Our Danish correspondent Karsten Pultz (right) sends us his reflections on a recent, curious effort to save Darwinian evolution: We are told that cell parts cannot be compared with machine parts:
Biological functions and gradualism
In the debate over irreducible complexity (IC) the neo-Darwinists are clinging to straws of protein evolution, and the presence of homologues proteins in different molecular machines to try to reject the fact of IC, thus saving their theory.
We hear the claim that molecular machinery is not machinery at all, it’s different—something to do with protein-evolution they say. If proteins really can evolve, it sure would differentiate them from manmade machine parts which, as we know, can’t evolve. But, as I will argue here, whether proteins can evolve or not will not in the least influence the argument for IC.
Seen from an engineering perspective, you would not regard the materials of machinery as the determining factor as to whether an object is a machine. An engineer will only look at function— if an ensemble of parts working together performs a specific function then it’s a machine. How the parts came to be, what materials were used, and how they were assembled doesn’t matter. The core issue is entirely function.
In the fantasy realm of evolution, a type III secretion system can, via random mutation and natural selection, turn into a flagellum-motor (or vice versa). Presenting the hypothetical scenario to a mechanical engineer, that one machine with one function could slowly and gradually turn into another machine with a different function, would probably result in a good laugh, or maybe the concern that you get an appointment with a shrink. Such a scenario, seen from an engineering perspective, is ludicrous.
The dominant problem with slow gradual evolution is that function cannot evolve gradually. It doesn’t matter whether you can take a machine apart and assemble a different apparatus using some of the same components. You still cannot move from one function to a new one through a step by step gradual process, even if it were possible to slowly morph the parts, as with a three-dimensional drawing on a computer. From one appearance to the next, the function of the first machine would, at some point in the transition process, cease completely.
The function of the new machine would not step in until the transition is almost completed. Evolution by natural selection is therefore in no way possible because there will be a gap between two functions where no benefits exist for natural selection to act upon. On the contrary, in the functionless gap where the machinery is neither this nor that, the organism, which relies on the function, would be less likely to survive. One function must be given up before benefit of the new function can be drawn upon.
This is the reality of how human engineering works. Although I am not a biologist, I will insist that biological systems must follow the same rules. From one function to a new function there will always be a gap—a gap that cannot be filled. It’s much like a quantum leap, where an electron disappears from one place and reappears at another place without actually having covered the space between the two spots.
This fact of the world of functions makes it irrelevant, in the debate over IC, if proteins can evolve, if homologues proteins are found in different molecular machines, or if the type III secretory system has similar features of that of the flagellum motor.
Since both manmade machines and molecular machines occupy the same universe, they are ruled by the same laws of nature. No matter how much imagination the neo-Darwinists mobilize, they will never bridge the functionless gap between two different machines.
As I see it, the problem of the quantum leap between functions can be applied to all aspects of Darwin’s theory, at micro as well as macro level. Darwin himself should have realized this when he spoke of the “complex organ, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications.”
The power of natural selection will, without exception, weed out machines that have stopped functioning before any new function could arise. Add to that the problem that machines with different functions are based on different blueprints, and always are part of larger ensembles of functional systems (IC on a larger scale), and you have a theory that’s ready for the bin.
Michael Behe’s concept of irreducible complexity springs from sound reasoning, and since we must insist that reason ought to beat imagination, we have to keep blowing the whistle on a scientific theory which obviously is, and always has been, out of touch with reality.
Also by Karsten Pultz:
On the Scandinavians who are threatened by ID
and
ID is now thriving in Europe
Pultz is the author of Exit Evolution.
Beautiful clarity. Often discussions of this point get bogged down in details and complex names of genes and such.
Even with ordinary machines, gradual evolution of FUNCTION is impossible, but a gradual change of STYLING is possible. Cars can change trim or grilles without losing function, iPhones can change their proportions somewhat without losing function. The same thing happens in nature. Colors and fur can change gradually to fit new environments, but that’s about the only thing that can evolve gradually.
Polistra @ 1
No, it doesn’t.
Human designed machines do not change on their own. They only change when a human designer changes them, whether they are cars or iPhones or airliners.
Yes, living things that reproduce themselves without any input from human or other designers can change over time in response to environmental influences. We even have fossil sequences which illustrate such changes. No designer input needed.
That’s why all Pultz is offering is another – and hardly original – argument by analogy. Analogies can provide useful insights through the similarities but it is misleading to imply that being similar in some respects means being similar in most or all respects.
Yes, living creatures are similar to machines in some ways but very different in others. My cats, for example, don’t have chrome trim and I can’t use them to call friends hundreds of miles away. But we have evidence of their desert-dwelling ancestry and their remarkable Borg-like assimilation of human societies over time. All done without design input – unless you count the great Ceilingcat.
Seversky, like all clueless heathens, doesn’t understand the curse of dimensionality. It’s hilarious.
seversky:
Because they were intelligently designed to do so.
Except for the fact we don’t know what the fossil record illustrates. There remains the issue of a testable mechanism.
Seversky:
The fossil records do not prove anything close to macro-evolution. There is not a single line lacking millions of years of missing links, if a line can be found at all. There are no fossils showing the between moments of speciation. Where are the mutations in the fossil records?
“ Although I am not a biologist, I will insist that biological systems must follow the same rules.”
Meaning:
“I know nothing about biology, but I’m going to explain how it works.”
LOL
Gee, Sven, if there is a mistake, please point it out. Just because someone isn’t a biologist doesn’t mean they don’t know anything about biology. Clearly you don’t know how thinking works.
BR
Right next to God’s interventions.
Seversky claims that
The fossil record reveals no ‘sequences’ between major phyla.
Moreover, this top down pattern in the fossil record, which is the complete opposite pattern as Darwin predicted for the fossil record, is not only found in the Cambrian Explosion, but this ‘top down’, disparity preceding diversity, pattern is found throughout the fossil record subsequent to the Cambrian explosion as well.
, as Dr. Wells points out in the following video,
,as Dr. Wells pointed out, Darwin predicted that minor differences (diversity) between species would gradually appear first and then the differences would grow larger (disparity) between species as time went on. i.e. universal common descent as depicted in Darwin’s tree of life. What Darwin predicted should be familiar to everyone and is easily represented in the following graph.,,,
But that ‘tree pattern’ that Darwin predicted is not what is found in the fossil record. The fossil record reveals that disparity (the greatest differences) precedes diversity (the smaller differences), which is the exact opposite pattern for what Darwin’s theory predicted.
Darwinists don’t even have any evidence that it is possible to gradually mutate one type of protein into a new type of protein,…
,,, much less do Darwinists have any evidence that it is possible to change one type of microbe into a new type of microbe,,
… much less do Darwinists have any evidence that it is possible to change one type of species into a new type of species,,,
Shoot, not only do Darwinists not even have any evidence that it is possible to gradually change one type of species into a new type of species, Darwinists can’t even provide a rigid scientific definition for what the term species actually means,
You don’t have to take my word for it. Last year a Darwinist admitted that “The most important concept in all of biology, (i.e. species), is a complete mystery”
In fact, Charles Darwin himself admitted that he did not have a rigid scientific definition for what the term ‘species’ actually meant when he stated that, “I look at the term species as one arbitrarily given, for the sake of convenience.,,,”
As should be needless to say, the failure of a supposedly scientific theory, a supposedly scientific theory that seeks to explain the “Origin of Species” in the first place, to clearly define what a species actually is is a clear indication that that supposedly scientific theory cannot possibly be the proper ‘scientific’ explanation for the “Origin of Species” in the first place!
Whereas Darwinists cannot even provide a rigid ‘scientific’ definition of what a species actually is, on the other hand, normal people in general, and Christians in particular, have no problem whatsoever recognizing what a species actually is when they see it. i.e. People never confuse a dog, with a cat, with a rodent, with a squirrel, or with a etc.. etc.. etc..
Darwinists, besides being unable to rigidly define exactly what the term species actually means, also have no evidence for the ‘blending together of characteristics’, as would be predicted under the assumption of ‘continual gradual transformations of ‘species’ into new ‘species’ (whatever the term ‘species’ is suppose to mean for a Darwinist)
As Stephen Meyer explained, “the differences in form between any member of one phylum and any member of another phylum are vast, and paleontologists have utterly failed to find forms that would fill these yawning chasms in what biotechnologists call “morphological space.”
Here is an interesting quote from a researcher who, during working for his PhD thesis, was ‘surprised’ to find ‘Distinct kinds’ instead of a ‘blending together of characteristics as would be expected under Darwinian presuppositions. He even states “this was the common experience of experts in every area of systematic biology. ”
In short, Darwinian evolution is a evidence-free pseudoscience, even a religion for atheists, rather than being a hard and testable science.
Verse: