Amazing new research paper by the Biologic Institute. The PDF of the paper, “Reductive Evolution Can Prevent Populations from Taking Simple Adaptive Paths to High Fitness,” is available here.
Participants
- Jay Richards, Director of Research at the CRSC, (Discovery Institute)
- Ann Gauger, senior research scientist at the Biologic Institute
About Ann:
Ann is a senior research scientist at Biologic Institute. Her work uses molecular genetics and genomic engineering to study the origin, organization and operation of metabolic pathways. She received a BS in biology from MIT, and a PhD in developmental biology from the University of Washington, where she studied cell adhesion molecules involved in Drosophila embryogenesis. As a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard she cloned and characterized the Drosophila kinesin light chain. Her research has been published in Nature, Development, and the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
Topics:
- Co-authored with microbiologist Ralph Seelke at the University of Wisconsion
- Purpose: study whether bacteria can evolve the ability to fix a broken protein (e.g. – enzyme)
- Two areas are broken in the enzyme
- If you fix the first one, it works a little but not fully (slight advantage)
- If you fix the second one, it starts to work fully (huge advantage)
- It’s a “two-step adaptive path” – a textbook case for evolution
- should be able to hit both mutations and get back full functionality
- At the start of the experiment, the cell is churning out broken protein
- there is a cost to the cell for create the broken protein
- the cell can either go through the adaptive path and repair the protein
- OR, it can shut off production of the broken protein
- EITHER PATH gives a selective advantage
- So what happens? The cells NEVER followed the adaptive path
- They almost ALWAYS turn off the production of the broken protein
- It happens in 30-50 generations, in 14 different cultures
- Each culture had a different way of turning off the production
- They tested on 10^12 cells
- Only one cell made the first repair, none made the second repair
- It’s more advantageous to STOP PRODUCING the broken protein as soon as possible
- The first cell that gets rid of the non-functional protein first overtakes the whole culture
- so, even adaptive paths that provide a benefit with one mutation are unlikely to be followed
- The point: even promising theoretical adaptive pathways MAY NOT WORK in experiments
I wrote about Doug Axe’s recent research paper here. He is the Director of the Biologic Institute.
Related posts
- The origin of the universe from nothing
- The fine-tuning of the cosmological constants to permit life
- The fine-tuning of the galaxy, solar system, and planet to permit life
- Origin of the building blocks in the simplest replicating cell
- Origin of biological information in the simplest replicating cell
- Sudden origins of all major body plans in the Cambrian explosion
- Irreducible complexity in molecular machines
- The limits on what natural selection and random mutation can do
- Peer-reviewed paper says there is no atheistic explanation for the Cambrian explosion
- Does the Cambrian explosion disprove Darwinian evolution?
It’s Biologic Institute, not Biologos. Two very different groups.
But thanks for the blog– excellent summary!
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Holy snark. I’ve been reading about them too, and they are NOTHING like you. I don’t like them at all.
Anyway, I fixed the post. I had it right in other places!
This is super, now we have THREE celebrity commenters. Jennifer Roback Morse, Sue Bohlin and Ann Gauger!
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I have read the paper and I must say it is very weak in supporting the idea you want it to, i.e, ID. So she found that the organisms she created didn’t mutate at the rates she would have liked to have seen to support her version of evolution. It’s not that none of them didn’t mutate, just not enough…weak, very weak.
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Out of 10 to the 12 cells, 1 mutated once, not twice.
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