"The type III secretory system (TTSS) is a subsystem of the bacterial flagellum that appears to have been spawned from the flagellum sometime after the appearance of eukaryotes."

So Mike would still say the TTSS is a mutant of the flagellum. But perhaps it was a mutant that was planned on in Front-Loaded Evolution.

Sorry you had to wait so long. I thought Mike was going to take this, as it obviously went to his opinions. Anyway, here's what I think.

By "symbiosis", most people mean "beneficial relationship", But strictly speaking, the word just means "living together", and biologists speak both of "mutually beneficial symbiosis" as well as "malicious symbiosis" (and "neutral symbiosis"). In other words, when Mike speaks of the TTSS as "a device that elicits symbiosis", he's simply saying that it enables bacteria to live close together with other organisms, without passing judgement on whether these relationships are beneficial or malicious for the host.

The only other theoretical reason I can see for resisting labeling the TTSS as an intelligently designed product, is that perhaps it would make it easier for ID critics to use it as a simpler system that evolved into the bacterial flagellum. But I think there are plenty of reasons to doubt that happened. Just read the relevant parts of Mike Gene's paper that Krauze refers to.

So then the question would arise, is there some way of determining whether the TTSS was independently designed, or whether it is a mutant of the bacterial flagellum? I'm curious what would count as evidence one way or the other.

Yet at the beginning of this thread, Mike says: " the TTSS is best viewed not a pathogenic device, but as a device that elicits symbiosis." And though I haven't re-read the paper that Mike cites, I got the impression that he thought the TTSS was designed as a way of creating symbiotic relationships.

Perhaps I misunderstood the intent of this thread. I thought Mike was trying to make the case that the TTSS was originally designed for good intentions, but came to be used for what we would call evil results.

So does Mike think we should view the TTSS as an independently designed system, or as descended from the bacterial flagellum? Or perhaps the bacterial flagellum was designed first, with a secondary intention being that it some versions of it would eventually mutate into the TTSS?

"Now I'm wondering if you agree with Krauze that it probably descended from the flagellum, or if you think it was probably independently designed."

Considering that it was Mike who first pointed this out, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if he answered in the affirmative.

I'm not trying to argue that the fungi show us the TTSS was once good and now has become bad. The TTSS is already known to do both good and bad things (most of the focus is on the bad because must of the funding goes toward curing diseases). The fungi just help us further appreciate the "thin line between good and evil."

A thing to keep in mind would be that the TTSS is most likely descended from the bacterial flagellum, in which it functions as the pump used to construct the whip. Its current function is not what it originally did.

No, the fungi do not use the TTSS, as that system is specific to bacteria.