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News & ArtsMonday, January 9, 2012
Science Enough About Intelligent Design
Posted by Charles Mudede on Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 8:54 AM
By bringing long-dead proteins back to life, researchers have worked out the process by which evolution added a component to a cellular machine. The result, they say, is a challenge to proponents of intelligent design who maintain that complex biological systems can only have been created by a divine force.This is a great story, but why does it have to mention intelligent design? Let's agree to keep that garbage out of our articles and thinking. Every breath used on ID or creationism is wasted. Indeed, we should not show these ideas contempt because that takes/wastes energy.Cells rely on ‘machines’ made of multiple different protein components to carry out many vital functions in the cell, and molecular and evolutionary biologists have puzzled about how they evolved. In an effort to find out, Joe Thornton at the University of Oregon in Eugene chose to study a particular machine called the V-ATPase proton pump, which channels protons across membranes and is vital for keeping cell compartments at the right acidity. Part of this machine is a ring of six proteins that threads through the membrane.
In animals and most other eukaryotes, this ring is composed of two types of protein; fungi are alone in having a ring with three. Thornton wanted to know how the machine evolved from the simple to the more complex form. And, because he has built a lab that specializes in resurrecting ancient proteins, he had just the tools to find out at hand.
One other thing, if you want to know more about the proton pump mentioned in the article, read Nick Lane's Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life. The chapter on chemiosmosis (pumping protons across a membrane) is dazzling.
1
The H+ pump is one of the coolest protein complexes around.
I agree that it's absurd for a journal at the level of Nature to even tallk about refuting ID. It's perfectly fine (healthy, in fact) to refute competing scientific arguments, but ID is not scientific. By arguing that current research addresses challenges by ID you are giving ID a prestige it does not deserve.
I agree that it's absurd for a journal at the level of Nature to even tallk about refuting ID. It's perfectly fine (healthy, in fact) to refute competing scientific arguments, but ID is not scientific. By arguing that current research addresses challenges by ID you are giving ID a prestige it does not deserve.
2
I disagree. It is important to discredit Intelligent Design and the 'teach the controversy' Christians behind it. Too many people have been duped by Intelligent Design - they have to be shown the truth. And, what may obvious to those who never abandoned the fact of evolution, will skip right by the average person who has been told that there is a 'controversy'.
Hopefully in 10 years we can abandon all thought of Intelligent Design, but now we have to fight it openly.
Hopefully in 10 years we can abandon all thought of Intelligent Design, but now we have to fight it openly.
4
As Richard Dawkins has said, it's an absurd insult that biologists must be pitted against intelligent design/creationism at every turn. It would be as if a historian had to argue that Rome actually existed before he could ever get to his point.
5
It's best not to lend those ID lunatics any credibility to even dignify their perspective.
Nature might as well of argued " ...is a challenge to proponents of dancing elves".
Nature might as well of argued " ...is a challenge to proponents of dancing elves".
7
Anyone who knows about Kitzmiller v. Dover, or ID in general, knows that the whole "irreducible complexity" argument has already been thoroughly destroyed. Still, I'm all for scientists bringing that up as often as necessary, until ID only illicits eye rolls.
8
Oh Lord, Mudede is talking about biology again.
How did fungi end up with three types of cyclical subunit in the proton-pumping ATPase? Probably by gene duplication.
Ancestral likelihood analyses are pretty damn cool, though. I got an introduction to such things last quarter in a delightful class full of grad students which was called "Reconstructing the Tree of Life".
How did fungi end up with three types of cyclical subunit in the proton-pumping ATPase? Probably by gene duplication.
Ancestral likelihood analyses are pretty damn cool, though. I got an introduction to such things last quarter in a delightful class full of grad students which was called "Reconstructing the Tree of Life".
9
@1 Hi lynx!
@3 Right?!
@2 I disagree with you. There really aren't two sides to this at all. There is no debate. Including ID even to denounce and refute it lends it some measure of credibility. Space in Nature is expensive and we scientists tend to read things quickly with an eye toward extracting the most salient details. ID inclusion is really just wasted space where they could squeeze in a little bit more science.
Yes, it would be a mistake for scientists to ignore politics. However, in the day-to-day scheme of things science is and should be conducted at a level that is above the fray. The ID hypothesis has been disproved, we move on to the next hypothesis.
@3 Right?!
@2 I disagree with you. There really aren't two sides to this at all. There is no debate. Including ID even to denounce and refute it lends it some measure of credibility. Space in Nature is expensive and we scientists tend to read things quickly with an eye toward extracting the most salient details. ID inclusion is really just wasted space where they could squeeze in a little bit more science.
Yes, it would be a mistake for scientists to ignore politics. However, in the day-to-day scheme of things science is and should be conducted at a level that is above the fray. The ID hypothesis has been disproved, we move on to the next hypothesis.
10
@8 Good guess Venom. You'll make a fine grad student I'm sure.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vao…
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vao…
11
You're a confusing man Charles, a few days ago you had the silly science-denying "social construction" post, then this eminently sensible one.
12
Right on, Charles. It's like if every article about space had to mention that it was a "blow to proponents of a flat earth." Can we just not talk about tired, intellectually bankrupt bullshit any more? Fuck every single journalist who feels the need to exaggerate this idiotic "controversy" to build tension or whatever the fuck they think they're doing.
13
It's a blog, you guys. I mean I agree with you-all,* but it's not a regular Nature article, just a blog about the article. OK, carry on.
*Presenting rational arguments to refute ID is an insult to rationality.
*Presenting rational arguments to refute ID is an insult to rationality.
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