Some thoughts on the ID perspective (although my views don't necessarily
reflect those of other IDers.)
The way nanotechnologists think is very similar to the way I have seen many
IDers think.For example, when we consider nanotechnology we must come to one
realization. Human intervention in the manufacture of each of a mole of
devices seems too labor intensive for a brilliant designer to be involved
in.
If I was the designer of the molecular machines, I would want to design an
assembler. Such a design would have be controlled by computer code. If I can
succeed in making such an assembler, the device can make a second one, a
third one, those can make one of their own, two of their own, etc. Thus I
have cut my work many times in half.
We see such a replication machinery in nature.At the head of the replication
machine is a helicase, a protein that uses the energy of ATP hyrolysis to
speed along DNA, opening the doulbe helix as it moves. Another component of
the replication machine is a single strand binding protein, it clings to the
single stranded DNA exposed by the helicase and stops it from reforming base
pairs. It also uses a sliding clamp, keeps the DNA polymerase firmly
attached to the DNA template. It also releases the polymerase from the DNA
each time an Okazaki fragment is completed. This clamp protein forms a ring
around the DNA helix, allowing it to slide along a template strand as it
synthesizes new DNA.
All these proteins are held together in a large multienzyme complex that
moves as a unit along the DNA.
There are several ways to use this type of thinking to understand our biotic
world using ID. For example, why would the molecular secretory pumps found
in nature use rotary motion since it has a verticle shaft? Using ID , you
can predict that the rotation of the shaft moves a helical groove past
longitudinal grooves inside the pump housing.
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