Science v Intelligent Design: The reducible bacterial flagella

Ken Miller on the flagellum

W. Ford Doolittle and Olga Zhaxybayeva (2007). “Reducible Complexity - The Case for Bacterial Flagella.” Current Biology, 17(13), R510-R512. July 3, 2007.

Postings tagged Flagellum_Evolution at PT

The bacterial flagellum is an example of elegance in molecular engineering. Flagella dependent motility is a widespread and evolutionarily ancient trait. Diverse bacterial species have evolved unique structural adaptations enabling them to migrate in their environmental niche. Variability exists in the number, location and configuration of flagella, and reflects unique adaptations of the microorganism. The most detailed analysis of flagellar morphogenesis and structure has focused on Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica. The appendage assembles sequentially from the inner to the outer-most structures. Additionally the temporal order of gene expression correlates with the assembly order of encoded proteins into the final structure. The bacterial flagellar apparatus includes an essential basal body complex that comprises the export machinery required for assembly of the hook and flagellar filament. A review outlining the current understanding of the protein interactions that make up this remarkable structure will be presented, and the associated temporal genetic regulation will be briefly discussed.

The bacterial flagellum, singular; bacterial flagella, plural. C.f. bacterium, bacteria. Unless it's "the bacterial flagella were harvested."

It's bacterial flagella, just like punctuated equilibria, plural.

Nice article with pictures

Revealing the mystery of the bacterial flagellum — A self-assembling nanomachine with fine switching capability —

Bacterial Flagellar Structures At Atomic Resolution

Movies...

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%.

The mechanical effect of the transposition was to make horizontal or quadrupedal stance inefficient. "Any mammal with this set of changes would only be comfortable standing upright. I would envision this malformed young hominiform - the first true ancestral human - as standing upright from a young age while its siblings walked around on all fours." The earliest example of the transformed hominiform type of lumbar spine is found in Morotopithecus bishopi an extinct hominoid species that lived in Uganda more than 21 million years ago. "From a number of points of view," Filler says, "humanity can be redefined as having its origin with Morotopithecus. This greatly demotes the importance of the bipedalism of Australopithecus species such as Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis) since we now know of four upright bipedal species that precede her, found from various time periods on out to Morotopithecus in the Early Miocene."

Oh, and there is a bit of irony in that Lucy may eventually be demoted from her pivotal role, considering her recent and controversial world tour. (She is of course still an impressive specimen to see close up, I've seen a replica.)

Dembski may actually be "getting it" (hmm, maybe an inappropriate phase...)

Several months ago, while scanning Uncommon Descent (banned on my first post!), I noticed a thread that considered the question: Should we change our mascot [i.e., the flagellum] to the Ribosome? Obviously, this question would not arise if the flagellum were still considered a viable talking point.

The response seemed to be: No, because most people know what a flagellum is, but don't have any idea what a ribosome is....

Typical.

The response seemed to be: No, because most people know what a flagellum is, but don’t have any idea what a ribosome is….

That would be a bad move, since the ribosome is the poster child for the RNA world theory.

Oh rats, I forgot to use the spell checker...

Would a ribosome be any different in that respsect, once the arguments got started?

This is clearly the death nail to ID. This classical creationist approach of putting their god in the gaps of science knowledge is plain idiocy.

It really does become silly when they retreat into the increasing small gaps as the evolution of the flagellum is worked out.

If they beleive in god it is sad they beleive in such a flimsy god that god is marginalized into nothingness by the ordinary persuits of humans.

PvM: It's bacterial flagella, just like punctuated equilibria, plural.

I believe science has a great message which is not always communicated well outside a 'select group'. And yet, great 'stories' arise from this research which ID attempts to denigrate using terminology like 'just so stories', when in fact they are exactly that. Just so stories, aka scientific hypotheses take a combination of speculation and foundational principles, combine them with known constraints and reconcile them with available data to attempt to explain a particular phenomenon and generate additional hypotheses and research.
In other words, just so stories generate a research programme.
I believe that science has great stories to tell and a willing audience that is interested in hearing more. Science needs to be embarassingly honest about the limitations and the many speculative aspects involved while at the same time be willing to propose and stand by its explanations and defend until a better explanation is found.

I also believe that ID has at best a very minor role to play, not particularly related to ID but related to 'keeping science honest'. Until ID is willing and able to generate scientific hypotheses which can compete with the 'just so stories' of science, it is doomed to remain scientifically without much content.

There are many indicators that suggest that ID is retreating from its grandiose claims to an entrenched position of 'teach the controversy' which is based on a flawed assumption that there is a controversy beyond the usual scientific speculations and competing ideas and concepts. These are not weaknesses of science but strengths and educating people how science works does more to expose ID. So by all means 'teach the controversy', educate our children as to the fascinating world of science and ID will be forced to live in ever smaller gaps, doomed to an existence of irrelevance.

Why do the IDers focus on areas of ignorance such as the origin of life, the genetic code, the Cambrian ? Simple, because they believe that they can compete with 'we don't know' but this requires them to ignore and deny the existence of countless scientific hypotheses about the origin of life, the origin of the translation mechanisms, the transition of RNA to DNA world, the Cambrian explosion, and so on.

It is science's task to share these stories with the world, story tellers used to be a very important profession to share information, values, knowledge across large distances and across time. It's time for science to take on again this important tradition and be very straightforward about the limitations and assumptions of their work. And who knows, there may be even a role for ID

Well said PvM.

Torbjörn Larsson quoted Keiichi Namba (above) as writing:

...the flagellum..rotates at around 20,000 rpm, at energy consumption of only around 10-16 W...

16 watts can't be right! Is that milliwatts or microwatts or nanowatts or picowatts...? Or am I missing something here?

The link provides the answer

10^-16

Yeah, gotta watch those disappearing exponential operators. That seems to happen fairly often when somebody pastes stuff.

Henry

And who knows, there may be even a role for ID.

Why do the IDers focus on areas of ignorance such as the origin of life, the genetic code, the Cambrian ?

I think it's because the areas of non-ignorance do not support their Creationist conclusions.

God is rather hard to miss in the universe he has created. A thoughtful professor of engineering just recently pointed out in a conversation that the unexpected changing structure of iron when heated, which allows atoms of other elements to slip into the lattice, seems to have had steelmaking in mind. And iron just happens to be the most abundant metal in the earth's crust. Steel is the metallic foundation of modern civilisation. The Professor sees God in iron and we got to talking about this anthropic principle in nature - the idea growing in 'scientific' respectability that a super mind designed a world to be inhabited and used by creative humans.

Why do the IDers focus on areas of ignorance such as the origin of life, the genetic code, the Cambrian ? I think it’s because the areas of non-ignorance do not support their Creationist conclusions.

wamba: A non-biological attempt: Iron as an example of ID

God is rather hard to miss in the universe he has created. A thoughtful professor of engineering just recently pointed out in a conversation that the unexpected changing structure of iron when heated, which allows atoms of other elements to slip into the lattice, seems to have had steelmaking in mind. And iron just happens to be the most abundant metal in the earth's crust. Steel is the metallic foundation of modern civilisation. The Professor sees God in iron and we got to talking about this anthropic principle in nature - the idea growing in 'scientific' respectability that a super mind designed a world to be inhabited and used by creative humans.

More embarrassment for rational engineers. Gotta love those scare quotes on 'scientific.'

I believe science has a great message

I believe science has a great message

That would be a bad move, since the ribosome is the poster child for the RNA world theory.

Video: Molecular Machines and the Death of Darwinism In this excerpt from “Molecular Machines and the Death of Darwinism,” CSC senior fellow and mathmatician William Dembski explains how Darwinists use complex living systems like the mammalian eye to support Darwinian evolution without supplying adequate sequential evidence. In response, Dembski says, ID proponents focus on molecular machines such as the bacterial flagellum to understand their complexity and directly address Darwinist claims.

Isn't ID fascinating, accusing Darwinian theory of using complexity without providing sufficient steps...

Does anyone fail to understand the incredible amount of irony here?

ID abuses the concept of complexity to argue for design while presenting NO steps for its claims beyond "I am not convinced..."

What a crock

It’s bacterial flagella, just like punctuated equilibria, plural.

[grammar pedantry] But your grammar is wrong if you intended the plural case. You should have omitted the definite article and said, “…the origin of bacterial flagella.” Using “the” means you should also use a singular noun. [/pedantry]

And yet, great ‘stories’ arise from this research which ID attempts to denigrate using terminology like ‘just so stories’, when in fact they are exactly that. Just so stories, aka scientific hypotheses take a combination of speculation and foundational principles, combine them with known constraints and reconcile them with available data to attempt to explain a particular phenomenon and generate additional hypotheses and research.

Just so stories, aka scientific hypotheses