The question is: what functional intermediates could there be?
Let's take a look at functional intermediates, shall we?
In the only paper Behe has published in the last 10 years, Simulating Evolution by Gene Duplication of Protein Feature that Requires Multiple Amino Acid Residues,
Protein Science (2004), Behe claims "this may well be the nail in the coffin [and] the crumbling of the Berlin wall of Darwinian evolution."
The following is from the court transcripts from Behe's testimony at the Dover trial:
Q. And let me just ask you a few questions, and you tell me if I'm fairly summarizing the results of your computer simulation. What you're asking is, how long will it take to get -- and please follow with me, I'm trying to do this slowly and methodically -- two or more specific mutations, in specific locations, in a specific gene, in a specific population, if the function is not able to be acted on by natural selection until all the mutations are in place, if the only form of mutation is point mutation, and the population of organisms is asexual?
Q. I'd be happy to. Two or more specific mutations?
A. Actually, this dealt with one or more.
Q. Fair enough. In specific locations?
A. No, that's not correct. We assumed that there were several locations in the gene that could undergo these selectable mutations, but we did not designate where they were.
Q. In the specific gene?
A. We were considering one gene, yes.
Q. In a specific population?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. If the function is not able to be acted on by natural selection until all mutations are in place?
A. Yes, that's what's meant by multiple amino acid residue, multi-residue feature, yes.
Q. If the only form of mutation is point mutation?
A. Yes, that's a very common type of mutation, which is probably half or more of the mutations that occur in an organism.
Q. And if the population of organisms is asexual?
A. Yes, we did not -- actually, we did not confine it just to asexuals, but we did not consider recombination.
Q. To produce a novel protein feature through the kind of multiple point mutations you're talking about, it would take 10 to the 8th generations, that's what it says in the abstract, correct?
A. If, in fact, it was -- if, in fact, the intermediate states were not selectable.
Q. Okay. So 10 to the 8th generation, that's 100 million generations?
A. That's correct.
Q. And yesterday, you explained about bacteria, that 10,000 generations would take about two years in the laboratory, correct?
A. Yes.
Q. So 100 million generations, that would take about 20,000 years?
Q. And those are numbers based on your probability calculations in this model, correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Now it would be true that, if you waited a little longer, say, instead of 10 to 9th generations, 10 to the 10th generations, then it would mean that you wouldn't need as big a population to get the function that you are studying?
A. That's right. The more chances you have, the more likely you are to develop a feature. And the chances are affected by the number of organisms. So if you have a smaller population time, and more generations, that could be essentially equal to a larger population size and fewer generations.
Q. In that first paragraph, he says, There are more than 10 to the 16 prokaryotes in a ton of soil. Is that correct, in that first paragraph?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. In one ton of soil?
A. That's correct.
Q. And we have a lot more than one ton of soil on Earth, correct?
Now let's take a look at Ed Brayton's summary of Behe's testimony.
And remember, the core of Behe's entire argument for ID is that irreducibly complex systems cannot evolve. Yet what does he admit under oath that his own study actually says? It says that IF you assume a population of bacteria on the entire earth that is 7 orders of magnitude less than the number of bacteria in a single ton of soil...and IF you assume that it undergoes only point mutations...and IF you rule out recombination, transposition, insertion/deletion, frame shift mutations and all of the other documented sources of mutation and genetic variation...and IF you assume that none of the intermediate steps would serve any function that might help them be preserved...THEN it would take 20,000 years (or 1/195,000th of the time bacteria have been on the earth) for a new complex trait requiring multiple interacting mutations - the very definition of an irreducibly complex system according to Behe - to develop and be fixed in a population.
(All quotes from
Page not found | ScienceBlogs.)
Are you starting to get the picture?
Even using Behe's definitions, even using Behe's absurd limitations, a supposedly IC system evolves in less than 20,000 years.
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