Because evolution is neither an ideology nor a theory, but an observation, so it can be watched. It can be watched in nature as well as in laboratories. Watching for example colonies of Escherichia coli during many generations is an experiment so simple that only whether it gets funded for several years could be in question. But such an experiment indeed has been funded and conducted since 1988 and still is going on. It consists of twelve populations of Escherichia coli, that are kept at +37°C in DM25 growth medium. One percent of each of the populations is transferred into new growth medium each day, while the rest of the population gets frozen at -80°C, so that the bacteria are available for conducting experiments for comparisons with other strains or bacteria generations. The experiment is called the Escherichia coli long-term evolution experiment and was begun by Richard Lenski at the University of California, Irvine. He then moved his experiment to the Michigan State University and after 75’000 bacteria generations handed the experiment over to Jeffrey Barrack at the University of Texas at Austin. The bacteria in August of 2024 passed their 80’000th generation, yet the generations are only calculated from the estimation that the bacteria go through 6.64 generations per day.

Not all Creationists ignore this experiment. Some try to desperately reinterpret it instead. They doubt that the bacteria go through 6.64 generations per day. As if this would make a difference! It’s only an estimation anyway. They doubt that bacteria generations can be equaled to human generations. As if this would ever have been claimed! All biologists know that the differences between humans and bacteria are huge. This only doesn’t matter for watching the evolution of Escherichia coli. The bacteria attained bigger cells in all twelve populations, while one of the bacteria populations between the 31’000th and the 31’500th generation also attained the ability to feed on citrate under aerobic conditions. Escherichia coli can anyway feed on citrate under anaerobic conditions, so Creationists stress that the mutation is minuscule instead of remarkable. Biologists agree with this. Because biologists ought to have learnt during study that already Reverend Charles Darwin described evolution as consisting of many non-remarkable minuscule steps.

I have the impression that Creationists don’t understand that the Escherichia coli long-term evolution experiment doesn’t aim at proving evolution. It can be watched everywhere and is documented in thousands of cases, so an experiment for proving evolution again would be too redundant for getting funded. The Escherichia coli long-term evolution experiment is meant for creating a reference for the frequency and velocity of the occurrence of mutations, also called ‘the genetic clock’.