Time to Give It Up [Intelligent Design and Irreducible Complexity]

Seed Magazine ^ | 4/10/06 | Britt Peterson

[LibWhacker]

New research chips away at the "irreducible complexity" argument behind intelligent design.

Lehigh biochemistry professor Michael Behe and his cronies in the intelligent design community have attempted to poke holes in evolutionary theory using an idea dubbed "irreducible complexity"—the notion that complex systems with interdependent parts could not have evolved through Darwinian trial and error and must be the work of a creator, since the absence of any single part makes the whole system void. However, a paper published in the April 7th issue of Science provides the first experimental proof that "irreducible complexity" is a misnomer, and that even the most complex systems come into being through Darwinian natural selection.

"We weren't motivated by irreducible complexity," said Joe Thornton, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oregon and a co-author of the paper. "How complexity evolved is a longstanding issue in evolutionary biology per se, and it's once we saw our results that we realized the implications for the social debate."

Thornton's team has been studying one example of a complex system in which each part defines the function of the other: the partnerships between hormones and the proteins on cell walls, or receptors, that bind them. The researchers looked specifically at the hormone aldosterone, which controls behavior and kidney function, and its receptor.

"[This pairing] is a great model for the problem of the evolution of complexity," said Thornton. "How do these multi-part systems—where the function of one part depends on the other part—evolve?"

Thornton and his co-investigators used computational methods to deduce the gene structure of a long-gone ancestor of aldosterone's receptor. They then synthesized the receptor in the lab. After recovering the ancient receptor—which they estimate to be a 450-million-year-old receptor that would have been present in the ancestor of all jawed vertebrates—Thornton's team tested modern day hormones that would activate it. Although aldosterone did not evolve until many millions of years after the extinction of the ancient hormone receptor, Thornton found that it and the ancient receptor were compatible.

This cross-generational partnership is made possible, Thornton explained, by the similarity in form between aldosterone and the ancient hormone that once partnered with the receptor.

"The story is basically that a new hormone evolved later and exploited a receptor that had a different function previously to take part in a new partnership," said Thornton.

The principal at work in the evolution of complex systems is molecular exploitation: when an individual component casts around for other materials that might work together with it, even though those elements might have evolved as parts of other systems.

"Evolution assembles these complex systems by exploiting parts that are already present for other purposes, drawing them into new complexes and giving them new functions through very subtle changes in their sequences and in their structures," Thornton said.

While the mutually dependent parts do not evolve to be perfectly complementary to one another, after molecular exploitation, they cleave together and create an illusion of irreducible complexity.

"Such studies solidly refute all parts of the intelligent design argument," wrote Christoph Adami, of the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences, in an introduction to the Science paper. "Those 'alternate' ideas, unlike the hypotheses investigated in these papers, remain thoroughly untested. Consequently, whatever debate remains must be characterized as purely political."

[ConsentofGoverned]

" know it will be accepted hook line and sinker around here by committed evolutionists, but I dont' find it convincing. I believe this is a human foible. It recurs over and over in these postings. "
>>>>>>>>>>>>>................
right on..the old GIGO..put it 450 million yrs ago (like they could deduce receptor binding sites for animals living 450 million yrs ago with no tissue/proteins/dna/mrna/hormones on and on to test!!!!
this is brazen, they just assume it was like this because hey this is the receptor we got today..what crap science is reported as fact today.

[Right Wing Professor]

They "deduced" something that existed (supposedly) 450 million years ago using computers. They they whipped up some in the lab - "this ancient thing". Then they find that a modern day hormone complements it. The level of presupposition is huge. The reliance on computers to make up something is staggering.

Computers are just a tool. You can infer the sequence of a gene in a common ancestor without them; it just takes longer. But it's a useful demonstration of the technique, whose logic is transparent and difficult to refute. I taught a class of freshmen to do it a couple of years back.

Of course they were neither stupid nor irremediably prejudiced against the idea. Either would make it very hard to learn.

[manwiththehands]

" Science is the observation and measurement of phenomenon."
"That automatically rules out ID."

Oh, no. To the contrary: ID can easily be classified as science. The study of "design" is very scientific. "Observation" and "measurement". Observing and measuring "evolution" is screaming "EUREKA"! when a fruit fly finally "evolves" into "not a fruit fly but better". It simply hasn't been measured and it hasn't been observed. EVER.

[Right Wing Professor]

Science is the observation and measurement of phenomenon. Or at least that's what I learned in JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL science class.

Too bad you seem to have stopped learning in junior high.

Computer calculations are indispensable in most fields of science these days.

[Coyoteman]

Observing and measuring "evolution" is screaming "EUREKA"! when a fruit fly finally "evolves" into "not a fruit fly but better". It simply hasn't been measured and it hasn't been observed. EVER.

See the chart in post #5, upthread.

[eddie2]

You will have to refresh my memory. I thought the earth was supposed to be about 5 billion years old and that life started about one billion years ago.

Are you saying that cells mutate everytime they divide? It seems that with a mutation rate like you describe life forms would be constantly mutating into other forms in very short periods of time.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

" Oh, no. To the contrary: ID can easily be classified as science."

Only if you redefine science to include the untestable and unobservable.

"Observing and measuring "evolution" is screaming "EUREKA"! when a fruit fly finally "evolves" into "not a fruit fly but better""

This is not an example of an observation of a designer or a testable claim for ID. And it's also wrong.

"It simply hasn't been measured and it hasn't been observed. EVER."

Again, this, even if it were true (it isn't) doesn't make ID scientific. ID makes no testable claims, nor is the alleged designer observable.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"You will have to refresh my memory. I thought the earth was supposed to be about 5 billion years old and that life started about one billion years ago."

You DO need refreshing. The earth is about 4.5 billion years old and life is almost 4 billion years old.

"Are you saying that cells mutate everytime they divide?"

Pretty close.

[ndt]

"Programs don't write themselves."

Actually some do. Guess what this successful method of solving problems was inspired by?

[Getready]

Don't forget, those mutations had to occur within, lets
say, the first billion years or so..you can't use the
whole 4.5 billion years...so if you work it out at
1 division every 20 minutes (per cell), and count the
numbers of cells, and the successful mutation rate
(i.e. the one that doesn't get corrected by correction
enzymes....oh, by the way, where did THEY come from?),
factor in bio. death rates of cells, DE-EVOLUTION (i.e.
DNA/RNA can back mutate too, can't it?), weather,
ozone, cosmic rays, heat, oxidizing molecules, precipitation problems...that should give you some idea of
how many mutations, and how much time, and how much
circumstances are needed. Appealing to time (Newtonian,
I suppose in your model) is not always going to help.
Someone has said that given enough time, the most
likely thing is going to occur. That usually involves
entropy, and destruction of formed materials. Some people think that given enough time, the most unlikely thing will occur.
P.S. what was the food source of the original bacteria...
did they come with biochemical instructions on how to
synthesis food, and exchange electrons, like from
O2, or Sulfur, or arsenic? ,....etc????
Or did the ones which had those properties already find "themselves" successful???? Chicken or egg,
enzyme, or DNA?

[ConsentofGoverned]

"Are you saying that cells mutate everytime they divide? It seems that with a mutation rate like you describe life forms would be constantly mutating into other forms in very short periods of time."
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>....................
the biggest joke in science..mutations lead to new species ..just let one scientist force mutations on any life form and see if he gets a new species..never has happened and never will..the complex living system is beyond human understanding..DNA is information and someone for lack of a better word had the information encoded there much like a computer programmer provides the code for computers to operate..chance mutations result in death or disease not new animals.

[somniferum]

But have they gotten a tornado through a junkyard to assemble a working automobile?

Until then I sticking with what good old JC said.

(I mean of course, Jack Chick!)

[Coyoteman]

Until then I sticking with what good old JC said.

(I mean of course, Jack Chick!)

You have got to be kidding!

Your response to science, and the thousands of discoveries being made there, is Jack Chick?

Please tell me you forgot the /sarcasm line.

[Getready]

In this case, I agree with you.
Many molecules interact with different receptor sites.
That's why a drug which is used for one medical condition
also causes many side effects. A billion different
parts (or what we say, moieties,) of a molecule
could look like something else to a receptor. Finding
some theoretical molecules interacting with a theoretical
receptor is not very specific...for some reason, people
seem to forget that molecules and simple chemicals are
in equilibrium with the different conformations that
they can achieve, so if they're bent one way, they may
look like a different molecule (or be able to bind with
a receptor that it usually doesn't at a high rate)
I think some people think that molecules are little
balls hooked up at certain areas, and never break up,
or never change their conformation, or neither interact
with other items in their very near environment..
The 3-D animations they show usually show much less of the congestion and possible interactions going
on in that tiny space...

[ConsentofGoverned]

well stated. the hype over "time" solves all of evolutions problems..can't hold water and junk science like this article are desperate attempts to explain away the impossible..would think hanging your hat on the old
over billions of years anything can happen..sounds more and more like roulette in Las Vegas. remember the rule of chance if I roll red 30x in a row the chance of hitting black on roll 31 is what? greater? lesser? the same?
yet the evolutionist think it will come up black time and time again until life emerges from the old primordial soup..well the soups cold and DNA becomes useless without the proper environment of multitudes of amino acids held within close proximity, with golgi app, mrna,trna, all appearing from the magical cold soup..what gamblers these evolutionist are.

[VadeRetro]

You will have to refresh my memory. I thought the earth was supposed to be about 5 billion years old and that life started about one billion years ago.

[manwiththehands]

That's a nice drawing of living fruit fly skulls evolving into living "not a fruit fly but better" skulls.

[spinestein]

[Well, just show me macro-evolution in a lab and I'll sign right up...what's that? You can't? Oh..]



I know what you mean. That's the same reason I don't believe that the sun and other stars exist. They are probably just little balls of flame floating in our atmosphere just a few hundred feet up, and the idea that they're much larger than the Earth and powered by multi-million degree fusion is just arrogant atheist scientists' fantasy.

[Coyoteman]

well stated. the hype over "time" solves all of evolutions problems..can't hold water and junk science like this article are desperate attempts to explain away the impossible..would think hanging your hat on the old over billions of years anything can happen..sounds more and more like roulette in Las Vegas.

Can't handle billions and billions?

How about millions then?

Do you have any scientific evidence that the fossils in this photograph did not evolve as portrayed in the chart in post #5, above?

Figure 1.4.4. Fossil hominid skulls. Some of the figures have been modified for ease of comparison (only left-right mirroring or removal of a jawbone). (Images © 2000 Smithsonian Institution.)

(A) Pan troglodytes, chimpanzee, modern
(B) Australopithecus africanus, STS 5, 2.6 My
(C) Australopithecus africanus, STS 71, 2.5 My
(D) Homo habilis, KNM-ER 1813, 1.9 My
(E) Homo habilis, OH24, 1.8 My
(F) Homo rudolfensis, KNM-ER 1470, 1.8 My
(G) Homo erectus, Dmanisi cranium D2700, 1.75 My
(H) Homo ergaster (early H. erectus), KNM-ER 3733, 1.75 My
(I) Homo heidelbergensis, "Rhodesia man," 300,000 - 125,000 y
(J) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Ferrassie 1, 70,000 y
(K) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Chappelle-aux-Saints, 60,000 y
(L) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Le Moustier, 45,000 y
(M) Homo sapiens sapiens, Cro-Magnon I, 30,000 y
(N) Homo sapiens sapiens, modern

[somniferum]

I didn't think one was needed, but I guess on these threads.. sheesh ;)