More on Dr. Richard Lenski

From the end of the earlier mentioned New York Times article came this, that I found very intriguing:

"Dr. Behe, however, said he might find it compelling if scientists were to observe evolutionary leaps in the laboratory. He pointed to an experiment by Richard E. Lenski, a professor of microbial ecology at Michigan State University, who has been observing the evolution of E. coli bacteria for more than 15 years.

" 'If anything cool came out of that,' Dr. Behe said, 'that would be one way to convince me.'

"Dr. Behe said that if he was correct, then the E. coli in Dr. Lenski's lab would evolve in small ways but never change in such a way that the bacteria would develop entirely new abilities.

"In fact, such an ability seems to have developed. Dr. Lenski said his experiment was not intended to explore this aspect of evolution, but nonetheless, 'We have recently discovered a pretty dramatic exception, one where a new and surprising function has evolved,' he said.

"Dr. Lenski declined to give any details until the research is published. But, he said, 'If anyone is resting his or her faith in God on the outcome that our experiment will not produce some major biological innovation, then I humbly suggest they should rethink the distinction between science and religion.'

"Dr. Behe said, 'I'll wait and see.' "

WOW! Can't wait for the good doc to publish those findings! Meanwhile,
I thought Dr. Lenski's name sounded familiar to me. Sure enough he did an outstanding article illuminating how the Theory of Evolution is both a theory and a fact. This is a great reference to use when confronted with the tired, "evolution is only a theory" argument.