Posted on 04/21/2006 9:17:58 PM PDT by Right Wing Professor
Immunology had an unexpected and decisive part in challenging the claims of 'Intelligent Design' proponents at the US trial on the teaching of evolution in public schools in Dover, Pennsylvania.
The latest skirmish in the ongoing controversy about the teaching of evolution in US schools ended decisively on 20 December 2005, when the introduction of 'Intelligent Design' (ID) in a public school biology class was struck down by US Federal Judge John E. Jones as an unconstitutional establishment of religion. The case, 'Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District', was brought by 11 parents from Dover, Pennsylvania, represented pro bono by the Philadelphia law firm Pepper-Hamilton, together with the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and assisted with scientific support by the National Center for Science Education, the Oakland, California–based nonprofit organization devoted to combating creationism. The parents challenged the school district's requirement that administrators read to ninth graders a disclaimer raising doubts about evolution, suggesting ID as a better alternative explanation for life's diversity and referring students to the ID supplemental textbook Of Pandas and People, 60 copies of which had been donated to the school library.
Although the magnitude of the win for science education was a surprise to some, the actual outcome of the trial was in very little doubt, for many reasons. Board members had made clear, through public declarations at board meetings and to the media, their intention to have some form of religious creationism taught in biology classes alongside evolution, which they considered akin to atheism. US Supreme Court rulings have established and repeatedly reaffirmed that governmental policies with the purpose or effect of establishing religion are inadmissible because they violate the First Amendment of the US Constitution. It also did not help their cause that Judge Jones found that some of the board members "either testified inconsistently, or lied outright under oath" about some statements and about the source of the donated Of Pandas and People books, the money for which was raised by one of the board members at his own church.
The most important and far-reaching aspect of the decision, however, was that the judge went beyond the narrow issue of the school board's actions and ruled broadly on the nature of ID and its scientific claims. After a 6-week trial that included extensive expert testimony from both sides on science, philosophy and the history of creationism, Jones ruled that ID is not science but "creationism re-labeled." Coming from the George W. Bush–appointed, lifelong Republican and church-going Judge Jones, the ruling was all the more stinging for ID advocates and made the predictable charge of 'judicial activism' harder to sustain. The ruling is likely to have a substantial effect on many other ongoing cases (and possibly future court decisions) regarding ID and evolution in science curricula from Georgia to Kansas to Ohio.
More fundamentally, the decision represents a considerable setback for ID advocates, who claim that some examples of biological complexity could only have originated by intelligent mechanisms, and for their movement's now almost-20-year-old effort to gain a foothold in school curricula and project an aura of scientific respectability. The ruling is also of great interest to scientists, not only because of its importance for science education but also because much of the trial's extensive expert testimony, both for and opposed to ID, focused directly on weighty scientific topics. Judge Jones analyzed and dismissed the core 'scientific' assertions of the ID movement—immunology had an unexpectedly large and relevant part in his reaching those conclusions.
Although the field of evolutionary and comparative immunology has a long and rich history, dating back at least to 1891 (ref. 1), and remains an exciting and rapidly progressing area of research, its direct involvement in the controversies about evolution in schools can be attributed mainly to Michael Behe, professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania), leading ID advocate and star expert witness for the defense at this trial. In his 1996 book Darwin's Black Box, a commonly cited example of ID-based 'science', Behe devotes an entire chapter to the immune system, pointing to several of its features as being particularly refractory to evolutionary explanations. Behe's antievolutionary argument relies on a characteristic he calls "irreducible complexity": the requirement for the presence of multiple components of certain complex systems (such as a multiprotein complex or biochemical cascade) for the system to accomplish its function. As such irreducibly complex systems by definition work only when all components are present; Behe claims they cannot arise by the sequential addition and modification of individual elements from simpler pre-existing systems, thus defying 'darwinian' evolutionary explanations.
By analogy with human 'machines', ID advocates argue that irreducibly complex systems are most likely the product of an intelligent, teleological activity. Several scientists, including ourselves, have criticized Behe's argument, pointing out how irreducibly complex systems can arise through known evolutionary mechanisms, such as exaptation, 'scaffolding' and so on. Nevertheless, with few exceptions, the topic has been explicitly addressed mostly in book reviews, philosophy journals and on the internet, rather than in peer-reviewed scientific publications, which may have allowed it to mostly escape the critical scrutiny of scientists while gaining considerable popularity with the lay public and, in particular, with creationists.
In chapter 6 of Darwin's Black Box, Behe claims that the vertebrate adaptive immune system fulfills the definition of irreducible complexity and hence cannot have evolved. Some of his arguments will seem rather naive and misguided to immunologists. For example, Behe argues that working antibodies must exist in both soluble and membrane form, which therefore must have appeared simultaneously because one form would be useless without the other. He also claims that antibodies are completely functionless without secondary effector mechanisms (such as the complement system), which in turn require antibodies for activation. These putative 'chicken-and-egg' conundrums are easily belied by existing evidence (http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/Evolving_Immunity.html).
Behe also spends considerable time on what he alleges is a hopelessly intractable problem in evolutionary immunology: the origin of the mechanism of somatic recombination of antigen receptor genes. He argues that because variable-diversity-joining recombination is dependent on the coexistence of proteins encoded by recombination-activating genes (RAG proteins), recombination signal sequences and antigen receptor gene segments, it is ultimately too complex to have arisen by naturalistic, undirected evolutionary means because the three components could not have come together in a 'fell swoop' and would have been useless individually. In fact, Behe confidently declares that the complexity of the immune system "dooms all Darwinian explanations to frustration". About the scientific literature, Behe claims it has "no answers" as to how the adaptive immune system may have originated2.
In particular, Behe criticizes a 1994 Proceedings of the National Academy of Science paper advancing the hypothesis that the RAG system evolved by lateral transfer of a prokaryotic transposon, an idea initially suggested in a 1979 paper and expanded in 1992. Behe ridicules the idea as a "jump in the box of Calvin and Hobbes," with reference to the comic strip in which a child and his stuffed tiger imaginary friend use a large cardboard box for fantasy trips and amazing physical transformations.
The timing for the criticism could not have been worse, as soon after publication of Darwin's Black Box, solid evidence for the transposon hypothesis began accumulating with the demonstration of similarities between the variable-diversity-joining recombination and transposition mechanisms and also between shark RAG1 and certain bacterial integrases. Since then, a steady stream of findings has continued to add more substance to the model, as RAG proteins have been shown to be capable of catalyzing transposition reactions, first in vitro and then in vivo, and to have even closer structural and mechanistic similarities with specific transposases. Finally, in 2005, the original key prediction of the transposon hypothesis was fulfilled with the identification of a large invertebrate transposon family bearing both recombination signal sequence–like integration sequences and a RAG1 homolog. When faced with that evidence during an exchange on the internet, Behe simply 'shrugged' and said that evidence was not sufficient, asking instead for an infinitely detailed, step-by-step mutation account (including population sizes, relevant selective pressures and so on) for the events leading to the appearance of the adaptive immune system (http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/06/behes_meaningle.html).
That background set the stage for the crucial face-off at the trial. Kenneth Miller of Brown University, a cell biologist and textbook author who has written extensively on evolution and creationism, was the lead witness for the plaintiffs. Over the course of his testimony, Miller did his best to explain to the nonscientist audience the mechanisms of antibody gene rearrangement and the evidence corroborating the transposon hypothesis. Then, 10 days later, Behe took the stand. During cross-examination by the plaintiffs' lead counsel Eric Rothschild, Behe reiterated his claim about the scientific literature on the evolution of the immune system, testifying that "the scientific literature has no detailed testable answers on how the immune system could have arisen by random mutation and natural selection." Rothschild then presented Behe with a thick file of publications on immune system evolution, dating from 1971 to 2006, plus several books and textbook chapters. Asked for his response, Behe admitted he had not read many of the publications presented (a small fraction of all the literature on evolutionary immunology of the past 35 years), but summarily rejected them as unsatisfactory and dismissed the idea of doing research on the topic as "unfruitful."
This exchange clearly made an impression on Judge Jones, who specifically described it in his opinion:
In fact, on cross-examination, Professor Behe was questioned concerning his 1996 claim that science would never find an evolutionary explanation for the immune system. He was presented with fifty-eight peer-reviewed publications, nine books, and several immunology textbook chapters about the evolution of the immune system; however, he simply insisted that this was still not sufficient evidence of evolution, and that it was not 'good enough.'
We find that such evidence demonstrates that the ID argument is dependent upon setting a scientifically unreasonable burden of proof for the theory of evolution.
Other important scientific points stood out during trial relating to other purported irreducibly complex systems such as the flagellum and the clotting cascade, the nature of science itself and the lack of experimental tests and supporting peer-reviewed publications for ID. But the stark contrast between the lively and productive field of evolutionary immunology and the stubborn refusal by ID advocates such as Behe to even consider the evidence was undoubtedly crucial in convincing the judge that the ID movement has little to do with science. As Rothschild remarked in his closing argument,
Thankfully, there are scientists who do search for answers to the question of the origin of the immune system. It's the immune system. It's our defense against debilitating and fatal diseases. The scientists who wrote those books and articles toil in obscurity, without book royalties or speaking engagements. Their efforts help us combat and cure serious medical conditions. By contrast, Professor Behe and the entire intelligent design movement are doing nothing to advance scientific or medical knowledge and are telling future generations of scientists, don't bother.
Evolutionary immunologists should be pleasantly surprised by and proud of the effect their scientific accomplishments have had in this landmark judicial case. This commentary is meant to acknowledge their contribution on behalf of the Dover families, their lawyers and all the activists for rigorous science education who have participated in these proceedings. Most importantly, however, the Dover case shows that no scientific field is too remote from the hotly debated topics of the day and that no community is too small and removed from the great urban and scientific centers to be relevant. Immunologists must engage their communities and society at large in events related to public perceptions about science. Now more than ever, the participation of scientists is essential for the crafting of rational policies on scientific research and science education.
Well, if you're committed to the idea that he's guilty until proven innocent, yeah.
Meanwhile, a large number of scientists learned from this affair that one fundamentalist liar in their audience can bring death threats on them in their family. Way to alienate us all still further.
Transposons are the original fragile DNA.
The genome rearrangement due to "stress" provides the mechanism for genome evolution and the analysis done in the context of non-random rearrangement.
To the extent that your cut and paste is coherent, it appears that the number of McClintocks in the citation list is 180 degrees opposite a number greater than zero.
Just curious, but what does it mean for one number to be in opposition to any other. What would be the opposite of say...3.
Are you trying to make a point other than to exhibit your ignorance?
It's better to not be stupid -- don't get stuck on stupid.
You're psycho, man.
Sorry, but you seem nuts. Stop thinking in this negative, dour somber manner and start to live. It might make you feel good, smug or safe to always be focusing on certain people you don't like and think you are better than, but brother let me tell you it isn't going to do you any good and surely ain't going to move you any closer to Stockholm if that's what you're interested in.
Your first appearance on this thread was a personal insult. You are a clueless charlatan who knows no science and spends his time insulting those who do. Bug off.
Snap out of it.
Please don't post to me again. It has been made clear to you your attentions are unwelcome, and I've been making it a policy to ignore you, but your persistent insults are annoying.
OK. Spoon feed the babies
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=9653154&query_hl=4&itool=pubmed_docsum
was in response to stultis asking
Now your citations demonstrating the Barbara McClintock had anything to do with fragile breakage?
Your citation was a poor choice, since McClintock is not an author and was not an author of any of the papers this paper cites.
It's also interesting that you think a statement using several of your favorite phrases is "stupid". If that's what you think of your own writing, then maybe you should look for new catch phrases.
To make it even more clear I have referenced a couple papers, one by McClintock in 1984 and the other a 20 year retrospective of that paper.
McClintock studied chromosome structure and function and in doing so was able to discover "jumping genes" as they are called. It is now known that these type of DNA are a huge component of the genomes of higher organisms. Their properties wherein they are asssociated with double strand breaks of DNA, translocations, rearrangement, transpsositions and the like provide a mechanism for the differences in chromosomes seen between various species.
You never know. There are a lot of lurkers on these threads.
You then posted to me.
You can't be taken seriosuly and seem not to be in control of your own emotions. First you post to me. I respond, then you say don't post to me, so I don't. Then you post to me, so I respond again. Now you say don't post to me. Forgive me if I get the impression you can't make up your mind and are a bit emotional.
I will post to you or anyone whenever I want. Generally I don;t post to you because you don't ever say anything of substance and are too defensive to actually communicate on a topic.
I posted to you today because I thought you are too negative and it is not a good state of mind to be in. Sorry, but I meant no harm or insult. I sincerely mean what I am saying. All I was saying is get back to science and stop focusing on the negative. It's advice. You don't have to take it. It's a free country, you can do what you want.
OK, since you have refused repeated requests to stop this, we'll do it your way.
Well, I must say that mis-spelled, ungrammatical summary of 12th grade genetics sure convinced me.
If you were familar with chromosome structure you'd know all ready and wouldn't need any convincing.
As it is you simply show your ignorance of the field in terms of chromsomal structure, its relationship to DNA structure and fumction and the evolutionary implications of that.
You you are skeptical of what? Barbara McClintock's contributions to chromosome structure and function?
That's 'already'. What is unconvincing is your grasp of biology.
As it is you simply show your ignorance of the field in terms of chromsomal structure, its relationship to DNA structure and fumction and the evolutionary implications of that
Maybe you should have a native speaker help you with your posts, because they're near-gibberish. I've said nothing about chrmosome structure, so there is no basis for you to draw any conclusion.
You you are skeptical of what? Barbara McClintock's contributions to chromosome structure and function?
I'm skeptical you know any biology that you haven't learned from Wikipedia.
Is that all?
You said you weren't convinced. What aren;t you convinced of? Are you going to talk about the key aspect of evolution which is chromosomal structure and function or what?
And drop your wrong and ill-conceived pre-conceived notions. They are insulting to non-native speakers. This seems all you do -- spew vitriol.
Am I to assume you are not a native speaker?
Knock off the side issue of typos and your irrational dislike of non-native speakers or people you wrongly assume to be something they are not. Everyone makes typos apparently including even you (gasp), I make more than most.
I'm unconvinced that you have any particular knowledge or grasp of biology. You cast aspersions at other posters' knowledge of the subject, but when challenged yourself, post answers of questionable relevance. That leads me to believe you don't really understaand what you're posting. People who live in glass houses, etc.
And drop your wrong and ill-conceived pre-conceived notions. They are insulting to non-native speakers. This seems all you do -- spew vitriol.
I'm not spewing vitriol or insulting anyone. I'm making you aware, in a perfectly friendly manner, of something of which you seem to be ignorant. You are, after all, determined to dispense unsolicited advice. The least I can do is help you in return.
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