Here’s Mike Behe’s latest: “New work by Thornton’s group supports time-assymetric Dollo’s Law”

_{Denyse O'Leary

October 6, 2011

Evolution, News

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In my comments on this interesting work ( http://tinyurl.com/3cjm4gr ), I noted that there is nothing time-asymmetric about random mutation/natural selection, so that the problem they saw in reversing the steroid hormone receptor evolution did not have to be in the past — it could just as easily have been in the future. The reason is that natural selection hones a protein to its present job, with regard to neither future use nor past function. Thus, based on Thornton’s work, one would not in general expect a protein that had been selected for one function to be easily modified by RM/NS to another function. I have decided to call this the Time-Asymmetric Dollo’s Law, or “TADL”.

Comments

OT: Nick Matzke, a leading neo-Darwinist who has elevated shooting oneself in the foot to a high art!!!
Leading Darwin Defender Admits Darwinism's Most "Detailed Explanation" of a Gene Doesn't Even Tell What Function's Being Selected - Casey Luskin - October 5, 2011 Excerpt: ...You just admitted that the most "detailed explanation" for the evolution of a gene represents a case where: *they don't even know the precise function of the gene, *and thus don't know what exactly what function was being selected, *and thus don't know if there are steps that require multiple mutations to produce an advantage, *and thus haven't even begun to show that the gene can evolve in a step-by-step fashion, *and thus don't know that there are sufficient probabilistic resources to produce the gene by gene duplication+mutation+selection. In effect, you have just admitted that Darwinian explanations for the origin of genes are incredibly detail-poor. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/10/leading_darwin_defender_admits051551.html
Nick, if you keep this up, people will start to think you are on DI's payroll!!!,,, Your simply a gift that keeps giving to ID. To show my appreciation for all the work you have done furthering the ID cause, here is a beautiful song you may appreciate:
Mandy Moore - Only Hope http://www.youtube.com/v/0ofeDruIwTM&fs=1&source=uds&autoplay=1 Genesis 50:20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.
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OT:
Dr. Alastair Noble Discusses the ID Movement in the UK http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2011-10-05T17_29_05-07_00
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Semi OT: Searching for 'The 'Edge Of Evolution', What can neo-Darwinism really do???
Many of these researchers also raise the question (among others), why — even after inducing literally billions of induced mutations and (further) chromosome rearrangements — all the important mutation breeding programs have come to an end in the Western World instead of eliciting a revolution in plant breeding, either by successive rounds of selective “micromutations” (cumulative selection in the sense of the modern synthesis), or by “larger mutations” … and why the law of recurrent variation is endlessly corroborated by the almost infinite repetition of the spectra of mutant phenotypes in each and any new extensive mutagenesis experiment (as predicted) instead of regularly producing a range of new systematic species… (Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, “Mutagenesis in Physalis pubescens L. ssp. floridana: Some Further Research on Dollo’s Law and the Law of Recurrent Variation,” Floriculture and Ornamental Biotechnology Vol. 4 (Special Issue 1): 1-21 (December 2010).) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/12/peer-reviewed_research_paper_o042191.html
Four decades worth of lab work is surveyed here:
“The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain – Michael Behe – December 2010 Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain. http://behe.uncommondescent.com/2010/12/the-first-rule-of-adaptive-evolution/
Dr. Behe talks about the preceding paper in this following podcast:
Michael Behe: Challenging Darwin, One Peer-Reviewed Paper at a Time – December 2010 http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/player/web/2010-12-23T11_53_46-08_00
How about the oft cited example for neo-Darwinism of antibiotic resistance?
List Of Degraded Molecular Abilities Of Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria: Excerpt: Resistance to antibiotics and other antimicrobials is often claimed to be a clear demonstration of “evolution in a Petri dish.” ,,, all known examples of antibiotic resistance via mutation are inconsistent with the genetic requirements of evolution. These mutations result in the loss of pre-existing cellular systems/activities, such as porins and other transport systems, regulatory systems, enzyme activity, and protein binding. http://www.trueorigin.org/bacteria01.asp
That doesn't seem to be helping! How about we look really, really, close at very sensitive growth rates and see if we can catch that almighty power of evolution in action???
Unexpectedly small effects of mutations in bacteria bring new perspectives – November 2010 Excerpt: Most mutations in the genes of the Salmonella bacterium have a surprisingly small negative impact on bacterial fitness. And this is the case regardless whether they lead to changes in the bacterial proteins or not.,,, using extremely sensitive growth measurements, doctoral candidate Peter Lind showed that most mutations reduced the rate of growth of bacteria by only 0.500 percent. No mutations completely disabled the function of the proteins, and very few had no impact at all. Even more surprising was the fact that mutations that do not change the protein sequence had negative effects similar to those of mutations that led to substitution of amino acids. A possible explanation is that most mutations may have their negative effect by altering mRNA structure, not proteins, as is commonly assumed. http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-unexpectedly-small-effects-mutations-bacteria.html
Shoot extreme sensitivity doesn't seem to be helping either! Perhaps we just got to give the almighty power of neo-Darwinism ‘room to breathe’? How about we ‘open up the floodgates’ to the almighty power of Darwinian Evolution and look at Lenski’s Long Term Evolution Experiment and see what we can find after 50,000 generations, which is equivalent to somewhere around 1,000,000 years of human evolution??? This should do the trick!!
Richard Lenski’s Long-Term Evolution Experiments with E. coli and the Origin of New Biological Information – September 2011 Excerpt: The results of future work aside, so far, during the course of the longest, most open-ended, and most extensive laboratory investigation of bacterial evolution, a number of adaptive mutations have been identified that endow the bacterial strain with greater fitness compared to that of the ancestral strain in the particular growth medium. The goal of Lenski’s research was not to analyze adaptive mutations in terms of gain or loss of function, as is the focus here, but rather to address other longstanding evolutionary questions. Nonetheless, all of the mutations identified to date can readily be classified as either modification-of-function or loss-of-FCT. (Michael J. Behe, “Experimental Evolution, Loss-of-Function Mutations and ‘The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution’,” Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 85(4) (December, 2010).) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/09/richard_lenskis_long_term_evol051051.html
Now that just can’t be right!! All these Scientists can't be wrong, can they??? Man we should really start seeing some neo-Darwinian fireworks by 50,000 generations!?! Hey I know what we can do! How about we see what happened when the ‘top five’ mutations from Lenski’s experiment were combined??? Surely now the Darwinian magic will start flowing!!!
Mutations : when benefits level off – June 2011 – (Lenski’s e-coli after 50,000 generations) Excerpt: After having identified the first five beneficial mutations combined successively and spontaneously in the bacterial population, the scientists generated, from the ancestral bacterial strain, 32 mutant strains exhibiting all of the possible combinations of each of these five mutations. They then noted that the benefit linked to the simultaneous presence of five mutations was less than the sum of the individual benefits conferred by each mutation individually. http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/1867.htm?theme1=7
Now something is going terribly wrong here!!! Tell you what, let’s just forget trying to observe evolution in the lab, I mean it really is kind of cramped in the lab you know, and now let’s REALLY open the floodgates and let’s see what the almighty power of neo-Darwinian evolution can do with the ENTIRE WORLD at its disposal??? Surely now almighty evolution will flex its awesomely powerful muscles and forever make those IDiots, who believe in Intelligent Design, cower in terror at the power of Darwinism!!!
A review of The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism The numbers of Plasmodium and HIV in the last 50 years greatly exceeds the total number of mammals since their supposed evolutionary origin (several hundred million years ago), yet little has been achieved by evolution. This suggests that mammals could have “invented” little in their time frame. Behe: ‘Our experience with HIV gives good reason to think that Darwinism doesn’t do much—even with billions of years and all the cells in that world at its disposal’ (p. 155). http://creation.com/review-michael-behe-edge-of-evolution Michael Behe, The Edge of Evolution, pg. 162 Swine Flu, Viruses, and the Edge of Evolution “Indeed, the work on malaria and AIDS demonstrates that after all possible unintelligent processes in the cell–both ones we’ve discovered so far and ones we haven’t–at best extremely limited benefit, since no such process was able to do much of anything. It’s critical to notice that no artificial limitations were placed on the kinds of mutations or processes the microorganisms could undergo in nature. Nothing–neither point mutation, deletion, insertion, gene duplication, transposition, genome duplication, self-organization nor any other process yet undiscovered–was of much use.” http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/05/swine_flu_viruses_and_the_edge020071.html
Now, there is something terribly wrong here! After looking high and low and everywhere in between, we can’t seem to find the almighty power of neo-Darwinism anywhere!! Shoot we can’t even find ANY power of neo-Darwinism whatsoever!!! It is as if the whole neo-Darwinian theory, which is relentlessly sold to the general public as if it was the gospel truth that you would be a imbecile for not believing, is nothing but a big fat lie from, as the preacher man likes to say, the pit of hell meant to mislead people away from their inheritance with God!!!bornagain77_{October 6, 2011
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Darwinist: We've realised the monkey isn't capable of taking the machine to pieces, but we still know he put it together. Behe: Derp.englishmaninistanbul_{October 6, 2011
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Of related interest, 'random' mutations to proteins are actually now found to be 'designed' mutations; Here is one such 'designed' mutation mechanism that was 'surprising';
Cells Defend Themselves from Viruses, Bacteria With Armor of Protein Errors - November 2009 Excerpt: When cells are confronted with an invading virus or bacteria or exposed to an irritating chemical, they protect themselves by going off their DNA recipe and inserting the wrong amino acid into new proteins to defend them against damage, scientists have discovered.,,, These "regulated errors" comprise a novel non-genetic mechanism by which cells can rapidly make important proteins more resistant to attack when stressed,,,, "This mechanism allows every protein to get some protection,",,, Further experiments revealed that it was always the same amino acid, methionine, placed incorrectly into new proteins. Methionine is one of only two amino acids to carry sulfur atoms on its side chains, a feature that allows it to neutralize dangerous molecules called reactive oxygen species (ROS) that form inside an infected or stressed cell. ROS can damage proteins through a chemical process called oxidation, but methionine can be oxidized (and restored through a process called reduction) without being permanently damaged. "The idea is that methionine can protect you from having oxidation of the active site of protein, which would ultimately completely block function of the protein," Goodenbour said. "You end up reducing the total reactive oxygen species load in the cell. It's a very interesting mechanism.",,, When the cell is under stress, and the amount of ROS increases, the number of methionine "errors" is ramped up tenfold, allowing new proteins to be even more resistant to attack.,,, the cells can always ensure that a subset of these proteins is somewhat less sensitive to the extra hits. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091125134701.htm
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