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From: Arkalen <arkalen@proton.me>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Lenski experiments: an important correction
Date: Fri, 10 May 2024 22:31:35 +0200
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I recently found out that Richard Lenski of the eponymous long-term 
E.coli evolution experiment had a blog, and in it I found a correction I 
thought was relevant to the way those experiments are typically invoked 
as evidence in evolution/creationism debates:

https://telliamedrevisited.wordpress.com/2024/04/01/a-small-correction/

I hope we'll all have the integrity to take this new information into 
account properly.


"Since transferring the LTEE to Jeff Barrick’s lab at UT-Austin in 2022, 
we’ve been going over the old lab notebooks, making sure everything 
looks good. It turns out, though, that I made a small error when I 
started the LTEE back in 1988. I thought that transferring 10 ml into 10 
ml was a hundred-fold dilution because there’s a 0 right there after 
each of the 1s, and 100 has two zeros. QED: a hundred-fold dilution. Right?

Well, it turns out I was a bit off. That’s only a two-fold dilution 
because, apparently, the correct way to do the math is 10 / (10 + 10) = 
1/2. Who knew? New math, I guess. Anyhow, everyone in the lab thought I 
had figured it out, since I was the perfesser, and they just kept doing 
the same thing all these years. So instead of 75,000 generations, it was 
only something like 11,250 when we sent the ^H^H^H^H^H^Hstupid amazing 
LTEE to Taxes. Oh well, still a big number.

We also discovered another tiny error. You know, I always thought some 
^H^H^H^H^H^Hsucker hard-working student came in and did the transfers on 
weekends and holidays. I never quite knew who it was, but I figured 
someone did the ^H^H^H^H^H^Hunpaid ^H^H^H^work transfers. Well, it turns 
out, not so much. OK, never. Fridays were ok at 40%, and Mondays were 
even better at 53%. On Tuesdays, we maxed out at 73%. Not bad! We 
trailed off a tad at 59% and 47% on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Anyhow, after correcting for these tiny oversights, the LTEE had gone 
past 4,300 generations before we sent it down to Taxes. Speaking of 
Taxes, I hope I don’t get audited again this year. But I hear you can 
stall if you’re a big shot. Being a PI qualifies, right?"