[Michael_Michaelangelo]

Ping

[Windsong]

"But like an army with nothing to do, a large heat-shock response force is too expensive to maintain all the time. Instead, the rescuers are drafted into action when needed by an elaborate system of sensors, feedback and feed-forward loops, and protein networks.

It is comments like this that display the true intelligence behind the design of cell division, respiration, and even photosynthesis. Why the non-believers persist in ignorance is beyond understanding.

[brivette]

Wow, I'm a control system engineer and my last name is Esch...

[anniegetyourgun]

"The future of biology belongs to the engineers who appreciate good design when they see it."

"God saw all that he had made, and it was very good." Gen 1:31a

[tallhappy]

With the flood of data hitting molecular biologists in the post-genomic era

I have to repeat Craig Venter's comment on this term. There is no such thing as the post-genomic era. The post-genomic era is when one is dead.

It is simply the genomic era.

[Paloma_55]

But are the analytical principles of reverse engineering relevant to biological systems? Yes, they continue:

Note for the analytically challenged... you can't reverse engineer something that was not engineered to begin with.

Note of irony... Satan, Eve, and ultimately Adam all wanted something that they could not have... to be like God.

I always get a kick out of watching history repeat itself.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Reverse engineering needs Darwinism like teenagers need a pack of cigarettes.

Darwinism is a recent appendage to science that adorns itself with the name. Scientific progress takes place in spite of Darwinism, not because of it.

[TexasGreg]

PING

[betty boop]

Darwinistas, your revolution has failed. Get out of the way, or get with the program. We don’t need your tall tales and unworkable utopian dreams any more.

Gee. I think we could have done very well without that "editorial." What does it have to do with science?

Thanks for the interesting post, Michael!

[bvw]

Who knows? Heat response may certainly explain "male nipples".

Also gets to what "irreducible complexity" means -- a system so complex, it can not arise through mere random dynamics; it's probability of having happened without a designer is so exceedingly low, as to be in all effect zero.

Probability is ignored by hard-line orthodox marxists evolutionists, yet actual physics and chemisty can't ignore it.

There is a confusion between what is possible and what is probable. There is a confusion between what chemical process we know by pure scientific method is occuring and how it could have happened, that is to say -- many evolutionists seem to think that because we have identified and know to some detail a process, therefore that process and its component parts could have arisen through random dynamics in the absense of a designer. That second confusion seems like a specific instance of the first, but I take it to be unique. Unique because it can be held by people who well know the difference between probable and exceedingly improbable.

Three grand confusions. The third is that if we NOW don't know what a system of thing -- the male nipple -- does, it is a mistake if assuming a designer or just another random circumstance if designer-free.

[Tribune7]

Darwinistas, your revolution has failed.

I liked it. :-)

[StJacques]

I cannot believe this is happening. This has got to be one of the funniest events in the history of the Crevo threads at FreeRepublic because the Intelligent Design supporters have posted an analysis of a scholarly article, which they apparently hold in high repute, by a group of authors who will argue if asked, that the inherent design of a biological system is a product of evolution, a position which, if correct, will completely negate the hypothesis of Intelligent Design!

Somebody pinch me! I must be dreaming!

Please examine, if you will, the Position Description for a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Kyushu University in the Department of Biochemical Sciences and Engineering, the search for which is managed by Hiroyuki Kurata, one of the authors of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences article which is referenced by the original article posted at the beginning of this thread (underline emphasis is mine):

". . . 1-2. Comparative genome analysis for elucidating the evolution of a biological system.

In order to elucidate the design principle of a biological system, research is undertaken not only to determine molecular networks of existing living systems, but also to learn how they evolve, since evolution is a key trigger for the emergence of living systems. In this project, we are very interested in how the initiation factors in the translation system evolved from an ancestral stage. We develop the information technologies necessary for comparative genome analysis of initiation factors in bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes, and elucidate how they evolved using the developed information technology. . . ."

As you can see, this position's interests are very closely related to the subject matter of the article mentioned at the beginning of this thread. There is no way Kurata would be chairing a search committee to fill the position that is described as quoted above if he did not support the parameters outlined therein. And those parameters are that evolution is the key trigger for the emergence of biological systems and one must understand how those systems evolve in order to elucidate their design principles, not vice-versa or otherwise.

There is an additional reference you view for the work of another one of the authors, J.C. Doyle, who, along with Marie E. Csete, published Reverse Engineering of Biological Complexity, a work referenced in the article at the beginning of this thread, which was reviewed in Science Magazine in the fall of 2002. That review was introduced with an abstract of the book's contents that follows (underline emphasis mine):

"Advanced technologies and biology have extremely different physical implementations, but they are far more alike in systems-level organization than is widely appreciated. Convergent evolution in both domains produces modular architectures that are composed of elaborate hierarchies of protocols and layers of feedback regulation, are driven by demand for robustness to uncertain environments, and use often imprecise components. This complexity may be largely hidden in idealized laboratory settings and in normal operation, becoming conspicuous only when con-tributing to rare cascading failures. These puzzling and paradoxical features are neither accidental nor artificial, but derive from a deep and necessary interplay between complexity and robustness, modularity, feed-back, and fragility. This review describes insights from engineering theoryand practice that can shed some light on biological complexity."

The point made clear in the abstract is essentially the same one made clear in the description of the Post-Doctoral Fellowship position described earlier. According to Doyle and Csete "convergent evolution" in the domains of "advanced technologies and biology" produces "complexity" or "modular architectures." So in Biology, evolution leads to design.

Therefore, it is the clear opinion of the authors of the PNAS article that evolution produces both "design" and "complexity," two terms that are almost interchangeable.

Now; at the beginning of this thread we read the following quote put up by Michael_Michaelangelo:

". . . But they [the leaders in the I.D. movement] also teach that good science requires following the evidence wherever it leads."

Well, in the opinion of the experts you have brought to our attention Michael, the evidence leads to the conclusion that design and complexity were the result of evolution. That is indeed good science and I thank you for your post.

[ThinkPlease]

It's called an analogy. This post is not surprising, since I've never met a creationist who couldn't misunderstand a perfectly good analogy.

[hosepipe]

"Scientists" reverse engineering the human machine..
AKA;
Chimps considering a Rolex.. with others wondering what the first chimps are doing.. and still others, like me, watching the other two groups with fascination just passing the time..

[Rafterman]

"For explanations of a universe that confuses him, [Man] seizes onto numerology, astrology, hysterical religions, and other fancy ways to go crazy. Having accepted such glorified nonsense, facts make no impression on him, even if at the cost of his own life. Joe, one of the hardest things to believe is the abysmal depth of human stupidity."

- Kettle Belly Baldwin in "Gulf" from Assignment in Eternity by Robert Heinlein

[Centurion2000]

bump

[aberaussie]

bttt

[OhioAttorney]

I'm going to go ahead and infer that this thread is pretty well dead; at any rate I don't think I have much more to say on it. Thanks to everyone for an interesting exchange, and feel free to ping me if anything of interest comes up (here or elsewhere).