You'll learn Jeremy. My first posts here were similar. This is a large board with several fairly major divisions, some of which I have very little interest in (debating what the bible does or doesn't mean is relatively irrelevant in my world-view), and others where I find a lot of interest (I stay mostly on the science boards.)
This means there are likely places for anyone to find topics of interest.
Enjoy.
we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand
RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
One of the "icons" of the Neo-Paleyist "intelligent" design concepts is the bacterial flagellum. Whether or not this concept has been debunked as an "irreducibly complex" mechanism is open to some discussion, but here we look at whether this "icon" of many an ID essay has the markings of "intelligent" design or those of "silly" design.
Flagellum Fun Facts
First lets look at a diagram of this mechanism, drawn to make it look as mechanical as possible:
What happens is that ions cause the base to rotate, the "hook" is fixed (to aim the whip-like end of the flagellum) and the end whips about while it spins, at speeds that can reach many 100 Hertz (revolutions per second), and driving the bacterial cell at several body lengths a second (1).
{abe}An nice animation of this mechanism can be seen at the Access Research Network Molecular Machines Museum website on The Bacterial Flagellum. {/abe}
Obviously a highly efficient motor design, making maximum usage of the energy expended ... or is it?
Here we have a similar arrangement, the spinning drive mechanism extends down a tube, is turned and then exits the "hook" to turn the drive part of the motor, a small propeller.
We know one of these mechanisms was intentionally designed as a method of locomotion and for maximum efficiency in it's use of energy. Furthermore we know that the elements of this design have been developed over the course of many years of experimentation to select the best gear ratios, material strengths, power ratings and propeller design. Propellers in particular have undergone extreme design for improved efficiency, borrowing from the more prolific design of airplane wings and propellers in the process (such borrowing being an element frequently seen in good design when some other design element already is known to work and work well).
So the question is whether the flagellum design measures up to the known reference intelligent design, or is it just flailing about?
Any Bubba Can Do This Experiment
There is a simple experiment that anyone with ready access to a couple of similar boats with similar engines can do evaluate the question:
Use one boat as-is: this is the control, the known intelligent design
On the other remove the propeller and replace it with a 50 foot length of 1" diameter hose, hose clamped tightly to the driveshaft\spindle of the outboard
Load up the boats with kids (so they can ask "are we there yet?")
Race. See who gets "out of the hole" first, who tops out first and what their tops speeds are.
Put in reverse and repeat.
Match speed and compare engine RPM (revolutions per minute) and fuel consumption.
If you feel that you need more evidence, try different size hoses and different lengths.
See if the kids are laughing at the hose or the propeller.
Oh, and if the flagellum design wins? Publish, become a national hero to endangered manatees, broken propellers sufferers, etcetera and put many propeller design companies out of work.
Note: a 25 foot boat traveling at 50 mph is traveling ~3 times its length in a second.
Silliness
Now consider that it would be extremely easy to make the flagellum become a propeller by the intelligent input of design information from other available systems. The flagellum could be easily split into two (or more) filaments that are then flattened and angled apart in a "Y" type pattern, and with one leg bent up and one down and both shortened (less material overall = more efficient design) you have a rudimentary propeller. Add some twist and some shape (such as you find on a penguin wing - used to "fly" underwater) and you have a more efficient design.
We can get an idea of what this simple modification would look like by again referring to known intelligent design, this time to an early propeller design before scientific methods were applied (2):
Except of course that a central spindle is not necessary and could be eliminated. But even these early propellers are silly by today's standards of design (3).
The hose on the other hand can be nothing but a silly way to waste gas.
This mechanism displays an excessively high Silliness Index (SI).
This is good, because maybe you can shed some light on something that I believe falls under the general heading of Silly Design.
I am speaking of human toenails. As a member of the human species, I can't see any specific purpose to having toenails, except perhaps to annoy the Mrs by letting it go a little too long before cutting them. And that's another thing, why do the bloody things have to keep growing? If indeed they do have some useful purpose that I am so far unaware of, wouldn't it be more intelligent to design them to grow to the ideal length only, rather than have constant growth that requires regular trimming?
I'd say this combination of inconvenience with no practical purpose qualifies the toenail as an example of silly design. Though I guess I should mention that toenails do cause socks to wear out sooner than they normally would and thereby help to keep the sock industry in business, and I don't think anyone wants to see the sock market crash.
Thor, you've forgotten that the TOE is Irreducibly Comical, and thus you have put your immortal sole at risk.Real science did not really get going until Christians began applying the inference of a lawful universe made by a rational God to the study of the physical creation. --Faith
Dunno, TH, I found my toenails came in handy when my mate spilled a 5 gallon drum of gasoline near an open fire and I had to climb up and hurdle him on the way to safety. :D
There is one species of crustacean, privileges over all other known sighted organisms with eight different pigments for vision, and thus apparently the ability to see eight different primary colors.
Of course, what I find most interesting is the fact that the different versions of the same gene are used in the marking where the drosophilia (eyeless), the mouse (small eye -- which in mice control the size), and the human (aniridia) will have eyes form, such that, for example, if your take the mouse small gene and substitute it for the drosophilia's, it will perform the same function as the drosophilia's eyeless gene -- and given these homologies, whereas it seemed at one time that vision had been invented about times in the history of life, apparently at the genetic level, it was invented only once.
I understand that the Box Jellyfish has a whole range of eyes, some simple, some complex. Does anyone know how that gets coded?Aslan is not a Tame Lion
...with eight different pigments for vision, and thus apparently the ability to see eight different primary colors.
You mean cones eh? Beats birds eating those poor peppered moths to heck.
... whereas it seemed at one time that vision had been invented about {*} times in the history of life, apparently at the genetic level, it was invented only once.
Couldn't that just be the gene for light sensitivity from which all other eyes developed? The most primitive level of sight, but also most likely for the most primitive of multicell life forms, to regulate life to the rise and fall of the sun?
{*} - missing a quantifier there?
we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand
RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
Specialization of eyes in the same organism? This sounds like a job for Evo Devo!
Haven't had the chance to read the article as of yet, but you might want to try:
Cubozoan jellyfish: an Evo/Devo model for eyes and other sensory systems by JORAM PIATIGORSKY and ZBYNEK KOZMIK Int. J. Dev. Biol. 48: 719-729 (2004) doi: 10.1387/ijdb.041851jp http://www.ijdb.ehu.es/ijdb200448089/ft719.pdf
™ Version 4.0 Beta
