In an example of straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel, evolutionists are now saying that certain designs, which of course they say evolved, cannot retrace their steps. That is, the supposed evolutionary pathway that led to the stunning design is not reversible. The example at hand is glucocorticoid receptor, a protein that binds to the stress hormone, cortisol.The reason why this protein cannot go home, evolutionarily speaking, is due to five mutations that are supposed to have occurred. While these five mutations refined the protein's ability to find and bind cortisol, they also would destabilize the ancestral structure. In other words, if the protein were to revert to its ancestral structure, it would first need to reverse those five mutations. But, the evolutionists say, reversing those mutations would not help improve the ancestral function. They write:
we demonstrate that five subsequent ‘restrictive’ mutations, which optimized the new specificity of the glucocorticoid receptor, also destabilized elements of the protein structure that were required to support the ancestral conformation. Unless these ratchet-like epistatic substitutions are restored to their ancestral states, reversing the key function-switching mutations yields a non-functional protein. Reversing the restrictive substitutions first, however, does nothing to enhance the ancestral function.
Anyone familiar with the evolution genre knows the extreme heroics they routinely employ to make their theory work. When necessary evolutionists do not hesitate to make a mockery of science to avoid admitting the obvious--that evolution does not explain the evidence very well.
But when the adequacy of evolution is not at stake, when only the more esoteric issue of evolution's reversibility is under consideration, then evolutionists suddenly are free to point to obvious barriers.
They tell us that evolution created everything we have discovered: The DNA code, all of the genomes, the factory that makes glucocorticoid receptor and the other proteins, and a thousand other marvels. They cannot tell us just how this occurred, but they assure us that it is a fact. To deny any of this would be to deny evolution.
And yet when evolution is not at stake, then a mere five mutations halts the magic. Unbelievable.
"...that evolution does not explain the evidence very well."
ReplyDeleteWell, what does then? If you think it's ID, why?
Or is your mission in life just to be the person "who hates Darwin" but has no actual ideas of his own?
"Or is your mission in life just to be the person "who hates Darwin" but has no actual ideas of his own?"
ReplyDeleteSo evolution is a fact because, though a lousy theory that relies on religious dictates, there is nothing better?
ps: I don't hate Darwin, just his contribution to the on-going movement to impose religion onto science.
"So evolution is a fact because, though a lousy theory that relies on religious dictates, there is nothing better?"
ReplyDeleteDon't know - is there something better? Perhaps this is. You seem to think so, but you seem to spend all your time and energies focusing on the old paradigm. Why is that? Shouldn't you be throwing your energies in developing a research program on how to find a better framework than evolution?
I think it's going to be much more compelling to say "evolution is wrong and here's a better idea..." instead of just throwing rocks at evolution. At least from a marketing perspective your ideas would be a much easier sell than they are today (because all you have right now is pretty much an anti-theory...which of course does nothing to move us forward).
After all isn't that largely how science has progressed - not just because somebody has demolished an idea, but because they have an introduced a more compelling one and one that better fits the evidence. You seem good at the demolishing piece but that's about it.