In a message dated 10/1/2000 6:18:28 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
Nucacids@aol.com writes:
Mike:
I see that this list is loaded with postings critical of ID. So why in the
> world would I consider ID so seriously? The obvious answer would be that
> I am either too stupid, dishonest, and/or motivated by non-rational urges.
> I suppose this is understandable since the vast majority of those who
> are critical of ID impose the old "anti-evolution/creationist" template
> on the ID position and that template carries (deservedly or undeservedly)
> the common perceptions of "stupidity, dishonesty, and/or non-rational
> motivations." Human beings have a deep-rooted need to categorize
>
You are building a strawman argument here.
> There is one thing that causes me to take ID seriously and it is
> that I have found it to be so darn useful for framing both questions
> and hypotheses about the biological world. Just in the last year,
> ID has been very helpful in formulating some rather specific
> hypotheses about such unrelated phenomena as transcription,
> the general state of the cytoplasm, rubisco, enolase function
> in degradosomes, and the distribution of dnaK-dnaJ-grpE genes
> in Archaea, along with various other minor phenomena. Why
> would I abandon ID when I am under the growing conviction
> that this is just the tip of the iceberg?
>
I would like to hear more how ID has been useful. Could you refer me to some
papers?
I have been searching on some of the terms you used:
http://www.arn.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000177.html
DNAunion: It also doesn’t seem to always mess with a bad thing. For example,
the most common protein
on Earth, RUBISCO, in addition to performing its useful carboxylation
reactions in the Calvin cycle, also
catalyzes oxygenic reactions that have a negative effect on plants. Yet, in
more than 3 billions of
years, random mutation and natural selection could not eliminate the negative
effects while retaining
the beneficial ones. Not that this “disproves” evolution in any sense, but
it is another example of its
limitations.
The argument furthered here by DNAUnion is that natural selection should have
eliminated the negative effects but why?
So how does ID come into play here? To show that Rubisco was designed with a
flaw?
http://pps99.cryst.bbk.ac.uk/projects/jnixon/Title_Page.html
Enolase
http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/dave/Behe1.html
" Evidence against Behe's view of irreducible complexity (and in favor of my
utilitarian view) comes from an analysis of the regulatory proteins in
different blood clotting systems. If the entire system is "irreducibly
complex", then one should see very nearly the same regulatory system in all
animals. Perhaps it is not surprising that you don't see this for the blood
clotting cascade. In fact, very often you will find quite a bit of
variation in
"irreducibly complex" systems when you look at different organisms. But,
Behe could well say, variation is one thing - origins of complexity is
another. How could this complex system have evolved? Often nature will
simply take what's handy and use it. Take for example the substance
that forms the crystal for the lens of the eye - this is nothing but a common
enzyme that happens to have very nice crystallization properties - not
necessarily a "tailor made" protein specifically (and ONLY) for this
particular use (for a recent review of the lens crystallins, see J.
Piatigorsky, Ann
N Y Acad Sci, 842:7-15). In another example, a friend of mine had isolated
the protein component of a complex which degrades RNA. She was
surprised to find that one of the constituents was enolase - an enzyme used
in metabolism, and having no previously known role in anything to do
with RNA. (Py et al., Nature, 381:169-172, 1996) There are MANY examples of
complicated systems which are constructed from components
that themselves have perfectly viable roles as units in a completely
different context. But please don't take my word for it - have a look for
yourself
in the literature and see what you can find. I invite the reader interested
in further exploring this to visit Russel Doolittle's review of "DARWIN'S
BLACK BOX"; he spends a good deal of time discussing Behe's arguments about
evolution blood clotting regulation. Doolittle claims that,
according to Behe, he has wasted "the last 35 years working on proteins and
evolution". "
http://www.the-scientist.com/yr1999/nov/palevitz_p8_991122.html
Eyes on Bacteria
The lens crystallins of eyes are some of the best examples of
exaptations. Crystallins lend optical properties to lens cells important
in light transmission. Various proteins have specialized as crystallins
during eye evolution, some resulting from gene duplication followed by
specialization, others retaining their original metabolic activities in a
process Joram Piatigorsky of the National Eye Institute called
recruitment by gene sharing.6 Lactate dehydrogenase, aldehyde
dehydrogenase, and enolase have all been put to work as lens
crystallins, while still acting as enzymes.
If the really important question in eye evolution isn't gross anatomy but
molecular pathways, as Behe believes, the answer isn't in intelligent design
or
other supernatural handwaving, but more biochemistry and genetics. That
also holds true for nitrogen-fixing rhizobial bacteria that inhabit the root
nodules of legumes. According to J. Peter Young of York University,
United Kingdom, rhizobia may have borrowed genes from each other, fungi, and
even host plants to patch together new biosynthetic pathways for nod
factors, signaling molecules that let roots know the bacteria are around.7
http://www.arn.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000177.html
http://www.bio.cam.ac.uk/dept/biochem/teaching/partii/old-folding/
This is also were a Mike Gene seems to make the somewhat silly assertion that
"It's official. Behe's concept of irreducible complexity (IC) has found
itself in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. " Of course he was correct
but the paper all but demolished Behe's arguments.
http://www.arn.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000177-2.html
"First of all, this article shows that Behe's work has indeed contributed to
science … what should be
clear is that Behe's skepticism has served as an
impetus for these scientists to develop a classification
that did not exist before. Therefore, Behe has indeed
contributed in an indirect way by serving as the
stimulus for the creation of such a classification.
It is rather ironic that you consider a critique of
Behe's thesis to be a validation of his thesis. Behe
proposed IC as a case which rules out all gradual
evolutionary pathways, not just two out of four
possible gradual pathways. This oversight by Behe is
certainly not to his credit. "
Zeus Thibault has many other interesting references and comments on this page
It seems like a leap in logic to infer from the ICness of the system that
therefore this was designed. COnservation of homeobox genes hardly is a new
entity.
> Thus, for me, the vast majority of anti-ID arguments have
> become noisy background chatter. I have no interest in
> trying to prove ID or insert ID into anyone's science
> curricula. My interest in not in getting anyone else to
> concede or agree, because that really doesn't matter. My
> interest is in whether ID systematically works to help us
> understand biotic reality. The world is the real judge and
> not some community of people.
>
If it helps then fine but one should be careful to realize that many of the
claims made by ID are quite erroneous, or unsupported.
I understand that one might not want to get involved in addressing scientific
criticism of ID but if ID wants to gain scientific acceptance then it must
not hide.
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