Michael Behe’s “secret obsessions”

In his latest post at Evolution News and Views, Michael Behe calls the authors of posts at New Scientist and Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News ‘crazy’ and ‘clueless’ for associating arguments about the bacterial flagellum with intelligent design (“New Paper on Flagellum Reveals Secret Obsessions“):

Suppose in the course of a pleasant conversation with a colleague you mentioned your vacation last year in Las Vegas. All of a sudden he starts ranting about Area 51 — Vegas is only a few hours away, right? Did you see any lights in the sky? Any military vehicles heading north? You should stay at the Little A’Le’Inn motel like he has six times. You’ll see some funny stuff there.

You’d probably back away slowly, smiling, wishing him a nice day…

[much later] …One crazy person is a coincidence. Two are a trend…What’s more, if you go by what they write, these folks are utterly clueless about what modern ID proponents actually argue. [my emphasis]

The evidence that these authors are crazy and clueless? The New Scientist‘s assertion that the bacterial flagellum is

Loved by creationists, who falsely think they are examples of “intelligent design”

and that of Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News that

[T]he bacterial flagellum has been at the center of the thinly veiled creationism movement called intelligent design. Subscribers to this belief system have erroneously postulated that the flagellar motor system is “irreducibly complex” and could not have come about through Darwinian evolutionary mechanisms….It is doubtful these findings will sway the opinion of its detractors, yet they do make it extremely more difficult for them to make their case.

Seriously, that is the sum total of the evidence that these authors are ‘crazy’ and ‘clueless’ on the order of UFO true believers. A bit hyperbolic, I think. But where did these clueless authors get their crazy idea to associate the bacterial flagellum with intelligent design?

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The flip side of the Galileo Gambit: Denyse O’Leary on multicellularity

Figure 7 from Anderson et al. 2016. Evolution of GKPID’s new function by unveiling a latent protein-binding site. (A) The binding surface for Pins in GKPIDs is derived from the GMP-binding surface of gk enzymes. Homology models of Anc-gkdup (left) and Anc-GK1PID (right) are shown as white surface, with all side chains that contact either GMP or Pins as yellow sticks. Pink sticks show GMP; green ribbon shows Pins backbone, with the side chains of all Pins residues that contact the GK protein shown as sticks. The phosphate group on GMP and on Pins residue 436 are shown as orange and red sticks. Black dotted lines, protein-ligand hydrogen bonds. In the AncGK1PID structure , substitutions at sites in the binding interface are shaded red, including key substitution s36P. The binding modes of extant gk enzymes and GKPIDs are similar and support the same conclusions (see Figure 7—figure supplement 1). (B) The structure of the hinge and GMP/Pins-binding lobes is conserved between the Pins-bound GKPID (blue, rat Dlg, 3UAT), the apo-gk enzyme (brown, S. cerevisiae guanylate kinase 1EX6), and the apo-gk-s36P mutant (gray, 4F4J), all in the open conformation.

Figure 7 from Anderson et al. 2016. Evolution of GKPID’s new function by unveiling a latent protein-binding site. (A) The binding surface for Pins in GKPIDs is derived from the GMP-binding surface of gk enzymes. Homology models of Anc-gkdup (left) and Anc-GK1PID (right) are shown as white surface, with all side chains that contact either GMP or Pins as yellow sticks. In the AncGK1PID structure , substitutions at sites in the binding interface are shaded red, including key substitution s36P. (B) The structure of the hinge and GMP/Pins-binding lobes is conserved between the Pins-bound GKPID (blue, rat Dlg, 3UAT), the apo-gk enzyme (brown, S. cerevisiae guanylate kinase 1EX6), and the apo-gk-s36P mutant (gray, 4F4J), all in the open conformation.

Cdesign proponentsists really don’t seem to like research on the evolution of multicellularity. Pretty much any time real scientists learn something new about the origins of multicellularity, writers on intelligent design blogs Evolution News & Views and Uncommon Descent feel compelled to tell us why it’s wrong (for example, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).

So I shouldn’t be surprised that Denyse O’Leary has weighed in on the latest work out of Ken Prehoda’s lab, in which Prehoda and colleagues identified a mutation crucial for forming and maintaining tissues in animals. Worse, from O’Leary’s point of view, the article describes the evolution of a new protein function, which is anathema to intelligent design thinkers. To say this post is badly argued is overly generous; it’s absolutely devoid of any substantive argument.

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The Discovery Institute still doesn’t understand free speech

The Discovery Institute has a persecution complex. They have a hard time distinguishing between rejection and mockery of their silly ideas and violation of their right to free speech. They’ve created a ‘Censor of the Year’ award to protest their treatment. The previous winners are noted free speech opponents Jerry Coyne and Neil deGrasse Tyson.

For the past month, they Institute has been in an absolute tizzy over the decision of the United Methodist Church’s decision to exclude (‘ban‘) them from its General Conference coming up in May. Because they don’t understand that free speech doesn’t obligate others to provide a platform, they think this decision amounts to ‘intolerance‘ and ‘censorship‘.

Censorship

Persecution complex? Image from an Evolution News & Views post on UMC.

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Doctor knows best, at least when he agrees with me

The Designed Body

Image from evolutionnews.org.

 

Wesley J. Smith’s latest post on Evolution News and Views complains of “The Arrogance of ‘Doctor Knows Best’” when it comes to end-of-life care. I find complaints about the arrogance of doctors ironic in light of the fact that each of Howard Glicksman’s posts on the same website begin with the following editor’s note:

Physicians have a special place among the thinkers who have elaborated the argument for intelligent design. Perhaps that’s because, more than evolutionary biologists, they are familiar with the challenges of maintaining a functioning complex system, the human body.

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No, the Patriots aren’t magically controlling coin tosses

They shouldn't be. Image from USA Today.

They shouldn’t be.
Image from USA Today.

Citing a CBS article, Uncommon Descent complains “No design inference allowed on coin flips.” As I’ve come to expect from them, it’s pretty hard to parse a coherent argument out of the article, but I’ll bet it has something to do with 747s and tornadoes (say what you want about Evolution News and Views; at least you can follow their arguments). So it’s not clear what design inference they think we should draw from the New England Patriots winning 19 of 25 coin flips, nor who is being prevented from drawing it.

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Pussyfooting around evolution

Montana_State_Seal

I have been lucky to work with some excellent science teachers here in Montana. The state’s science education in general, though, could be better. In 2012, the Thomas Fordham Institute released its report The State of State Science Standards, and Montana didn’t fare so well. With an overall rating of ‘F’, Montana’s science standards were described as

…a thin amalgam of wooly commands and vague expectations…permeated with vague if high-sounding generalities that are of little or no use in setting up a course of study.

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Never?

Picard-Facepalm

In a post on human evolution (“BBC asks, why we are only humans still alive?“), Uncommon Descent asks,

It is unclear that any of these groups [Neanderthals, Denisovans, ‘hobbits’] ever were separate species. Is that not just more Darwinspeak? The serious discussion of what “separate species” means never happens because no Darwin follower can afford it. [emphasis mine]

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In which I agree with Uncommon Descent

BizarroWorld

We’re both fans of Betul Kacar‘s research (see “AbSciCon day 3: the tape of life“). I know why I like it, but I can’t quite figure out why they do. Dr. Kacar’s research combines molecular paleontology with experimental evolution, inserting ancient versions of genes into modern bacteria and observing how they evolve in response. I’ve puzzled over Uncommon Descent’s fondness for Dr. Kacar’s research before (“Evolution is evidence against evolution (?)“), and I’m afraid their new post on the topic (“Roll dice twice, see what turns up“) doesn’t really clear things up.

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(Probably not) Precambrian Volvox

A new(ish) paper in National Science Review evaluates the evidence for various interpretations of Ediacaran microfossils from the Weng’an biota in South China (Xiao et al. 2014. The Weng’an biota and the Ediacaran radiation of multicellular eukaryotes. Natl. Sci. Rev., 1:498–520.). I recommend checking it out; it’s open access, and there’s a lot of interesting stuff in there that I’m not going to address.

These fossils are undoubtedly multicellular, probably eukaryotic, and extremely enigmatic. Their age (582-600 million years) means they could have important implications for the evolution of multicellularity, and their exceptional preservation in great numbers creates the potential for reconstructing their life cycles in great detail. Some of the Weng’an fossils have been interpreted as volvocine algae, an interpretation that I find highly unlikely.

Some of the Weng’an fossils are thought to represent red algae, and this would not be terribly surprising, since red algae have been around for at least 1.2 billion years. Others, for example the tubular fossils, are more problematic, with interpretations as diverse as cyanobacteria, eukaryotic algae, crinoids, and cnidarians.

Fig. 8 from Xiao et al. 2014

Figure 8 from Xiao et al. 2014: Schematic diagram showing diagnostic features of the five recognized species of tubular microfossils in the Weng’an biota.

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