Category: Life Sciences
Response to John Wise
[Note: This response was co-authored by Stephen Meyer, Paul Nelson, Rick Sternberg and Jonathan Wells, who each presented at the “4 Nails in Darwin’s Coffin” event at SMU. Doug Axe, who also presented, responded here.] On Thursday, September 23, 2010, following a showing of the film Darwin’s Dilemma, we presented a program of short talks in the Hughes-Trigg Theatre at Southern Methodist University (SMU). We argued that the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution has not solved these related problems: The origin of novel protein folds (talk by Axe) The origin of anatomical novelties (talk by Sternberg) The origin of animal body plans (talks by Nelson and Wells) SMU biology lecturer John Wise attended the event – or so it appears, because Read More ›
Shape-Shifting Protein in Bacterial Flagellum Controls Spin Direction
It’s been long known that the bacterial flagellum can spin in one direction and then quickly reverse directions and spin in the other. A recent issue of Nature has an article titled, “Structure of the torque ring of the flagellar motor and the molecular basis for rotational switching” which elucidates some of the biomechanical properties of the FliG motor protein that allows this rotation switch to occur: The flagellar motor drives the rotation of flagellar filaments at hundreds of revolutions per second, efficiently propelling bacteria through viscous media. The motor uses the potential energy from an electrochemical gradient of cations across the cytoplasmic membrane to generate torque. A rapid switch from anticlockwise to clockwise rotation determines whether a bacterium runs Read More ›
Evolutionary Biologists Are Unaware of Their Own Arguments: Reappraising Nature‘s Prized “Gem,” Tiktaalik (Updated)
Links to our 9-Part Series Responding to Nature‘s Evolution Evangelism Packet: • Part 1: Evaluating Nature’s 2009 “15 Evolutionary Gems” Darwin-Evangelism Kit • Part 2: Microevolutionary Gems: Lizards, Fish, Snakes, and Clams • Part 3: Microevolutionary Gems: Bird-Sized Evolutionary Change • Part 4: Microevolutionary Gems: Flea and Guppy-Sized Evolutionary Change • Part 5: Microevolution Meets Microevolution • Part 6: Evolutionary “Gems” or “Narrative Gloss”? • Part 7: Muscling Past Homology Problems in Nature’s Vertebrate Skeleton “Evolutionary Gem” • Part 8: Of Whale and Feather Evolution: Two Macroevolutionary Lumps of Coal • Part 9 (This Article): Evolutionary Biologists Are Unaware of Their Own Arguments: Reappraising Nature‘s Prized “Gem,” Tiktaalik Download Our Full Response to the Packet as a PDF. The final Read More ›
Inconsistent Reasoning Governs Evolutionary Interpretations of Feathered Dinosaurs
Nature news is reporting another feathered dinosaur. The title of the Nature news article says, “Crested dinosaur pushes back dawn of feather.” This dinosaur is from around 130 mya, but feathers are already known from the bird Archaeopteryx around 150 mya. So how does it push back the origin of feathers? Their reasoning is that the feathers on this new species, dubbed Concavenator corcovatus, appear in a different lineage than the one that supposedly led to birds. Since “such structures [feathers] are unlikely to have evolved separately in both groups” they use evolutionary reasoning to infer that “the common ancestor of the two predatory dinosaur branches, ‘could have been feathered’.” This pushes the origin of feathers back to “Middle Jurassic Read More ›
NDM-1 Superbug the Result of Bad Policies, Not Compelling Evidence for Evolution’s Creative Powers
Recently, the media has been discussing the micro-evolution of a new antibiotic resistant strain of bacteria, dubbed the “NDM-1 superbug.” This seems to be a very sad case of one of those things that evolution is pretty good at doing — making small, incremental improvements upon an enzyme through a step-by step process. That, plus the tendency of bacteria to collect multiple antibiotic resistances, makes this gene a real problem. However, it by no means provides evidence for the ability of evolutionary processes to produce new functions within a cell. The problem is that antibiotics are frequently used — and abused. Beta-lactamases, the enzymes that degrade penicillin and penicillin-like antibiotics (they are all characterized by a “beta-lactam” ring) were around Read More ›