Page 94 - The Evolution Impasse 2

92 Origin of the Bacteria

These 1.9-mil lion-year-old fos sil ized bac te ria, dis cov ered in west ern Ontario, have the
same struc ture as bac te ria liv ing to day.

build ing blocks of the nu cle ic ac ids on ly about 1 to 5 mi crons in size, is
89
that con trol all the he red i ta ry char - 1,400 mi crons (A mi cron is 0.001 of
ac ter is tics of liv ing crea tures. A nor - a mil li me ter, or 0.000039 of an inch.)
mal-sized bac te ri um con tains as By spe cial de sign, this won der ful
many as 3 mil lion nu cle ot i des. 88 chain of in for ma tion is fold ed and
Since the be gin ning of the 1900s, packed to fit in side a ti ny or gan ism
var i ous stud ies of the in tes ti nal bac - thou sands of times small er than it -
te ria Escherichia co li have shown that self.
one of its chro mo somes con tains As you can see, the slight est
5,000 genes. (Genes are spe cial ar e as prob lem in the gene cod ing would
formed by par ti cles on the DNA de - re sult in the fail ure of its op er a tion al
ter min ing the func tion of an or gan sys tem. Bacteria would not sur vive,
or a pro tein.) and their lin e age would come to an
This in for ma tion is en cod ed in end. As a re sult, the crit i cal ec o log i -
the DNA of ev ery bac te ri um and is cal bal ance would be bro ken, and
vi tal for its sur viv al; the slight est the en tire world of liv ing things
change in it would de stroy the bac te - would be up set. Considering these
ri um's whole func tion ing sys tem. If com plex char ac ter is tics, we un der -
stretched out, the length of the in for - stand—con tra ry to what ev o lu tion -
ma tion-car ry ing chro mo some in side ists claim — that bac te ria are not
a typ i cal bac te ri al cell, which it self is prim i tive at all.

The Evolution Impasse II