Wortfish wrote:

Blackadder wrote:

Wortfish wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Like every other creationist he fails completely to present even a single sound scientific reason.

Actually, he does. He claims that the ontogenesis of the bacterial flagellum shows that it couldn't have been built by recruiting precursor parts.

That's because he is talking out of his arse.

The flagellum is actually built not from its base but from its propeller. I think that's what he means and finds so ridicilous about the Darwinian explanation.

Eh? What's the evidence for that? If it's evidence from developmental biology, then it's no evidence against evolution.

Wortfish wrote:The hook, in particular, serves no purpose other than as a universal joint.

This is actually not true. Species are known with a reduced flagellum, which are motility defective (they don't have the genes for the flagellar filament and so there is no structure for the hook to transmit torque to). Yet they retain the central T3SS-like structure and the hook and singificantly expresses these proteins on the outside of the cells, strongly indicating they are functional otherwise why would they retain so massive expression of them?

See for example:
Snyder LA. et al. Bacterial flagellar diversity and evolution: seek simplicity and distrust it?
Trends Microbiol. 2009 Jan;17(1):1-5. doi: 10.1016/j.tim.2008.10.002.

A glimpse of a simpler system with a simpler function
The flagellar research community received a surprise two years ago from a downsized relative of Escherichia coli, the aphid endosymbiont, Buchnera aphidicola. Although nonmotile, this intracellular bacterium possesses all the genes necessary for hook–basal–body biosynthesis, although it lacks any of the genes for filament assembly, including the gene for flagellin. In late 2006, a group of Japanese researchers showed that the Buchnera cell surface is studded with hundreds of hook–basal–body complexes [7]. These remarkable structures provide a glimpse of a cut-down flagellar system that must have some role other than motility – probably the export of proteins essential to the bacteria–aphid symbiotic relationship. Although the Buchnera system is clearly a derivative of a more complex flagellar apparatus, it illuminates flagellar evolution by providing an example of what a simpler precursor of today’s flagellum might have looked like – a precursor dedicated solely to protein export rather than motility.

Reference [7] there is this one:
Maezawa, K. et al. (2006) Hundreds of Flagellar Basal Bodies Cover the Cell Surface of the Endosymbiotic Bacterium Buchnera aphidicola sp. Strain APS strain APS.
J Bacteriol. 2006 Sep; 188(18): 6539–6543. doi: 10.1128/JB.00561-06

In which it says this:

DISCUSSION
The genome analysis of B. aphidicola sp. strain APS has revealed that Buchnera retains flagellar genes coding proteins for the hook and the basal body but not for the filament. The genomic information has also suggested that the partial structure of the flagellum, if it exists, might be used for purposes other than motility to enrich the symbiosis life (15). We report here the first experimental evidence of the flagellar structure existing in Buchnera.

We have found hundreds of HBBs on the cell surface of Buchnera. The HBBs are peritrichously distributed over the surface. Since there are no master genes that control the flagellar number in peritrichously flagellated species such as E. coli and Salmonella, Buchnera flagellar proteins might be constitutively expressed, distributed, and assembled in the membrane without control. Why are so many HBBs necessary for Buchnera? Buchnera is nonmotile, and the flagella lack the essential components of motility such as a filament (the propeller) and the Mot complex (the stator of the motor). These facts suggest that the Buchnera HBBs may have functions distinct from motility. The most plausible function is protein transporter, as the flagellar apparatus belongs to the family of T3SSs.

Wortfish wrote:

Rumraket wrote:
Of course they are.
Here's such an explanation from cootion: They could have been coopted from other proteins, which were originally different and performed other functions, into a pre-flagellar molecular complex that had another function than to serve as a flagellum.

The actual proteins used in these components could have been recruited from elsewhere, but explaining the actual structures in terms of some stepwise process of exaptation is wishful thinking.

It is no less wishful thinking to explain their existence as the work of an invisible magical extradimensional conjurer working in the ancient gelogical past.

At least the process of evolution is an observed fact, so are the simple principle of protein cooption.

Wortfish wrote:

Rumraket wrote:So what? That does not mean it could not have been coopted from other proteins. Nor does it mean it had to first function as a universal joint when it first evolved.

Yes, we know that's what the Darwinist "explanation" is. But it is ridiculous and there is no evidence for this.

This is hilarious coming from a guy who wants to substitute an explanation that appeals to observed natural processes, with the works of some obscure ultradimensional spirit that can magically wish things into existence, but stopped doing so hundreds of millions of years ago.

Looks like you just got run over by the IRONY-transporting freight train.

Wortfish wrote:Although other components, like the base or the filament, could conceivably have had another use, the hook is acting as a joint between the motor and the propeller. In the absence of either it is useless.

Well look at that, a demonstrable falsehood.

Wortfish wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
It does help not post inflammatory crap.
And evolutionist isnt an accepted term by anyone, except the creationists who fabricated it as a dismissive slur and false equivalency.

Once again, I'm calling out your lack of knowledge in this matter.

And I question your reading comprehension, if not intellectual honesty.

It was Darwin himself who coined the term "evolutionist",

Irrelevant. It still is not an accepted or used term, except among creationists who use it as a dismissive slur and attempt at false equivalency.

As the dictionary definition states, to be an "evolutionist" is to believe in the principles of evolution by natural selection.

As has been pointed out to you, one accepts the demonstrable fact that is evolution and it is only creationists who use that term.

Wortfish wrote:

Macdoc wrote:BTW

Stepwise formation of the bacterial flagellar system

The origins of complex organs and organelles, such as the bacterial flagellum and the metazoan eye, have often been subjects of conjecture and speculation because each such structure requires the interaction and integration of numerous components for its proper function, and intermediate forms are seldom operative or observed. However, the analysis of biological complexity has changed with the application both of genetic procedures that serve to identify the contribution of individual genes to a phenotype and of comparative sequence analyses that can elucidate the evolutionary and functional relationships among genes that occur in all life-forms. As with the evolution of other complex structures and processes (29–32), we have shown the bacterial flagellum too originated from “so simple a beginning,” in this case, a single gene that underwent successive duplications and subsequent diversification during the early evolution of Bacteria.

fancy that ...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1852327/

OP It's fine to be wrong ....seriously degenerate not to admit to it....

You do realize that all this paper tries to show is how the protein parts that make up the flagellum could have evolved. It doesn't actually show how the flagellum, as a structure, evolved by way of natural selection.

It doesn't have to, all it has to show is that it's possible in order to make it infinitely more likely than your preferred story of magic man doing magical things for you.

Wortfish wrote:

Macdoc wrote:sky daddy types love their sects ...poor try for equivalency.

Well, Darwinism is more like a cult. Name me one scientific theory where people celebrate the birthday of a scientist as their hero, prophet and saviour? http://darwinday.org/

Darwin Day is an organization whose mission is to inspire people throughout the globe to reflect and act on the principles embodied in Charles Darwin.

Now, just change this to.....

Christmas Day is an organization whose mission is to inspire people throughout the globe to reflect and act on the principles embodied in Jesus Christ.

No difference. Both are religious leaders.

So you don't know what a religion is either. No problem, most of you guys are so confused you think that everyone believes in magical nonsense like you do so you don't feel so bad about holding such childish beliefs.

Let me spell it out for you: celebrating actual learning through evidence and experiment is good. Celebrating magical fantasies from bronze age goat fuckers is masturbatory, at best.

Wortfish, you have a good imagination. How do you picture the designer creating the flagellum? Do you think there is a prototype mechanism conceptualised first, followed by clever genetic sequencing needed to create such a structure — a bit like designing an algorithm for 3D printing?

Perhaps there was a first flagellum? Imagine it. Were the atoms somehow manipulated into place from beyond the realms of the physical world? Can you imagine being there when the first flagellum came into being? Describe what happens. I'm sure the reality of such a situation would be absolutely fascinating to behold, don't you think?

Celebrating magical fantasies from bronze age goat fuckers is masturbatory, at best.

Wortfish wrote:Once again, I'm calling out your lack of knowledge in this matter. It was Darwin himself who coined the term "evolutionist", and not any creationist: http://quotes.yourdictionary.com/author ... win/154031

It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent theist and an evolutionist.

When somebody says something like that I perk up, because I do appreciate a bit of information like "who coined the term x." I was disappointed though. It'd be good to check your sources and determine their validity if you're going to "call out" members here for "lack of knowledge."

You didn't cite any actual source in support of your assertion that "Darwin himself . . . coined the term 'evolutionist.'" Instead you gave a link to an undated quotation. That quotation comes from a letter Darwin wrote in 1879. That seems rather late in the game, so I checked the Oxford English Dictionary. Darwin actually is listed as having used the term in 1873, but the earliest citation is from 1866, in The Ladies' Repository. It's possible that an anonymous reviewer in a long-forgotten journal coined the term, but I doubt it. Given that the review is of a book by Herbert Spencer, who used the term "evolution" to refer to his own theory of the development of life published years before Darwin's On the Origin of Species, and definitively superseded by that work, perhaps a more likely candidate would be Spencer. The first to use the term "evolution" in describing a biological process appears to have been Albrecht von Haller.

As far as I've been able to discover, apparently Darwin did not in fact coin the term and he certainly didn't coin the term "evolution," which is nowhere to be found in On the Origin of Species.

Wortfish wrote:As the dictionary definition states, to be an "evolutionist" is to believe in the principles of evolution by natural selection.

I would not dispute your claim here; however certain Creationists have distorted the usage, it is correct that one of the meanings of "evolutionist" is "a person who believes in the theories of evolution and natural selection."

He ignores the action word, doesn't he? "Believes". That covers all manner of crap, doesn't it?

Here's what wortfish fails to understand: Belief is of no account to the scientific process or the body of scientific knowledge. Believe is what someone thinks of a thing, usually that they think a thing is true.

It doesn't matter in the least what people think of a thing described by science. What matters is what can be shown. This is where supernaturalists fail every time. They really like to equivocate belief in their woo with what anyone can show by using the scientific method. Of course, the reason they try to do that equivocation is that their woo cannot be shown to be true. All their woo has to support it is the beliefs of its adherents that their woo is a truth statement. Put that shit to the test, and it all falls apart or simply isn't testable.

It's well worn, and we've seen it here many times. They try to conflate understanding of a phenomena with "belief" in its truth value.

I've seen a similar recent example of this in politics, where we have swelling numbers of drooling idiots who profess they don't "believe" in global warming. Who gives a fuck? The goddamned planet is warming, because of us, and it's changing the climate. It's happening regardless of the chimps who don't believe it is.

Same thing here, wortfish. No one has to give the tiniest fuck if you don't believe what is well demonstrated to be a good description of our world. Your belief is irrelevant. Your attempts to equate others' understanding of the process of speciation with your bronze age beliefs is a fallacy.

Poisoning the well? Is that the one?

I still find it incredible that one person deciding that because they don't accept the mainstream understanding of how something evolved, that automatically means an intelligent designer did it, instead of simply returning to the default position of just not knowing. There's not an ounce of honesty or logic involved in making that assumption.

Now if they could provide some evidence of that intelligent designer even existing in the first place, let alone that they ever designed anything.......I would love it. Because then they could perhaps go on to explain why that designer is worthy of a minute's worth of praise when they have created creatures who develop cancers, parasitic organisms who cause agony and death to their hosts (or hosts who are designed to live in agony as their dominant resident munches them to death) or creatures whose offspring are born with external organs or missing limbs/organs, or why 95% of all the creatures it ever "designed" were so shit and unfit for purpose they've either completely evolved into other species or are simply just extinct etc, etc, etc, etc ad nauseum.

Yep. I dunno beats goddidit every time.


Sent from my iPad Pro using Tapatalk.

Hack was fond of posting a series of pictures which contain “information”. None of the objects in these images were in any way a living thing. A pile of shit was included. That pile of shit holds more “information” than the collective efforts of all Intelligent Design proposals to date. This isn’t an insult. This is absolutely factual. If this conclusion offends you are married to your position, and have abandoned the dispassionate prerequisite of basic observation. Because the unsupported presupposition of design influences the investigation everything that follows is self defeating, and tainted. If design is present anywhere in our biosphere it will be found to withstand critical examination to actually be design. This has yet to happen despite the protestations claiming all sorts of reasons why not one peer reviewed publication has been written to date. It’s tripe.

RS

I'd like to hear his conversion story. He was an active user of Wikipedia. Looking at his user profile at Wikipedia, he went from having Dawkins' quote about "The God of the Old Testament is the ..." to declaring himself a faithful Catholic "opposing scienticism" within a few months.

Probably not as weird as this conversion story from a biology professor to creationist, though:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LETvVezBXio

theropod wrote:Hack was fond of posting a series of pictures which contain “information”. None of the objects in these images were in any way a living thing. A pile of shit was included. That pile of shit holds more “information” than the collective efforts of all Intelligent Design proposals to date. This isn’t an insult. This is absolutely factual. If this conclusion offends you are married to your position, and have abandoned the dispassionate prerequisite of basic observation. Because the unsupported presupposition of design influences the investigation everything that follows is self defeating, and tainted. If design is present anywhere in our biosphere it will be found to withstand critical examination to actually be design. This has yet to happen despite the protestations claiming all sorts of reasons why not one peer reviewed publication has been written to date. It’s tripe.

RS

I can’t believe you’d insult actual tripe like that.

Tripe is a misunderstood delicacy. Just cook it outside.

laklak wrote:Tripe is a misunderstood delicacy. Just cook it outside.

... outside someone elses house, for preference a house in another country. One that is about to be hit by a cyclone.

I worked with a fellow in Del Rio who was born on the airbase nearby and grew up there. Jesus. The stuff they make on their grills is astonishing. They didn’t use a few mesquite chips in their charcoal, they’d burn a wheelbarrow load of mesquite down to a bed of coals and grilled on that.

He made menudo outside in a gigantic home made iron skillet made from an old cultivating disc. I had to stay upwind. I tried the stuff. But, I won’t have it again.

My brother in law makes a delicious Italian tripe in a tomato sauce, but my sister only lets him make it once every couple of years. I also like Chinese style tripe in a ginger gravy.

Like Mr. Leopold Bloom, I eat with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls.

I like chicken gizzards, livers and hearts and enjoy beef heart from time to time tho rarely run across it these days since I do no cooking beyond eggs and pancakes,
The chicken bits are pretty good for you.