Q&A with Michael Behe: What’s Wrong with Theistic Evolution?

ID is an attempt to bypass laws against teaching creationism to American children by replacing references to God with references to “an intelligent designer”. It is not science, it is sophistry.

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I agree. That would not be unscientific.

The reason ID, in practice, is not just unscientific but ANTI-scientific is that its adherents insist that ATP was “designed” and could not have evolved, in the face of massive amounts of contradictory evidence and a complete absence of evidence to support the claim.

That is not how science is properly conducted.

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Four years later you still don’t know what you are arguing against. Maybe Gil can help.

How are you coming with that demonstration of a disembodied mind creating a physical product? Maybe Gil can help with that.

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Do you believe ATP was designed? Do you believe it could not have evolved?

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I don’t see how it could have evolved based on the available evidence. It requires the organization of greater then 10k nucleotides that build an amino acid based structure that can generate ATP in high enough volume to keep a cell alive. There is no evidence I am aware of that a living cell can survive and reproduce without this type of mechanism.

So you don’t believe ATP evolved. Do you believe it was designed?

I think design (or mind) is the best explanation for the origin of ATP synthase.

So this is where we’re at. First this.

Then this.

It doesn’t even require comment.

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You just can’t give any reason beyond your ignorance driven personal incredulity. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Here you are describing your own limitations. What you can’t see.

It requires the organization of greater then 10k nucleotides that build an amino acid based structure that can generate ATP in high enough volume to keep a cell alive.

Here you are making a claim but supply no evidence for it.

There is no evidence I am aware of that a living cell can survive and reproduce without this type of mechanism.

And again you describe a personal limitation. What you are currently aware of.

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The search for signs of intelligence is incompatible with progress in understanding because when a natural mechanism is discovered, the associated intelligence design conjecture is invalidated. If irreducible complexity is what you are looking to find, a mechanistic pathway is the last thing you want to observe. How can “I do not want to discover anything here” possibly co-exist with “I am pursuing science”? As I have stated above, ID has no heuristic value.

ID equates science with theology. ID is an attempt to prove that where a lack of detailed understanding exists, that constitutes proof of God. Sometimes, ID exploits genuine gaps in understanding such as abiogenesis. There is a huge gulf, however, between saying “myself, I think God created” to “it is impossible that God did not create”. But worse, ID proponents tend to engage in long and stubborn denials of accepted scientific explanations of biological systems. ID becomes an amalgam of unjustified extrapolation of scientific unknowns as evidence for creation, with pervasive denial of science which is understood.

So ID is anti-science in that it is counter to both the methodology and the data of science.

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Can I take this opportunity to introduce the concept of substrate-level phosphorylation?

Let’s see if cells can really live without ATP synthase. Hmm, how about we read this paper?

Hunt KA, Flynn JM, Naranjo B, Shikhare ID, Gralnick JA. Substrate-level phosphorylation is the primary source of energy conservation during anaerobic respiration of Shewanella oneidensis strain MR-1. J Bacteriol. 2010 Jul;192(13):3345-51. doi: 10.1128/JB.00090-10.

Abstract

It is well established that respiratory organisms use proton motive force to produce ATP via F-type ATP synthase aerobically and that this process may reverse during anaerobiosis to produce proton motive force. Here, we show that Shewanella oneidensis strain MR-1, a nonfermentative, facultative anaerobe known to respire exogenous electron acceptors, generates ATP primarily from substrate-level phosphorylation under anaerobic conditions. Mutant strains lacking ackA (SO2915) and pta (SO2916), genes required for acetate production and a significant portion of substrate-level ATP produced anaerobically, were tested for growth. These mutant strains were unable to grow anaerobically with lactate and fumarate as the electron acceptor, consistent with substrate-level phosphorylation yielding a significant amount of ATP. Mutant strains lacking ackA and pta were also shown to grow slowly using N-acetylglucosamine as the carbon source and fumarate as the electron acceptor, consistent with some ATP generation deriving from the Entner-Doudoroff pathway with this substrate. A deletion strain lacking the sole F-type ATP synthase (SO4746 to SO4754) demonstrated enhanced growth on N-acetylglucosamine and a minor defect with lactate under anaerobic conditions. ATP synthase mutants grown anaerobically on lactate while expressing proteorhodopsin, a light-dependent proton pump, exhibited restored growth when exposed to light, consistent with a proton-pumping role for ATP synthase under anaerobic conditions. Although S. oneidensis requires external electron acceptors to balance redox reactions and is not fermentative, we find that substrate-level phosphorylation is its primary anaerobic energy conservation strategy. Phenotypic characterization of an ackA deletion in Shewanella sp. strain MR-4 and genomic analysis of other sequenced strains suggest that this strategy is a common feature of Shewanella.

The goal of this work was to elucidate the primary source of ATP generation under anaerobic conditions in MR-1. Data presented here support a model of anaerobic metabolism where substrate-level phosphorylation is the primary mechanism for ATP generation and where some amount of the ATP pool is used to generate PMF.

If substrate-level phosphorylation is the primary means of conserving energy anaerobically, a strain lacking the ATP synthase operon (Δ atp ) should remain viable and eliminate the possibility of ATP generation via PMF. The entire ATP synthase operon (SO4746 to SO4754) was deleted to avoid futile cycling of protons or ATP through a partial complex.

And yet it lived, and produced ATP by substrate-level phosphorylation instead.

Well I guess this isn’t the chicken-and-egg paradox we’ve been led to believe. Weird.

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ID simply brings an alternative mechanism (mind) to the table as a tool for science to evaluate. ID proponents may do what you say but that does not establish that the claims themselves are faulty.

The scientific claims can be tested against design as an alternative hypothesis. This puts a constraint on speculations that are not grounded in model or testing. If a tested hypothesis is proposed as has a high confidence factor design gets bumped as an explanation.

You’ve never demonstrated how a disembodied mind alone can physically manipulate matter to get desired results. You can’t even hypothesize a way.

Let us know when you come up with a physical mechanism for your disembodied mind and tested it.

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I’m sure @colewd appreciates your efforts to educate him and, now that he is aware of the facts of the matter will no longer be making the claim that ATP is a “chicken and egg” problem that defies explanation other than creation by an immaterial mind thru magic.

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Flat earthers also bring to the table alternative ideas regarding the shape of our planet. That by itself does not mean they are wrong, I agree.

No, but an apology from Bill would not be out of place. Not holding my breath, though.

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I guess you join Faizal in not understanding the design hypothesis. Lets see if you see the fallacy in the contradiction you tried to set up.