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Affinity Maturation and Somatic Cell Hypermutation: Intricately Controlled Processes that are Unlike Mutation and Selection
[Editor’s Note: This is part three of a six-part response from microbiologist Don Ewert to Kathryn Applegate’s arguments that the vertebrate adaptive immune system is an example of Darwinian evolution in action. Part one can be found here, and part two is here.] The second stage of B cell receptor development is initiated when a foreign protein enters our body and is detected by a circulating B cell using its cell surface antigen receptor (BCR). The BCRs that recognize these antigens improve their affinity (binding capacity) for the antigen by entering into a fine-tuning process called affinity maturation. This process ensures that highly effective antibody receptors are produced and released as cell-free antibodies into the circulation as the B cell Read More ›
Generation of Antibody Diversity is Unlike Darwinian Evolution
[Editor’s Note: This is part two of a response from microbiologist Don Ewert to arguments from BioLogos’s Kathryn Applegate that our immune system shows the creative power Darwinian evolution. Part one can be found here.] The intricate mechanism for generating antibody diversity from very few germline (existing) genes was discovered over thirty years ago. It involves shuffling gene segments and then fusing them to produce new combining sites for the antibody receptor displayed on individual B cells. How much of this process is pre-programmed and how much is random? Is this an example of the use of a “‘blind’ system to sustain and preserve life,” as Kathryn Applegate suggests? The evidence from decades of research reveals a complex network of Read More ›
Does LA County Natural History Museum Scientist Kirk Fitzhugh Oppose “Freedom of Thought” for Intelligent Design?
In my prior post, I explained that Kirk Fitzhugh, a scientist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHMLAC), wrongly claims that intelligent design (ID) is not testable. Fitzhugh’s error that ID is “immune to testing” is important. While he should have the academic freedom to believe and contend that ID is “immune to testing” and not scientific, he uses his claim that ID is not testable to justify suppressing ID. He anticipates this deficiency in his position, and thus writes: First, there’s the claim that science precludes expression of thought. In the context of ID, such a claim of overt suppression is inaccurate. Science is a process of acquiring ever-increasing causal understanding, and such a process has Read More ›
Adaptive Immunity: Chance or Necessity?
[Editor’s Note: Earlier this year, in a series of posts on the BioLogos website (“Adaptive Immunity: How Randomness Comes to the Rescue” and “Evolution and Immunity: Same Story“), Kathryn Applegate argued that the “random” processes of the vertebrate adaptive immune system serve as an example of how Darwinian mechanisms can generate biological complexity. Today, Discovery Institute presents part one of a response to Dr. Applegate from Donald L. Ewert, a research immunologist/virologist who spent much of his career studying the molecular and cell biology of the immune system, as well as theories about its evolution. Dr. Ewert received his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in 1976. As a microbiologist, he operated a research laboratory at the Wistar Institute in Read More ›
“…unlike Egnor I am interested in critical thought…”
My eight questions and answers for New Atheists have generated some amusing replies. Most just criticize me for asking, calling me ‘dishonest’ (that’s for my questions, not just for my answers). ‘No matter what, God didn’t do it’ is the typical reply. One dyspeptic New Atheist was uncommonly amusing. Chuck O’Connor at Battling Confusion writes: Michael Egnor (a fellow of the Discovery Institute – the PR organization that tries to deny biological evolution for the sake of Judeo/Christian creationism and theocracy – see their aims articulated in “The Wedge Strategy”) offers excellent evidence of this obsessive psychological quirk towards certainty when he creates a “strawman” argument against “New Atheism” at the Discovery Institute Web-site. My “obsessive psychological quirk” was to Read More ›