Tag: protein structures

^{Type
post

Author
Stuart Burgess

Date
July 12, 2023

Tagged
beaked whale, CELS conference, common descent, common design, Conference on Engineering in Living Systems, constrained optimization, engineering trade-offs, flipper, flipper anatomy, Homology, humpback whale, marsupial rats, pentadactyl design, pentadactyl limb, placental rats, protein structures, systems biology, vestigial body parts, whale fin, whale pelvic bones, whales}

The Pentadactyl Whale Flipper: An Engineering Masterstroke

_{Stuart Burgess

July 12, 2023

Uncategorized}

Does the five-digit design of the whale flipper, curiously akin to the five-digit design of so many different kinds of animal limbs, point to evolutionary common descent? That was Charles Darwin’s argument, and the argument is a staple of high school and college biology textbooks. But no, says distinguished British engineer Stuart Burgess on today’s ID the Future in his conversation with host Eric Anderson. The repeated recurrence of the pentadactyl form is better explained by reference to the idea of common design. That is, a master designer reused the pentadactyl design theme because it achieves an optimal trade-off between strength on the one hand (no pun intended) and suppleness or dexterity on the other. And yes, Burgess says, the giant flipper on a whale needs to be not just incredibly strong but also supple to allow the whale to maneuver adroitly through the water. This reuse of a good design concept shouldn’t surprise us, Burgess says. Just as human engineers reuse the concepts of the wheel, axle, nut and bolt, or pulley, so too the designer of life reuses shrewd engineering solutions in widely different applications, in each case adapting the design concept for the particular use. Burgess also rebuts the claim that whales have vestigial pelvic bones from a land-dwelling ancestor. He then moves from the big to the small, pointing to more positive evidence in favor of common design (over Darwinian common descent) in marsupial and placental rats and in a protein machine best known for one job but that has been found to “moonlight” doing a very different job in a very different biological context. Tune in to hear Burgess unpack the full argument. The conversation took place at the 2023 Conference on Engineering in Living Systems (CELS) in Denton, Texas. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Michael Behe

Date
October 31, 2022

Tagged
blood clotting, blood clotting cascade, blood clotting system, cellular complexity, Darwinism, Evolution, evolutionary gradualism, hemophilia, Intelligent Design, just-so stories, Lehigh University, metagenomics, Michael Behe, Michael Medved, Natural Selection, Neo-Darwinism, protein structures, random mutation, Rudyard Kipling, Russel Doolittle, Secrets of the Cell, stroke}

Michael Behe and Michael Medved Explore Secrets of the Cell

_{Michael Behe

October 31, 2022

Uncategorized}

On today’s ID the Future, Michael Medved interviews biologist Michael Behe about Behe’s visually stunning YouTube series, Secrets of the Cell. Behe summarizes one of the key messages of the video series, namely that everything from the life-essential blood clotting system to a myriad of crucial protein structures in our bodies increasingly appear to be far beyond the reach of blind evolutionary mechanisms to build. Instead they appear to be the work of planning and purpose, which is the purview of mind. Meanwhile, even many mainstream evolutionists are growing skeptical of neo-Darwinism, Behe says, as biologists continue to uncover more and more layers of cellular sophistication. The emerging field of metagenomics, he says, is a case in point. Medved also mentions a recent article in World magazine where Behe also lays out a case for intelligent design The piece is here.