A post was split to a new topic: What is An Organalle?
I’m not talking about people’s personal beliefs. I can and have fought for people’s rights to believe and practice any religion they so choose. I’m talking about organizations like the DI which run a well funded anti-science propaganda campaign. They producing articles, books, and even movies all designed to convince the lay public science is incompetent and should be disregarded in favor of their unsupported hooey. Those are the clowns who need to be countered any time and anywhere they start spreading their nefarious lies.
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Analogies are usually offered without announcing them as analogies.
For example, you are tilting at windmills here. I do not need to explicate the fact that you are are quixiotically emulating Don Quixote for you to grasp that it is an analogy I am making. Nor does this mean there are literally windmills in front of you.
Nonsequitur. Try actually reading when I have written in response to this several times. Stop repeating yourself. It does not fix your point.
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Is the motor thing an analogy? That would seem to depend on the definition of “motor”, notably the definition used by those who say the flagellum is a motor, but also the definition used by those who say it isn’t. I don’t understand why nobody is willing to engage with definitions here, because I think that’s the center of the question. Is it possible this entire silly controversy arises because of different unstated definitions?
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@John_Harshman that is my point. I’m just asking people to explain how a flagella is like and unlike a motor by their definition. Only @Michael_Callen took me up on it.
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Shouldn’t you offer your take on that also? What is your definition of “motor”, given that your position is that the flagellum isn’t a motor but it analogous to a motor?
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Hi Tim: First, let me say that it’s always easier to be in my position. Science is not my profession, it is just interesting to me. So, I realize that I’m mostly unaffected and definitely not as emotionally engaged as others. I’m admitting that it is easier for me to not get upset by what I might perceive to be hooey. The point is that there are multiple ways to battle in this kind of situation. Sometimes the frustration that you feel spills over into your words, and they lose effectiveness.
I really believe that a messy, public battle, like what goes on here, does nothing to solve the problem. Much like politics in the US, it only serves to polarize, which makes things worse. That’s why I continue to say that 1) people should stop arguing over things that don’t matter, 2) people should stop insisting that anything is fact when it cannot be proved, and 3) your team needs to look at what a fantastic job the DI has done to articulate their position and you should emulate that. That (point three) is the only discussion that is going to change minds.
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Suppose someone bioengineered a molecular motor. Suppose the bioengeer wasn’t familiar with flagella. Suppose his/her motor was just like a flagellate motor. Would it be less or more of a motor?
Depends on the definition of “motor”. What’s your definition?
I should say that, when asked earlier, I said that we did not need to define “motor”… but then I went on to describe what I meant (personally) by a “motor.” I agree with John, now, that it should be defined… I think, though, that it needs to be the most universal definition of motor, though. Such that, when anyone reads it, they would understand what it means. It should be like “STOP” in that there is no question. As a suggestion, I would offer: “an electric motor.”
What’s yours?
What do you think the bioengineer’s was, starting out to design and build one?
It’s fairly implicit… a device, regardless of scale or construction, to turn power into continuous rotary motion.
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Oops. Now we have to define ‘device’ so that everybody’s happy. 
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Howard Berg in his article on the Bacterial Flagellar Motor does not define motor, per se, but here’s what he says about the motor in the first paragraph:
It rotates a thin helical filament (a propeller) that powers swimming motility.
That is why a molecular motor is not an analogy. And it does not need to be connected to an impeller.
Sure. I think that we uses the meaning analogous to human designed motors, not merely as an example of something that generates motive force somehow. That is why we use terms like bearings, bushings, drive, shaft, power source and so on in relation to flagellum. This is all valid as an analogy (as I have repeatedly stated). This also demonstrates we are not using some reduced definition such as “anything that generates propulsion”, because chemical rockets generate propulsion too and can be called engines or motors too, even though they do not have drive shafts and bushings, etc.
This analogy is fine and valid, but it also breaks down. Repeating for the nth time, where and how it breaks down is important. If we don’t keep track of that the analogy becomes an identity (as you eloquently put) and many ID intuitions (and arguments) depend on that equivocation. Bacon calls this the idol of the marketplace.
I’m sure this not the first time I’ve explained this. It seems that the devoted effort of some people to confuse this straightforward point have been successful.
See what I mean by equivocating motor and flagellum? @John_Harshman this is the nonesense I’m pushing against.
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That’s a common starting point. In fact I don’t think we commonly refer to anything else as a motor. Usually, other things are called “engines”. Your car generally has an engine, not a motor. But there are “outboard motors”. Etymologically, a motor is anything that causes movement. But I doubt you would call a water wheel or your leg a motor. This is not a simple question, observationally.
I’m perfectly happy to call the bacterial flagellum a motor. It seems to have the qualities shared by electric motors and outboard motors, except for the materials from which they are made and the fact that they are made by people. But I don’t see those as crucial to the meaning of “motor”.
I agree that the only reason we’re having this argument is the implicit claim that if the flagellum is a motor, there must have been a motor-maker. I reject that claim.
You replied to yourself… are you conflicted?? 
JK…
Motor may be an identity to some, but it is also an analogy for all.
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No, I don’t. An impeller is not the same as a pulley.
@John_Harshman it is not an electric motor. It does not have a propellor. These are all just analogies. They have value and they have limits. They are not identities.