>Nelson:
>
> > >However, you are an intelligent agent, and therefore, you may build it by
> > >adding multiple parts together, with foresight, and future usefulness.
>You
> > >are natural selection with eyes.
> > >These give some clues as to who the designer is, namely, an intelligent
> > >agent with at least human intelligence.
> >
> >Ralph:
> >Given our current level of knowledge about gene manipulation, I think we
> >are a long way from being able to generate a working molecular motor in a
> >biological organism that didn't already have one.
> >
> >Nelson:
> >Well we can make stators , rotors, propellers etc. It doesn't take a
> >"higher" intelligence to make them, and there is nothing preventing us from
> >doing so, just advances in technology.We can make irreducibly complex
> >systems. In the Conference of Molecular Nanotechnology held in 1998 they
> >were actually able to make a motor much like the flagellum. There is also a
> >patent on such a motor:
>
>[snip much interesting information on nanotechnology]
>
>Ralph:
>Thanks for all that information on nanotechnology. I was aware of
>these motors. I read as much as I can about nanotechnology. It's
>a fascinating area with a lot of promise.
>
>Nelson:
>Indeed.
>
>Ralph:
>However, we could put 100 of these motors into a test
>subject and they would not be able to pass on even 1 of them
>to their children. I may be wrong but I don't think we know
>how to do that. Yet the ID accomplished the task a long
>time ago. I think your claim that an ID has at least a human
>level of intelligence is a serious underestimation.
>
>Nelson:
>If you ever read "Engines of Creation" the thinking is to do that very
>thing. Also, we can engineer proteins and even whole structures and pass
>that on to their offspring. Once again, the level of intelligence has
>nothing to do with technological advances.
I don't quite follow this. Why does the level of intelligence have
nothing to do with technological advances?
>Ralph:
>If we assume that the flagellum and their molecular motors were
>designed, then the question remains: how did the bacterium acquire
>them? I can think of two ways.
>
>1. They always had them. In short, the bacterium were created pretty
>much as we now see them, without a fossil history. (A subset of
>this would be that the bacterium arose naturally without flagellum or
>molecular motors but these were inserted as an already built unit
>at some later date). I think this would call for a level of knowledge
>and ability usually only associated with supernatural beings.
>
>Nelson:
>It could, but intelligent agency at the level of human beings is enough to
>account for such patterns. Once again, such systems have been engineered by
>humans, and engineered proteins do exist. Not only this, but the patterns of
>design are there. Thus we infer design from those patterns. This is
>indicated by the actual workers in the field as Behe pointed out:
>
>David DeRosier's in the journal Cell: "More so than other motors, the
>flagellum resembles a machine designed by a human.".
Well, DeRosier is using the magic word "design" but I don't see that
he's saying the flagellum *is* designed. And, while we may at some
future date actually be able to insert a living molecular motor into
a biological entity and make it inheritable, we still seem to be a long
way from creating any biological entity from scratch. That is what
I'm saying above. One way to account for an IC system is to say
that the organism was created, in one swoop, with the IC system
intact, with no precursor forms. This is one possible explanation
for the appearance of IC systems. Do you agree or not?
>Ralph:
>2. The pieces of the molecular motor were brought together and
>assembled over time. This method would have to be differentiated
>from evolution's step-by-step-over-time explanation. This could be
>done by specifying a time-span too short for evolution to be feasible
>or by specifying that the parts were not only designed but guided
>during construction so that there would be none of the false starts
>and dead-ends that would make the process look like evolution.
>I don't think this could be done by an ID that was limited to a
>human level of intelligence.
>
>Nelson:
>I don't see how this follows from the evidence, could be a bit more
>specific?
My apologies. I probably expressed myself badly. I'll try
again. As I said above, one way to account for IC systems is
sudden creation. If that is unpalatable then the only other way
(that I can see) is for the parts of the IC system to be brought
together inside the organism and assembled there into the IC
system.
The problem with this approach is that it looks and sounds
a lot like evolution. I suggested two ways that would make
this idea less like evolution. One was to make the time
line for construction of the IC system too fast for evolution
to do it. The other was to claim that the construction of
the IC system was guided by the ID. It seems to me that
the best suggestion of that happening would be that the
IC system is constructed in a linear fashion, without any
of the false starts and dead ends that seem to be so
prevalent in the evolution record. In other words, as
Bertvan said in a previous message, the ID would be
able to get it right, the first time.
In connection with this idea, I'll include a quote from a
book I'm currently reading, Finding Darwin's God by
Kenneth R. Miller. This is the caption to Fig. 5.2, pg.142.
"The eukaryotic cilium is surely complex, but any claim
that it is irreducibly complex collapses upon inspection.
Although the standard 9+2 arrangement [of microtubules]
is the most common form of this biochemical machine,
Culex mosquitoes are missing one of the two central pair
microtubules, giving them a 9+1 arrangement. Sperm of the
eel Anguilla are missing *both* of the central doublets,
making them 9+0. Lecudina Tuzetae, a protozoan, is
missing three of the usual nine doublets as well as the
central pair, a 6+0 arrangement. Another protozoan,
Diplauxis hatti, has a fully functional 3+0 flagellum, and
a number of organisms have working motile structures
that lack the radial arrangement of microtubules
altogether."
His claim of course is that these are all functional
versions of flagellum, each one missing different parts
of the flagellem system, which is supposed to be IC.
Also, it doesn't look like the flagellem system
was constructed once, in the only correct way.
ralph
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