Blood clotting and evolution
From the London Telegraph, a piece on blood clotting, evolution, and the intelligent design movement.
Intelligent design, or ID, began as an attempt to promote creationism without breaking American laws that keep religion out of schools. In spite of the eloquent concern of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who feels that the idea demeans not science but faith, it is spreading in Britain.
I know that only too well, for I often speak to schools and nowadays, in almost every one, I come across creationists, sometimes on the staff. The notion turns on the claim that certain parts of the body are “irreducibly complex”; that – like a BMW – they will not work unless the important bits are already in place. How could they evolve from a structure that could not function because a crucial part is absent?
The blood clotting cascade is on such intricate process, still used by the ID movement to illustrate the necessity for a designer.
The clotting machinery is an icon of just how complex life may be. Designers love it: for to staunch the flow needs a cascade of a dozen or more enzymes that work like a row of toppling dominoes. Two interacting pathways meet at a crucial junction point.
One is set off by a change in acidity after a cut, while the other acts when it picks up chemical cues from damaged cells. An injury sets off a chain reaction until the job is done and, if any step goes wrong, the whole system collapses. How could such a complicated machine evolve from simple beginnings? What use is part of a clot?
Much better, in fact, than no clot at all. Plenty of animals manage with just a few parts of the machinery and DNA shows that – like the eye – the rickety apparatus that stops us from bleeding was assembled from random bits that just happened to be hanging around.
In science, one of the critical tests for an idea is how productive it is. Does it lead researchers to new discoveries? Does it lead to new discoveries that other ideas don’t? Darwin’s ideas have prompted researchers to look for the traces of ancestor to our clotting system in other species:
As for Tories and turtles, so for flies. Swat one, moderately, and its blood scarcely clots, for it has only a very simple means of stopping leaks. In particular, flies lack fibrinogen, the protein that makes our own solid plug. They have another protein that looks much like it, but that does a different task, forming a solid lump around an invader.
At some time, it was hijacked to become part of our own body machine – and some human clotting proteins are still involved in immunity. Others, too, hold on to their previous jobs. One helps stop cancer cells from spreading, while Victoria’s damaged gene descends from another that maintains the blood’s iron balance. Yet another is related to an enzyme that cuts up food. The gene doubled up and the second copy took up a related task in the clotting cascade. Our plumbing is a complicated mess, but it works just as well as it needs to.
Intelligent design, on the other hand, has prompted a lot of research — to its detriment.
Scientists, unlike creationists, do not know everything, but as they learn more, every such claim [made by ID] has been rubbished. Evolution is not mocked but glorified by life’s intricacy. ID is a bad idea, but has generated lots of good research, all of which shows how inane it is.
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April 4th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
[...] Blood clotting and evolution [...]
April 4th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Regardless which side of the ID issue I come down on, the autors insistence that the article shown somehow disproves ID or proves a piece of the evolutionary pie is a huge stretch. Like astronomers whose equations will not work until they invent “universal constants” or even “dark matter” to balance the ledger, the author simply states that the DNA shows that the eye was assembled by random bits. That’s like looking at the completeled puzzle and saying since the pieces were “hanging around” they fell into place. I challenge him to leave a puzzle scattered about the table and wait.
Well…still waiting…
1,000,000 years later…still waiting…
Banality knows no limits
April 4th, 2006 at 5:41 pm
Come on, Conservativation,
Creationism, ID, … whatever… their essences are as unworthy of being held as a scientific theory as is the statement “God exists!” (or doesn’t, or likes green eggs and ham). Why not justify all phenomena with the theory “Just because?” ‘Twould smell as sweet.
Let’s expand our minds a bit, shall we? I seem to recall a quote of Bohr, the hydrogen atom dude, that ran something like “The opposite of a trivial truth is a falsehood. The opposite of a great truth is another great truth.” Mythology–i.e., the collection of stories that explain the great truths–don’t attempt to be factual. Science–the collection of stories (yes! they are STORIES that relate A to B via some equations in between) that explain the lesser truths–does. They are complementary sides of the same coin.
With that understanding, one can appreciate what rubbish all the creationist attempts at establishing a “magic wand” SCIENTIFIC THEORY is. Likewise, one can appreciate how stupid it is to let heart surgeons investigate the efficacy of prayer (do a google search). Yes, Genesis is true. So are the Hindu myths about Brahma dreaming on a lotus growing from the back of a cow, opening his eyes and closing them, each time cycling a universe through its birth to death. Why? Because they give people and cultures a meaningful place in history. We couldn’t survive without them. Look at the disintegrating current western culture as an example when atheistic rationalism becomes God. Science is good, too, but it won’t go to before the Big Bang. And that’s where the cow lives.
I guess you could say I believe in science and evolution. I also believe in mythology and creationism. I don’t see one damned problem with that. In fact, I have a big problem with others who don’t.
April 5th, 2006 at 4:05 am
I do not see any coherent arguemnet to show that the concept of irreduceable complexity is incorrect.
One of the most basic principles of science is that when you have two viable explanations of a phenomenon, the simpler of the two is the one that is more likely to be correct.
The liklihood that the over 200 seperate reactions that are needed to make blood clotting work came together by chance is so small that it far more likely that the universe will turn into a pile of marshmellows in the next nano-second.
The explanation that blood chain came about because of deliberate design is much more plausible. However, it must be emphasised that the far greater simplicity (and probability) of this explanation does not necessarily indicate that it is true. Only that is far more likely to be true.
What ID tells us is that we really do not know how life arose. What Evolution tells us is that we are too damn arrogant to admit it.
April 5th, 2006 at 4:56 am
I guess you could say I believe in science and evolution.
And global warming. Don’t forget global warming. Oh, and Brokeback Mountain deserves an Oscar.
April 5th, 2006 at 8:45 am
Well!
That got a response!
I’m heading out into the field today (still raining in L.A.), so I’ll look at these comments later. However, since conservativation was the first up, I’ll offer a quick response. He wrote:
Puzzles aren’t molecules. A million puzzle pieces shaped like salt molecules will never arrange themselves in a nice, orderly, cubic array. Salt molecules routinely do. The jigsaw puzzle analogy no more refutes evolution than it does crystallization.
April 5th, 2006 at 9:46 am
The principle is Occa’s razor.It does not mean the simpler theory.No,it means the theory that explains sufficiently without having more to explain than it rival.Evolution by natural selection explains the transformations of life. A mind behind nature would require more explaining;whence the mind? How does it work? Actually, the god explanation is just : it did it! Not really an explanation.
April 5th, 2006 at 9:52 am
“I do not see any coherent arguemnet to show that the concept of irreduceable complexity is incorrect.”
It is logicaly flawed; an ad ignoratum argument that requires we not only be ingorant, but remain so. I don’t understant how plastic is made, either, but that doesn’t mean that all plastic items sprung directly from the mind of God.
The prolm is that, every time a new example of “irreducible complexity” comes into fashion, scientists look at it, and FIND one or more possible evolutionary paths that might have led there. ID is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.
April 5th, 2006 at 10:01 am
THE principle,Occam’s razor requires a theory to explain suffiently a matter,not the simpler theory ,without having extra explanation.Whence the mind behind nature?How does it work? That is extra explanation.Actually, the god theory is just:it did it! Natural selection drives evolution. It , not a mind ,is responsible for the variety of life.It is a creative force.The creationist, rather than trying to undrstand evolution is just incredulous that it works. Her argument by incredulity shows deliberate ignorance!Selection worksss stepwise, not all at once . It takes millions of years for it to happen.
April 5th, 2006 at 10:01 am
THE principle,Occam’s razor requires a theory to explain suffiently a matter,not the simpler theory ,without having extra explanation.Whence the mind behind nature?How does it work? That is extra explanation.Actually, the god theory is just:it did it! Natural selection drives evolution. It , not a mind ,is responsible for the variety of life.It is a creative force.The creationist, rather than trying to undrstand evolution is just incredulous that it works. Her argument by incredulity shows deliberate ignorance!Selection worksss stepwise, not all at once . It takes millions of years for it to happen.
April 6th, 2006 at 5:01 am
I don’t understant how plastic is made, either, but that doesn’t mean that all plastic items sprung directly from the mind of God.
Plastic is the result of years of natural selection, with all the right components forming in a pond, and then an outside force, say lightning, forces them to coalesce in the right amounts. Then after millions of years, the complexity of the plastic item increases till one day it becomes a spork.
THE principle,Occam’s razor requires a theory to explain suffiently a matter,not the simpler theory ,without having extra explanation.Whence the mind behind nature?How does it work? That is extra explanation.Actually, the god theory is just:it did it! Natural selection drives evolution. It , not a mind ,is responsible for the variety of life.It is a creative force.The creationist, rather than trying to undrstand evolution is just incredulous that it works. Her argument by incredulity shows deliberate ignorance!Selection worksss stepwise, not all at once . It takes millions of years for it to happen.
So if you repost this millions of times, the syntax will clear up, and it will become coherent?
April 13th, 2006 at 11:00 am
[...] This, along with the piece on blood clotting, is of considerable relevance to the design-vs-evolution debate. [...]