Evolution’s New Wrinkle

Evolution has a new wrinkle. So says Science Daily in report that came out this month. I would not call it a wrinkle. I would call it a fatal flaw. But you’ll never get scientists steeped in evolutionary doctrine (yes, I said doctrine) to admit this. Something tells me that they will hear about this and just try to work it into evolutionary theory. It appears to me that most scientists do not want to admit that the evidence for an Intelligent Designer (the God of the Bible) is overwhelming and getting stronger every day. Enjoy …

Evolution’s New Wrinkle: Proteins With ‘Cruise Control’ Act Like Adaptive Machines

ScienceDaily (Nov. 12, 2008) — A team of Princeton University scientists has discovered that chains of proteins found in most living organisms act like adaptive machines, possessing the ability to control their own evolution.

The research, which appears to offer evidence of a hidden mechanism guiding the way biological organisms respond to the forces of natural selection, provides a new perspective on evolution, the scientists said.

Yes … a new perspective. Like perhaps we should quit calling it ‘evolution’ which carries implications of randomness and blind forces. Let’s start calling it what it is … Designed Adaptation. Which of course causes us to ask ‘Who is the Designer?’ Other evidence indicates that it’s the God of the Bible.

Let’s keep reading …

The research, published in a recent edition of Physical Review Letters, provides corroborating data, Rabitz said, for Wallace’s idea. “What we have found is that certain kinds of biological structures exist that are able to steer the process of evolution toward improved fitness,” said Rabitz, the Charles Phelps Smyth ’16 Professor of Chemistry. “The data just jumps off the page and implies we all have this wonderful piece of machinery inside that’s responding optimally to evolutionary pressure.”

The authors sought to identify the underlying cause for this self-correcting behavior in the observed protein chains. Standard evolutionary theory offered no clues. Applying the concepts of control theory, a body of knowledge that deals with the behavior of dynamical systems, the researchers concluded that this self-correcting behavior could only be possible if, during the early stages of evolution, the proteins had developed a self-regulating mechanism, analogous to a car’s cruise control or a home’s thermostat, allowing them to fine-tune and control their subsequent evolution. The scientists are working on formulating a new general theory based on this finding they are calling “evolutionary control.”

‘Standard evolutionary theory offered no clues.’ Imagine that. Haven’t creationists been saying for a very long time that evolutionary theory offers no clues for the origin of species? Yes, work done in microevolution is helpful, but macroevolutionary theory has no support.

“In this paper, we present what is ostensibly the first quantitative experimental evidence, since Wallace’s original proposal, that nature employs evolutionary control strategies to maximize the fitness of biological networks,” Chakrabarti said. “Control theory offers a direct explanation for an otherwise perplexing observation and indicates that evolution is operating according to principles that every engineer knows.

Hmmm … but there’s no Super Engineer who created it all?

The scientists do not know how the cellular machinery guiding this process may have originated, but they emphatically said it does not buttress the case for intelligent design, a controversial notion that posits the existence of a creator responsible for complexity in nature.

Interesting how Intelligent Design (that is, evidence for a Creator) can stare them right in the face, yet they emphatically deny it. Sounds like a philosophical problem to me.

Chakrabarti said that one of the aims of modern evolutionary theory is to identify principles of self-organization that can accelerate the generation of complex biological structures. “Such principles are fully consistent with the principles of natural selection. Biological change is always driven by random mutation and selection, [or at least so he’s been taught and so he is supposed to say, and should probably keep saying in order to keep his job] but at certain pivotal junctures in evolutionary history, such random processes can create structures capable of steering subsequent evolution toward greater sophistication and complexity.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081111183039.htm

They cannot really, but it’s fashionable in science to believe they can.

PDF of the Chakrabarti paper available HERE.

More on this topic from Chris Ashcraft … a paper called Genetic Variability by Design.

2 Responses to “Evolution’s New Wrinkle”

  1. derelicthotel says:

    this website is completely over the top. do people actually believe that some imaginary “designer” made everything? all i see here is some one or a group of someones attacking the scientific community. if you want others within the scientific community to take you seriously than show some data that this santa clause like “designer” exists. this why creationism is considered to be on the fringes of real science a psuedo science if you will. i dont believe in either evolution or creationism there is not enough proof of either although just sheer data speaking evolution seems more plausible

  2. lordkalvan says:

    Analogy is not evidence. just because X can be compared for explanatory purposes to Y does not mean that X is the same as Y. Just because terms are used that to you seem to suggest the participation of some sort of intelligent designer in the process being described, this is not evidence that this intelligent designer exists anywhere other than in your own imagination. Introductory physics has for decades used the analogy of the Solar System when describing the structure of the atom to students. Do you suppose that this means that the atom is therefore just like the Solar System? You make a lot of empty assertions about the evidence for the existence of an intelligent designer without supporting your arguments by presenting that evidence for discussion. Indeed, in most of the cases where I have posted comments on this site criticising your techniques, assumptions and conclusions, you have largely ignored them entirely.