Pre Adaptation
In contrast [to trait loss], the gain of genetically complex traits appears harder, in that it requires the deployment of multiple gene products in a coordinated spatial and temporal manner. Obviously, this is unlikely to happen in a single step, because it requires potentially numerous changes at multiple loci.If you guessed this was written by an Intelligent Design advocate, such as Michael Behe describing irreducibly complex structures, you were wrong. It was evolutionist Sean Carroll and co-workers in a 2007 PNAS paper.
When a design person says it, it is heresy. When an evolutionist says it, it is the stuff of good solid scientific research.
The difference is the design person assumes a realist view (the genetically complex trait evinces design) whereas the evolutionist assumes an anti-realist view (in spite of all indications, the genetically complex trait must have arisen by blind causes).
To support their position, evolutionists often appeal to a pre adaptation argument. This argument claims that the various sub components (gene products, etc.), needed for the genetically complex trait, were each needed for some other function. Therefore, they evolved individually and independently, only later to serendipitously fit together perfectly and, in so doing, form a new structure with a new function that just happened to be needed. As Richard Dawkins once put it:
The bombardier beetle’s ancestors simply pressed into different service chemicals that already happened to be lying around. That’s often how evolution works.
The problem, of course, is that this is not realistic. To think that each and every one of the seemingly unending, thousands and thousands, of genetically complex traits just happened to luckily arise from parts that just happened to be lying around, is to make one’s theory dependent on too much serendipity.
Religion drives science, and it matters.
My garage is full of spare parts from the sports cars my son has built. I am now patiently waiting for my own sports car to appear. Surely it is just a matter of time.
ReplyDeleteHi Nic. This is just the tornado in a junk yard argument.
DeleteEven with the poster child for IC, the flagellum, all but a couple of the proteins that form it are found elsewhere, serving different functions.
Oh, by the way, the serendipity problem described in the OP escalates, probably exponentially, with the number of sub component parts that are supposed to have been are adapted and then come together.
DeleteWS, Your comment provides an excellent excellent example of how robust evolutionary thought is to empirical contradictions.
willie:
DeleteEven with the poster child for IC, the flagellum, all but a couple of the proteins that form it are found elsewhere, serving different functions.
So what? That doesn't help you at all.
The proteins are needed in specific quantities- one in the thousands- at the same time and then taken to the right location.
Then those parts have to be assembled correctly- that process is also IC. And to top it off there needs to be command and control of the final assembly.
Fair enough. How did your designer do this?
DeletePlanning and genetic engineering
DeleteWS:
DeleteHow did your designer do this?
Why the fixation on this?
William Spearshake, "all but a couple of the proteins that form it are found elsewhere"
DeleteTwo questions:
First, did these proteins pre-exist the flagellum? Or did they initiate in the flagellum, and get co opted elsewhere later?
Second, assuming you are correct that only two proteins are unique to the flagellum, you don't see that as a problem? The edge of evolution is at about two non-beneficial mutational events. How does precisely defined, necessary function that is hundreds of mutations long come into existence?
Voodoo practitioners are orders of magnitude more reasonable and logical than dirt worshippers.
ReplyDeleteEvolution obviously is not falsifiable. This can only be because it is an atheists religion.
ReplyDeletePeter- Evolutionism is falsifiable and has been falsified. It's just that the evos will never admit it.
Delete