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Scientists Flood The Flagellum Engine
Creation-Evolution Headlines ^ | 2/10/03 | Creation-Evolution Headlines

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.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: creation; crevo; crevolist; intelligentdesign
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To: rmmcdaniell
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.

Well, the heros of evolutionists - Darwin, Gould and Dawkins, never did a day's productive work in their life. The real science, the discoverers, could care less about evolution. They are trying to solve problems, cure diseases, learn about life. The keep constantly destroying your silly little theory which even in 1859 was lousy science and today is just a joke.

21 posted on 02/10/2003 9:03:41 PM PST by gore3000
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To: Boiler Plate
You ought to read "Prey" by Michael Crichton.

I am afraid that science fiction does not count as evidence of evolution. You folk are getting pretty desperate.

22 posted on 02/10/2003 9:05:15 PM PST by gore3000
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To: Ichneumon
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.

Of course it does. It is an enormously efficient motor made up of some 60 individual parts all coming together to produce one smooth working unit. Just about all the parts are specific to the flagellar mechanism and no one has shown they evolved in the 8 or so years since the claim was made. That is pretty strong proof that it did not evolve, however, if you have valid scientific proof for it having evolved, let's hear it. Rhetoric is evidence of nothing and that is all you have.

23 posted on 02/10/2003 9:09:36 PM PST by gore3000
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To: AndrewC
Geez, another silly blueskipping placemarker.

Facts? what facts, there are no facts when you read the blue.

Facts? Arguments? He don't need no stinking facts or arguments. Rhetoric is all he needs.
24 posted on 02/10/2003 9:10:44 PM PST by Aric2000 (Are you on Grampa Dave's team? I am!! $5 a month is all it takes, come join!!!)
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To: Aric2000
Geez, another silly blueskipping placemarker.

Rats, my Baloney detector went off again.

25 posted on 02/10/2003 9:16:10 PM PST by AndrewC (This time Ball Park brand detected)
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To: Aric2000
The darwinian dichotomy (( darloserian )) . . .

evolution is a dead branch of science - - -

going to the fire // ash heap of history ! !
26 posted on 02/11/2003 12:37:51 AM PST by f.Christian (( Orcs of the world : : : Take note and beware. ))
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To: gore3000
Well, the heros of evolutionists - Darwin, Gould and Dawkins, never did a day's productive work in their life. The real science, the discoverers, could care less about evolution. They are trying to solve problems, cure diseases, learn about life. The keep constantly destroying your silly little theory which even in 1859 was lousy science and today is just a joke.

Your pure hatred shows through and destroys your credability.

27 posted on 02/11/2003 4:46:27 AM PST by rmmcdaniell
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To: gore3000
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.

No I don't know who he is. No scientist would ever accept "evidence" that was passed around by word of mouth for over a hundred years before it was recorded as proof of anything. I was simply asking for your evidence, your accusation that I diverted into religous bashing is an admision that you have none.

28 posted on 02/11/2003 4:54:44 AM PST by rmmcdaniell
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To: Ichneumon
Placemarker.
29 posted on 02/11/2003 5:43:57 AM PST by Junior (I stole your tag line)
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To: VadeRetro; jennyp; Junior; longshadow; *crevo_list; RadioAstronomer; Scully; Piltdown_Woman; ...
Idiot thread ping.

[This ping list for the evolution -- not creationism -- side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. To be added (or dropped), let me know via freepmail.]

30 posted on 02/11/2003 7:24:51 AM PST by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas)
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To: All
What is a troll?

Definition

31 posted on 02/11/2003 8:18:51 AM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo
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To: PatrickHenry
If I was REALLY evil, I would reply to gore3000 only in rainbow fonts.
32 posted on 02/11/2003 8:33:14 AM PST by Saturnalia
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo

Internet troll

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

On the Internet, a troll is a person who posts messages that create controversy or an angry response without adding content to the discussion, often intentionally. Though technically different from flaming which is an unmistakable direct personal attack, trolls often resort to innuendo or misdirection in the pursuit of their objective, which is to create controversy for its own sake, discredit those with whom they disagree, or sabotage discussion by creating an intimidating atmosphere.


33 posted on 02/11/2003 10:02:32 AM PST by AndrewC (Spot on)
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To: gore3000
Hey genius, He who has all the answers but zero evidence, he who claims that every nobel prize in the last 50 years proves evolution is false, He who champions Behe more than any evolutionist ever lauds Darwin, He who has some strange blue font complex, he who simply REFUSES to answer the simple little question: =/- A FEW BILLION YEARS, HOW OLD DO YOU THINK THE EARTH IS, He who didn't really think we'd forgotten that did he, I have a question about your "irreducible complexity" notion.

Any of us can go to a pond, scoop up some water, and marvel at the various micro-organisms under a microscope. Several of these will have flagella. Several of these flagella will be mechanically, structurally, and biologically different. I don't know about you, but "Intelligent Design" to me means economy, repetition, and simplicity. Why the heck did god make all these different flagellum? Is god irreducibly complex? When I design a database at work, I like it to contain all the necessary info, nothing more than needed, to be simple, and to be able to be used down the road to build another. Just a thought.
34 posted on 02/11/2003 10:18:22 AM PST by whattajoke
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To: rmmcdaniell
No scientist would ever accept "evidence"

You are not a scientist, you are not into evolution for the science, you are into evolution because of your irreligious beliefs. If you were in it for the science (and evolution were a scientific fact as evolutionists claim) then you would know how to defend it by giving scientific evidence for it.

35 posted on 02/11/2003 6:54:46 PM PST by gore3000
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To: AndrewC; Michael_Michaelangelo
Internet troll

Hmmm, what evolutionist could you guys be talking about?????? I have the name on the tip of my tongue.... does not seem to know much about evolution but a lot about religious bashing ...

36 posted on 02/11/2003 6:59:41 PM PST by gore3000
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To: PatrickHenry
[This ping list for the evolution -- not creationism -- side of evolution threads

You know Patrick, evolution has become so discredited, that I do not think that if you and your friends talked solely amongst yourselves, you could win the argument for it!

37 posted on 02/11/2003 7:01:34 PM PST by gore3000
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To: PatrickHenry
Blue skipping placemarker.
38 posted on 02/11/2003 7:05:26 PM PST by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas)
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To: whattajoke
he who claims that every nobel prize in the last 50 years proves evolution is false,

Not quite what I have said. I have said that every Nobel Prize given in the field of biology has tended to disprove evolution. This claim was challenged a couple of times when it was first made with shameful defeats of the evolutionists by me.

The challenge is still open to all comers - including you. So you see, you have no need to insult, you can prove me wrong if you think you are up to it. But then, we both know you are not up to it, all you know how to do is hurl lame insults.

39 posted on 02/11/2003 7:05:48 PM PST by gore3000
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To: gore3000
Step 1) Find a college near you.

Step 2) Go to one of the college's bookstores.

Step 3) But an introductory biology textbook.

Step 4) Learn something useful, rather than how to make your font blue.

Step 5) Ask yourself, "Why do I worry about bacteria becoming resistent to penicillin if there is no evolution?" Or wonder, "Isn't it odd that we share so much genetic material with animals closest to us on the evolutionary scale?" and "Isn't it amazing we have skeletons of neanderthals, austrolopithecis [Note: incorrect spelling due to no spell-checking], and dinosaurs, none of which are mentioned in the book of Genesis, which seems to have 2 creation stories?"

Step 6) Shut up and leave the science to scientists. Your religious beliefs about the world's origins are useless to those of us trying to survive in the real world. Jesus is good. Creationism is bad.

And f.Christian is now my Grendel. You heard me. Beowulf predates Tolkien by a while, so I'm obviously better than you.
40 posted on 02/11/2003 7:29:54 PM PST by Buckeye Bomber
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