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Keith C,

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-- Joseph "Joey" C. Campana

Founder and Webmaster, ResearchID.org -- Joseph "Joey" C. Campana 14:07, 11 July 2006 (CDT)

Proposed changes to Empirical ID research

I suggest the comments on the Behe and Snoke paper should be changed to:-

In this article, Behe and Snoke attempt to calculate how difficult it is for unguided evolutionary processes to take existing protein structures and add novel proteins whose interface compatibility is such that they could combine functionally with the original proteins. Their hope was that by demonstrating inherent limitations to unguided evolutionary processes, this work would give indirect scientific support to intelligent design and bolsters Behe’s case for intelligent design via Irreducible Complexity in answer to some of his critics.

Unfortunately, this paper has itself been criticized.

• Lynch, M., (2005) Simple evolutionary pathways to complex proteins , Protein Science (2005), Volume 14, Pages 2217-2225.

"It is shown here that the conclusions of this prior work are an artifact of unwarranted biological assumptions, inappropriate mathematical modeling, and faulty logic. Numerous simple pathways exist by which adaptive multi-residue functions can evolve on time scales of a million years (or much less) in populations of only moderate size."

Behe and Snoke reply on pages 2226 and 2227 of same issue, [1]

Behe and Snoke do not answer Lynch adequately. Unfortunately, Lynch presents a different model and does not identify the specific errors made by Behe and Snoke. One point is that despite assuming a constant population size and neutral mutations, (other than the null mutations), Behe and Snoke replace any null mutation with a copy of the original duplicated gene with zero accumulated changes. (see paragraph 3. at bottom of first column on page 2654) A more consistent model would maintain organisms with one of the duplicate genes containing only one null mutation. Organisms which develop null mutations in both copies have to be replaced by multiplication of viable organisms, some with neutral mutations.

Perhaps you can find someone with a biological/mathematical background to provide a second opinion.

--Keith C 22:09, 12 July 2006 (CDT)

Keith C,

Thank you for your proposed changes.

Please discuss all article changes on the discussion page, not in the article itself.

As for your changes, the Empirical ID research page uses extremely general information to summarize as much research as possible. It basically functions as a "gateway" page. Given this purpose: criticism, responses to critics, and criticisms of responses should be provided on a different page. If you would like to develop a criticism page, I invite you to do so. You will first need to develop the protein evolution article, and then develop your criticism under your user page at an article linked as something like User:Keith C/Criticism of Behe's protein research. (CC'd to the appropriate discussion page) -- Joseph "Joey" C. Campana 07:41, 13 July 2006 (CDT)