Posted on 01/13/2006 7:25:46 AM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo
Just as a pocket watch requires a complex system of gears and springs to keep it ticking precisely, individual cells have a network of proteins and genes that maintain their own internal clock -- a 24-hour rhythm that, in humans, regulates metabolism, cell division, and hormone production, as well as the wake-sleep cycle. Studying this "circadian" rhythm in fruit flies, which have genes that are similar to our own, scientists have constructed a basic model of how the cellular timekeeper works. But now, a new report in this week's issue of the journal Science turns the old model on its head: By providing a glimpse into living cells, Rockefeller University researchers have uncovered a previously undetected clock inside the circadian clock. The scientists made the finding with a rarely used technique called FRET, which enabled them to follow circadian proteins over an extended period of time and watch the clock as it ticks away in a living cell.
[snip]
The movie allowed them to follow the interactions between Period and Timeless with a resolution never before possible. They discovered that, rather than randomly colliding, the two proteins bind together in the cytoplasm almost immediately and create what Young and Meyer refer to as an "interval timer." Then, six hours after coming together, the complexes rapidly break apart and the proteins move into the nucleus singly, all of them within minutes of each other. "Some switch is thrown at six hours that lets the complex explode. The proteins pop apart and roll into the nucleus," Young says. "Somehow, implanted within the system is a timer, formed by Period and Timeless, that counts off six hours. You have a clock within a clock." He notes that this precise timer shows how carefully orchestrated interactions between proteins really are.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
Rev Paley's analogy has a life of its own. 205 years and counting.
The systems arise naturally. The mechanism given is a natural one, not a designed system like your watch example.
" expecting me to infer and believe it got there on its own from extraneous natural processes!"
I don't expect anyone in particular to be able to know what it means, or understand it. A scientist will recognize and understand the simple physics presented there. It's basic. If someone is interested in the truth of the matter and doesn't understand it, he'll ask questions. It was sufficient to show one example of reletively simple chemistry that results in an oscillation around the equilibrium point, to disprove the need to claim, or infer design in such systems.
Natural processes are not extraneous.
Natural selection.
This complex function was yet another lucky random mutation?
There's more to the process of evolution than just "lucky random mutation", although the variation introduced by mutations is one factor.
Watches do not reproduce, and therefore do not evolve.
This is one of the many reasons why the "watch" analogy is deeply flawed and fallacious as an analogy for the results of evolutionary processes.
Evolution could have, easily. This particular mechanism is small-potatoes compared to the complexity of things which evolution has been observed to be capable of building.
It is like telling me how the regulator of a watch works but expecting me to infer and believe it got there on its own from extraneous natural processes!
Again, watches don't reproduce, therefore they don't evolve. Are you *intentionally* choosing a grossly misleading and fallacious analogy through dishonesty, or merely through ignorance?
Oh wow, it's complicated, I can't imagine how it all evolved, there must be a God.
Abstract: Regulation of physiological functions with approximate daily periodicity, or circadian rhythms, is a characteristic feature of eukaryotes. Until recently, cyanobacteria were the only prokaryotes reported to possess circadian rhythmicity. It is controlled by a cluster of three genes: kaiA, kaiB, and kaiC. Using sequence data of 70 complete prokaryotic genomes from the various public depositories, we show here that the kai genes and their homologs have quite a different evolutionary history and occur in Archaea and Proteobacteria as well. Among the three genes, kaiC is evolutionarily the oldest, and kaiA is the youngest and likely evolved only in cyanobacteria. Our data suggest that the prokaryotic circadian pacemakers have evolved in parallel with the geological history of the earth, and that natural selection, multiple lateral transfers, and gene duplications and losses have been the major factors shaping their evolution.
On the contrary, it exists and is consistent with physics and the rule that, if it can happen, it will. The existence of this clock is coded in the DNA and is part of the DNA code reading switch scheme. You don't seem to understand that design is not consistent with the appearence of this clock. It's ancient.
In order for it to be evidence for design, you must show it's not possible for this clock to arise from the laws of physics as the result of simple reactions in low energy path. Biochem. can show it does. Your wrist watch can't arise form simple reactions on a low energy path.
I stole this from another Freeper's tagline - my apologies to him, but it is so true I couldn't resist.
Those are certainly some ancient clocks there.
It is beyond them. They see Nature naked and it blinds them. Stunned by the nakedness they see all hows as "as is".
Isn't imagination wonderful!
Yes it is. I especially like it when it is constrained by logic and reality, as in the "hard" science fiction books I listed.
Unconstrained, we get schizoid word salad, the same passing as poetry, godawful fantasy, cacophonous music, junk science, and other things I find worthless.
Constrained, we get math, science, literature and poetry I can stand, etc.
"Form is liberating"
In science one starts with a hypothesis and then looks for evidence to support it, or refute it. There is no need to choose in particular which logical state(T/F) one begins with.
"you merely assert evolution because you can't admit of any other possibility."
It is not true that other possibilities are ignored and rejected on their face. Your claims for design are rejected, because it is not consistent with the physics. Each and every process in nature in the theory of evolution is and can be shown to be the result of reactions following a possible low energy path.
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