Stephen E. Jones wrote:
>But to help Cliff (or anyone else) out to provide a fully naturalistic
>explanation, here are two web sites with details and pictures of the ATP
>synthase molecular machine:
>http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_mm/atpmechanism.htm and
>http://www.nobel.se/announcement-97/chemistry97.html.
Personally, I think cellular machinery was originally even more complex;
what we see today are the results of a shakeout, a streamlining of many
mechanisms. It's certainly logically impossible that these mechanisms
evolved via gradual elaboration. But Stephen insists that evolution must
be gradual, so that evolution must be impossible. Odd it is, that one would
champion a certain version of a theory in order to argue against the theory.
If you think something didn't happen, what's the difference whether it didn't
happen this way or didn't happen that way?
>CL>Darwin's rigorous anti-saltationism is simply wrong, and has been protested
>>by many, beginning with his friend T.H.Huxley. So pure gradualism is rather
>>a straw man. If Stephen can convince people that evolution in general stands
>>or falls with pure gradualism, and if he can convince himself that this is a
>>valid argument, then I guess he's making progress.
>
>Despite all the hand-waving, neither Huxley or Gould has ever explained
>how complex biological organs could be built by saltation.
These two great writers and popularizers aren't known for their own
inventions or discoveries. But saltationist theories have been advanced
by many: Goldschmidt, Margulis, and even myself, for example.
>CL>The symbiotic theory of the origin of cells has been around a while now.
>>Cells are ecosystems that became genomically integrated (except for the
>>complication of maternal mitochondrial DNA). If this basically simple
>>mechanistic theory is rejected out of hand as objectionably imaginary,
>>there must be prejudice involved.
>
>No. Cliff simply misunderstands the problem. The "fantastic molecular
>machinery of the cell" that I am referring to is found in *both* prokaryotes
>and eukaryotes, and therefore in *all* living things:
I was thinking beyond the simple symbiotic theory. There must have been
a period analogous to the Cambrian explosion, a rather wild time when
ecosystems of simple organisms formed a great variety of cells, and
sometimes lived outside cells. I agree that the machinery of the cell
could not evolve gradually, but I don't see why I can't theorize about
other ways it could have evolved.
--Cliff Lundberg ~ San Francisco ~ cliff@noe.com
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