Steve Fuller’s lecture on ID

Front-loading with Homeodomains by Mike Gene

 ”As the new data comes , undirected fabl of Darwinian evolution becomes more and more tricky misinformation of the materialism.This article belongs to my most favourite researcher, Mike Gene who works on directed evolutionary processes called front-loading. Here is the latest article on him. You had better visit his site ( the design matrix ) to learn more about the concept of fron t loading.”

Mike GENE

For years, I have been trying to flesh out the conceptualization of front-loading evolution at the origin of life. A working hypothesis has been that the first cells (uni-cellular life forms) were front-loaded with information that would facilitate the evolution of multi-cellular life. One possible candidate for such front-loaded ‘information’ would be the homeodomain proteins. These proteins play essential roles in metazoan development and are considered part of the developmental toolkit as outlined by biologist Sean Carroll.

A few months ago, a study was published that outlines data and arguments that perfectly resonate with my front-loading views. Let’s have a look.

The study is Homeodomain proteins belong to the ancestral molecular toolkit of Eukaryotes, published by French researchers, Romain Derelle, Philippe Lopez, Herve´ Le Guyader, and Michael Manuel. It was published in the June, 2007 issue of Evolution & Development (9:212–219). Feast your eyes on the abstract:

Flagellum Challenges Darwin’s chances

Keiichi NAMBA
Professor, Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University

INTERVIEW 

Nature created a rotary motor with a diameter of 30 nm. Motility of bacteria, such as Salmonella and E. coli with a body size of 1 ~ 2 microns, is driven by rapid rotation of a helical propeller by such a tiny little motor at its base. This organelle is called the flagellum, made of a rotary motor and a thin helical filament that grows up to about 15 microns. It rotates at around 20,000 rpm, at energy consumption of only around 10-16 W and with energy conversion efficiency close to 100%. Prof. Namba’s research group is going to reveal the mechanism of this highly efficient flagellar motor that is far beyond the capabilities of artificial motors. (Such as some F1 high engineering motors have recently reached below this rpm like BMW’s 19250-500)

The flagellum is made by self-assembly of about 25 different proteins. The rotor ring made of protein FliF is the first to assemble in the cytoplasmic membrane. Then, other protein molecules attach to the ring one after another from the base to the tip to construct the motor structure. After the motor has been formed, the flagellar filament, which functions as a helical propeller, is assembled. Precise recognition of the template structure by component proteins allows this highly ordered self-assembly process to proceed without error. The flagellar filament is made of 20,000 to 30,000 copies of flagellin polymerized into a helical tube structure. Flagellin molecules are transported through a long narrow central channel of the flagellum from the cell interior to the distal end of the flagellum, where they self-assemble in a helical manner by the help of a cap complex. The cap is pentameric complex made of HAP2 and has a pentagonal plate and five leg domains, whose flexible stepping movements accompanied by rotation of the whole cap is the key mechanism to promote the efficient self-assembly of flagellin molecules by preparing just one binding site of flagellin at a time and guiding the binding.

 More.. 

Irreducible Complexity And Darwinian Pathways

 

 Irreducible Complexity And Darwinian Pathways
Guest response to article by R.H. Thornhill and D.W. Ussery
“Mike Gene“

ARN Forum
June 16, 2000

It’s official. Behe’s concept of irreducible complexity (IC) has found itself in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Ironically, it was introduced by two critics of ID attempting to formulate non-teleological mechanisms for spawning IC. The article is: Thornhill, R.H., Ussery, D.W. 2000. “A classification of possible routes of Darwinian evolution.” J. Theor. Bio. 203: 111-116.

First of all, this article shows that Behe’s work has indeed contributed to science. Thornhill and Ussery (T&U) write:

“However, the more theoretical question about the accessibility by Darwinian evolution of irreducibly complex structures of functionally indivisible components, if such exist, has not been thoroughly examined.One factor hampering examination of the accessibility of biological structures by Darwinian evolution is the absence of a classification of possible routes. A suggested classification is presented here.”