hard time getting sick from a foodborne illness, but few people will argue that living by feeding tube is a long-term beneficial "adaption."  Evolutionists keep trying to argue that similar losses or defects offer beneficial adaption, but all we see in these mutations is net deterioration.

In all this, we find that bacteria are still bacteria. They are not developing new organelles that were not previously present. For good or bad, fully functioning or not, they just continue to behave like bacteria.  We say, aside from thousands of years of genetic weakening, they are still doing what God designed them to do.

A Christian student organization at a California law school is being denied campus recognition because the students chose to exclude nonbelievers and sexually immoral people from membership. The US Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear their case, which pits freedom of religion against campus antidiscrimination policies.

The Christian Legal Society chapter at Hastings College of Law in San Francisco was denied recognition by the college because it requires voting members and officers to agree to a basic statement of faith. The group excludes nonbelievers, as well as anyone who "advocates or unrepentantly engages in sexual conduct outside of a marriage between a man and a woman" from becoming a voting member or officer of the group. This obviously excludes both heterosexual and homosexual sexual activity outside of marriage, and the group's exclusion of gays has become the main focus of the issue in San Francisco and the major media.

In legal briefs filed with the Supreme Court, the Christian Legal Society said its mission "is to maintain a vibrant Christian law fellowship" aimed at fulfilling "Christ's mandate to love God and to love their neighbors as themselves." The Christian student organization found that because it sought to include only practicing Christians as members, it was denied a meeting spot on campus. Being denied official status also means the group cannot place announcements in the school newsletter or on bulletin boards, nor can the members apply for funds for travel or activities.

According to Hastings, the college "encourages tolerance, cooperation and learning among students of different backgrounds and viewpoints," and will not recognize a student organization that violates the campus antidiscrimination policy.

The Christian Legal Society explained in legal briefs that "a sexually immoral lifestyle is inconsistent" with its core principles. The whole point of the group is to have Christian law students gather to support one another and deal with issues that are important to Christians. While nonbelievers may be free to come in and attend meetings, they cannot become members and vote on issues.

It makes sense that organizations formed by specific groups of people should be free to decide who should be included in their membership.  For example, if Samoan women want to form a group to deal with issues important to them, they can reasonably exclude all non-Samoans and males from becoming active members of their group.   The point is to form a group of support for the needs of Samoan women.  Christian law students who want to support each other can reasonably seek to invite only like-minded people into their organization.

The US Supreme Court has already voted in favor of the freedom of association in the past. In Boy Scouts of America et al. v. Dale (2000), the Supreme Court ruled that private organizations are free to exclude anybody they choose.  The Supreme Court also ruled in Board of Education of Westside Community Schools v. Mergens (2000) that religious groups are to be treated the same as any other student led organizations, with the same rights to use school media to advertise their activities, etc.  Public schools are not to engage in viewpoint discrimination. 

This situation is a little different, since the Christian Legal Society chapter in question is at a public university, and full recognition of the group would mean it would have access to school funds to support its activities.    How these cases will apply in the current situation is to be seen.  The Supreme Court will likely hear arguments on the case in March 2010.

Despite major controversy over the destruction of human embryos, the US National Institutes of Health last week approved 13 new human embryonic stem-cell colonies for federally funded research. As more US tax dollars are poured into the development of embryonic stem cell technologies, a variety of research groups have had success using stem cells from non-embryonic sources. Adult stem cells and even stem cells from amniotic fluid have been getting promising results while avoiding the moral problems of destroying human embryonic life.

Soon after his inauguration, President Barack Obama lifted the restrictions on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research that President Bush had put in place in 2001, opening the door wide for US tax payers to fund embryonic stem cell research. The National Institutes of Health last Wednesday agreed to open up 13 embryonic stem cell lines for federally funded experimentation. Many hope that embryonic stem cells will provide cures to a variety of debilitating diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's or will help heal victims of stroke or spinal cord injury.

While embryonic stem cells are notably versatile, their use can be tricky. Not only does the research destroy human life at the embryonic stage of development, prompting serious moral objections, but embryonic stem cells can cause tumors and are often rejected by the patient's body. Some researchers are determined to use embryonic stem cells despite these serious problems, but plenty of companies have simply decided to pursue research that avoids harming embryos.

Dental Pulp Cells:
Researchers in Australia want to treat stroke victims with stem cells from the dental pulp found in teeth. Associate Professor Simon Koblar from the University of Adelaide and The Queen Elizabeth Hospital is leading the project. According to Koblar, these toothy stem cells have a lot of potential to repair the brain because they have a natural knack for producing and repairing nerve cells. They also don't present rejection problems, because the cells can be taken straight from a patient's own teeth.

"We have some very promising data from trials involving stroke-affected rats, who have shown an improvement in mobility when transplanted with dental pulp stem cells," Koblar said.

Amniotic Fluid Cells:
A European company, Biocell Center, has opened the first amniotic-fluid stem-cell bank near Boston. Amniotic fluid, which surrounds a baby in the womb, is a source of stem cells that can be withdrawn, isolated, and grown without hurting the developing fetus.

The research teams of Anthony Atala, M.D., director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and Markus Hengstchläger, Ph.D., from the Medical University of Vienna reported in the journal Oncogene that the stem cells found in amniotic fluid are versatile and could be useful for treating a variety of diseases. Atala's team is in the process of assessing the possibility that amniotic stem cells could treat kidney disease or diabetes. Unlike embryonic stem cells, amnion cells have not demonstrated a tendency to create tumors in animals. They can also be grown in large amounts and stored at a stem cell bank for later use. If the child later has diseases that could be treated with stem cells, his own amnion cells can be available to him with minimal concern that his body will reject the cells.

Single Embryonic Cells:
If people insist on using embryonic cells, they can be gathered without harming embryos. The company Advanced Cell Technology is seeking approval from the Food and Drug Administration to start human trials with stem cell therapies developed from single embryonic stem cells. These single cells are taken from embryos without harming them, and ACT wants to use the therapy to prevent blindness.

Robert Lanza, ACT's chief scientific officer, said, "We took one cell and let the remaining embryo develop with no harm. We know how to routinely generate stem-cell lines without harming or destroying the embryos."

There are many alternatives to embryonic stem cell research. Umbilical cord blood is also a well-known source of stem cells, and stem cell banks have been storing stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood for years. Stem cells from human fat have also shown a lot of promise. There are plenty of potential stem cell therapies ready to be developed – without harming human embryos.