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Author | Topic: The Death Knell for ID? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Trixie Member (Idle past 2452 days) Posts: 1011 From: Edinburgh Joined: |
A new paper has not only cast doubts on Michael Behe's assertions, it's run a freight train over the top of the ID arguments against evolution.
For a concise version see http://www.nytimes.com/...us-learns-a-new-way-to-infect.html The abstract can be found at http://www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6067/428.abstract Science 27 January 2012: Vol. 335 no. 6067 pp. 428-432 I don't have access to the full text, so would appreciate the input of people who have. Briefly, it has been shown that a bacteriophage which infects E.coli via the LamB receptor was able to evolve a different mechanism to infect E.coli cells which had very few LamB receptors on the surface. Within only fifteen days there were phage particles using the OmpF protein, something the phage had never been known to do before. DNA analysis showed that 4 separate mutations were needed for the phage to use OmpF. Of 96 lines, 24 developed the ability to use OmpF and the mutations were identical or almost identical. This is something that, according to ID, is so improbable that it would either never happen or would take far too long to happen by random mutation and natural selection. The probability of all four mutations occurring simultaneously is approximately 1 in a thousand trillion trillion, so it seems likely that they were gained one at a time, something ID and Behe dismiss out of hand. Even if we accept their claim that stepwise mutations can't result in something bordering on irreducible complexity, they are left dealing with the fact that something with such a low probability of happening, happened within 15 days! I'd like a very open discussion on this and would like to include those who can't post in the science fora, but I would like the emphasis to remain on the science so have no idea where this would go, since moderation may be required. Whatever Admin decides is fine with me.
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Admin Director Posts: 12708 From: EvC Forum Joined: |
Thread copied here from the The Death Knell for ID? thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16112 Joined: |
Possible IDiot responses:
* "Yes, but this isn't an example of something else entirely which we also claim to be impossible, a claim refuted by different examples which, however, aren't examples of a third thing which we won't define clearly enough for you to find out whether they are or not." * "This observation was made on organisms with such a short generation time that it was possible to make the observation. Therefore, like all such observations, it doesn't count." * "That isn't irreducibly complex, because it evolved." * "That isn't evolution, because it was an experiment done by a scientist in a laboratory, and is therefore an example of intelligent design. Of course, when we are talking out of the other side of our stupid faces, we claim that nothing counts as scientific knowledge unless it is the result of an experiment done by a scientist in a laboratory, because we are fucking morons." * A resounding silence in which, in the far distance, one can here Behe's books being reprinted without emendation.
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nwr Member Posts: 5646 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 7.1 |
The Dover trial was probably already the death knell - particularly when they had to admit that they would have to consider Astrology a science to be consistent with their position.
More recently, we have old earth creationist Dembski switching to young earth creationism in order to keep his job. I try to follow some of the ID blogs. There's almost nothing there that would count as an attempt to do serious science. It seems clear that they are just putting on a show, to make it look to creationists as if they have something. Jesus was a liberal hippie
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dwise1 Member Posts: 4391 Joined: Member Rating: 6.0 |
Or, as Glenn R. Morton described it, when Dembski had at a conference repeated his criticism of genetic algorithms only to be met by a sea of hands raised by engineers who used genetic algorithms on a regular basis and knew for a fact that Dembski didn't know what he was pontificating about. Morton's description: "looking like a deer caught in the headlights."
Last I checked, that link was broken on Morton's site, but Google'ing I found this copy of it at http://asa.chm.colostate.edu/archive/asa/200004/0175.html quote: Blaise Pascal: Slartibartfast: Share and enjoy!
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Portillo Member (Idle past 2907 days) Posts: 258 Joined: |
quote: You guys are the idiots for believing that bacteria resistance or a virus infection proves how a bacteria can turn into a human being over millions of years. The evidence is so thrilling that it is enough to prove how evolution created everything. And the conspiracy was strong, for the people increased continually - 2 Samuel 15:12
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Coyote Member (Idle past 853 days) Posts: 6117 Joined: |
Presumably you have evidence for some alternate explanation? Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
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Trixie Member (Idle past 2452 days) Posts: 1011 From: Edinburgh Joined: |
The whole reason this paper is important is as follows
1. Behe and supporters of ID claim that this sort of thing can't happen, therefore ID is the only explanation. 2. It just happened in a lab in 15 days, not once, but many times. Now either Behe is wrong and the foundation of the ID argument (they call it evidence) is fatally damaged OR The intelligent designer spent alot of time in the lab tinkering with the bacteriophages.
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Tangle Member Posts: 8050 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 5.5 |
Do we know if the 3 intermediate mutations before the fourth really 'useful' one added any benefits of their own to the organism? It doesn't seem so from the article although it may be that no-one has looked for any yet.
If nothing useful for the intermediates is found, it's not obvious how natural selection can be claimed for them - or at least the story we tell for the evolution of complex structures like the eye is not an exact analogy. So we're left with asking why something so apparently improbable happens so regularly - 24:96 or 1 roll of the dice in 4. The skeptic would say that on the evidence, something else is happening which we can't yet explain, but the obvious one is we got the odds wrong - ie the dice is loaded somehow. But we haven't yet shown how. Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
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Trixie Member (Idle past 2452 days) Posts: 1011 From: Edinburgh Joined: |
I agree that Dover should have put an end to the case for ID and I fully expected it to. However, Judge Jones showed much foresight when he said in the judgement that many would claim that it was a judgement of an activist court. Sure enough, this accusation is used time and again.
In the years since Dover, many bills have been introduced which show that ID is still trying to get a foot in the door by getting around the judgement using altered definitions and sleight of hand instead of dealing with the core finding of the judgement that ID isn't science. Behe's crucial claim, that certain things cannot happen by random mutation and natural selection, has been shown to be wrong, most notably in 2007 by Abie Smith (See Panda's Thumb and ERV's blog, I'll try to link later). This paper in Science, however, is different, in that it doesn't compare isolates from 30 years ago to current isolates, but actually observed the "impossible" in real time, in an experiment, in a lab. Not only that, but it was observed happening multiple times. It seems to cover all the objections that ID followers put forward when confronted with this type of evidence. Given that 4 mutations are involved in gaining the ability to use OmpF, it also makes inroads in the irreducible complexity argument, in real time, observed in a lab, again avoiding the criticism levelled at historical comparisons. This time the argument that "you weren't there to observe it so it's all guesswork" isn't going to work - the researchers were there, they did observe it and no guessing was involved.
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Trixie Member (Idle past 2452 days) Posts: 1011 From: Edinburgh Joined: |
Hope this helps, please forgive the huge cut and paste, but it was the easiest way to provide this information.
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Tangle Member Posts: 8050 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 5.5 |
Not much to me! But it seems that this statement - if it could be explained and demonstrated in non-geek - may do the job.
We need the word 'presumably' replaced by 'demonstrably' and then show why that is an advantage that would be selected for. Then we'd have a great story. Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
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Wounded King Member (Idle past 2841 days) Posts: 4149 From: Edinburgh, Scotland Joined: |
The original paper does touch on this, although it doesn't provide a definitive answer. They say ...
They go on to describe evidence such as the ratio of synonymous to non-synonymous mutations, the distribution of those mutations in the protein principally being concentrated around the region which interacts with the LamB receptor and the fact that there is a much higher level of parallel evolution amongst the strains that evolved to utilise OmpF (61% in these as opposed to 17% in those that only utilised LamB). It worth noting that while all of their evolved strains that could utilise OmpF did have 4 mutations they weren't all the same 4 mutations. In fact only 2 mutations were shared by all of the OmpF capable strains. The other 2 were slightly broader classes of mutations in one case all affecting the same amino and in the other being restricted between amino acids 990-1000 of the J protein. These distinctions would certainly heavily affect your probability calculations and it is highly likely that this is not a comprehensive catalogue of all the variations that give rise to the OmpF infection trait. I would suggest that the fact that the intermediate forms seem to provide a selective advantage and the fact that the 4 mutations are not so highly specific are the most likely reasons an ID proponent might put forward for this not being a case that demonstrates the evolution of a truly irreducibly complex system, whatever one of those might really be. TTFN, WK
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Larni Member (Idle past 40 days) Posts: 3998 From: Liverpool Joined: |
It's really quite simple: God wanted the phage to utilize the OmpF protein route.
/creo idiocy The above ontological example models the zero premise to BB theory. It does so by applying the relative uniformity assumption that the alleged zero event eventually ontologically progressed from the compressed alleged sub-microscopic chaos to bloom/expand into all of the present observable order, more than it models the Biblical record evidence for the existence of Jehovah, the maximal Biblical god designer. -Attributed to Buzsaw Message 53 The explain to them any scientific investigation that explains the existence of things qualifies as science and as an explanation Does a query (thats a question Stile) that uses this physical reality, to look for an answer to its existence and properties become theoretical, considering its deductive conclusions are based against objective verifiable realities.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16112 Joined: |
That would basically be response #1, with the addition of an explicit lie about your opponents --- which does not, I might add, make response #1 any smarter.
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