Replying to both your responses to my
Message 114...
Genomicus writes:
No, my comment about atomic theory was in response to Taq's apparent surprise that the surfaces of molecular machine components are ball-and-stick-ish.
Where did Taq express surprise at anything you're said? Seemed like all skepticism to me.
ATP synthases are machines, however.
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More specifically, these molecular systems are machines. They don't just "look like" machines.
So in the space of just a few short weeks it's gone from analogy to fact? Golly gee whiz, sometimes the pace of scientific progress just makes one's head spin.
If you dispute that, then you're more than welcome to cite a single scientific paper that argues that ATP synthases aren't machines.
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Maybe you've got publications out there in the scientific literature that argue that ATP synthases and other protein systems aren't actual machines.
Why would any paper argue against an appropriate analogy? Why would I?
We need to hear your evidence for why evolution couldn't produce biological molecular machines like ATP synthase, that it didn't evolve but was designed. The
Wikipedia article on ATP synthase briefly describes a couple evolutionary possibilities:
quote:
The modular evolution theory for the origin of ATP synthase suggests that two subunits with independent function, a DNA helicase with ATPase activity and a H+ motor, were able to bind, and the rotation of the motor drove the ATPase activity of the helicase in reverse. This complex then evolved greater efficiency and eventually developed into today's intricate ATP synthases. Alternatively, the DNA helicase/H+
motor complex may have had H+ pump activity with the ATPase activity of the helicase driving the H+ motor in reverse. This may have evolved to carry out the reverse reaction and act as an ATP synthase.
The fact that "machine" is a convenient analog is not evidence. An analogy can be the inspiration behind your hypothesis, but it can't be evidence. That you're so insistent that the analogy is a compelling argument for design just makes more obvious the degree to which you're ignoring the only known agent of change, descent with modification followed by selection. You could even skip proving evolution insufficient if you could just produce evidence of some other agent of change.
As I'm fond of saying, things that happen leave behind evidence. It is the fingerprints of evolution that are found everywhere in life, not those of some mythical alien race.
--Percy
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