Posted on 02/10/2003 12:41:03 PM PST by CalConservative
Scientists Flood the Flagellum Engine 02/10/2003
Japanese researchers have found that flagella, the whiplike propellers that make bacteria swim, can get flooded with too many protons if the pH is lowered inside, reports Nature Science Update. Like a flooded car engine, the motors come to a stop. But they can run fine again if the artificially-induced pH change is reversed. The article concludes by discussing the functional specifications of these molecular machines:
“This is a motor with quite remarkable properties,” says Robert Macnab of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, who studies the assembly of bacterial motors. “It runs like a battery, moves like a ship’s propeller, has a gear switch so it can rotate in either direction, and it’s under the control of information from environment. These are biological functions at their most simplified form, and yet there are 60 different types of components in this little engine.”Kendall Powell explains the interest in these motors: “Researchers are keen to understand such chemically driven biological motors, which are only millionths of a millimetre across, as electronics do not work on this scale.”
The bacterial flagellum has become the unofficial mascot of the Intelligent Design movement, since the publication of Darwin’s Black Box and the film Unlocking the Mystery of Life. And not without cause; this article does nothing to explain how evolution could produce such a molecular machine. It doesn’t even broach the subject. On the contrary, it underscores the point that this is an irreducibly complex system. Macnab claims there are “60 different types of components in this little engine.” See the picture in the article, and consider also that many bacteria have more than one propeller – this species appears to have eight – that work in coordinated movement. In addition to all the complexity of each individual flagellum, having a system of eight requires fast signalling across the interior.
This is just one of many molecular machines in the cell that argue for intelligent design. As Bruce Alberts has said, “Indeed, the entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines.” Many of these structures are just as amazing, and more so, as the flagellum. For a few examples, see the spliceosome, RNA polymerase, and ATP Synthase. Another article posted yesterday on EurekAlert uses the word “machine” seven times as it discusses “an intricately complex protein machine” that adjust the connections between neurons.
Not a lot of difference at this level.
There are hundreds of little miracles that make us what we are. The evolutionists cannot explain a single one - that's why they stay away from this thread. They do not want anyone to see the facts of life which they have been so long denying.
Oh, puh-leaze. Evolution explains many of them quite easily. When are you going to stop just making up stuff like that?
that's why they stay away from this thread.
*wave*. Hello. Yet another one of your failed presumptions.
They do not want anyone to see the facts of life which they have been so long denying.
Oh, right, I guess that's why evolutionary biologists perform a huge amount of the biological research into the "facts of life", eh? Try reading the literature sometime. Oh, that's right, you don't think you need to.
True enough, since it's just examining the properties of the "cell machinery". And yet, that doesn't stop you from suddenly declaring:
On the contrary, it underscores the point that this is an irreducibly complex system.
Excuse me? No, it doesn't. If the article doesn't bother to "broach the subject" of how the flagellum could have (or could not have) arisen through evolution, then it provides no insight *either way* into the matter.
How quickly creationists declare victory out of thin air...
Macnab claims there are “60 different types of components in this little engine.”
Yes, so? Being somewhat complex is hardly the same as being provably "irreducibly complex". You *do* actually understand what "irreducibly complex" means, don't you? It's a very specific claim about a system -- you can't just say, "well that's complex, therefore it's probably irreducibly complex, so there, I win, QED." That's incredibly sloppy "reasoning". In fact, it's no sort of reasoning at all. It's simple presumption.
Whether something is irreducibly complex or not is something that has to be *proven* in a rigorous, mathematical-proof type manner. You haven't even *begun* to do so. Nor has Behe. He's the king of the "argumentum ad ignoratum", or the argument from ignorance, which goes, "I don't see how that could happen, therefore it couldn't have". The fallacy involved in that sort of logical leap should be clear to all -- all except creationists, apparently.
A *lot* more has to be understood about the mechanics of flaggela, and the DNA coding which builds them, not to mention a comprehensive study of more primitive fossil flagella, and other forms of flagella in still-living species, before any firm conclusions can be drawn about whether they could feasibly have arisen by evolution, or whether an evolutionary pathway seems a case of "you can't get there from here".
Unless Behe (or you) have claimed to have exhaustively examined *every* conceivable stepwise pathway from cells without flagella to cells with them, and explicitly ruled *each* one out, it's ludicrous to just flatly declare a priori that they "must" be irredicibly complex.
Why don't you do what real scientists do, and go off and make a major research project out of this, exhaustively examining all the available evidence and working your way through all the intricate ramifications of your hypothesis?
Oh, right, because it's so much easier to just declare victory without doing all the hard work of making a *case* for it...
Pfaugh...
LOL! What's funny is that you don't understand that you're undercutting something which would arguably help support your ID beliefs.
Oh well, no one ever accused the creationists of being consistent -- except consistent in doing a knee-jerk denial of anything that any "evolutionist" says, even when it's actually compatible with their own beliefs...
How quickly creationists declare victory out of thin air...
Its seems as if the creationists expect true scientists to spend every second of their time attempting to prove evolution and refute ID instead of doing productive work. This is just a desperate attempt from those that are being ignored to get some attention.
I'm sorry, but at this point the burden of proof is on the creationists (or ID'ers or whatever). The evolutionists have already presented their evidence. All the creationists do is attempt to take potshots without presenting any evidence of their own. I will ask again, where/what/who is your creator? Do you have anything except dubious 2000-year-old manuscripts?
Really? Explaining away is not evidence of anything. So just stop the rhetoric and let's have some facts. Let us see the scientific evidence for the random evolution of the flagellar motor.
And I suppose you believe Saddam when he says he has no WMD and also place him as a peace lover.
You know who He is. If you wish to deny Him, that is your problem, not mine. However, you have another problem, evolution is supposed to be a scientific theory and you cannot defend it scientifically so you have to try to divert the discussion by religious bashing.
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