Talk:Nylon-eating bacteria

Hyphen, or No Hyphen

I'm pretty sure there should be a hyphen in between the "nylon" and the "eating" in the title of this article. Can someone move it? Thanks. --24.11.177.133 04:59, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I did some web searchs and I found it split about 50 50 between nylon eating and nylon-eating. So I think rather than change the name of the article I will just add a redirect for nylon-eating bacteria to this article. Thanks for the input Rusty Cashman 06:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Why Creationism

Why is there a paragraph discussing Creationism? It appears biased in favour of Creationism, and is irrelevant to the rest of the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.49.31.155 (talk) 20:27, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

It was the role of this topic in the creation-evolution controversy, specifically the fact that the discovery seemed to refute a couple of prominent creationist claims, that made the topic noteworthy enough (in my opinion when I started the article back in Sept 06) to merit an encyclopedia article. Without the attention called to it by creationism critics and the responses from creationists I doubt these discoveries would have ever come to the attention of anyone other than micro-biologists, and biochemists intersted in enzyme evolution. Although at some point it might have become of interest to folks interested in doing toxic wast cleanup with bacteria. As to your comment that the text is somehow biased in favor of creationsim. I don't understand it. As I read the paragraph, it seems pretty clear that the scientific consensus is that this does represent a case where completely new information was added to a genome, and where a new useful enzyme (actually multiple enzymes) arose from already existing enzyme(s) as a result of mutation combined with natural selection. Both things that many creationists have said can never happen. Rusty Cashman (talk) 06:26, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not too happy with the large emphasis on the evolution controversy here. It doesn't seem to be a genuine scientific controversy, but rather the old "evolutionists versus creationists" battle fought out between people on either side waving citations of scientific publications at one another. I hesitate to remove it myself, but wouldn't mind if we reach consensus to remove, or at least drastically trim, the discussion in this section. Since the argument may have cultural importance in itself, perhaps the section could be merged into a more appropriate article or even (though I don't think it's likely to be that important) placed in a new stub article of its own. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 12:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I note that the subject is currently mentioned in the Answers in Genesis article but not in creation-evolution controversy. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 12:37, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

"Undue weight" is a criterion of neutral point of view--an article that contains a section giving undue weight to a facet of its subject is not neutral. Since I'm not the only one to dispute the prominence and size of the section about Answers in Genesis in this article, and there's clearly a dispute, I've added the {{NPOV}} tag to that section. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 12:55, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I think you're right when you say that the section gives undue weight to the creationist side of this controversy-which-isn't-really-a-controversy, but perhaps a simple link the appropriate article would be okay, no? Shinobu (talk) 07:49, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I have stayed away from this for a month or so because I was busy pushing an article (History of evolutionary thought) through the FAC process. However based on the debate in the section below I think I will go ahead and break this article into two. One on the actual scientific research (this one) and one on the use of the research by parties in the public (but not scientific) creation-evolution controversy with a link in between them. This will hopefully satisfy both people like me who suspect that most readers who read this article will be doing so because they encountered a reference to it as part of the creation-evolution controversy, and those who object to so much space being devoted to a non-scientific controversy in a article that discusses scientific research. I will probably accomplish the split in the next couple of days (ie this weekend here in the US). Rusty Cashman (talk) 18:28, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

RFC: Section on evolution and creationism

I've called an RfC to get more eyes on this subject. I propose that we trim back or possibly even remove the section describing a controversy between evolutionists and creationists over whether or not this is evidence for evolution. In the scientific community this is a non-issue. The usefulness of natural selection and other well established evolutionary theories does not hang on this example. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 13:03, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

• Pulled and perhaps reworked It should go. AIG is not an RS. This reads like apologetics. Aunt Entropy (talk) 23:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

• Keep as is At the risk of repeating some of my earlier comments when this issue came up a few weeks before:

The only reason this article exists is because of the creation-evolution controversy. I did the research to create it because I was encountering references to nylon-eating bacteria on many websites discussing that controversy. It is far from clear that nylon eating bacteria would be noteworthy enough to merit an article if it wasn't for the prominent role the topic has played in the creation-evolution controversy. I created the article because everyone on the web was citing scientific evidence selectively and I thought it would be useful to have an article that summerized the topic and cited all the relevent sources.

• If you do a google search on nylon eating bacteria. This article is the first site you get. The majority of other sites found in the first 2 pages of results (I didn't check any further) are references to the topic as part of the evolution-creationism controversy. I had a heck of a time (this was before Google scholar) wading through them all to find the actual scientific papers that described the real research.
• If you look at other Wikipedia articles that link to this one. More than half of them are either articles (including specified complexity and objections to evolution) or talk page discussions (ie Talk:Evidence of common descent) that allude to this topic as part of a discussion of the evolution-creation controversy.
• "AIG is not an RS" Yes and no. AIG is not a reliable source on scientific topics, but it is considered to be a reliable source on the views of creationists about the creation-evolution controversy. This is a very important distinction and has been discussed at length. In fact it would not be WP:NPOV to cite the NMSR and NCSE sites that criticizes the AIG posting without also citing the AIG material itself.
• "It doesn't seem to be a genuine scientific controversy" This is a true statement, but there is an ongoing and (like it or not) important public controversy over creationism and intelligent design in the US (and increasingly in other countries as well), and this topic has played a significant role in that controversy.

Rusty Cashman (talk) 18:03, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

• • I don't doubt that you'll get a lot of hits on web debates about nylon-eating bacteria on Answers In Genesis and the like. The question for me is: are these debates significant enough to go into this Wikipedia article? The fact that lots of people are interested in nylon-eating bacteria is a good reason for creating the article (thanks for doing so). However just because we have the article doesn't mean we should include a note about some online debate in it. It's a scientific subject and there are (as we see) ample scientific papers about the phenonenon, so obviously it merits an article, even if it wouldn't have one but for your happening to see these online debates. It looks to me as if the article is in danger of overemphasizing the role of these bacteria in a debate. The scientific community isn't about to change its mind on evolution because of the outcome of some debate on a creationist website. If someone presents a paper on these bacteria at a scientific conference, and someone stands up on the floor and says that somebody posted something about the subject on Answers in Genesis, the author of the paper isn't going to slap his forehead and say, contritely, "I'm sorry, I failed to conduct a proper literature search. My paper is invalid!" In short, the "debate" is of little or no no scientific interest and, if it has a cultural significance, the discussion can be covered at Answers in Genesis or somewhere. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 18:26, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I think there are many scientific topics that have had more scientific papers written on them than nylon eating bacteria that have never ended up with Wikipedia articles. However, that may be besides the point. More to the point is that it is far from unusual to cover non scientific (or fringe scientific) references to a scientific topic in Wikipedia articles on the topic if those references are well enough known to be notable. A classic example is Archaeopteryx and the Hoyle controversy. Another example is catastrophism and Velikovsky's views. To me the key issue is whether or not the material is likely to be of interest to a likely reader of the article, and since I think many (perhaps even most) readers of this article will be coming to it because of encountering some reference to the topic in the evolution-creation controversy (either here on Wikipedia or elsewhwere on the web) the material on how this topic has figured into that controversy is relevent. Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:03, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

• I'm not familiar with the supposed controversy over nylon-eating bacteria. Internet postings on creationist websites are one thing, but if it's been mentioned prominently in reliable sources that would be a different matter. Can you see the distinction? I mean, if the Washington Post or Wall Street Journal or Guardian or Figaro mentions the controversy, that's different from some creationist website making a comment and some evolutionist website making a response. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 20:29, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

The very first reference to this topic in the evolution-creationism controversy that I am aware of is this article entitled New Protiens without God's Help which was first printed in a 1985 issue of the National Center for Science Education's journal. The NCSE is a partisan organization with a strong POV, it was formed to fight the first efforts to teach "scientific creationism" in US public schools back in the 70s and 80s, but unlike AiG it is generaly considered a reliable source on matters of science education. The point of the author (a Biology professor at San Diego State) is that the research on nylong-eating bacteria (and in particular on the Nylonase enzymes) refuted the claim frequently made by creationists that proteins were too complicated and specfic in function for new ones to arise through a process of mutation and natural selection. The topic was picked up by NMSR (New Mexicans for Science and Reason). At some point AiG responded and NMSR modified their post to critize AiG's response. There have been manhy other posts, but as far as I am aware those were the three that fueled the flame.Rusty Cashman (talk) 16:41, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, "those were the three that fueled the flame" may be a little strong. I suspect that this 2005 editorial on the science news site Live Science may have contributed as well. I would say that Live Science is even more a reliable source than NCSE, though of course this is an editorial not a news article. Then again when you are covering a controversy editorials often are the primary sources at least as far as the opinions of the parties involved are concerned.Rusty Cashman (talk) 05:42, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

• Keep per Rusty. AiG is an RS regarding AiG. AiG is not being used to source anything other than for AiG opinion.--ZayZayEM (talk) 10:22, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the first of Rusty's two new citations is useful and should probably be included in the article. It's the AiG and NMSR stuff that concerns me--when we get down to that level of interaction it's frankly just a heap of random people on the net arguing past another heap of people on the net.

How about a rewrite along these lines?

The appearance of nylon-eating bacteria has been cited as a refutation of the creationist hypothesis that thermodynamics and probability make the evolution of enzymes improbable.

This should be supported by citing the NCSE piece.

I think this is appropriate to an article on a scientific subject, because it is succinct and it does not give unnecessary weight to a debate which is really about people's beliefs rather than the scientific consensus.

The second citation, "Live Science", is written by a journalist and is about the much wider debate. The nylon-eating bacteria are enlisted to refute Dembski's idea of specified complexity (which is essentially a formalization of the probabilistic argument). It would be appropriate to an article on Dembski's work, perhaps, but I don't think it's useful here.

In response to ZayZayEM, Answers in Genesis's opinion of nylon-eating bacteria is not relevant to this article, which is about nylon-eating bacteria and not Answers in Genesis. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 14:30, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

AiG's response to nylon-eating bacteria would not be appropiate on Answers in Genesis. However AiG, as a reputable (*cough*) creationist organisation, is a relevant spokesperson for creationist opinions on evo-creo issues (again *cough*). As long AiG is not used as a source for science facts, and only for AiG's opinion, and only for its opinion relating to nylon-eating bacteria, it is within the reasonable essence of wikipedia policy. On closer inspection of the exact wording on sources used, I am finding it may need some work, however I am starting to better understand the reason for WP:SELFPUB, and that it is not there a censor-ship to blockade recognisably notable opinions of disreputable organisations. Yes, AiG speaks crap, but sometimes their crap is notable. This is all wikipedia cares about, as long as it is kept to the topic of nylon-eating bacteria, AiG's opinion is relevant, and AiG itself is a valid source for their own opinion.--ZayZayEM (talk) 15:02, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Here's a question: since Answers in Genesis are creationists and have denied that humans and apes share a common ancestry, would it be appropriate to include references to Answers in Genesis in articles about the descent of humans or apes? --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 18:17, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Your response to ZayZayEM has crystalized the issue for me and shown me where I think it will wind up. You think of this as a science article, where as when I created it, I thought of it being an article on an ongoing public controversy that happened to involve some interesting scientific research. This probably gave the article a bit of a split-personality. Frankly I think it covers both topics reasonably well and I don't see a problem, but other peoople obviously do. Therefore I think the only way to resolve this issue once and for all is to split it into 2 articles. This article would include a brief sentence similar to the one you suggest along with a see also "nylon-eating bacteria controversy", which will include the material on the controversy. The new article could contain the material from the current article along with some expanded coverage of how it has been applied specifically to specified complexity. There would be no issue with the AiG piece being relevent/reliable since the new article would clearly be about the controversy not the science. Incidentally, I will also take a look on google scholar to see if there has been any new research in this area to bolster the further research section. "When in doubt just split the baby in half" actually works better with Wikipedia articls than with babies. If no one objects I will implement this solution this weekend. Rusty Cashman (talk) 02:34, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Like it or not, this is an article about a scientific subject. If it becomes a coatrack, even if as you claim it was originally conceived as a coatrack, it must be cleaned up and restored to its status as an article on the subject, not an article about something else entirely (which is more appropriately dealt with elsewhere in this encyclopedia). Splitting it would only create yet another coatrack. Let's perhaps expand the section about Answers in Genesis's opinion of the subject in the Answers in Genesis article (where it is at least relevant). I've yet to see any evidence that the opinion of their writers on any subject is taken seriously outside their community of adherents, and one or two anti-creationist groups that for their own reasons take such things seriously. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 11:30, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

You claim that this is a WP:coatrack article. By that I assume you mean that the section in question is a violation of WP:SOAP. However WP:SOAP does not bar coverage of ongoing controversies. In fact it says: "Of course, an article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to describe the topic from a neutral point of view." Now you make a valid point when you point out that human evolution doesn't discuss creationis-evolution controversy issues. However, Evolution, which is a featured article, alludes to the controversy and has links to both the article on the controversy and also to objections to evolution and evidence of common descent all of which address the controversy directly. Therefore I don't think a "Nylon-eating bacteria controversy" article that covered the controversy would in anyway be a problem for WP:coatrack or WP:SOAP unles that article was not WP:NPOV.Rusty Cashman (talk) 21:45, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not at all convinced that there is any substantial controversy here. There has been an exchange of articles on a creationist website and and anti-creationist website, involving articles written for those websites by a plant biologist and a physicist. And, well, that's it. That seems to be the whole of the "controversy". If it's been written up in the scientific or mainstream press, we haven't seen any evidence of that. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 00:18, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Here is an editorial on msnbc.com that alludes to the issue. It is largely a condnensed version of a similar piece that appeared on livescience.com and has already been mentioned in this discussion. However, it does show that there has been some mention of this in the mainstream press.Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:30, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that. We should certainly include that as a reference in the article because it's the first mainstream reference to the nylon-eating bacteria as part of the scientific thinking on creationism that I've seen in mainstream media. I'm not sure I'd class that as an editorial, however. It looks like a straight "science news in depth" piece to me. Moreoverthe writer is Ker Than, an experienced science writer with credits on National Geographic, New Scientist, and whatnot. I'd definitely want to give that reference a lot more prominence than any of the stuff on websites. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 20:57, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Keep. Science does not exist in a vacuum. If you didn't have the paragraph in question, somebody would have to tag this as a wp:Stub. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 06:54, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate your keep vote but I reverted out your edits because they made the section on the controversy more confusing by obscuring the fact that the issue was first raised by critics of creationism and ID as a rebutal to certain creationist claims. It also made no sense to move the POV banner to the top of the article since as far as I know no-one disputes the neutrality of the material on the scientific research. I am now at a bit of a loss on how to proceed. I was ready to compromise by splitting the article to break the deadlock but now there seems to be 3 votes for keep and 2 for delete so at the moment there is no deadlock. Therefore I guess I will wait to see if there are more votes. In the meanwhile I will do some research to see if I can strengthen both parts of the aritcle whether or not we decide to finally keep it together or split it. Rusty Cashman (talk) 09:47, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Keep + Commentary I say we keep this section, as creationists and intelligent design proponents are always harping on about how proteins (and everything) can not appear through evolution, and nylon-eating bacteria, and the two different forms of nylonase make for an excellent refutation of this claim. We should also document how creationists and intelligent design proponents also have tried to disqualify the appearance of nylon-eating bacteria as being an example of evolution. Having said this, it appears to me that this particular section is the most well developed section of the article, while the other sections appear to be rather underdeveloped, making the whole article look lop-sided. Certainly, it is important that we mention, if you'll pardon me mixing my metaphors, that nylon-eating bacteria are a thorn in the heels of creationists, who, in turn, are futilely trying to use them as a nail in the coffins of their critics. On the other hand, it's my opinion that it is of so much more importance that we talk more about things like going over the exact details of the experiments done to verify that these mutant Flavobacter were producing nylonase, and the details of how the Pseudomonas were induced to mutate and produce their own version of nylonase, and most important of all, we really, really need to explain how both versions of nylonase break down nylon. I mean, yes, it's important to mention about how Answers In Genesis lies about nylon-eating bacteria, but, we urgently need to devote more energy into talking about the bacteria themselves.--Mr Fink (talk) 22:22, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, but if this is such an important debate, why are we discussing it mainly in terms of blogs and the like on assorted websites? AnswersInGenesis's Don Batten, for instance, turns out of be what they describe themselves as a "plant phyiologist, tropical fruit expert". Where was their expert on bacteriology? Where was their cell biologist? Where was their bacterial genetics expert? Why can't we cite some secondary source that has written about this debate that seems to be happening on websites? --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 00:06, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree AiG is a less than ideal source, but if we mention that critics of creationism have used this research to make certain points I think NPOV more or less requires us to mention what response creationists have made, and to do that we are going to have to cite some creationsist source and, as far as I am aware, there are no creationsist sources that are considered reliable by the scientific community. I also agree that it would be nice to expand the material on the actual scientific research. I am currently trying to digest some research that was published in the 1990s about how the E. Coli strain to which the ability to produce nylonase were transferred via plasmid was eventually induced to loose the ability due to mutations in the relevent genes, and analysis was done to pinoint ecactly what changes in the genes and the amino acids the produced actually caused the enzyme to stop working. Someone with a better background in this area than I have could probably digest it much quicker. Also I suspect that there may be material in some of the early papers that describes how the enzyme(s) actually works. I will go back and take a look, but again, someone with the right background might be able to extract the relevent information much more quickly.Rusty Cashman (talk) 19:41, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

We've now got a mainstream science article (on MSNBC, written by a well established science writer) that references nylon-eating bacteria. I don't see why we should give much space in this particular article to the opinions of creationists on this scientific subject. They are entitled to their opinions but just because they have them and hold them strongly doesn't mean that they are relevant to Nylon-eating bacteria. I still say we should cover creationist views about such matters on the articles about those people and their organs such as the Answers In Genesis website. On this article, I maintain, those opinions are about as relevant to the subject as the opinions of flat earthers on the article earth. That same goes, to a certain extent, for the anti-creationists. The MSNBC piece is in my opinion far more important than stuff on such websites because it correctly represents the scientific consensus. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 21:05, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

• (in re. RfC) Pare down to about two sentences at most. An instructive example on Wikipedia is the article on the eye, and the linked-to article, Evolution of the eye. The eye article doesn't mention that creationists argue that the existence of eyes rebuts evolution, but it links to an article where the creation-evolution debate is more relevant. The article on nylon-eating bacteria should likewise be largely about nylon-eating bacteria, not their role as a political/religious football. Previous commenters have argued that nylon-eating bacteria are prominent in the media currently due to their role in the controversy, but Wikipedia should try to avoid being too presentist and should take as much as possible the long view of the importance of the subjects of articles. That said, the information the the creation-vs-evolution section does merit some inclusion, but should, in my view, be made its own short article, linked to from this article, and also from Articles_related_to_the_creation-evolution_controversy. How about, for example, just this:

Main article: Role of nylon-eating bacteria in creation-evolution controversy

The discovery of nylon-eating bacteria has been offered by opponents of creationism and intelligent design as evidence of mutation and natural selection adding new information to a genome and the development of proteins with novel functions. Creationists counter that bacteria have been designed with the ability to adapt to changes in their environment.

And then move the existing three paragraphs to the new article. --Atemperman (talk) 20:13, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I can live with that solution. Rusty Cashman (talk) 22:25, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

If such an article were created, it would largely consist of unreliable sources such as opinion pieces on creationist and anti-creationist websites. Why don't we simply remove the unreliably sourced information now? We have the MSNBC article and can cite it here to describe the role of nylon-eating bacteria as a probably example of natural selection. The whole creationist/anti-creationist web debate can rumble on without further inappropriate publicity in this article. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 21:28, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

If you think that the sources are unreliable and that the material should be gotten rid of, then surely it's better to relegate it to the secondary article than it is to leave it in the chief article, no? We both agree that the material doesn't belong on the nylon-eating bacteria page; you think it doesn't belong anywhere, and I am for the purposes of this RfC going to be neutral for now on that question. In my mind, it's best to circumscribe controversies as much as possible--if there's general agreement that the material, regardless of whether it should be on WP at all, should not be on this page, then let's move it to a secondary page and try to resolve the issue there, so that this article can lose the POV tag.--Atemperman (talk) 22:25, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry you've got the idea that I think the material doesn't belong anywhere. I think it would be quite appropriate to discuss the exchange of ideas on this subject in the article about the respective websites, if the discussions constitute an important part of the respective website's culture. I can well imagine that the article by Don Batten is important in the context of Answers in Genesis, and so it would be appropriate to discuss it there.

So what I'm saying is that this website debate certainly of some cultural significance, at least to certain groups, but within the scientific community there is little debate here beyond the obvious recognition that the capacity to synthesize nylonase is probably an example of a frame shift mutation. The debate on the various websites isn't going to affect science. On the other hand, we do have this MSNBC story by an experienced science writer that gives a fairly good account of the relationship of the subject to the creationism debate, so it might be appropriate to have a sentence or two referring to that article.

Furthermore, outside the context of the various websites, this isn't really much use. In truth there isn't much of a "debate" going on, just different parties waving selected scientific papers at one another in an argument over the role of belief (whether in a god or an intelligent designer) in science. That is covered well enough in the Intelligent Design article and I don't see that we need a separate article on every little discussion on these websites. If Dawkins, Dembski, Behe and whatnot start debating nylonase synthesis in their widely read books, however, that will tend to make me support the creation of an article on the subject. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 22:47, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I understand and agree that there is no real scientific debate about ID or creationsim, and I can understand, if not agree in every case, with the desire not to have that debate clutter up articles about scientific research. That is why I proposed splitting the article into two as a compromise and why is supported User talk:Atemperman when he/she proposed it again as a solution. However there is an important ongoing public (not scientific) debate on this topic as demonstrated by recent votes in the legislatures of both Florida and Lousiana. This public debate is (like it or not) an important cultural artifaact of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and strongly feel that it has numerous aspects worthy of coverage in a variety of articles. Your statement that "I don't see that we need a separate article on every little discussion on these websites" seems to me to be contrary to the spirit of WP:NOTPAPER, which to me suggests (along with the existence of articles on topics such as characters in TV shows that were cancelled after one season, and comic books that are long out of print :)) that the notabiility threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia of articles that cover cultural artifacts is not a high one. Therefore as long as the material cites verifiable and reasonable sources (and one more time just because a creationist web site is not a reliable source for scientific information does not make it unreliable as a source for what creationists opinions on a topic might be) and as long as the material complies with WP:NPOV I don't see the problem with having such an article. Rusty Cashman (talk) 02:25, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

As I understand it, the public debate is about teaching ID or (in its latest form) "weaknesses of evolutionary theory" or a similar form of words. We do have articles about that public debate. What I have a problem with is the leap from "there is a public debate about creationism" to "we need to have an article about a web debate on the evolutionary implications of nylonase synthesis". I take your point that "wiki is not paper", but I there is the matter of verifiability. Are these sources (the articles on the creationist and anticreationist websites) significant statements in a public debate? If so it should be possible to find secondary sources in books, newspapers and journals that refer to them. If they're just instances of "some article some guy wrote on a website" (as seems to be the case) then they're not really significant and should not be presented as a significant part of the public debate (because if we can't find reliable sources citring them, then they obviously aren't). --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 02:37, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

My apologies, to tAoaNLA, for misunderstanding your position on where the material belonged. I don't think that changes what I have to say, however. It seems like everyone commenting in the past few days is content with the material being moved somewhere else, and surely it's better to move it to a separate page, just for now, than to let it remain here indefinitely, especially if no consensus ends up being reached. I guess we could always put up a {{notability}} tag on that separate article, or in the section of another article the material gets moved to, as an interim maneuver. --Atemperman (talk) 06:10, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, and just to clarify on this, obviously I'm the only one who objects to this so I don't think that amounts to "no consensus". I'm content with just airing my concerns. I would probably try to obtain consensus to merge the new article with the relevant section of another, more comprehensive article such as Answers in Genesis. But that's a discussion for another page. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 06:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Here are a couple of more interesting sources that might have a bearing on this discussion. This editorial by William Dembski written in response to the msnbc editorial by Ken Miller that we have already discussed. I wouldn't consider Dembski a reliable source for scientific issues but as you yourself have pointed out he has sold a lot of books and has to be considered a leading spokesperson for the ID POV. This post of the month at Talk Origins is a direct response to the AiG article we have been discussing. Talk Origins is not the mainstream press, but it is probably the leading website dedicated to opposing creationsism and intelligent design. These posts show that that leading figures on both sides of the creationsism/ID evolution controversy took the "nylon problem" as Miller and Dembski cass it seriously. The also (along with the NMSR, NCSE, msnbc and AiG sources already cited in the current article) enough material for a short article on the role of nylon eating bacteria in the creation-evolution controversy as part of a solution to this RfC.Rusty Cashman (talk) 16:14, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

That's just more stuff on websites--exactly what I've been complaining about. Elsewhere today I've questioned the use of a blog item by Dawkins about a rabbi with whom he had shared a speaking platform. Even for a prominent figure in the field, personal items and those submitted to advocacy websites and the like (and I count here both the Dembski article and that on talk origins) aren't really telling us that there is a significant debate. By the way, I myself have written at least one talk origins post of the month, and I certainly don't consider that criterion to constitute a reliable source. MSNBC is a different kettle of fish. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 16:21, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

The Dawkins vs the Rabbi is a special situation. WP:BLP requires special scrutiny for material on living people, especially negative comments on a living person. That doesn't apply to our situation. WP:RS allows the use of self published sources as long as they are used appropriately and meet certain requirments, which I would argue that Dembeski meets at least when it comes to the viewpoint of ID advocates. Further more niether the NCSE (which appeared in print prior to the existence of the web) nor the AiG piece are really self published (in fact I am not certain about the Talk Origins posting either since it was named a posting of the month) although all three are clearly POV advocacy sources, and as such must be used with care. Neither MSNBC nore LiveScience are POV advocates. It is true that all these pieces are editorial in nature and thus are only RS for viewpoints not for the underlying scientific facts, but I think that altogether they are enough to support a short article. Rusty Cashman (talk) 07:23, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

There is another problem with quoting Dembski. His view represents an extreme fringe and few if any scientists take his arguments seriously. By covering his comments on this article about a scientific subject, and giving disproportionate weight to the creationist views, aren't we failing to observe the neutral point of view policy? --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 01:58, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Fringe claims are not banned from Wikipedia, we only need to make sure that they are notable, reliably sourced, and do not receive undue weight. The creationist claims are notable, and Dembski is just one reliable source showing the creationists' position. The section may need to be a bit better sourced, and could stand a few more anti-creationist points to avoid undue weight, but there is no good reason to eliminate it, and I see no good way to handle the subject fairly if you shorten it. -- HiEv 01:23, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Please don't misunderstand me--I'm not saying we can't quote Dembski because his views are fringe. I'm really not saying that we can't quote Dembski. What I'm saying is that, in this article, Dembski's views don't count for much. Just because somebody has an opinion on a subject, doesn't mean it's appropriate to discuss that person's opinion in the article on the subject. For instance, the writer Terry Pratchett once wrote a book about cats, and has often written vividly about cat owners' attitudes towards their cats in his fiction. Perhaps it's appropriate to discuss this on Terry Pratchett but probably not (undue weight) on Cat.

I also take issue with the suggestion that creationist opinions on the origins of bacteria are "notable" in some way. They're really not. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 13:20, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

One should not confuse "notable" for meaning "accurate". For example, Time Cube is notable. Are creationist claims about this bacteria even less notable than that? Normally this is a bad argument, however the Time Cube is specifically given as an example of notable psuedoscience in WP:FRINGE. However, just saying "it's really not notable" is a bad argument. Heck, the fact that some at AiG admit it might be an example of a positive mutation that "increases information" (whatever that supposedly means) makes it notable in my book. So, since Dembski is a noted author of creationist material (unlike Pratchett and cats), why is his stance not a notable example of some creationists' claims regarding the bacteria? -- HiEv 14:15, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I have a problem with the word "notable" as it is used on Wikipedia. I think we've hit one of the problems. The common meaning of the term is "worthy of note". In the context of this article, Dembsky's opinion of nylon-eating bacteria isn't "notable" in the common English sense because it is of no consequence. He isn't a biochemist and his theories of specified complexity aren't significant within the scientific community. On the article about Dembsky, if he's written much about this subject then it is of consequence and we should write about it there. You see the difference?

Trouble is, the term "notable" seems to have rather a more elastic set of meanings on Wikipedia. I choose to ignore those meanings; the only policies relevant are verifiability and neutral point of view. Dembski's view is verifiable but inclusion of his view here would unbalance the article by giving his negligible opinion on the matter undue weight. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 14:38, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

So let me make sure I'm understanding you correctly. You're ignoring part of Wikipedia's definition of "notable" when trying to apply Wikipedia's rules? Doesn't that just mean that you're misapplying the rules in a way that suits you? "Notable" basically means it "has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject", and I think we have that, especially with reliable sources like this (note that the MSNBC article refers to both Dembski and the bacteria). Also, you keep missing the point that we aren't trying to quote Dembski simply because we think he is notable, we're doing it because the creationist view on the matter is notable, and in order to include it we have to have a reliable source that expresses that view. It doesn't have to be Dembski, but it has to be somebody, and he is a good example, so why not him? While I agree that his views are fringe, they do pull weight within the creationist community. And like I said earlier, if you think the inclusion creates undue weight for a fringe view then a better solution is to add more evolutionist counterpoints (many are listed here), rather than ignoring the creationists entirely. Stop focusing on Dembski, and address the point of whether the bacteria has notable relevance to the creationism vs. evolution debate, and I think you'll agree that the relevance is notable, thus is worthy of inclusion here. -- HiEv 00:23, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

"Notability" as understood on Wikipedia, as a guideline, is merely a common folk interpretation of the underlying policies, which are verifiability and neutral point of view. Usually it works, but it's often misleading. If you encounter something that appears to pass the notability guideline but does not pass both verifiability and neutrality policies in the context, then obviously the policies apply and you must ignore the guideline.

Dembski is mentioned in the MSNBC article I want to cite in this article, you say? Yes, he is. This doesn't mean we can or should mention every or any blog posting Dembski might have written. Neutrality, you see. We're not writing about Dembski here any more than we're writing about Kenneth Miller, who is also mentioned in the MSNBC article but not cited in this article. This article is about nylon-eating bacteria, not about creationism or anti-creationism. There are plenty or articles about that. This article is about science. I neither know nor care whether Miller has a blog. I don't intend to find out or to seek to quote his blog on articles about science. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 03:08, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, indeed notability is a Wikipedia guideline, which means that it's "a generally accepted standard that editors should follow," with few exceptions. I don't know why you bothered mentioning verifiability and neutrality policies, since I already verified it and told you how to maintain neutrality, so they're irrelevant. You also said, "This doesn't mean we can or should mention every or any blog posting Dembski might have written." So what? That's just a straw man argument, because nobody is proposing we do that. You have missed the point entirely by focusing on who will get quoted yet again, so you're just needlessly arguing against points that nobody is attempting to make. Just forget about the names. Specifically who is quoted is unimportant. We just need some reliable and relevant sources to satisfy WP:FRINGE.

And yes, obviously the article is about nylon-eating bacteria, I'm not so stupid that you need to tell me that. However, after telling me that you ironically assert that this article is about science. I beg to differ, the article is about "nylon-eating bacteria" and anything notably related to it. And creationism is one of those relevant topics, as I had just verified with the MSNBC link, satisfying notability guidelines to boot. Now, since creationism is a fringe subject I agree it has to be added with care (i.e. reliably sourced and without undue weight), however its inclusion does not inherently violate neutrality, as you indicate above. If the creationist argument were given in isolation, sure, that violates undue weight/neutrality, but I've specifically said we should include evolutionary critiques of the creationist claims to avoid that problem. So, notability: check, verifiability/reliable sources: check, no undue weight/no POV problems: check. Since it both should and can be included here based on Wikipedia policies and guidelines, that seems to be a strong reason to keep it to me. -- HiEv 14:40, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

You mention WP:FRINGE. That guideline says "Coverage on Wikipedia should not make a subject appear more notable than it actually is." Mentioning Dembski's opinion on this matter (or indeed any creationists's opinion) makes his opinion appear more notable that it is. Mentioning creationist attempts to refute nylon-eating bacteria as evidence against design make those attempts appear more notable than they actually are. Of course that's clear and obvious under the existing Neutral point of view policy but WP:FRINGE does help to interpret that policy. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 15:16, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

What you neglected to mention is that the same section explains how to avoid the problem you quoted. It says that reliable/verifiable sources should exist so that Wikipedia isn't the primary source: check. And that the subject has "independent secondary sources of reasonable reliability and quality": check. So, no, quoting a creationist does not make the matter any more notable than it already is, because we have established the pre-existing notability with the secondary sources. In fact, we are giving it appropriate notability in the article. All of the criteria WP:FRINGE gives have been satisfied, as I had previously explained to you above. Also, quoting a creationist is not violation of WP:POV either, since I have just explained to you that you can and should balance that out with evolutionist quotes. Please, don't make me keep repeating my arguments, it's a waste of both of our time. -- HiEv 15:50, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

We have precisely one reference of reasonable reliability (MSNBC). Some post on some creationist or anti-creationist website isn't any more reliable than that article I once wrote on Irreducible Complexity and the Krebs Cycle that won a "post of the month" award from talk.origins [1]. --Jenny (please note my change of username from Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The) 21:26, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

• Keep One of the primary things that make this bacteria notable is what it demonstrates about evolution, and this inevitably brings it into creation vs. evolution debates. Many creation and evolution sites mention this bacterial specifically, so it would seem odd to hardly mention that fact, or to ignore it entirely. Since creation vs. evolution discussions is the primary context where the bacteria is discussed, it would be a disservice to the readers to skimp on the subject. Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, so I don't see any need to "pare it down" either. I don't think there is enough information to make it worth splitting off a subarticle, nor is the article long enough that it needs it. Obviously the "usefulness of natural selection [...] does not hang on this example", but the same could be said for all examples. What matters is that this example is a really good example, because this particular example of evolution shows that some of the common creationist arguments against evolution are impractical and absurdly unlikely. (As in the claims that all genes already existed in the beginning, and that evolution can only reduce those alleles/genes, and that mutations can never add new "information" to a genome.) AiG may not be a reliable source when it comes to science, but it's certainly a reliable source when it comes to discussion of the creationist viewpoint. This section is relevant to this bacteria, and highly notable, and is likely a large part of the reason why most people come to the article, so in light of this, I haven't heard a good reason for its removal. Rusty Cashman has made many other good keep arguments that I would have made myself, but he beat me to the punch. -- HiEv 19:43, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

RFC Conclusion?

I think we are all starting to repeat ourselves, and, although the discussion has been pretty good at times, I don't think anyone is being persuaded to change their minds at this point. As I see it the vote stands as:

• Delete (2)

Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The (now renamed to Jenny), Aunt Entropy

• Pare down (2)

Atemperman,ZayZayEM (talk) 00:37, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

• Keep (4)

HiEv, Rusty Cashman, Mr Fink, GeorgeLouis,

As a compromise Atemperman and Rusty Cashman have stated that they would support creating a new article for the disputed material. If I have misrepresented someone's position or missed someone please let me know. At this point, unless some new voice is heard. I think that there is no current consensus for change. Therefore I would propose waiting another week or so, and if no one new expresses an opinion or no one makes a substantially new argument, closing this RFC and removing the banner from the article. Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:17, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Please note my recent change of username (see above). I wonder if we could converge on an agreement to have a separate article. --Jenny 21:30, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I think we need to wait a little while longer since people are still voting, but I can live with that. I will be interested to see how Wikipedia ends up handling the Lenski citrate-eating E. Coli strain especially given the brouhaha it has caused on Conservapedia :) Rusty Cashman (talk) 15:25, 2 July 2008 (UTC).

Actually, That question has been answered: E. coli long-term evolution experiment. I suspect this is another argument for splitting the article since they have avoided discussing the controversy in this very good article. Of course NCSE or similar groups haven't started using this research as a hammer... yet Rusty Cashman (talk) 15:37, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Behavior of Nylonase

Does anyone know how the various nylonases work to cleave the nylon byproducts?--Mr Fink (talk) 20:56, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Chronology?

I'm sorry, but I take offense at a wholesale reversion of my well-thought-out edits. People have been complaining about this article, and my edits were an attempt to make the piece more neutral. It is not at all necessary to write a dispute in a chronological fashion. Who cares who started it? That sounds like two children in a playground squabble. The important thing is to give both sides of the controversy, and the best way to do that is just to lay them out, side by side.

In addition, all the copy editing and added links were deleted by a wholesale reversion. This is just not helpful.

I will grant that the POV tag should just apply to the Section, but that is not what the tag said: It referred to the entire article. If there is a way to edit the POV tag, that would make more sense.

Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 13:55, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

To make the article neutral, in my opinion, it would be necessary to remove the highly inappropriate emphasis on the views of politically-motivated non-scientists about a scientific matter on which there is a clear scientific consensus. The current versions of the article about which people are squabbling at present, are in my opinion both as broken as a version of earth that gave undue prominence to the views of contemporary flat-earthers. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 18:58, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

There is an ongoing contoversy on this article on this talk page. Please refrain from any major edits until there is a consensus on how to proceed!Rusty Cashman (talk) 21:09, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I left the POV tag in both places, but I fundamentally can't agree with you about chronology not being extremely important in describing any controversy fairly. As Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The says the fundamenal dispute is whether or not the section belongs in the article or not pur WP:Undue not that the summary of the controversy as written was not WP:NPOV. I will respond to his comments about WP:coatrack in the section where he made them.Rusty Cashman (talk) 21:18, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

While the section in question is still in the article, it at least deserves to be understandable by the average reader. Sincerely, your friend, GeorgeLouis (talk) 00:01, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I have taken a different tack and gone with your basic organization (I agree the text needed the copyediting and reorganization) and just tweaked things so that the chronology is a little clearer and the statements are accurate with the appropriate citations. Hopefully if we decide to keep the section we can now all be happy witht the text.Rusty Cashman (talk) 16:30, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Article split

Most of the material on the role of this research in the creation-evolution controversy has been moved to Nylon-eating bacteria and creationism. Hopefully this will be acceptable to all the parties to the debate on this page. Rusty Cashman (talk) 05:38, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Digests Nylon or Byproducts?

It is not clear from this does it digest nylon (as the title suggests) or a byproduct (as the article says).--Ollyoxenfree (talk) 15:22, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Pop Culture Reference?

Should it be mentioned that a sort-of reference was made in an episode of Full Metal Panic Fumoffu, a Japanese Anime, where the class is exposed to a toxic substance thought to be a highly contagious poison, but ends up being an airborne bacteria that eats nylon (and thus, eats away the students clothing at the end). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.75.238.10 (talk) 19:29, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

No, unless you have reputable sources that show that this episode was directly inspired by nylon-eating bacteria, as opposed to a generic super-eating germ of doom.--Mr Fink (talk) 19:32, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

False claim about 470 frameshift mutations

Under the section "Later Research"

"However, many other genes have been discovered which did evolve by gene duplication followed by a frameshift mutation affecting at least part of the gene. A 2006 study found 470 examples in humans alone."

from the reference's abstract:

Major novelties can potentially be introduced by frameshift mutations and this idea can explain the creation of novel proteins. Here, we employ a strategy using simulated protein sequences and identify 470 human and 108 mouse frameshift events that originate new gene segments http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0888754306001807

This should be self-explanatory. The researchers were investigating potential frameshifts with simulations. Nobody discovered that any of the genes actually did evolve this way, as is erroneously claimed in the article.

This seems somewhat off-topic to Nylon-eating Bacteria anyways. 76.179.130.102 (talk) 15:11, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Should that sentence be reworded or removed, then?--Mr Fink (talk) 15:20, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

I would suggest removing it but that's up to the editors. I was just pointing out that it is a false claim. If not removed, you might just change the wording to something like:

"In computer simulations, many genes have been shown to potentially occur via frameshift mutations."

But that doesn't have quite the same ring to it. 76.179.130.102 (talk) 21:09, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Nylon-eating bacteria and creationism

While this article's "Role in evolution teaching" section was generally good, the Nylon-eating bacteria and creationism subarticle had important WP:GEVAL and WP:YESPOV issues. Its heritage from an older Creation–evolution controversy (now Rejection of evolution by religious groups) that mispresented anti-evolution apologetics as part of a legitimate scientific debate was obvious. I tried to improve it (difference), eyes/input welcome there, —PaleoNeonate – 14:10, 8 September 2020 (UTC)