Molecular biology and evolution

[Pugilistic]

Even on a common sense theme, evolution makes perfect sense. If you're more adapted to survive, you're more likely to pass on your genes. Those genes are then likely to get mixed and passed on with something equally adapted to survive. Over hundreds of millions of years, those small generational changes result in large drastic changes. How that sounds like bullshit to someone is beyond me. These guys will scoff at something logical and then say that even though their creationist model requires a giant sky wizard that nobody's ever seen, it's totally how it happened.

I know a guy who can't wrap his mind around evolution to the point he doesn't believe dog breeds are bred by humans. He legit thinks there were wild chihuahuas and toy poodles and shit in the wild at some point and wonder how they ever survived. I tell him they were bred to be that way and he scoffs at the idea that is possible. He also believes the earth is flat

 

[Mike]

Once you figure out the gaps left open in science that allow for the Christian nonsense to be pervasive, they will go away. Until then you shouldn't be surprised that they are around. I get just as irritated by the general arrogance of society and laypeople like yourself who act as if an IDEA about gaps left open by science is somehow "dumb" when science admitedly must still do work to solve these open issues.

People want answers and "God", in the human image sense, is a simplistic self serving means to the end of helping some feel better about the uncertainty of everything.

So get the fuck to work science, pick up your fucking game and stop leaving the door open to the religophiles.

Looking for any area we don't have 100% of the answers and saying "well god did it then, you can't prove he didn't" is the logic of a child. This is how so many people think there's some war between science and religion.


In reality what is happening is biblical literalists are upset that modern science disproves a literal interpretation of the bible. Science isn't concerned with god. Science doesn't know the origin of all life. It may not be possible to ever find the origin of life. That doesn't somehow prove it was an invisible wizard.

 

[ScriptReadsMe]

It's the taking IC back to abiogenesis bit that's throwing me. I don't remember Behe arguing that. As you say it would be silly anyway because we don't know how life started so it's pointless to say what barriers due to complexity did or didn't exist.

Behe really had a hard on for the flagellum which is very complex and does require all its parts to function. But the mistake he makes is to assume it's always been a flagellum, that all the parts that make it up have always had the same function and that there are no other parts that previously existed to confer a function providing benefit. 3 unfounded assumptions.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ICsilly.html has a lovely example of this false thinking in the Stone Bridge - well worth a look.

LOL What I find lovely is that you're invoking Intelligent Design to prove that an IC system can be built. Anyway, which part are you referring to in the bacterial flagellum? As far as I know, no one ever suggested a step by step evolutionary path for it. So yes, until then I'll always assume it was. Provide me with a reason why I should think otherwise and I will. But please, no bridge analogies this time. I want scientific evidence or at least something tangible.

 

[Codger]

LOL What I find lovely is that you're invoking Intelligent Design to prove that an IC system can be built.

Seriously - if that's what you take from that example then you're beyond rational discussion.

If you want to know about the flagellum research google it. I wasn't replying to you and I'm not spoon-feeding you information that is easily available to anyone who's actually interested in testing their own unfounded beliefs. I already said I've no interest in trying to prove (the well established scientific theory) to a believer in a form of Creationism.

 

[Codger]

He hasnt really been debunked so much as had plenty of counter arguments. Since his position is more philosophical, there isn't much in the way of any objective testing methods to either prove or disprove what he says. Like a lot of issues, just because he's a scientist doesn't make what he's saying science and Behe is biased as all fuck, much like many other scientists that write pop science books. It works on both sides of the aisle, too. There are people that will say he's a joke but at the same time prop up Lawrence Krause and his "Universe from Nothing" ideas (Richard Dawkins among them) despite the fact that both stand on rather shaky ground as far as any real falsifiable evidence.

You have a point since Intelligent Design and Irreducible Complexity don't make any testable predictions other than "you'll probably find some very complex things that I, Michael Behe, will refuse to accept could have evolved", although depends what you mean by "debunk". I take it as "expose the falseness or hollowness of (an idea or belief)" and it seems pretty clear that the counter arguments are so much more convincing that it's a pretty good word to apply to his IC nonsense. Also some of his examples have indeed been proven to be false in that organisms with intermediate structures have been found. I agree about the Krause ideas although I've not read his book so only have a relatively vague idea of them so I can't comment on how logical they are. Behe's IC concept is pure logical fallacy from what I can see as it's an Argument from Incredulity.

 

[andnowweknow]

Looking for any area we don't have 100% of the answers and saying "well god did it then, you can't prove he didn't" is the logic of a child. This is how so many people think there's some war between science and religion.


In reality what is happening is biblical literalists are upset that modern science disproves a literal interpretation of the bible. Science isn't concerned with god. Science doesn't know the origin of all life. It may not be possible to ever find the origin of life. That doesn't somehow prove it was an invisible wizard.

Of course biblical literalism is ridiculous, it's comfort food for the natural uncertainty of a perhaps infinite universe full of no black and white answers. I was being a bit facetious. Still, some of the inevitable answers about the big questions of the universe will in all likelihood be as wild and antithetical to modern sciences understanding of the order of things as anthropomorphic "god" theories are. History is by far the best teacher, and his teaches us that the science of today will invariably be at times embarrassingly wrong tomorrow, especially regarding the big cosmic questions still unanswered.

 

[Rjay]

Even on a common sense theme, evolution makes perfect sense. If you're more adapted to survive, you're more likely to pass on your genes. Those genes are then likely to get mixed and passed on with something equally adapted to survive. Over hundreds of millions of years, those small generational changes result in large drastic changes. How that sounds like bullshit to someone is beyond me. These guys will scoff at something logical and then say that even though their creationist model requires a giant sky wizard that nobody's ever seen, it's totally how it happened.

Its just common sense. Look at the changes in dogs over 15,000 years to the extend some breeds are barely recognizable to their wolf forefathers. 15k years in evolution terms is the blink of an eye, how can you not expect massive changes over hundreds of millions, if not billions of years? I think the single biggest difficulty many people have is they can't grasp the timeframes involved. Our lives are nothing, how we can comprehend 100 million years?

 

[ScriptReadsMe]

Seriously - if that's what you take from that example then you're beyond rational discussion.

If you want to know about the flagellum research google it. I wasn't replying to you and I'm not spoon-feeding you information that is easily available to anyone who's actually interested in testing their own unfounded beliefs. I already said I've no interest in trying to prove (the well established scientific theory) to a believer in a form of Creationism.

The reason why you can't spoon-feed me an answer concerning the evolutionary path of the flagellum is because such information simply doesn't exist. And insisting that Behe's case for IC is a fallacy when all your proof rests on weak analogies and gross assumptions is very unscientific. Pick any serious study on the bacterial flagellum and you can draw your conclusions. Do you consider the National Center for Biotechnology Information a trusted source?

"Based on the phylogenetic occurrence and histories of each of these proteins, we could distinguish an ancient core set of 24 structural genes that were present in the common ancestor to all Bacteria."
[...]
The bacterial flagellum has received attention as an exemplum of biological complexity; however, how this complexity and diversification have been achieved remains rather poorly understood. Although several scenarios have been posited to explain how this organelle might have been originated (13), the actual series of evolutionary events that have given rise to the flagellum, as might be inferred from the relationships of all genes that contribute to the formation and expression of this organelle across taxa, has never been accomplished."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1852327/

There you have it, you can reduce the flagellar system down to 24 structural genes but not beyond that. When you claimed that a system is not irreducibly complex because one of its parts may have a function of its own, perhaps you were referring to the T3SS, which came later through Darwinian evolution?

 

[Codger]

The reason why you can't spoon-feed me an answer concerning the evolutionary path of the flagellum is because such information simply doesn't exist. And insisting that Behe's case for IC is a fallacy when all your proof rests on weak analogies and gross assumptions is very unscientific. Pick any serious study on the bacterial flagellum and you can draw your conclusions. Do you consider the National Center for Biotechnology Information a trusted source?

"Based on the phylogenetic occurrence and histories of each of these proteins, we could distinguish an ancient core set of 24 structural genes that were present in the common ancestor to all Bacteria."
[...]
The bacterial flagellum has received attention as an exemplum of biological complexity; however, how this complexity and diversification have been achieved remains rather poorly understood. Although several scenarios have been posited to explain how this organelle might have been originated (13), the actual series of evolutionary events that have given rise to the flagellum, as might be inferred from the relationships of all genes that contribute to the formation and expression of this organelle across taxa, has never been accomplished."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1852327/

There you have it, you can reduce the flagellar system down to 24 structural genes but not beyond that. When you claimed that a system is not irreducibly complex because one of its parts may have a function of its own, perhaps you were referring to the T3SS, which came later through Darwinian evolution?

Now I know you're a creationist despite your previous protestations. That study shows the precise opposite of what you think it does but is used all the time by creationists. You're clearly going away, trawling your creationist websites for ammo.

Funny how you miss out the line "These results show that core components of the bacterial flagellum originated through the successive duplication and modification of a few, or perhaps even a single, precursor gene."

Creationist noted. I'm out.

 

[ScriptReadsMe]

Now I know you're a creationist despite your previous protestations. That study shows the precise opposite of what you think it does but is used all the time by creationists. You're clearly going away, trawling your creationist websites for ammo.

Funny how you miss out the line "These results show that core components of the bacterial flagellum originated through the successive duplication and modification of a few, or perhaps even a single, precursor gene."

Creationist noted. I'm out.

If one is suspicious of Darwinian evolution, he naturally must be a Creationist. If it's not white, it's black. Bravo. You use the same simplicity to explain everything, don't you? Gene duplication are magic words that grant you billions upon billions of parts that fit together perfectly and create complex machinery that make the Large Hadron Collider look like child's toy. How convenient, gene duplication solves the problem. You might as well say God did it, what's the difference? Don't worry, I didn't miss the last line. But similitude among the flagellar core genes is hardly evidence for the organelle being the result of a single duplicating gene. We can claim using this line of reasoning that man evolved from cats because some felines have 90% homologous genes with us.