Ussery Dishonest Again
by BilboOnce more Ussery ignores what Behe actually wrote in order to attack his character:
So my point is, when Behe claims that in the E. coli evolution experiments 'Nothing fundamentally new has been produced.' (page 142), he is ignoring parts of the story which are extremely important. Since most people will not be familiar with the literature, we consider this to be misleading. There is a vast literature which shows just what can be done! Obviously evolution can happen in E. coli, on large scales, and it can be seen to happen under our very eyes, in the laboratory, under the right circumstances. With regard to the Lenski experiments, in my opinion, it is not being honest to only look at the first half of Rich Lenski’s experiments, where he saw little change, and to conclude that evolution does not happen in E. coli. The mutator (which arose halfway through) changed things dramatically.
What Behe actually wrote:
Nothing fundamentally new has been produced. [25] No new protein-protein interactions, no new molecular machines. As with thalassemia in humans, some large evolutionary advantages have been conferred by breaking things. Several populations of bacteria lost their ability to repair DNA….
It is this loss of the ability to repair DNA that, according to Behe is the mutator that Ussery is so enthusiastic about:
Interestingly, in this paper they report that the E. coli strain became a “mutator”. That means it lost at least some of its ability to repair its DNA, so mutations are accumulating now at a rate about seventy times faster than normal. Lenski had reported http://tinyurl.com/yge8dx4 years earlier that a number of other lines of the evolving population (they started with 12 separate cultures) had become mutators, too. So it seems that loss of ability to repair DNA is a common occurrence under these conditions.
Lenski is a very good self-promoter (no criticism intended; that’s a good thing — scientists have to interest other people in their work), and he always accentuates the positive. So if a gene is blasted to bits by a mutation, he talks cheerfully about how it is a beneficial change that helps the bacterium grow faster. One has to dig hard into the data to see that the bacterium is losing genetic info. In press coverage for this paper, he avows a “new dynamic relationship was established” in the bacterium’s evolution, and one has to read the details of the paper to find out that this is due to a degradative mutation that compromises its normal ability to repair its DNA.
Despite his understandable desire to spin the results his way, Lenski’s decades-long work lines up wonderfully with what an ID person would expect — in a huge number of tries, one sees minor changes, mostly degradative, and no new complex systems. So much for the power of random mutation and natural selection. For his work in this area we should be very grateful. It gives us solid results to point to, rather than having to debate speculative scenarios.
So yes, Behe did address Lenski's experiments after the "mutator" arose.
Meanwhile, even though Ussery has no trouble accusing Behe of "not being honest," he has yet to apologize or correct his obvious dishonest misquotes and misrepresentations of Behe. And apparently this is okay with Biologos. A shame.
November 4th, 2010 at 7:27 pm
If I were Behe I would sue Ussery and Biologos for slandering.
Comment by neddy — November 4, 2010 @ 7:27 pm
November 4th, 2010 at 8:14 pm
From the link, (quoting Ussery who quotes Dawkins):
The "giving up" phrase is revealing. Giving up on research? Hardly. Behe is skeptical as I am that future research will confirm some assumptions associated with naturalism. So what? This has always struck me as more about a belief pledge than concern for science. If results someday show actual evolution of the complex system examples cited by Behe (as opposed to inferences) he would applaud. So what's the big deal?
Comment by Bradford — November 4, 2010 @ 8:14 pm
November 4th, 2010 at 8:28 pm
Actually real world science vindicated Behe over some of his detractors like Ken Miller. See: Nature Writes Back to Behe Eight Years Later.
The fact that Ussery uses misrepresentations to criticize Behe doesn't exactly help Ussery's case.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — November 4, 2010 @ 8:28 pm
November 4th, 2010 at 8:36 pm
Bradford wrote:
Perhaps you didn't quite get the point Dawkins made. Behe has given up on research. In the last 12 years, he has published one paper that qualifies as a research article (a 2004 paper with Snoke). The rest of his publications are comments, replies to comments, and a popular book.
Comment by olegt — November 4, 2010 @ 8:36 pm
November 4th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Lack of publishing does not equal lack of research.
Comment by ID guy — November 4, 2010 @ 8:48 pm
November 4th, 2010 at 8:50 pm
O, ID guy! Long time no see!
Hey, Jim, how come you never post on Joe's blog?
Comment by olegt — November 4, 2010 @ 8:50 pm
November 4th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
Comment by Nick Matzke — November 4, 2010 @ 8:54 pm
November 4th, 2010 at 9:39 pm
Olegt, I'm aware of Behe's inactive research record of late but think that Dawkins would have made the same comment if Behe were active. The reason is that this is a fairly common complaint I've seen leveled before in internet forums. The "giving up" referred to by Dawkins is envisioned as giving up on the idea that a natural and empirically documented explanation will be found. I think you've alluded to this before in counseling others at TT not to bet against science.
Comment by Bradford — November 4, 2010 @ 9:39 pm
November 4th, 2010 at 9:49 pm
Bradford wrote:
Bradford,
Instead of trying to guess what Dawkins wanted to say from a short excerpt, why don't you read his entire piece Inferior Design and let us know what you think afterward?
Comment by olegt — November 4, 2010 @ 9:49 pm
November 4th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
Dr Behe on citrate utilization- ie Lenski's experiments:
Comment by ID guy — November 4, 2010 @ 9:56 pm
November 4th, 2010 at 9:59 pm
Thanks for the link Olegt. It should make a good centerpiece for a new blog entry.
Comment by Bradford — November 4, 2010 @ 9:59 pm
November 4th, 2010 at 10:01 pm
What's there to say? I can talk to him without going there
And unlike you and your ilk we don't need constant stroking on public forums.
Now that that is out of the way how come to never post anything to support your position?
You do realize that all your negative attacks do not add up to a positive case- so what's up with all your negativity? Perhaps your frustrated magnet cap is too tight.
Comment by ID guy — November 4, 2010 @ 10:01 pm
November 4th, 2010 at 10:28 pm
You are such a private citizen, Jim. Nothing wrong with that, of course.
I have one more question if you don't mind. Why does Joe never come to this forum? Was he banned?
Comment by olegt — November 4, 2010 @ 10:28 pm
November 4th, 2010 at 10:38 pm
I have been wondering about that very thing- now I know and I will be able to sleep tonight.
Thanks man- BTW how did you leap to that conclusion? That way when I am out in public I can explain myself.
Yes I do mind- you forgot to answer my questions:
Your turn.
Comment by ID guy — November 4, 2010 @ 10:38 pm
November 4th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
Bradford,
Please write about that Dawkins' piece.
I love how he barks at Behe for assertions and then baldly asserts natural selection is non-random and can explain the illusion of design- ie that the observed design is illusory.
Comment by ID guy — November 4, 2010 @ 10:42 pm
November 4th, 2010 at 10:44 pm
Bilbo, your OP is very misleading. You claim that Behe did address Lenski's later experiments, but then you quote Behe commenting on the mutator phenotype itself. Ussery was NOT referring to the mutator phenotype, but to the adaptations that arose after the mutator phenotype cranked up the rate of generation of genetic diversity. I thought this was clear, but perhaps you misunderstood. In any case, your accusation against Ussery (as articulated in this post, anyway) is baseless.
In fact, the quotes from Behe in the OP make him look blatantly dishonest, because he appears to be deliberately focusing on the mutator adaptation (a less-efficient DNA repair system) while ignoring the beneficial adaptation (citrate utilization) that followed. That adaptation is mentioned by Nick, and Behe mentions it in the UD post cited by ID guy above. When Behe did acknowledge that aspect of the story, he pooh-poohed it in his typical way. At that point, the only thing left to debate is how Behe decides when something is "fundamentally new."
I find Behe's comments on Lenski's work to be disgustingly disingenuous. Your mileage may differ, and I want to respect your strong preference for particular views of the natural world. But your current vendetta against Ussery is much ado about nothing, and reflects very poorly on you. Behe is dishonest. His work is a joke. Whether he's right about the need for "guided mutation" is technically an open question. IMO, whether he's honest in pursuing his agenda is not.
Comment by SteveMatheson — November 4, 2010 @ 10:44 pm
November 4th, 2010 at 11:07 pm
That's the key issue. It's not really any different from creationist "logic" about when an organism constitutes a "fundamentally new kind", or instead says "oh that's just microevolution within the kind".
The rules seem to be:
1. Anything where the evidence is so in-your-face that even creationists/Behe feel embarassed denying it is then pooh-poohed as "oh that's just microevolution"
2. Anything else is an absolutely unbridgeable gap that is clear evidence of the intervention of the IDer/God.
The beauty of this strategy is that #1 can be made infinitely flexible, much of the inconvenient evidence can be hidden under the rug there, and then wild, hyper-confident claims about the undocumented nature of #2 can be made (well, to the public, scientists would catch the trick).
If anything that seems like it really ought to be in #2 (like a cross-membrane citrate transporter) is suddenly shown to be evolvable in so overwhelming a way that even the creationists and Behe can't deny it, then they just effortlessly shift it over to #1 and call it minor, microevolution, no big deal, everyone accepts that evolution can do that kind of thing, yadda yadda.
The shell game can go on forever….
Comment by Nick Matzke — November 4, 2010 @ 11:07 pm
November 5th, 2010 at 4:55 am
The problem however is that "citrate permease" exists in other bacteria, it is not unique to Lenski's E. Coli. It is entirely possible this is a back-mutation of something that was broken in Wild E. Coli. If so , this is hardly a new feature, on re-evolution of a formerly broken feature!
Also, if this is a convergent feature that E. Coli just evolved, it took an awfully long time in fact to catch up with other bacteria with Citrate Permease (like say a Billion years or so) and Lenski just happened to be lucky to see it for the first time. But since this would seem extraordinarily fortuitous, this has all the hints of back mutations re-enabling an ability that was recently lost.
So we have two scenarios:
1. back mutaion (in which case this is nothing to get excited about)
2. unlikely convergent evolution for citrate permease that just happened to occur in Lenski's lab even though citrate permease didn't exist in E. Coli for the last Billion years or so even thought it existed in other bacteria
Thus in either scenario, this is awfully limited evolution for so many generations. 30,000 generations by way of comparison to humans would be on the order of about 600,000 years. The chimp/human split was presumably 5 to 7 million years ago involving 50-500 million nucleotides. Lenski's experiments therefore aren't very reassuring especially since the supposed evolution happened in the collapse of a DNA repair mechanism that accelerated mutation. That level of accelerated mutation would likely be pretty damaging to humans who have a far smaller excess reproduction rate.
Of course such obviously inconvenient facts are swept under the rug becuase of the paucity of novelties in Lenski's experiments and the fact that such glacially slow evoltuion rates actually strengthen Behe's case.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — November 5, 2010 @ 4:55 am
November 5th, 2010 at 5:12 am
Can someone on this thread, please, lead me to any Dawkins published papers that qualifies as a peer-reviewed research article in the last 10 years?
As far as I know the rest of his publications are comments on his blog, replies to comments, and a few popular books.
Comment by neddy — November 5, 2010 @ 5:12 am
November 5th, 2010 at 6:08 am
My view is that accusations of dishonesty aren't helpful. Even supposing all parties involved in a debate are individuals with unsavory character, that's irrelevant as far was the scientific facts.
Demonstrating that claims have a factual basis are more of interest than trying to decide if someone is an opportunist.
Arguing Dr. Ussery has made incorrect statements is easier to demonstrate than claiming he is willfully dishonest. There is little to be gained by claiming someone is dishonest. Even if he were, that's beside the point. The point is the significance of lenski's experiments.
Yes, I agree Dr. Ussery is misrepresenting and distorting Behe, but it's hard to demonstrate dishonesty. A mistake is not the samething as a lie.
The same goes for Dr. Behe. It's hard to imagine that he has a lot to gain by leaving his roots of an Ivy League education in biochemistry and belief in theistic evolution, only to open himself to ridicule, mocking and marginalization for relatively modest monetary gain and effectively being excluded from being welcomed even at his own school after years of work. One might attempt to claim that Behe is mistaken, but saying he's dishonest is a bit of a stretch.
But for the sake of argument, let's suppose all ID proponents are scoundrels and opportunists, it has no bearing on whether Lenski's experiments really vindicate specific evolutionary claims.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — November 5, 2010 @ 6:08 am
November 5th, 2010 at 9:37 am
Dr Behe:
"Nothing fundamentally new has been produced. [25] No new protein-protein interactions, no new molecular machines."
OK so where there any new protein-to-protein interactions or new molecular machines?
Then you say Behe is dishonest without any supporting evidence. Children do that sort of thing.
Geez Lenski shows that minor modifications are possible- nothing that is being debated- and you guys build it up as if it supports all of the theory of evolution.
Comment by ID guy — November 5, 2010 @ 9:37 am
November 5th, 2010 at 9:42 am
So it is now our fault that you fail to understand your opponents' positions?
The evidence says that Nick – even using the evolutionary definition of micro-evolution.
It is not our fault that all you can manage is slight changes.
Again you have all the power- all you have to do is step up and find that elusive evidence that would support your claims. Stop blaming us for your failures.
Why would that really ought to be in #2? It didn't even produce a new species.
Not only that there isn't any evidence that blind, undirected chemical processes produced the slight change.
Comment by ID guy — November 5, 2010 @ 9:42 am
November 5th, 2010 at 9:49 am
SteveMatheson,
Steve,
It doesn't surprise me that you would defend Ussery's misquotations of Behe, misrepresentations of Behe and ridicule of Behe. You did pretty much the same thing to Stephen Meyer. I pointed this out in comments on another blog. I plan to put up a post with the relevant passages shortly.
Your comment was a little vague. Did Ussery's quotations of Behe significantly misrepresent his position? Yes or no? Whether it is "much ado about nothing" is a separate question.
Would you encourage your students at Calvin College to follow Ussery's example?
Comment by pds — November 5, 2010 @ 9:49 am
November 5th, 2010 at 10:30 am
I have posted an example of how Steve Matheson selectively and misleadingly quoted Owen Gingerich in order to attack Stephen Meyer for being "disingenuous."
There is a word for that.
Comment by pds — November 5, 2010 @ 10:30 am
November 5th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
Behe and Lenksi?
I haven't read the Ussery work, but presume that my earlier thinking on this subject still holds up.
With regard to Lenski and citrate, the bacteria in question already have the ability to metabolize citrate in the wild. They are also known to do so under oxic conditions, as he was testing for, in other experiments. This was not a novel finding nor is it something the E. coli does not already have the ability to do. The genes are already present and prepared to do this function and a minor tweak is all that is needed. The problem is most likely that they had previously been broken – resulting in an inability to get the citrate into the cell. This happens a lot and is basically what random mutation/natural selection is good at -breaking things. So the E.coli in the lab had to get an enzyme that would take care of this transport under oxic. They did not have to evolve a new function, an ability to metabolize a foreign substance, make a new machine, increase complexity, etc. It only had to repair a defect.
This experiment backs up Behe's findings – two mutations were needed to (likely) restore a lost function. As the rarity of Lenski’s result shows, and as he surmises himself by the rarity, this “evolution” was likely a two-step problem requiring an earlier mutation. This exactly backs up Behe’s EoE argument. When two mutations are needed, and are not independently selectable (near neutral or “slightly” deleterious) you have to rely upon chance to generate them. And chance takes much time and great resources. In this case to do something very simple, which the bacteria is already known to do, and for which it already has in place all or most of of the necessary mechanisms (odd that, if RM and NS were actually at work here, since “Evolution” can’t see into the future and predict a need – teleology being forbidden). By the very fact that all the other mechanisms for the transport and metabolism were already in place we see that the complexity is not generated in this experiment but was pre-existing. Lenski is showing that to evolve something very simple it takes multiple mutations. Lenski himself is showing that achieving complexity is not something NS and RM are likely to do.
Comment by Pez — November 5, 2010 @ 12:22 pm
November 5th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
Where are you guys getting "back-mutation" from? YEC theology? There is absolutely no evidence that this was the pathway by which citrate transport evolved. More likely E. coli coopted a transporter that was originally transporting something else, that's how these things usually work.
Comment by nickmatzke — November 5, 2010 @ 1:29 pm
November 5th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
From molecular bioscience:
And Nick asserts:
What? You guys don't frigging know what really happened to allow the exsitence of "citrate permease" in wild-type E. Coli.
If this was the cooption of an existing transporter and it involved a few amino acid changes (say 3 to 10), that would be really embarrassing and strengthen Behe's claim.
And if it was co-option, that means Lenski witnessed in the space of about 10 or 20 years Convergent Evolution of citrate permease (which exist in other bacteria) which never happened for about the last billion years or whenever E. Coli's ancestors first appeared.
From wiki:
So Nick, since you're so eager to educate us misguided creationists, can you provide for the reader an estimate of the number of amino acids that were needed to be mutatated in order to convert a transporter to "permease citrate". Are we talking 5, 10, 20, 30, 100, 200?
The problem for you:
1. If the mutation of a transporter to citrate permease required only 5-10 mutations, then this could easily be a back mutation.
2. If the mutation of a transporter to citrate permease required the unlikely number of 100 mutations, then this is still insufficiently slow to given that evolving humans from apes would likely involve more than 100 amino acid changes.
And then we have to ask ourselves, have we witnessed convergent evolution before our eyes that never happened to any other E. Coli for the last billion or so years.
Finally, how do we really know that wild-type E. Coli never had the ability to synthesize "citrate permease" especially in light of the fact that E. Coli's relative apparently do?
What ever the case, the evolution is too slow. Behe has been vindicated, but you guys can't bring yourselves to face the facts.
Bottom line: Nick is invited to provide his estimate of the number of amino acid changes required to effect the evolution of citrate peremease in Lenski's experiments. The readers eagerly await Nick's estimates.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — November 5, 2010 @ 2:05 pm
November 5th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
Lenksi, on E.coli and citrate.
The inability to use citrate as an energy source under oxic conditions has long been a defining characteristic of E. coli as a species (35, 36). Nevertheless, E. coli is not wholly indifferent to citrate. It uses a ferric dicitrate transport system for iron acquisition, although citrate does not enter the cell in this process (37, 38). It also has a complete tricarboxylic acid cycle, and can thus metabolize citrate internally during aerobic growth on other substrates (39). E. coli is able to ferment citrate under anoxic conditions if a cosubstrate is available for reducing power (40). The only known barrier to aerobic growth on citrate is its inability to transport citrate under oxic conditions (41–43). Indeed, atypical E. coli that grow aerobically on citrate (Cit+) have been isolated from agricultural and clinical settings, and were found to harbor plasmids, presumably acquired from other species, that encode citrate transporters (44, 45).
Other findings suggest that E. coli has the potential to evolve a Cit+ phenotype. Hall (41) reported the only documented case of a spontaneous Cit+ mutant in E. coli.
He hypothesized that some complex mutation, or multiple mutations, activated cryptic genes that jointly expressed a citrate transporter, although the genes were not identified. Pos et al. (43) identified an operon in E. coli K-12 that apparently allows anaerobic citrate fermentation, and which includes a gene, citT, encoding a citrate–succinate antiporter. High-level constitutive expression of this gene on a multicopy plasmid allows aerobic growth on citrate, but the native operon has a single copy that is presumably induced only under anoxic conditions.
E.coli already has mechanisms for fermenting and metabolizing citrate.
It already has mechanisms for transport.
In the wild and in other experiments the ability that evolved in Lenski's set-up has already been noted.
All the parts are already in place to transport and utilize citrate.
For some reason it does not normally have this ability in oxic conditions, but it can gain the ability by, possibly, a series of mutations. It seems far more likely that this is a lost ability recovered than a de novo ability that repeatedly shows up.
http://www.pnas.org/content/10...
Comment by Pez — November 5, 2010 @ 2:06 pm
November 5th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Lenski still:
Comment by Pez — November 5, 2010 @ 2:11 pm
November 5th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
PEZ makes a SLAM DUNK!
You DA MAN PEZ!!!
In either case, Nick is invited to provide his estimate in terms of amino acid changes, and or even DNA changes.
And since Steve Matheson said Behe was "disgustingly dishonest" perhaps Steve Matheon can provide a refreshingly honest answer to the number of mutations involved in the activation or evolution of citrate permease in Lenski's E. coli. An experet estimate in lieu of an absolute number would suffice. Even an outer bound number would be sufficient.
An outer bound number could be based on the number of residues inside citrate permease or the supposed mutated transporter and then comparing that to existing citrate permeases in other bacteria. Any guesses on the number of residues in citrate permease?
I'm sure Steve would like to weigh in since his ship flies the jolly roger and he will do anything in his power to destroy the discovery institute.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — November 5, 2010 @ 2:21 pm
November 5th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
Perhaps Nick would care to comment on whether this qualifies as a back mutation.
PS
Pez, thanks for covering my six. Team work baby, team work.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — November 5, 2010 @ 3:19 pm
November 5th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
btw thanks ID Guy for your citations, that led the way for Nick's unravelling in this thread.
Nick, in light of the fact that even in Lenski's paper citrate permeases exist in other wild type E. Coli, wouldn't that suggest Lenski's results aren't something fundamentally new.
C'mon Nick, I'm just a poor uneducated YEC sympathizer, surely you being the cream of the crop of the NCSE, the poster boy of the Dover Trial, surely you're not going to take these challenges lying down.
And don't forget to provide for the readers an estimate of either the number of amino acid changes or DNA changes to effect Lenski's citrate permeate "speciation" event. Don't forget, now, you don't want to leave the reader the impression you actually lost this skirmish at TT.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — November 5, 2010 @ 4:29 pm
November 5th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
The interesting thing about this experiment is that they were actually able to rewind the tape, so to speak. After rewinding and allowing the tape to replay many times, the same lineage kept evolving the ability to metabolize citrate over and over again.
Comment by Guts — November 5, 2010 @ 4:30 pm
November 5th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Steve:
Yes, it is clear that this is what Ussery was referring to. But Ussery claims that Behe's evaluation of Lenski's results only refer to changes before the mutators appeared, and that Behe ignores what happened after. It is clear from the text that Behe was referring to changes both before and after. Now you, Ussery and Matzke (and perhaps all other biologists) may think Behe is sadly mistaken or dishonest in his evaluation. And perhaps you are right. Perhaps you aren't. But Behe was not only looking at the first half of Lenski's experiment, as Ussery claimed. Once Behe mentions the loss of ability to repair DNA, Ussery should have known this. Of course, perhaps Ussery didn't know that the mutator acquired its ability by losing some of its ability to repair DNA. In that case, Ussery wasn't being dishonest. Just incompetent.
Comment by Bilbo — November 5, 2010 @ 4:44 pm
November 5th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
back mutation- the mutations that led to upright bipeds and the bad backs that followed
Comment by ID guy — November 5, 2010 @ 7:28 pm
November 5th, 2010 at 7:35 pm
Hopefully they keep them stored away- if, in the wild, citrate is unavailable for bacteria as a food source, I say that is a good thing…
Comment by ID guy — November 5, 2010 @ 7:35 pm
November 5th, 2010 at 8:36 pm
Dang neddy beat me to it!!
Comment by Daniel Smith — November 5, 2010 @ 8:36 pm
November 5th, 2010 at 9:42 pm
Hmmm, last 12 years?
This link lists 6 books, 11 articles and 8 academic papers Richard Dawkins authored since 1998.
Comment by Thought Provoker — November 5, 2010 @ 9:42 pm
November 5th, 2010 at 9:46 pm
Oops,
I misread the comment. Ok, 10 years…
Then there are 5 books, 10 articles and 6 academic papers.
Comment by Thought Provoker — November 5, 2010 @ 9:46 pm
November 5th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
Looking at that list of academic papers it appears Dawkins has given up on biological research.
Comment by ID guy — November 5, 2010 @ 10:10 pm
November 5th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
Dawkins was an active researcher in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. In 1995, he took up the position of Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford. His job description appears here. It seems to me that he carried out his duties quite well.
If you wish to use a parallel with Dawkins to argue that Behe quit doing research to popularize ID, I won't argue with that. In fact, this is what all "ID theorists" do. They write popular books and critiques of evolutionary theory. They don't do any ID research.
Comment by olegt — November 5, 2010 @ 11:06 pm
November 6th, 2010 at 1:42 am
Active meaning what? He graduated at one point and had a pulse?
So you're saying that if an ID proponent had a track record of "5 books, 10 articles, and 6 academic papers" in the past 10 years, it'd be fair evidence they didn't care much about actual science, eh?
Comment by nullasalus — November 6, 2010 @ 1:42 am
November 6th, 2010 at 1:50 am
As for Dawkins being "Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford", not only does it strike me that Dawkins didn't do a good job ("In particular it is imperative for the post holder to avoid oversimplifying ideas, and presenting exaggerated claims."), but that the role's relation to science is akin to this guy's job with regards to baseball.
No one's denying that Dawkins is a skilled writer. As a matter of fact, that seems to be the point: His credentials are largely that of a popular science author rather than a scientist. A comparison of John Horgan to Stephen Hawking seems apt here.
Comment by nullasalus — November 6, 2010 @ 1:50 am
November 6th, 2010 at 9:28 am
nullasalus wrote:
To the layman audience, maybe. But Dawkins's work in evolutionary biology did not go unnoticed, which you would know had you bothered to look around. If you consult ISI's Web of Science, you'll find out that his science articles (not books) have been cited 2600 times in the science literature. One of his papers, Arms Races between and within Species in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, has close to 600 citations.
I would not compare Dawkins to Hawking, who clearly is the top guy in his field, but he is not a John Horgan either. The apt comparison would be to Brian Greene, a theoretical physicist with an equally solid publication record (3300 citations) and a few excellent popular books.
Comment by olegt — November 6, 2010 @ 9:28 am
November 6th, 2010 at 10:09 am
Has Dawkins done any research that would show that natural selection is non-random?
Has he done any research that shows irreducible complexity can be acheived via blind, undirected chemical processes?
Has he done any reaserch that would support any of his grand claims?
No, no and no…
Comment by ID guy — November 6, 2010 @ 10:09 am
November 6th, 2010 at 11:44 am
1. Perhaps you didn't quite get the point Dawkins made. Behe has given up on research. In the last 12 years, he has published one paper that qualifies as a research article (a 2004 paper with Snoke). The rest of his publications are comments, replies to comments, and a popular book.
OLEGT
Can you tell me how many scientific research articles Dawkins has published in the last 12 years? I hope he hasn't given up or "cut himself adrift from the world of real science"
Comment by themayan — November 6, 2010 @ 11:44 am
November 6th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
OLEGT I know Dawkins wrote a lot of popular books during the these times you mentioned, but my question was how many actual research papers has Dawkins written in the last 12, or how about 20 years compared to Behe?
I believe it was you who made a parallel to this analogy as proof that Behe gave up on science. I was just wondering if the same standard applied to Dawkins.
Comment by themayan — November 6, 2010 @ 12:21 pm
November 6th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Comparable analogies would be.
1. combinatoric immune system where internal evolution is like a rewound tape over and over again. Immunity is lost and regained and lost and regained often from season to season (like flu). These are from DNA changes of hypermutated cells.
2. in the case of plasmid exchange this seems almost like cards and flash drives being swapped between organisms! Again, history repeats itself.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — November 6, 2010 @ 12:44 pm
November 6th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
themayan,
I am not sure why you wish to compare Behe to Dawkins. Dawkins's job from 1995 until 2008 was to convey the scientific knowledge to the public, not to do research. If you wish to imply that Behe's main job was to convey ID theory to the public then you are conceding that he has given up research to become a popularizer of ID.
From a broader perspective, all leading ID proponents are doing much, much more to
promote IDcritique evolution than to pursue anything that can be called a positive research. The shuny new ID journal BIO-Complexity has 30 members of the editorial board but has published only 2 articles so far, one of them being (surprise!) a critical review. (ANd its a pretty incestuous affair: both articles are authored or coauthored by members of the editorial board.) Two articles in an entire year!Comment by olegt — November 6, 2010 @ 12:47 pm
November 6th, 2010 at 1:28 pm
Where's Nick?
Still waiting for some estimates on the number of nucleotide or amino acid changes involved in Lenski's supposed novelty (which we will see really isn't).
1. if wild-type E. Coli with citrate permease acquired their ability through plasmid exchange (small snips of DNA from other bacteria), then it is enirely possible the citrate permease was de-activated in the ancestor lineage Lenski used. And we have a back mutation being expressed in Lenski's work.
2. If the wild-type E. Coli with citrate permease had acquired citrate permease capabilities not through plasmid exchange but through some other mechanism, this still would suggest Lenski's bacteria were experiencing back mutations.
3. In the unlikely scenario that Lenski's lineage never had citrate perease ability in its billion history (
) he witness a rare example convergent evolution before his eyes that had not taken place in the lineage for a billion years. Presuming this, then Behe was being far to generous in his estimates for how fast evolution moves since a few nucleotides over a billion years is even slower than ID proponents wildest dreams. 
The going back and forth of losing and regaining ability is more like travelling in circles, not long term evolutionary advance. As Behe said, it is not a fundamentally new ability.
Actually, thanks to Pez we can see it is Ussery, Matzke, and Matheson who are being a little loose with what Lenski actually wrote, note Behe. He wrote:
case 1, back mutation:
case 2, convergent evolution:
So this isn't something fundamentally new to e. coli or related bacteria, it would only suggest the bacteria Lenski started his experiments with were real laggards, and it only underscores the slowness of evolution!
It wasn't something fundamentally new since other E. coli strains had it and so did other bacteria.
And even if plasmid exchange was indicated for the other E. coli that had citrate peremease, it means E. Coli was a billion year laggard in evolving citrate peremease capabilities and Darwinian evolution is even slower and more incapable than ID proponents wildest dreams.
Behe is again vindicated just as he was by research published in nature which vindicated his other bold prediction:
Nature Writes Back to Behe 8 Years Later.
PS
Nick, you're gettin' sloppy there bro. It's pretty bad when uneducated YEC sympathizers are demonstrating better comprehension of published literature than you. This is symptomatic of an otherwise bright mind being infected with Darwinian ideas, thankfully the malady is curable if you're willing to be cured.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — November 6, 2010 @ 1:28 pm
November 6th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Any evidence for that claim?
"The Signature in the Cell" is a positive statement. And yes it has negative aspects also but that is due to the nature of the design inference. You have to eliminate- a negative- other possibilities before you can reach the box to determine design.
That is a mandate of all design inferences- you not only have to have that negative you also have to have a positive.
Comment by ID guy — November 6, 2010 @ 5:15 pm
November 6th, 2010 at 5:36 pm
You know why you're switching metrics from 'how much research he actually did' to 'how many citations anything he wrote in a science journal received'? Because if you go by the former, his track record is anemic. There's a reason Dawkins' "job from 1995 until 2008" required no research: He got that job due to his strengths. Research, actually "doing science", wasn't one of those.
Again, I'm not denying Dawkins is a popular author. His selfish gene concept alone delighted many people, and as near as this layman can tell, biologists as well. But no matter how you slice it, Dawkins didn't rocket to fame by all that deep, brilliant research or actual science he did – though I can understand your envy. Maybe someday you'll produce something on the level of "Bees Are Easily Distracted", eh?
Comment by nullasalus — November 6, 2010 @ 5:36 pm
November 6th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
Null:
It wasn't his. He's just a good popularizer.
Comment by Guts — November 6, 2010 @ 5:40 pm
November 6th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
Nick has actually demonstrated this same problem in abundance; whether he is reading Darwin's moral theory, Hitler's writings, Behe's Dover testimony, the posts of non-YEC IDists and even belt buckles.
And yet he writes like an authority on all of the above.
Comment by Pez — November 6, 2010 @ 5:48 pm
November 6th, 2010 at 6:25 pm
null, you have no idea about metrics of research in science.
The number of citations in the literature reflects to what degree someone's contributions are found useful by other researchers so that they would bother to cite them. Dawkins's research articles produced 2600 citations. That's not "anemic."
And if it is anemic, what will you say about Behe's comparatively paltry 700 citations?
Comment by olegt — November 6, 2010 @ 6:25 pm
November 6th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
Yeah. All these years I thought the gold standard was doing lots of… research. Peer-reviewed, down in the trenches research. I thought that's what scientists – real scientists – did. It certainly is the standard ID critics never shut up about, as can be evidenced in the other thread. But no, apparently the standard is 'get cited'. That and 'have a pulse after you get your diploma', accent on the latter.
I said Dawkins' actual research was anemic – this "citation" metric is your deal, which I just find funny. I don't even know offhand how much research Behe has done, but considering I don't think ID is science, it's kind of moot to me don't you think?
Comment by nullasalus — November 6, 2010 @ 6:52 pm
November 6th, 2010 at 7:03 pm
Or it's an indication of how many friends they have or of a collaboration- you cite me and I will cite you, type of deal.
Comment by ID guy — November 6, 2010 @ 7:03 pm
November 6th, 2010 at 7:13 pm
That's pretty naive, nullasalus.
You can perform "lots of… research" and publish lots of research papers, but if other researchers don't find them useful then it's all for naught. The citation metric is not ideal but it is one popular yard stick.
Comment by olegt — November 6, 2010 @ 7:13 pm
November 6th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
It's a popular yardstick for judging the impact of the paper in question. Face it: Dawkins gave up on actually doing research, actually being a scientist, quite a long time ago. He found his calling just as long ago: Being a popular author on scientific topics, before largely forsaking even that for his atheism schtick. To think otherwise requires more naivete than I can manage.
Comment by nullasalus — November 6, 2010 @ 7:28 pm
November 6th, 2010 at 7:33 pm
I agree that Dawkins has been a popularizer of science, rather than an active scientist, for 20 years or so. But so what? There are hundreds of top-notch scientists actively working in evolutionary biology. Richard Lenski's name has been mentioned here a lot.
In contrast, Behe is billed as one of the two top ID thinkers. If a top scientist in the field has stopped doing research a decade ago, the field is not in good shape.
Comment by olegt — November 6, 2010 @ 7:33 pm
November 6th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
You mean a popularizer of atheism and materialism.
And not much to show for it.
Do you have a reference? I know of him, Axe, Minnich, Wells, Meyer, Dembski, Donald Johnson- geez oleg do you have any integrity at all?
Comment by ID guy — November 6, 2010 @ 8:07 pm
November 6th, 2010 at 9:25 pm
I was simply just trying to point out how dual standards seem to be the name of the game. I have corresponded with Behe and I'm sure others here have also done so or personally know him. He is one of the nicest and smartest guys out there, and I believe he speaks his mind on good faith, (and please don't nit pick the term good faith) and if you're going to marginalize someone who has already had his share of bricks thrown at him for his dissenting view and for offering another as an alternative explanation, then maybe you should bring more to the table than simple Dawkinian dogmatic rhetoric.
Why not just cut the personal attacks and try to deal with the real questions and theories at hand, or at least make an effort to keep our personal critiques adult like.
Comment by themayan — November 6, 2010 @ 9:25 pm
November 6th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
themayan wrote:
I am not sure why any of that has anything to do with ID as an intellectual endeavor. I know Nobel prize winners in physics who are very nice, polite, and courteous. I also know some who are downright mean. One is a convicted criminal. None of that in any way influences the validity of their work.
A fair reading of my comments would indicate that I was not making a personal attack on Behe. I was pointing out that his research is lacking. And given that he is one of the leading lights of the ID movement, this lack of research should be a cause of concern for IDers.
Comment by olegt — November 6, 2010 @ 10:21 pm
November 6th, 2010 at 10:40 pm
You pointed out that his peer-reviewed publications are lacking.
Also it doesn't matter who does the research. If Dr Behe went into the lab and designed and macromolecular biological machine would that be evidence for ID? If he went into the lab and did a Lenski-type experiment and didn't see any relevant changes in 400,000 generations would that support ID?
The cause of concern amongst IDists is the constant negative attacks especially attacks via strawman and PRATT list arguments . Another cause of concern are all the misrepresentations and lies being spread about ID.
Other than that the scientific research is doing just fine at supporting ID.
Comment by ID guy — November 6, 2010 @ 10:40 pm
November 7th, 2010 at 9:19 pm
Sal writes,
Wow. Just, wow. You guys are totally, completely, ridiculous. You quote a Lenski passage which COMPLETELY refutes your assertion and CONFIRMS mine, and then pretend you've had some big victory!
You don't get to ignore the stuff that you don't bold. This is from that Lenski quote Pez posted:
In other words, they think it's cooption, not back mutation. Which is what I freakin' said, without even having read this paper in recent history.
But no, you guys were just ASSUMING it was back mutation, based on nothing (well, except perhaps creationist theology, which asserts that all mutations are a "loss" of information), and then felt confirmed in your bias even when you found the very paper that refutes this. There could be no better example of creationists being willfully blind to the evidence.
Presumably we can be sure that citrate transport wasn't acquired through a transposon, as these are supposed to be pure isolated cultures.
I suppose that sooner or later Lenski et al. will track down the exact mutation(s) that lead to citrate transporting behavior, and then we'll know for sure, but my money's on cooption. (And further, there is a good chance this was cooption via a secondary route of adaptation to something else, which then made citrate transport accessible, instead of just waiting for a lucky multiple-mutation, but we'll see.)
Comment by Nick Matzke — November 7, 2010 @ 9:19 pm
November 7th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
"Presumably we can be sure that citrate transport wasn't acquired through a transposon," –> "Presumably we can be sure that citrate transport wasn't acquired through a transposon or plasmid,"
Comment by Nick Matzke — November 7, 2010 @ 9:21 pm
November 7th, 2010 at 9:43 pm
I don't understand evolutionists' obsession with what Lenski has found. His work seems to suggest there is an edge to evolution.
Comment by ID guy — November 7, 2010 @ 9:43 pm
November 7th, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Complete defeat of Pez & Sal, leading to attempt to change the subject, noted.
There are lots of edges to evolution. Darwin pointed out several of them, e.g. it's impossible for natural selection to evolve a structure that solely benefits another species.
It's just that the edges don't appear to be within between the things we see in extant biology. In particular, the edges aren't at the places that creationists/IDists think they are — new information, new adaptations, new functions, new complex multipart systems, etc.
Lenski's work helps show that, but it is just a tiny piece of the evidence.
Comment by Nick Matzke — November 7, 2010 @ 10:17 pm
November 7th, 2010 at 10:26 pm
More than you will ever admit to.
Had Darwin known micro-biology he would have pointed out thousands more.
The problem is you don't have any idea what IDists and Creationists say. You don't understand the information argument, Creationists and IDists accept new adaptations, new functions and as for new complex multi-part systems, well Lenski's work didn't show one can evolve, never mind evolving via blind, undirected chemical processes.
The edge still stands at two new protein-to-protein binding sites. If your multi-part system needs that then your position is in deep trouble. If your multi-part system doesn't need that then it isn't all that new, nor complex.
Comment by ID guy — November 7, 2010 @ 10:26 pm
November 7th, 2010 at 11:28 pm
LOL Nick, Lenski was the one that suggested back mutation not me! And even if it is co-option, the Lenski's E. Coli are only using a different means to get a function it once had in the past, thus it is not a fundamentally function!
Lenski said it was unlikely, but he didn't know, thus if Lenski doesn't know, then you surely don't know, and that means you can't claim it's something fundamentally new. All you can say is you all are guessing it's a new feature. What's this, Nick, science by speculation, you assert it's true because of a guess?
But even supposing the guesses are true (including co-option) this isn't exactly promising.
Were it co-option then this is evolutionary convergence that hasn't happened for maybe a billion years or so. Not exactly what you want either.
I was not assuming ONLY back mutation, neither was lenski. That's your misrepresentation of what I said, which I will demonstrate below. What's the matter Nick, do you have to misrpresent what I said in attempt to win an argument?
If you look above, I pointed out the two options, back mutation being the first and evolutionary convergence (whcih could be in the form of co-option) being the second.
By the way, Nick, you didn't offer estimates of the degree of change. Number of nucleotides or amino acids. What's the matter, can't bring yourself to admit it maybe wasn't that much of a change?
The problem for you Nick is that to make a convincing argument it was co-option, you have to argue that it wasn't that many nucleotide changes. But doing so would suggest that it's not that novel a change, and if the changes are trivial enough, it makes it more likely these features existed in the past in other E. Coli and thus suggests the changes aren't fundamentally new. Checkmate.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — November 7, 2010 @ 11:28 pm
November 7th, 2010 at 11:30 pm
typo
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — November 7, 2010 @ 11:30 pm
November 7th, 2010 at 11:57 pm
So that's a defeat, huh? I always wondered. Sure tastes sweet.
Yup, "they think".
Lenski:
See how back mutation is a possibility? Good old YEC theology at work, right.
Sure enough, Lenski has reasons to think there is a more likely explanation, but that doesn't make it a fact. It makes it speculation based upon presumptions.
"Freakin'"? Chill, man.
Ahh, the argument from all caps. Very persuasive.
I didn't just assume it. I said I thought it more probable. And I gave reasons.
I said:
God old atheists ignoring evidence.
This is not a change of subject. This is what I was saying when you got all hyped scream "YEC theology".
You should maybe have that engraved on a belt buckle.
Looks like your atheology has made you prone to mislabel victories as defeats. 'Bout what I'd except from a PR man.
Comment by Pez — November 7, 2010 @ 11:57 pm
November 7th, 2010 at 11:58 pm
edit:
"good old", not "God old".
hyped to scream "YEC theology"
Comment by Pez — November 7, 2010 @ 11:58 pm
November 8th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
pez– like I said — you just asserted back mutation was the likely explanation, based on nothing.
Sal — citrate transport could have involved 10 or 20 mutations, for all we know. "Waiting for 2 mutations" is not the only way to produce new functions. Often there is a circuitous route — small adaptation to A, secondary compensatory adaptation to B, etc., etc., and eventually some protein which changed under selection for other reasons happens to be within 1 mutation of citrate transport.
Comment by nickmatzke — November 8, 2010 @ 12:33 pm
November 8th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Lenski:
Pez:
To wit,
Pez:
This experiment backs up Behe's findings – two mutations were needed to (likely) restore a lost function. As the rarity of Lenski’s result shows, and as he surmises himself by the rarity, this “evolution” was likely a two-step problem requiring an earlier mutation. This exactly backs up Behe’s EoE argument. When two mutations are needed, and are not independently selectable (near neutral or “slightly” deleterious) you have to rely upon chance to generate them. And chance takes much time and great resources. In this case to do something very simple, which the bacteria is already known to do, and for which it already has in place all or most of of the necessary mechanisms (odd that, if RM and NS were actually at work here, since “Evolution” can’t see into the future and predict a need – teleology being forbidden). By the very fact that all the other mechanisms for the transport and metabolism were already in place we see that the complexity is not generated in this experiment but was pre-existing. Lenski is showing that to evolve something very simple it takes multiple mutations. Lenski himself is showing that achieving complexity is not something NS and RM are likely to do.
Comment by Pez — November 8, 2010 @ 2:29 pm
November 9th, 2010 at 1:04 am
Lenski argues the back-mutation interpretation is *unlikely* for several co-supporting reasons. Re-read the Lenski quotes, the reactivating-old-silenced-genes idea doesn't work in this situation, it only works for very recent losses. You haven't even attempted to provide an alternative argument, except by citing stuff that Lenski refuted, so you don't get to assert it's "likely".
Hogwash. (a) This is a newly-evolved function, for these bacteria. Adding a function they didn't have before = more complex. (b) If this kind of thing can happen in a few years in a tiny bacterial population, in a very plain uniform artificial environment, it can happen millions/billions of times over the history of the earth over global populations in complex natural environments which have thousands of times more different chemicals, food sources, etc. available to exploit.
Sal writes,
What? We already know ahead of time, before investigating the biochemistry, that this feature evolved in the lab. So it doesn't matter how many changes it took, really — it's not like if it actually took 100 changes, it magically will change the past so that it won't have evolved in the lab. The more the better, from my perspective.
Not really. Lenski et al. say that inability to transport citrate is widespread in E. coli and thus lack of ability to do it is probably the ancestral state of this whole clade.
So, in order to provide evidence that Sal will accept helps to support the idea that the features we see in extant biology were the product of evolution, evolutionary biologists CANNOT show the evolution of features that exist in other organisms, instead they have to show the evolution of features that DO NOT exist in any other organisms, and so can be called "fundamentally new".
That's not checkmate, that's plugging your ears, closing your eyes, yelling "nyah nyah nyah" and knocking all the chess pieces off the board in an attempt to avoid admitting defeat.
Comment by Nick Matzke — November 9, 2010 @ 1:04 am
November 9th, 2010 at 2:40 am
Matzke,
Your inability to listen makes this fun for me. Keep it up.
This isn't what I am asserting. You're the one pulling your nose hairs out over whether this was a back mutation or not. Behe's case doesn't rely on this or require it one way or the other – and neither do my comments. The only thing I've refuted for you is your claim that the idea of back mutations must come from YEC theology – as you can see, both Lenski and Hall hypothesize back mutations; Lenski rejects them, Hall does not. The Lenski experiment and his own reasoning backs up Behe for the reasons I listed already. This extremely simple adaptation – transporting across a membrane citrate which the cell 1) can already transport in other conditions, 2) can already utilize and 3) has been observed in many other cases to transport under oxic conditions – required two events and these two events required great time and tens of thousands of generations. Even simple changes are quite difficult.
Lenski himself confirms, as Behe would, that the rarity of the adaptation suggests it required more than one mutation.
Comment by Pez — November 9, 2010 @ 2:40 am
November 9th, 2010 at 2:42 am
Really? Are there now more parts?
Yep, thats the assertion, all right.
But imagine the implications for species with smaller populations and less generational resources.
Can I get a famous Matzke "wowjustwow"?
Comment by Pez — November 9, 2010 @ 2:42 am
November 9th, 2010 at 5:17 am
There are more functions…
Comment by nickmatzke — November 9, 2010 @ 5:17 am
November 9th, 2010 at 5:24 am
Since everything lives in a more complex environment that Lenski's E. coli, and since a great many adaptations are known to be producable *without* rare simultaneous mutations, and since there is no particular reason to think (a) that the evolution of e.g. humans from apes required lots of new binding sites, and (b) there is no particular reason to think that your average binding site requires multiple simultaneous mutations in order to evolve, anyway, and (c) even if some really complex molecular machines did require such simultaneous mutations, these mostly evolved in single-celled or tiny multicellular organisms with huge population sizes anyway, there are no dire implications for standard evolutionary theory.
Comment by nickmatzke — November 9, 2010 @ 5:24 am
November 9th, 2010 at 7:58 am
Nick Matzke,
Just because there is a new function doesn't mean there are more functions. And adding a function doesn't = complexity.
That is just a bald assertion, untestable and unsupported. Also scientistrs are saying if the environment is changing then it would be even more difficult for new alleles to become fixed. IOW all you have is wishful thinking.
There isn't any evidence that shows apes can/ could have evolved into humans- again no way to test the claim. All you can do is throw deep time at small changes and pray to mother nature for help.
Comment by ID guy — November 9, 2010 @ 7:58 am
November 9th, 2010 at 8:24 am
"Complex" (?) environment = Evolution?
http://telicthoughts.com/evolu...
Comment by Pez — November 9, 2010 @ 8:24 am
November 9th, 2010 at 8:26 am
Glad to see you're such a man of faith, Nick Matzke.
Comment by Pez — November 9, 2010 @ 8:26 am
November 9th, 2010 at 8:56 am
"Man" of faith? Are you sure?
Comment by ID guy — November 9, 2010 @ 8:56 am
November 9th, 2010 at 2:38 pm
ID Guy, please take it down a notch.
Comment by Guts — November 9, 2010 @ 2:38 pm
November 9th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
LOL! To win the argument that selection created a citrate permease in the lab, you have to argue selection failed to maintain a working citrate permease in the past, in fact it had to fail so miserably so that the co-option argument is believable.
In effect your arguments says: for selection to work it has to fail.
If functionality is lost that is not excercised, it strengthens the notion that most evolution is reductive, not constructive. If it lost more complex working genes which it cannot replace except by simpler genes, this does not bode well for selectionist argmuments that selection will build complexity since this demonstrates seleciton will work AGAINST the evolution of complexity, not for it.
But even assuming that it evolved an alternative route, it only demonstrates the slowness of re-achieving functions it already had and which other E. Coli in the wild already have.
20 in 30,000 generations. If we are talking amino acid changes, that would equate to about 60 DNA nucleotides. And this was the most notable change.
If you argue it is a mere 60 DNA changes in the lab, and further you argue that is a reasonable mutation rate in the last 20 years of Lenski's experiments, you'll be hard pressed to say this feature NEVER existed in the 1 or 2 billion year history of E. Coli. Thus it is unlikely to be fundamentally new, and Behe is again vindicated.
It, like various antibiotic resistance mutations in the lab, is merely revisiting ground already covered. Thus it is unlikely fundamentally new.
60 nucleotide changes over 30,000 generations is not much. The Human/Chimp divergence reaches into the millions of nucleotides for that many generations, and further the reproductive excess of humans is far smaller than E. Coli. The strength of Behe's claims remain.
Old silenced genes? Meaning it had this function before? If it had this function before, it is not fundamentally new. Behe wins again, it is not a fundamentally new function.
And the way that you're able to argue co-option happened in the lab is to argue selection failed miserably to preserve the original function in the first place. Too funny.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — November 9, 2010 @ 2:54 pm
November 9th, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Sorry man- it's just that the guy wants so badly to be related to apes I was thinking he may in fact have had the species change operation…
Comment by ID guy — November 9, 2010 @ 4:24 pm
November 9th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Sal – go re-read the chess bit.
Comment by Nick Matzke — November 9, 2010 @ 5:02 pm
November 9th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
ID Guy, maybe a few more notches down kthx.
Comment by Guts — November 9, 2010 @ 5:09 pm
November 9th, 2010 at 11:38 pm
Nick re-read the above about lost function. If E. Coli are regaining a lost function, it is not fundamentally new function. If one line of E. Coli are acquiring function that exist in other E. Coli (such as Lenski pointed out exist in agricultural and clinical settings) , it is not a new function.
You're having to argue Darwinism failed in order to argue it works.
But the fundamental issue is the speed limits of evoluton toward new complexity. Lenski's experiments demonstrate the mechanisms in operation today are too slow. One might invoke other mechanisms were in operation in the past that are not in operation to day without invoking creation.
The flaw in the Darwinian line is the insistence the mechanism we see in operation today were adequate to explain evolution in the past. Lenski's experiments demonstrate the inadequacy.
Arguing that backmutation is not likely because Darwinism failed to maintain once functional citrate permease isn't exactly reassuring that Darwinism works. If Darwinism is hard pressed to maintain what is already working, and struggles to reacquire lost function, it becomes doubtful that it worked to originate function in the first place.
You don't have to accept creation in order to deal accurately with the facts, and dealing accurately with the facts says mechanisms observed in the field and lab today are too slow to evolve the level of complexity existent in biology today. A different mechanism is indicated.
At issue is the degree of change. This is like saying if you can solve a password that's only one character long, you can solve a password that is 500 characters long. Not so!
Behe laid out the degree of complexity needing to be solved, namely evolution of two complex protein-protein binding sites. You can't say that that was done, heck, even Lenski doesn't know from what system the citrate permease evolved.
Discussions of what constitutes "fiundamentally new" are a sideshow, but even then, given the features exist in E. Coli elsewhere, it would appear Behe is vindicated even on that claim.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — November 9, 2010 @ 11:38 pm
November 17th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Stay tuned:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2...
Comment by Pez — November 17, 2010 @ 4:30 pm
November 18th, 2010 at 8:24 pm
Evolution News & Views: Dave Ussery Ruminates about The Edge of Evolution
Comment by Jared Jammer — November 18, 2010 @ 8:24 pm
November 20th, 2010 at 2:05 am
As we said
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2...
Comment by Pez — November 20, 2010 @ 2:05 am