An Engineered "Minimal" Microbe Is Irreducibly Complex, Thus Evidence of Intelligent Design

Science Magazine published a paper last week, "Design and synthesis of a minimal bacterial genome," describing the creation of a bacterium with a stripped-down genome. The paper represents twenty years of work by many scientists, including celebrated biochemist J. Craig Venter. They managed to reduce the genome by almost half, from over 900 genes to 473, a little bit at a time. The paper has made a splash across the Internet (see, for example, articles from Associated Press and Bloomberg).

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