Conservapedia talk:Lenski dialog

The discussion below concerns the letters and response set forth at Conservapedia:Lenski dialog.

Reply to comments in archive

The comments above by defenders of withholding data have been unsatisfactory, to say the least.

Lenski says in his published paper: "Z.D.B. and R.E.L. [Lenski] analyzed data"[1]

So where are all the data Lenski said he analyzed?--Aschlafly 00:27, 25 June 2008 (EDT)

As clearly stated in Professor Lenski's second response:

"Finally, let me now turn to our data. As I said before, the relevant methods and data about the evolution of the citrate-using bacteria are in our paper. In three places in our paper, we did say 'data not shown', which is common in scientific papers owing to limitations in page length, especially for secondary or minor points. None of the places where we made such references concern the existence of the citrate-using bacteria; they concern only certain secondary properties of those bacteria. We will gladly post those additional data on my website."

If the additional data is not on his website by now, I'm sure it will be soon. --DinsdaleP 07:45, 25 June 2008 (EDT)

If "the relevant ... data ... are in our paper," as set forth in the above quote of Lenski, then he would not have much data. So don't pretend the data is too voluminous to turn over. The paper is only 8 pages long!

In fact, the graphs in the paper suggest to a reader that there is underlying data having greater resolution than a graph can provide, and yet those data have not been disclosed for public scrutiny.--Aschlafly 19:24, 26 June 2008 (EDT)

Lead author won't answer simple, basic questions

IMO the paper has no credibility because the lead author of the paper, Zachary Blount, has refused to give straight consistent answers to the following simple, basic questions about the experiment:

(1) -- whether evolution of citrate-eating (Cit+) E. coli bacteria was a goal of the experiment (I noted that a "goal" does not have to be a sure result), and

(2) -- whether the purpose or one of the purposes of the glucose-cycling (giving insufficient glucose supplies in order to cause alternating glucose feeding and glucose starvation) was to favor the evolution of citrate-eating E. coli bacteria.

Blount's refusal to properly answer these questions is discussed in the following article on my blog --

Co-author of E. coli paper dodges questions

More details concerning Blount's refusal to properly answer these questions are in the comment thread under the following post on Carl Zimmer's "The Loom" blog (note particularly my most recent comments in that thread) -- A new step in evolution

Also, I think Andy Schlafly is wrong to request all of the raw data, because (1) copying all of the raw data to send to him would be a huge job and (2) the raw data might not even be in a form that could be readily understood by someone who did not participate in the research. IMO the citrate-eating bacteria are the best evidence supporting the paper (such as it is).LarryFarma 18:59, 26 June 2008 (EDT)

a reading of the blog reveals that Zachary Blount did indeed address the questions that the above poster named and did so clearly. Please read more carefully next time and don't post falsehoodsDeanWinter 19:10, 26 June 2008 (EDT)

LarryFarma raises an excellent question about whether a goal of Lenski and Blount's project was to generate citrate-eating E. Coli bacteria. (I did not find the answer in the paper.) Did the researchers figure out, after many years of fruitless attempts, how best to promote the percentage of citrate-eating E. Coli bacteria in a population? The details of the data might shed light on how that goal was achieved, if in fact that was the goal. They should turn over the data for public scrutiny so that questions can be resolved.--Aschlafly 19:33, 26 June 2008 (EDT)

removal of content from this page removes context of Lenski's second reply

I'm sure it's an oversight but Lenski, in his second letter, made several direct references to the discussion that has been removed from this page. Some of his comments thus appear inappropriately to lack context. I'm sure you did not intend to remove significant parts of this debate, especially when the result seems so one-sided.AndyMann 20:09, 26 June 2008 (EDT)