A Practical Medical Application of ID Theory (or, Darwinism as a Science-Stopper)

_{Gil Dodgen

December 9, 2007

Darwinism, Science}

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In a previous UD thread, a dude named Poachy (where do these guys get these screen names?), with much sarcasm about a comment I made, proposed:

We need to start voting with our feet and eschew all but the medical advances that come from application of the ID paradigm.

Here’s a prediction and a potential medical application from ID theory: Design a chemical or protein which would require a triple CCC to defeat its toxic effects on a bacterium, and it will exhaust the probabilistic resources of blind-watchmaker mechanisms to counteract the toxic effects.

Such a success could and will only come from engineering and reverse-engineering efforts, not from Darwinian theory.

In the meantime, medical doctors should prescribe multiple antibiotics for all infections, since this will decrease the likelihood that infectious agents can develop resistance through stochastic processes. Had the nature of the limits of Darwinian processes been understood at the outset, the medical community would not have replaced one antibiotic with another in a serial fashion, but would have prescribed them in parallel.

This represents yet another catastrophic failure of Darwinian presumption, which is based on hopelessly out-of-date 19th century scientific naïveté.

Comments

If bacteria had “built-in responses to environmental cues” ala Dr Spetner’s “non-random evolutionary hypothesis”- ie they were designed- then wouldn’t it be possible for them to develop a triple CCC?
Perhaps, but the evidence is that malaria, for example, was not designed to have this capability, since it has not been able to evolve resistance to sickle cell. By the way, I propose that my suggestion represents a falsifiable prediction. What falsifiable prediction does Darwinian theory make in this arena?GilDodgen_{December 10, 2007
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if natural selection favors crippling mutations such as the South park turkey :) , blind cave fish, wingless beetles and resistant bacteria, then evolution would be even less likely than if only random mutations were involved. Evolutionists should be advised to stay away from using natural selection as a mechanism.ari-freedom_{December 10, 2007
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AOFM: I'm not a South Park watcher, but I think I get what you're talking about. The bird has a defect that protects him from death, but hardly makes him more advanced, sophisticated or complex than his healthy turkey brothers. Is that right? If so, then I think Dr. Behe should put a picture of the South Park Turkey in his next edition of Edge of Evolution. ;)russ_{December 10, 2007
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Hi. This is my first post. 2 points: 1) if bacteria were designed then maybe it is not such a good idea to try to kill them in the first place. I smiled at the suggestion to roll in the dirt. There does seem to be a lot of support for the hygiene hypothesis. Perhaps what we need to do is expose people to other bacteria instead of trying to kill everything. 2) it is probably not healthy for the human body to take so many drugs at one time. It's harder to control for complications. Ariari-freedom_{December 10, 2007
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Joseph, Here is a general outline of how multiple antibiotic resistance has built up in bacteria: A pathogen is afflicting man, Antibiotic A is developed, for a time Antibiotic A is very effective in relieving man's suffering, but somewhere in the world, in an "unlucky" individual, a "lucky" bacteria has a "lucky" deleterious mutation in which the bacteria does not interact with the antibiotic anymore. The mutated bacteria spread and afflict man once again. Antibiotic B is now developed in which the same cycle is repeated, as with Antibiotic C,D and so forth. Thus it goes to reasoning, the chance of any one bacteria having all the necessary mutations to combat all the different antibiotics, deployed at the same time, against a specific pathogenic bacteria, is far, far greater than any one bacteria developing just one deleterious mutation for resistance. This was only a rough outline, but I hope I made the point clear with what is proposed when Gil talks about a triple CCC.bornagain77_{December 10, 2007
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In the meantime, medical doctors should prescribe multiple antibiotics for all infections, since this will decrease the likelihood that infectious agents can develop resistance through stochastic processes.
The ID (Infectious Disease) consultant I use routinely recommends multiple antiobiotics for infections. We have always done this if the organism is unknown.dacook_{December 10, 2007
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angryoldfatman, I think you are completely correct about the surgery line of thinking. It is very reminiscent of the something that Sal Cordova does a good job of reporting: a mild for of eugenics that is inherint in the darwinian model.Dog_of_War_{December 10, 2007
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And the methods that bacteria use to resist antibiotics never fails to remind me of how Gobbles the Crippled Turkey on South Park avoided a giant decapitating saw blade that killed scores of his fellow healthy turkeys.angryoldfatman_{December 10, 2007
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Another example of a little known science-stopping incident brought about by Darwinism: unnecessary harmful surgery. I remember a big push back in the 1970s for children to have their tonsils removed even if they weren't sick because tonsils were considered vestigial organs. They went so far as to push this propaganda on Saturday morning cartoons like Fat Albert, if I remember correctly. "We don't know what these body parts do, and according to Darwinian evolution there are going to be body parts that are useless, so let's just carve these things out." To me that's a lot more dangerous than the results of a "God did it" attitude.angryoldfatman_{December 10, 2007
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Davescot (14) said: "getawitness is no longer with us." He's not? Darnit. I was looking forward to hearing his response to what russ (12)said: "Since the consensus THEORY doesn’t comport with already available DATA, it would seem that NDE’s goalposts are more in need of relocation than Michael Behe’s, don’t you think." He answered with ad hominem which was removed with the author. -dsClumsy Brute_{December 10, 2007
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While I understand the test of darwinian chance and it's obvious failure here, I would be interested in an explanation of how the medical benefit comes from this prediction. It seems to me that the idea for this benefit comes right from the failure of darwinian evolution and not necessarily from the ID prediction. That's okay, I guess, but a justification for this line of medical treatment that stems entirely from the design paradigm is probably going to be asked for. I'm sorry, you might have explained it and I just don't get it. If that's the case, I apologize.Dog_of_War_{December 10, 2007
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Umm where design is concerned probabilities go out the window. However it is also obvious, from experience, that one design can trump another. The trick is to first understand the design you are trying to trump. BTW it doesn't take any "time" for bacteria to develop resistance. As a matter of fact that resistance was already present when the antibiotic is introduced. All the antibiotic does is to wipe out those which do not have the resistance already in place. And that allows those which have the resistance to proliferate. And that is why in order to do the following: Here’s a prediction and a potential medical application from ID theory: Design a chemical or protein which would require a triple CCC to defeat its toxic effects on a bacterium, and it will exhaust the probabilistic resources of blind-watchmaker mechanisms to counteract the toxic effects. we would need to know the genome of every bacteria in the population we want to eradicate. And that isn't practical.Joseph_{December 10, 2007
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correction, this line should read: (and being designed is actually a limiting factor for bacteria since they are apparently designed optimally : with "NO" scientifically observed violation of Genetic Entropy)bornagain77_{December 10, 2007
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Joseph ask: if..they (bacteria) were designed-then wouldn’t it be possible for them to develop a triple CCC? In a word, NO. The probabilities are far too great. (and being designed is actually a limiting factor for bacteria since they are apparently designed optimally : with scientifically observed violation of Genetic Entropy) It takes time and chance for bacteria to develop antibiotic resistance, thus if you make the chance far too great, for the bacteria (a triple CCC), then the antibiotic treatment will always stay effective for the odds are far too great against it ever developing a triple CCC in any reasonable amount of time.bornagain77_{December 10, 2007
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I’d place my bet with nature.
Was that supposed to be some type of refutation?
But then the bacteria kept developing resistance to even the toughest antibiotics.
Which should be a clue that antibiotics aren't the way to go about fighting infectious bacteria. But anayway- Gil,- something to think about- If bacteria had "built-in responses to environmental cues" ala Dr Spetner's "non-random evolutionary hypothesis"- ie they were designed- then wouldn't it be possible for them to develop a triple CCC?Joseph_{December 10, 2007
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correction the last line should read: thus "ENFORCING" the triple CCC limit clearly pointed out by Dr. Behe.bornagain77_{December 10, 2007
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Gil, The present line of "multiple antibiotics" used in parallel is ineffective against "supergerms" presently in our hospitals, but, unlike GAW's unrealistic and very antagonistic view, I resolutely hold that Gil is absolutely correct in seeing the most effective way to combat "supergerms" is to deny them the stepwise fashion they need to build resistance by "prescribing brand new antibiotics against specific pathogens in parallel". As well, the failure to see this clear line of reasoning much earlier in medicine is indeed "yet another catastrophic failure of Darwinian presumptions". As stated earlier, Today multiple antibiotics, used in parallel, are ineffective against supergerms. In fact the most effective treatment against todays "supergerms" is really the opposite of continued use of multiple antibiotics http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i1/superbugs.asp Of special note: "It is precisely because the mutations which give rise to resistance are in some form or another defects, that so-called supergerms are not really ‘super’ at all—they are actually rather ‘wimpy’ compared to their close cousins. When I was finally discharged from hospital, I still had a strain of supergerm colonizing my body. Nothing had been able to get rid of it, after months in hospital. However, I was told that all I had to do on going home was to ‘get outdoors a lot, occasionally even roll in the dirt, and wait.’ In less than two weeks of this advice, the supergerms were gone. Why? The reason is that supergerms are actually defective in other ways, as explained. Therefore, when they are forced to compete with the ordinary bacteria which normally thrive on our skin, they do not have a chance. They thrive in hospital because all the antibiotics and antiseptics being used there keep wiping out the ordinary bacteria which would normally outcompete, wipe out and otherwise keep in check these ‘superwimps’. If they are ‘weaker’, then why do they cause so much and misery in hospitals? These bacteria are not more aggressive than their colleagues, it is only that doctors have less power to stop them. Also, those environments which will tend to ‘select’ such resistant germs, like intensive care units, are precisely the places where there will be critically injured people, physically weakened and often with open wounds. This is why more than one microbiologist concerned about these super-infections has mused (only partly tongue in cheek) that the best thing to happen in major hospitals might be to dump truckloads of germ-laden dirt into the corridors, rather than keep on applying more and more chemicals in a never-ending ‘arms race’ against the bacteria. In other words, stop using the antibiotics (which of course is hardly feasible), and all this ‘evolution’ will reverse itself, as the bacterial populations shift back again to favour the more hardy, less resistant varieties." Yet even if we were to force supergerms (superwimps) to compete against their hardier "parent" lineage, the decay curve, until the supergerms were completely out competed into oblivion (reached a perfect zero), would most likely reach into many years. Thus that line of attack seems untenable from first glance. Man seems to be stuck in this situation in that we don't have enough time to let this "natural cure" happen so man is forced develop brand new antibiotics, and as Dr. Behe and Gil have pointed out, deploy them in parallel instead of serially thus defeating the triple CCC limit.bornagain77_{December 10, 2007
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Getawitness is no longer with us.DaveScot_{December 10, 2007
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Excellent and straightforward thread Gil, This following site is interesting to this topic: The dearth of new antibiotic development: why we should be worried and what we can do about it, http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/181_10_151104/cha10412_fm.html of special note: Inappropriate antibiotic use is a key driver of resistance, but the reasons for such use can be complex.7 In developed countries, the obsession with “zero risk” has distorted the decision-making process for many clinicians, with broad-spectrum antibiotics being used even when not indicated. me again: This is definitely where Dr. Behe's "Edge" could be used to bring much needed clarity to the problem we are facing with antibiotic resistance. This following "new" antibiotics page (although dated 2002) is interesting to this topic too, since it discusses how certain new antibiotics accomplish their work: New Antibiotics: When to Use and When Not to Use http://www.acponline.org/ear/vas2002/new_antibiotics.htm I found that many of the new antibiotics being developed are very specific or what they call very narrow in their scope.bornagain77_{December 10, 2007
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Falsification of that edge, yes. He would be free to move the goalposts and draw another line in the sand.
But is "moving the goalposts" really a fair characterization? Edge of Evolution is an attempt to establish where the limits of evolution lie. NDE THEORY says that you can go from nothing to humans via natural processes with no intelligence. EoE says that the best available DATA indicate that the best you can do is decrease overall function in an attempt to survive. Showing somehow that NDE is even better than we thought at trench warfare does not constitute "moving the goalposts", or "drawing another line in the sand". You seem to be using those expressions merely to gain rhetorical points. Since the consensus THEORY doesn't comport with already available DATA, it would seem that NDE's goalposts are more in need of relocation than Michael Behe's, don't you think. ;)russ_{December 10, 2007
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Design a chemical or protein which would require a triple CCC to defeat its toxic effects on a bacterium, and it will exhaust the probabilistic resources of blind-watchmaker mechanisms to counteract the toxic effects.
Isn't that, strictly speaking, an anti-evolution prediction? You seem to be assuming that ID is the only alternative to evolution and I think that is rather a rather limiting view for one committed to the process of science. After all, no one had heard of Intelligent Design 20 years ago. Why should we not consider that, 20 years from now, there may be another alternative to Darwinian explanations?specs_{December 10, 2007
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Gil, I was not being sarcastic. That is the second time that posters here have assumed I am some kind of Darwinist stooge. You guys really seem to be always angry about something. And my nickname was given to me by my older sister when we were young. It is too long of a story to relate.poachy_{December 10, 2007
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This might be a very naive post but I would really like to improve my insight, therefore I will present my understanding... to be corrected. I am no biologist, but this discussion makes me think of people believing beyond reasonable limits that the bacteria genes can be altered without limit. This "limitless possibilities for bacteria" are clearly not observed in any experiments or reality because it seems as if "selective breeding" of dogs has been more successful in creating morphological variation than the "selective breeding" of bacteria. This might be directly related to the difference in the specified complexity of the genes of dogs and those of bacteria. The question remains, if it is possible to increase the original specified complexity in the genes of bacteria. The definition of increased specified complexity is not a function of an organism's morphology and /or metabolic functions alone. Change in information content should be related to the information's previous states as well as possible future states. My conclusion is that, with a pure mechanistic system (excluding things like art or creative freedom of capable conscious beings), it should be easy to measure an increase in information content and it could be done without relying on (localized) "survival benefit" as a measure. (Complex systems can be modeled, exactly because its information content (mathematical relationships) can be modeled/understood. This include chaos behavior as well as "signal noise") P.S. Survival is far from the only measure for design optimization.mullerpr_{December 10, 2007
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Falsification of that edge, yes. He would be free to move the goalposts and draw another line in the sand.getawitness_{December 9, 2007
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By which I mean a falsification of Mike Behe’s putative “edge” of evolution. Gil’s point, I think, is that a bacteria could never develop such resistance because Behe is right. So that would be a unbeatable antibiotic.
Falsification of his "edge of evolution", or simply adjusting where the edge lies? If bacteria successfully adapt to each and every antibiotic, there's no evidence that that will lead to anything more than an altered bacterium.russ_{December 9, 2007
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StuartHarris, it seems to be the medical community was pretty optimistic about antibiotics. That's why they prescribed them all the time. But then the bacteria kept developing resistance to even the toughest antibiotics. It seems to me we're reaching something more like the edge of antibiotic technology.getawitness_{December 9, 2007
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Behe addresses this in The Edge of Evolution. The medical community has led us to be too pessimistic about the effectiveness of antibiotics. Way too much credence is given to the idea that bacteria can counter all antibiotics by selective pressures. Attacking bacteria with not a single antibiotic, but many at the same time, does not let a bacterial strain degrade itself with a single mutation to ward off the single antibiotic. The bacterial genome is "degrading itself" in Behe's trench warfare analogy, as opposed to the untenable arms race analogy of Darwinism. With many parallel antibiotics many simultaneous mutations are needed, thus exponentially increasing the problem of "fitness cost" -- the degradation of the overall genome that must occur to counter the anitbiotic threats.StuartHarris_{December 9, 2007
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By which I mean a falsification of Mike Behe's putative "edge" of evolution. Gil's point, I think, is that a bacteria could never develop such resistance because Behe is right. So that would be a unbeatable antibiotic.getawitness_{December 9, 2007
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Developing resistance would be a feat of evolution.
By which you mean "microevolution", correct?russ_{December 9, 2007
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Gil, Let me make sure I understand you. So if you designed "a chemical or protein which would require a triple CCC to defeat its toxic effects on a bacterium," then resistance could not evolve, right? This would be an unbeatable antibiotic? Or else the development of resistance would bypass Behe's alleged line in the sand. Is that right? Would it matter what bacterium you were fighting? Designing it would be a feat of engineering, indeed. Developing resistance would be a feat of evolution. I'd place my bet with nature.getawitness_{December 9, 2007
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