Rich Lenski takes down Michael Behe and his ID creationism: Part IV

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@T_aquaticus

So we could find the evolutionary history of 3 billion irreducibly complex systems, but if there is just 1 we haven’t explained then the challenge has not been met?

As you get closer your position strengthens but to just get to the first step of evolution the spliceosome is in the way which makes the flagellum look like a chip shot.

[T_aquaticus]

@colewd

As you get closer your position strengthens but to just get to the first step of evolution the spliceosome is in the way which makes the flagellum look like a chip shot.

Who had post 22 in the “when will colewd bring up the spliceosome” pool?

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@colewd

So we could find the evolutionary history of 3 billion irreducibly complex systems, but if there is just 1 we haven’t explained then the challenge has not been met?

As you get closer your position strengthens but to just get to the first step of evolution the spliceosome is in the way which makes the flagellum look like a chip shot.

And we have pointed you to the answer for this objection many times: Constructive Neutral Evolution. We even have a illustrative game: X-Men Constructive Neutral Evolution.

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@swamidass

And we have pointed you to the answer for this objection many times: Constructive Neutral Evolution. We even have a illustrative game: X-Men Constructive Neutral Evolution.

I understand that you believe that constructive neutral evolution solves the problem. I am very interested in this mechanism being demonstrated to find complex sequences of an irreducibly complex system like the flagellum.

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@T_aquaticus

Notice that it doesn’t say “just the bacterial flagellum and blood clotting cascade are a powerful challenge to Darwinian evolution”.

And neither did I. I claimed they were examples used to demonstrate IR. I would think a comparable complexity would be required to meet the challenge.

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@colewd

I would think a comparable complexity would be required to meet the challenge.

Are you claiming that when we get down to what groups of proteins do, the mechanisms by which bacteriophage work are not comparably complex?

[Art (Arthur Hunt)]

@colewd

As you get closer your position strengthens but to just get to the first step of evolution the spliceosome is in the way which makes the flagellum look like a chip shot.

FYI the spliceosome is not irreducibly complex. And it is not nearly “the first step in evolution”.

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@Art

FYI the spliceosome is not irreducibly complex. And it is not nearly “the first step in evolution”.

Fair enough.

[scd]

@T_aquaticus

Also notice that Lenski has met that challenge.

a new binding site is very simple compare to a molecular nachines which requires many mutations on many genes.

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

Put those goalposts back.

[T_aquaticus]

@scd

a new binding site is very simple compare to a molecular nachines which requires many mutations on many genes.

The new binding site required many mutations. Challenge met.

[Mung]

@T_aquaticus

There is nothing indicating that he is only talking about the bacterial flagellum or the blood clotting cascade.

There is also nothing indicating he is talking about a single gene or protein or RNA.

@T_aquaticus

It required all 4 parts to be in place before you got OmpF binding function.

Mutations are not parts.

[T_aquaticus]

@Mung

There is also nothing indicating he is talking about a single gene or protein or RNA.

In “Edge of Evolution”, one of the main examples is multiple mutations in the same gene. In his latest book, he uses one gene from polar bears as an example.

@Mung

Mutations are not parts.

Amino acids are parts of proteins.

[scd]

only if you consider 4 mutations as “many”.

[T_aquaticus]

@scd

only if you consider 4 mutations as “many”.

Behe considered 2 mutations “many” in the case of chloroquine resistance that wrote about in “Edge of Evolution”.

[Mung]

@T_aquaticus

In “Edge of Evolution”, one of the main examples is multiple mutations in the same gene. In his latest book, he uses one gene from polar bears as an example.

That has nothing to do with IC systems. Does he ever refer to a single gene or single protein as an IC system?

@T_aquaticus

Amino acids are parts of proteins.

Not in the sense that Behe is talkign about.

If you remove an individual amino acid does the protein cease to function?

If you can remove just one amino acid from the protein and have the protein continue to function then it is would not not IC even using your rather bizarre notion.

[T_aquaticus]

@Mung

That has nothing to do with IC systems. Does he ever refer to a single gene or single protein as an IC system?

He says the two are related:

How does irreducible complexity, which I first described in Darwin’s Black Box and discuss in the last chapter, fit with the criteria of coherence and evolutionary steps introduced in this chapter? Although closely related to it, the new concepts gauge difficulties for random mutation at a much finer level than does irreducible complexity, and are more appropriate to defining the edge of evolution. If irreducible complexity is likened to a rough measuring tool–say, a yardstick with no markings–then the new critera can be thought of as a ruler subdivided into millimeters. . .

The concept of the number of “steps” resembles the idea of irreducible complexity inthat both look to see if multiple factors are needed to produce something.

–Michael Behe, “Edge of Evolution” [any spelling/grammar errors are due to my transcription]

@Mung

If you remove an individual amino acid does the protein cease to function?

If you change some of those amino acids you do lose the function, yes.

[Mung]

@T_aquaticus

If you change some of those amino acids you do lose the function, yes.

It’s not IC then.

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@Mung, which IC definition are you using? There are several.

[Edgar_Tamarian]

@swamidass There is no other definition of IC besides this one. If there is it cannot be used against Micheal Behe’s position since it has nothing to do with his position.
So, the official definition of IC is following.

«By irreducibly complex I mean a single system which is composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly (that is, by continuously improving the initial function, which continues to work by the same mechanism) by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional… Even if a system is irreducibly complex (and thus cannot have been produced directly), however, one can not definitively rule out the possibility of an indirect, circuitous route. As the complexity of an interacting system increases, though, the likelihood of such an indirect route drops precipitously. And as the number of unexplained, irreducibly complex biological systems increases»-(Darwin’s Black Box, pp 39-40)