Irreducible Complexity

Some things can’t change. From a piece at ENST, A Classic Evolutionist’s Error, Berra’s Blunder Revs Up Again Tim Berra had tried to compare biological evolution to the evolution of the Corvette. In his book Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, Johnson aptly pointed out the intuitively obvious difference: Of course, every one of those Corvettes was designed by engineers. The Corvette sequence — like the sequence of Beethoven’s symphonies to the opinions of the United States Supreme Court — does not illustrate naturalistic evolution at all. It illustrates how intelligent designers will typically achieve their purposes by adding variations to a basic design plan. Even if comparisons can be made, one cannot logically use designed things to explain un-designed things. Read More ›

From Phys.org: Many bacteria are equipped with a flagellum, a helical propeller that allows bacteria to travel. The flagellum is assembled in a highly organized manner involving the stepwise addition of each of its internal parts. However, there are many open questions as to how this orderly construction is achieved. In a study published in Science Advances, a Japanese research team centered at Osaka University has uncovered new molecular details and provided a model explaining how stepwise flagellar assembly occurs. As single-celled organisms, bacteria have devised elegant methods to move around their environment. The flagellum consists of a microscopic motor, which provides torque, and a long, rigid, spiral-shaped filament that drives propulsion. The motor and filament are connected by a Read More ›

Saturday 24th February 2018 – 02:30 pm Seems to be up now in EST. Audio:Premier Christian Radio: A bacterial flagellum acts as the outboard motor on a bacteria. But is the complex arrangement of parts that enable it to do its job a result of design or evolution? Michael Behe first opened the debate on the ‘irreducible complexity’ of biochemical machines in his 1996 book Darwin’s Black Box. Intelligent Design proponent Jonathan McLatchie and theistic evolutionist Keith Fox debate whether Behe’s theory has stood the test of time, the bacterial flagellum and whether ID is a science stopper or theologically helpful. More. Comment: Given that most traditional science greats believed that they lived in a meaningful universe that showed evidence Read More ›

From Susan Milius at ScienceNews: In a lab face-off, 43 percent of Pheropsophus jessoensis bombardiers escaped alive after being swallowed by toads, a pair of researchers at Kobe University in Japan report February 7 in Biology Letters. These lucky beetles were vomited up — in one case, 107 minutes after being gulped — covered with goo, but still able to pull themselves together and walk away. Fifteen of the 16 beetles coughed up into daylight lived for at least 17 days, with one still going 562 days later. Scalding internal beetle blasts proved vital in persuading the toads to spit the bugs up, ecologists Shinji Sugiura and Takuya Sato report. The pair prodded beetles into spraying until no more defensive Read More ›

For some time now, objector DiEb has been raising the question, what do we mean by speaking of “search” in the context of evolutionary search. At 311 in the parody thread, she [IIRC] remarks: >>Search is a central term in the work of Dr. Dr. William Dembski jr, Dr. Winston Ewert, and Dr. Robert Marks II (DEM): it appears in the title of a couple of papers written by at least two of the authors, and it is mentioned hundreds of times in their textbook “Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics“. Strangely – and in difference from the other central term information, it is not defined in this textbook, and neither is search problem or search algorithm. Luckily, dozens of examples of Read More ›

Abstract: (public access)One thing that discriminates living things from inanimate matter is their ability to generate similarly complex or non-random structures in a large abundance. From DNA sequences to folded protein structures, living cells, microbial communities and multicellular structures, the material configurations in biology can easily be distinguished from nonliving material assemblies. Many complex artefacts, from ordinary bioproducts to human tools, though they are not living things, are ultimately produced by biological processes—whether those processes occur at the scale of cells or societies, they are the consequences of living systems. While these objects are not living, they cannot randomly form, as they are the product of a biological organism and hence are either technological or cultural biosignatures. A generalized approach that Read More ›

A brand new early eukaryote (“its own eukaryotic lineage”) From Katarina Zimmer at The Scientist: From an aquarium at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California, scientists have identified a unicellular species that could shed light on how eukaryotes evolved, they report in Current Biology this week (November 22). The tiny organism—named Ancoracysta twista—is not only its own species, says lead author of the study, Jan Janouškovec, but “it represents a whole new lineage in the eukaryotic tree of life.” A. twista is about 10 micrometers long and moves by using its whip-like flagellum. It is named after its distinguishing feature—the “ancoracyst,” a gun-like organelle that it uses to “shoot” at and immobilize its prey, usually other flagellate Read More ›

Over at the The Skeptical Zone there’s a reference to a post from Larry Moran’s blogsite. The question of irreducible complexity is revisited, and, torn to shreds in the eyes of evolutionary thinkers. For them it seems sufficient to simply announce the “presence” of some needed ingredient of the putative IC system of proteins in order to debunk IC claims. For them, having identified certain portions of the needed complex somewhere else, and understanding this to be a part of the genetic tool box available to all because of common descent, is enough to make them feel they have satisfactorily undermined the latest attempt at identifying IC systems. That’s where the Ralph’s Supermarket comes in. Here’s what I mean: Let’s Read More ›

Irreducible complexity. From ScienceDaily: Although bacteria have no sensory organs in the classical sense, they are still masters in perceiving their environment. … Swimming Caulobacter bacteria have a rotating motor in their cell envelope with a long protrusion, the flagellum. The rotation of the flagellum enables the bacteria to move in liquids. Much to the surprise of the researchers, the rotor is also used as a mechano-sensing organ. Motor rotation is powered by proton flow into the cell via ion channels. When swimming cells touch surfaces, the motor is disturbed and the proton flux interrupted. The researchers assume that this is the signal that sparks off the response: The bacterial cell now boosts the synthesis of a second messenger, which Read More ›

From commenter Otangelo Grasso, some thoughts:  The irreducible process of phototransduction, 11 cis retinal synthesis, and the visual cycle, essential for vertebrate vision http://reasonandscience.heavenforum.org/t1638-origin-of-phototransduction-the-visual-cycle-photoreceptors-and-retina#5753 William Bialek: More Perfect Than We Imagined – March 23, 2013 Excerpt: photoreceptor cells that carpet the retinal tissue of the eye and respond to light, are not just good or great or phabulous at their job. They are not merely exceptionally impressive by the standards of biology, with whatever slop and wiggle room the animate category implies. Photoreceptors operate at the outermost boundary allowed by the laws of physics, which means they are as good as they can be, period. Each one is designed to detect and respond to single photons of light — the Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Cell signals that trigger wound healing are surprisingly complex The researchers were testing two prevailing hypotheses for the wound-response trigger. One is that damaged and dying cells release proteins into the extracellular fluid which surrounding cells sense, causing them to boost their internal calcium levels. This increased calcium concentration, in turn, triggers their transformation from a static to a mobile form, allowing them to begin sealing off the wound. The second hypothesis proposes that the trigger signal spreads from cell to cell through gap junctions, specialized intercellular connections that directly link two cells at points where they touch. These are microscopic gates that allow neighboring cells to exchange ions, molecules and electrical impulses quickly and directly. “What is Read More ›

Abstract: A key innovation for high resolution eyes is a sophisticated lens that precisely focuses light onto photoreceptors. The eyes of holometabolous larvae range from very simple eyes that merely detect light to eyes that are capable of high spatial resolution. Particularly interesting are the bifocal lenses of Thermonectus marmoratus larvae, which differentially focus light on spectrally-distinct retinas. While functional aspects of insect lenses have been relatively well studied, little work has explored their molecular makeup, especially in regard to more complex eye types. To investigate this question, we took a transcriptomic and proteomic approach to identify the major proteins contributing to the principal bifocal lenses of T. marmoratus larvae. Mass spectrometry revealed 10 major lens proteins. Six of these Read More ›

Read More ›

Here. As we know, random changes and undirected natural processes routinely succeed in assembling functional equipment for a range of uses. Wait…it doesn’t work that way? The Revolutionary Behe website, at http://revolutionarybehe.com/, features more information about Dr. Behe’s research, other molecular machines, and evidence for intelligent design, and the stories of revolutionary scientists changing the evolutionary paradigm. See the documentary now and pass it along! Behe is the author of Darwin’s Black Box and Edge of Evolution Note: News posting light till later today due to other alternate night job. See also: How ID theorist Michael Behe forced Darwin’s faithful to start talking nonsense and Eric Metaxas on Michael Behe, Revolutionary

A friend asked about this common intelligent design concept. Specified complexity, also called complex specified information (CSI): Life shows evidence of complex, aperiodic, and specified information in its key functional macromolecules, and the only other example we know of such function-specifying complex information are artifacts designed by intelligent agents. A chance origin of life would exceed the universal probability bound (UPB) set by the scope of the universe; hence design is a factor in the origin and development of life. Contrary to a commonly encountered (and usually dismissive) opinion, this concept is neither original to Dr Dembski nor to the design theory movement. Its first recognized use was by noted Origin of Life researcher, Leslie Orgel, in 1973: Living organisms are Read More ›