The Egnorance - It Returns. And Still Burns

By Mike Dunford

[Everybody's](http://dererumnatura.us/archives/2007/03/the-addiction-o.html) [favorite](http://scienceblogs.com/authority/2007/03/an_everdeepening_egnorance.php) [creationist](http://recursed.blogspot.com/2007/09/more-egnorance.html) [neurosurgeon](http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2007/03/pigheaded_egnorance_antibiotic.php) is back. Today, Michael Egnor brought forth yet another remarkably inept attempt to find a way to justify egnoring the relationship between natural selection and antibiotic resistance. This time, he's apparently decided that there's no hope in finding a substantive argument, so he's resorting to nothing more than [a childish rhetorical game](http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/03/dr_wells_observation_about_the.html). One of the authors of a recently published scientific paper that examined antibiotic resistance [left a comment](http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/03/how-stupid-do-t.html#comment-144822) at The Panda's Thumb noting that his research did in fact rely on Darwinian evolution. In a spectacular display of combined arrogance and ignorance (aka [Egnorance](/archives/2007/03/egnorance-combo-arrogance.html)), Egnor decided to inform the authors that they are mistaken if they think that natural selection was actually involved in any way:

Dr. Dardel is both candid and mistaken. His comment that the use of Darwin’s theory is “unusual in structural biology” is obviously true, and refreshingly candid. He is, however, mistaken about the application of Darwin’s theory to his recent work. His assertion that “…we selected bacteria…by plating…” is artificial selection, not natural selection. Artificial selection is breeding, in this case microbial breeding. The principles of breeding date back thousands of years, and owe nothing to Darwin. In fact, Darwin claimed that non-teleological processes in nature could produce changes in populations just as teleological processes like breeding could. Even Darwin didn’t claim that his theory explained the outcome of intentional breeding. It’s astonishing that a modern professional scientist like Dr. Dardel doesn’t recognize the difference between artificial selection and natural selection.

[Read more at The Questionable Authority, where comments may be left.](http://scienceblogs.com/authority/2008/03/the_egnorance_it_returns_and_s.php)