Page 63 - The Errors the American National Academy of Sciences

key-lock relationship. Like
a key that perfectly fits a
lock, streptomycin at-
taches itself to the bac-
teria's ribosome,

disabling it.
Mutation, on the
other hand, damages the
The DNA of the
form of the ribosome, and in this E. coli bacterium.
case the streptomycin cannot attach itself
to the ribosome. Even if this is interpreted as "the bacteria's gaining
immunity to streptomycin" the bacteria actually suffer a loss rather
than a gain. Spetner continues:

This change in the surface of the microorganism's ribosome pre-
vents the streptomycin molecule from attaching and carrying out its
antibiotic function. It turns out that this degradation is a loss of
specificity and therefore a loss of information. The main point is that
Evolution… cannot be achieved by mutations of this sort, no matter
how many of them there are. Evolution cannot be built by accumu-
lating mutations that only degrade specificity. 15
In summary: A mutation impinging on the bacteria's ribosome
can make the bacteria resistant to streptomycin. The reason for this,
however, is that the mutation "deforms" the ribosome. In other words,
no genetic information is added to the bacteria. On the contrary, the

structure of the ribosome is damaged, and the bacteria are literally
disabled. (It has, in fact, been established that the ribosomes of bacte-
ria subjected to mutation are much less functional than those of nor-
mal bacteria.) Since this disability prevents the antibiotic, whose
design allows it to attach itself to the ribosome, from latching on to it ,
"antibiotic resistance" develops.

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