Posted on 04/11/2006 5:11:24 PM PDT by LibWhacker
New research chips away at the "irreducible complexity" argument behind intelligent design.
Lehigh biochemistry professor Michael Behe and his cronies in the intelligent design community have attempted to poke holes in evolutionary theory using an idea dubbed "irreducible complexity"—the notion that complex systems with interdependent parts could not have evolved through Darwinian trial and error and must be the work of a creator, since the absence of any single part makes the whole system void. However, a paper published in the April 7th issue of Science provides the first experimental proof that "irreducible complexity" is a misnomer, and that even the most complex systems come into being through Darwinian natural selection.
"We weren't motivated by irreducible complexity," said Joe Thornton, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oregon and a co-author of the paper. "How complexity evolved is a longstanding issue in evolutionary biology per se, and it's once we saw our results that we realized the implications for the social debate."
Thornton's team has been studying one example of a complex system in which each part defines the function of the other: the partnerships between hormones and the proteins on cell walls, or receptors, that bind them. The researchers looked specifically at the hormone aldosterone, which controls behavior and kidney function, and its receptor.
"[This pairing] is a great model for the problem of the evolution of complexity," said Thornton. "How do these multi-part systems—where the function of one part depends on the other part—evolve?"
Thornton and his co-investigators used computational methods to deduce the gene structure of a long-gone ancestor of aldosterone's receptor. They then synthesized the receptor in the lab. After recovering the ancient receptor—which they estimate to be a 450-million-year-old receptor that would have been present in the ancestor of all jawed vertebrates—Thornton's team tested modern day hormones that would activate it. Although aldosterone did not evolve until many millions of years after the extinction of the ancient hormone receptor, Thornton found that it and the ancient receptor were compatible.
This cross-generational partnership is made possible, Thornton explained, by the similarity in form between aldosterone and the ancient hormone that once partnered with the receptor.
"The story is basically that a new hormone evolved later and exploited a receptor that had a different function previously to take part in a new partnership," said Thornton.
The principal at work in the evolution of complex systems is molecular exploitation: when an individual component casts around for other materials that might work together with it, even though those elements might have evolved as parts of other systems.
"Evolution assembles these complex systems by exploiting parts that are already present for other purposes, drawing them into new complexes and giving them new functions through very subtle changes in their sequences and in their structures," Thornton said.
While the mutually dependent parts do not evolve to be perfectly complementary to one another, after molecular exploitation, they cleave together and create an illusion of irreducible complexity.
"Such studies solidly refute all parts of the intelligent design argument," wrote Christoph Adami, of the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences, in an introduction to the Science paper. "Those 'alternate' ideas, unlike the hypotheses investigated in these papers, remain thoroughly untested. Consequently, whatever debate remains must be characterized as purely political."
According to this article, it's basically an autoimmune defense enhancement mechanism:
We identified a novel metabolic system of morphine in the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.). In response to stress, morphine is quickly metabolized to bismorphine consisting of two morphine units, followed by accumulation in the cell wall. This bismorphine binds predominantly to pectins, which possess high galacturonic acid residue contents, through ionical bonds. Our newly developed method using artificial polysaccharides demonstrated that bismorphine bridges are formed between the two amino groups of bismorphine and the carboxyl groups of galacturonic acid residues, resulting in cross-linking of galacturonic acid-containing polysaccharides to each other. The ability of bismorphine to cross-link pectins is much higher than that of Ca2+, which also acts as a cross-linker of these polysaccharides. Furthermore, we confirmed that cross-linking of pectins through bismorphine bridges leads to resistance against hydrolysis by pectinases. These results indicated that production of bismorphine is a defense response of the opium poppy. Bismorphine formation is catalyzed by anionic peroxidase that pre-exists in the capsules and leaves of opium poppies. The constitutive presence of morphine, together with bismorphine-forming peroxidase, enables the opium poppy to rapidly induce the defense system.
Unfortunately, I have encountered creationists who honestly believed Jack Chick to be an informative source.
Slight exaggeration there.
They change over time and can be [insert buzzword verb here] so that the programs get better and better at solving some particular problem, or approach closer and closer to an extremum (see also Lagrange multipliers)...
but in the strict sense, they don't write "themselves" ab initio.
Cheers!
"Who will be eaten first?" placemark
...depends on how much you (dis)like lawyers, see also the short mystery story The Poisoned Dow '08.
Cheers!
See also National Lampoon's Deteriorata:
You are a fluke
Of the universe.
You have no right to be here.....
Deteriorata! Deteriorata!
Go placidly
Amid the noise and waste.
And remember what comfort there may be
In owning a piece thereof.
Avoid quiet and passive persons
Unless you are in need of sleep.
Ro-tate your tires.
Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself
And heed well their advice,
Even though they be turkeys.
Know what to kiss.....and when!
Consider that two wrongs never make a right
But that THREE.........do.
Wherever possible, put people on hold.
Be comforted that in the face of all aridity and
disillusionment
And despite the changing fortunes of time,
There is always a big future in computer main-te-nance.
Chorus
You are a fluke
Of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not
The universe is laughing behind your back.
Remember the Pueblo.
Strive at all times to bend, fold, spindle and mu-ti-late.
Know yourself.
If you need help, call the FBI.
Exercise caution in your daily affairs,
Especially with those persons closest to you.
That lemon on your left, for instance.
Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls
Would scarcely get your feet wet.
Fall not in love therefore;
It will stick to your face.
Gracefully surrender the things of youth:
The birds, clean air, tuna, Taiwan
And let not the sands of time
Get in your lunch.
Hire people with hooks.
For a good time call 606-4311;
Ask for "Candi."
Take heart amid the deepening gloom
That your dog is finally getting enough cheese.
And reflect that whatever misfortune may be your lot
It could only be worse in Milwaukee.
Chorus
You are a fluke
Of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not
The universe is laughing behind your back.
Therefore, make peace with your god
Whatever you conceive him to be---
Hairy thunderer, or cosmic muffin.
With all its hopes, dreams, promises and urban renewal
The world continues to deteriorate.
GIVE UP!
Reprise
You are a fluke
Of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not
The universe is laughing behind your back.
Full Disclosure: According to Dr. Demento's liner notes, Melissa Manchester sang the background vocals.
Cheers!
It can just as easily be humbling.
"Wow! A gift...for ME?"
Cheers!
Thanks for the ping!
eat the poppy leaves and see if you get an effect you will not ..the amounts are not significant to effect any defense.
You don't have to prove all the eggs in the omelet are bad. ;)
"eat the poppy leaves and see if you get an effect you will not ..the amounts are not significant to effect any defense."
It would if we were insect size.
You appear not to understand how ancestral phylogenetic trees are reconstructed. This is not a computer 'model', in the sense, say, of a climate model. It's a mathematical process that reconstructs the most likely common ancestor. It can be reproduced by anyone else who knows how to do such analysis.
It is the presuppositions that are built into the program that I question. Once those are hardwired, no one questions them... they just look at the output and say it was "computer generated" and scientific.
Take a look at the Editorial in today's WSJ called, Climate of Fear. It takes this same issue out of the emotional (around here) context of evolution and clearly demonstrates it in the context of global warming - which also uses computers.
Further, it shows how a belief system can go out in search of proof - seeing "facts" through "global warming colored glasses" - and criticizing any disagreement by anyone who questions the underlying assumptions.
I urge everyone who has an interest in these types of issues to read this editorial. The author, Dr. Richard Lindzen, is a professor at MIT. Note especially the climate of fear that has been created by "objective" scientists against any scientist who dares question the same set of data and see a different rubric. How funding is withheld from those who see data differently. How academic promotions are withheld. In short, how everyone in an entire department can end up believing the same thing and advocating the same thing - even if it is not proven or simply not true. And yet at the same time, they can do all this under the guise of "science". It is a way to stifle all dissent and independent thought. And it happens every day in most fields of endeavor.
Scientists are simply humans - subject to all the emotional vaguaries of all humans.
Don't think for a moment that everything described by Dr. Lindzen doesn't equally apply to those humans who work with biological data and devote themselves to proving evolution.
Has Michael Behe responded to this? What does he have to say?
There is a reason, however, that established theories can only be overturned by more inclusive theories.
An assertion that the unsolved problems of biology cannot be solved is not a theory.
"and how does this fit in with the whole evolution selects life best suited for survival-why waste valuable energy producing opium when it has no benefit for the plant??
"
That one's easy. Opium is a poisonous alkaloid. Many plants produce poisonous alkaloids. They have evolved to protect the plant from being eaten by insects. Even the common milkweed produces poisonous alkaloids. The interesting thing is that a species of caterpillar has evolved that is not harmed by those alkaloids, so it eats milkweed exclusively.
Isn't nature amazing?
Rather than bookmark all your replies, can I just ping you?
Dang, you have forgotten more than I know about Evolution (and other stuff like Abiogenesis) than I have ever learned -- and I am up on the stuff (as much as a layperson can be)!!!
You rock, dude.
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