Freethought & Rationalism Archive

BioBeing · 05-27-2003, 02:38 PM

In the current issue of BioEssay (25: 620-621) Robin Holliday puts an interesting spin of the creationists/intelligent designers arguments, viz why did the "designer", who can do anything, not make wheels in the animal kingdom?

Not proof there is no designer of course, but still worthy of a :notworthy

Quote:

�What does not seem to be discussed is that there are real limits to evolution by natural selection, but one would suppose that there need to be no limits to the intelligent design of organisms within the framework of existing chemical elements, and the laws of physics and chemistry.
�
Since the wheel has become so important for human motility and diverse other purposes, one would think that it might also be used by animals in a variety of contexts. It could be argued that the wheel can only be used effectively on smooth surfaces, and these are uncommon in nature. However, that is not true because there are salt and dry mud flats, harddampsand on beaches, leaves and the barkof some trees. Moreover, man-made vehicles can cover rough ground very effectively. The fact of the matter is that the wheel is not found anywhere in the animal kingdom.
�
This example also illustrates another major flaw in the creationists position. What do they suppose the limits of design to be?

(hope I didn't exceed fair use, but I'm not sure how many have access to this journal).

NonHomogenized · 05-27-2003, 03:18 PM

<blink> <blink>

Wow. That's a really good point that I'd never even thought about. And the wheel is certainly more "irreducibly complex" than the eye. After all, a vaguely light sensitive proto-organ is more useful than any proto-wheel I can imagine.

Lobstrosity · 05-27-2003, 04:07 PM

Well molecular motors have evolved to utilize rotary motion.

Doubting Didymus · 05-27-2003, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Lobstrosity
Well molecular motors have evolved to utilize rotary motion.

Speaking of which, has anyone worked out how that happened yet, exactly?

lpetrich · 05-27-2003, 04:26 PM

However, some species of plants have indeed invented the wheel. Tumbleweeds (Russian thistle, Salsola sp.). They grow in an approximately spherical shape, and when they go to seed, they die. The base of the stem breaks, and the above-ground part of the plant rolls as it is blown by the wind. And as it rolls, it releases seeds.

The nutrition-supply problem disappears, because this plant only acts like a wheel when it is dead.

Some bacteria have rotating flagella and the ATPase complexes of many cells are usually considered to have a rotating part. The nutrition-supply problem is resolved here also, since nuttrition here happens by diffusion.

A simple random-walk analysis shows that (diffusion time) ~ (diffusion distance)^2, which is why most organisms beyond a few cells have a circulatory system.

Doubting Didymus · 05-27-2003, 04:31 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by lpetrich
However, some species of plants have indeed invented the wheel. Tumbleweeds (Russian thistle, Salsola sp.). They grow in an approximately spherical shape, and when they go to seed, they die. The base of the stem breaks, and the above-ground part of the plant rolls as it is blown by the wind. And as it rolls, it releases seeds.

Surely it's not a wheel if it doesn't have an axel and a non-rotating 'body' attached? Most of the evolutionary problems with wheels are to do with the separation of the wheel from the body. The tumbleweed is more of a ball than a wheel.

Nic Tamzek · 05-27-2003, 08:50 PM

The author (Robin Holliday) does mention the flagellum; unfortunately s/he just kinda brushes it off:

Quote:

Since the wheel has become so important for human motility and diverse other purposes, one would think that it might also be used by animals in a variety of contexts. It could be argued that the wheel can only be used effectively on smooth surfaces, and these are uncommon in nature. However, that is not true because there are salt and dry mud flats, hard damp sand on beaches, leaves and the bark of some trees. Moreover, man-made vehicles can cover rough ground very effectively. The fact of the matter is that the wheel is not found anywhere in the animal kingdom. The nearest is in the tiny rotifer, where the feeding structures appear to rotate. This is an illusion brought about be the movement of a circle of attached cilia slightly out of synchrony to create a vortex that draws water and food into the animal. The flagellae of motile bacteria that have a rotary propeller-like movement contain a single structural protein called flagellin, but could scarcely be regarded as wheel-like. However, the principle of jet propulsion is used by certain marine animals, notably the squids and octopuses, but no propellers as such are found in any aquatic multicellular organism. So how do the creationists explain why an all-powerful deity did not on any occasion design an animal incorporating the enormously advantageous rotary motion of wheels?

I think that the flagellum (and other rotary motors, e.g. the F1F0 ATPase, archaeal flagellum) are indeed valid exceptions to the "evolution can't make wheels" argument. One might quibble that "rolling" and "spinning" aren't really valid concepts at the microscopic scale where Brownian motion is so crucial -- the "rotation" is jerky and there is no such thing as inertia -- but, to me, a rotating machine is a rotating machine.

Note that this wheel argument is old, dating at least back to Haldane (assuming the cite is right), and has been turned on the evolutionists by creos:

Quote:

Design in Living Organisms: Motors
by Jonathan Sarfati
Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 12(1):3�5, 1998
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/3799.asp

Would any evidence convince evolutionists?

The famous British evolutionist (and communist) J.B.S. Haldane claimed in 1949 that evolution could never produce �various mechanisms, such as the wheel and magnet, which would be useless till fairly perfect.� [10] Therefore such machines in organisms would, in his opinion, prove evolution false. These molecular motors have indeed fulfilled one of Haldane�s criteria. Also, turtles [11] and monarch butterflies [12] which use magnetic sensors for navigation fulfil Haldane�s other criterion. I wonder whether Haldane would have had a change of heart if he had been alive to see these discoveries. Many evolutionists rule out intelligent design a priori, so the evidence, overwhelming as it is, would probably have no effect.

[...]

10. Dewar, D., Davies, L.M. and Haldane, J.B.S., 1949. Is Evolution a Myth? A Debate between D. Dewar and L.M. Davies vs. J.B.S. Haldane, Watts & Co. Ltd / Paternoster Press, London, p. 90.

11. Sarfati, J.D., 1997. Turtles can read magnetic maps.

12. Poirier, J.H., 1997. The Magnificent Migrating Monarch. Creation Ex Nihilo 20(1):28�31 (see online version). But monarchs only use the earth�s magnetic field to give them the general direction, while they rely on the sun�s position for most of their navigation.

Other sites using the same quote:

�MIRACULOUS� MOTORS
http://www.apologeticspress.org/inth.../itn-03-02.htm

The World's Tiniest Motor
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/207.asp

I could swear that there is another longer quote out there, from Haldane or another evolutionist, but I can't find it.

(Does anyone have access to the Haldane-creo debate book, Is Evolution a Myth? -- it would be great to have a fuller quote)

Anyhow, you could hardly blame the creationists for pouncing on this one if everyone took the dismissive line that Holliday did on the evolution of wheels. Unfortunately for them, Dawkins already noted the crucial difference between evolving wheels at the macro-scale and the subcellular scale:

Quote:

Why don�t animals have wheels?
by Richard Dawkins
Article in The Sunday Times, November 24th 1996
http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/Dawk...1-24wheels.htm

[...]

Now I must mention that there is one revealing exception to my premiss. Some very small creatures have evolved the wheel in the fullest sense of the word. One of the first locomotor devices ever evolved may have been the wheel, given that for most of its first two billion years, life consisted of nothing but bacteria (and, to this day, not only are most individual organisms bacteria, even in our own bodies bacterial cells greatly outnumber our �own� cells).

Many bacteria swim using threadlike spiral propellors, each driven by its own continuously rotating propellor shaft. It used to be thought that these �flagella� were wagged like tails, the appearance of spiral rotation resulting from a wave of motion passing along the length of the flagellum, as in a wriggling snake. The truth is much more remarkable. The bacterial flagellum is attached to a shaft which, driven by a tiny molecular engine, rotates freely and indefinitely in a hole that runs through the cell wall.

Picture (see suggestions faxed separately to Jeremy Bayston)

The fact that only very small creatures have evolved the wheel suggests what may be the most plausible reason why larger creatures have not. It�s a rather mundane, practical reason, but it is nonetheless important. A large creature would need large wheels which, unlike manmade wheels, would have to grow in situ rather than being separately fashioned out of dead materials and then mounted. For a large, living organ, growth in situ demands blood or something equivalent. The problem of supplying a freely rotating organ with blood vessels (not to mention nerves) that don�t tie themselves in knots is too vivid to need spelling out!

Human engineers might suggest running concentric ducts to carry blood through the middle of the axle into the middle of the wheel. But what would the evolutionary intermediates have looked like? Evolutionary improvement is like climbing a mountain (�Mount Improbable�). You can�t jump from the bottom of a cliff to the top in a single leap. Sudden, precipitous change is an option for engineers, but in wild nature the summit of Mount Improbable can be reached only if a gradual ramp upwards from a given starting point can be found. The wheel may be one of those cases where the engineering solution can be seen in plain view, yet be unattainable in evolution because its lies the other side of a deep valley, cutting unbridgeably across the massif of Mount Improbable.

The wheel may be one of those cases where the engineering solution can be seen in plain view, yet be unattainable in evolution because it lies the other side of a deep valley, cutting unbridgeably across the massif of Mount Improbable.

(Why don't we have articles like this in the newspapers in the U.S.? Oh well...)

Still, Dawkins offers no evidence that the flagellum evolved, so this is still likely to be thoroughly undaunting to the creationist. Here in 2003 we are in a somewhat better position:

an AE thread collecting relevant info/links on the evolution of prokaryote flagella

KC · 05-28-2003, 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Doubting Didymus
Surely it's not a wheel if it doesn't have an axel and a non-rotating 'body' attached? Most of the evolutionary problems with wheels are to do with the separation of the wheel from the body. The tumbleweed is more of a ball than a wheel.

Actually, there were additional problems in some early, unsuccessful transitional forms:

KC

RRoman · 05-28-2003, 09:32 AM

Theres also some animal 'rollers'.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/moments/s42510.htm

Quote:

The first one was discovered in 1979 by Roy Caldwell, an animal behaviourist at the University of California at Berkeley. It was a tiny ocean crustacean called Nannosquilla decemspinosa. It's related to the prawn that you chuck on your BBQ. This creature is around 25 mm long, and very skinny. In fact, they're so long and skinny, that they can't walk or crawl on land. So when the ocean waves throw them up on a beach, they curl themselves up, and do up to 40 backwards somersault rolls in a row, to get back into the water. They literally roll like a little wheel.

Quote:

Now the only known land creature that will deliberately itself roll away from danger is the caterpillar of the Mother-Of-Pearl Moth, Pleurotya ruralis. This research was done by John Brackenbury at University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. ... But if you give it a really good poke, it will start off in its reverse gallop, and then, with its tail on the ground, push off from its front legs, curl itself into a ball, and roll backwards. Depending on how flat and level the ground is, a decent push will set it off into five complete revolutions, travelling at a speed of about 40 centimetres per second - about 40 times its normal speed.

I've also heard about a desert spider that curls up and rolls sideways, but I havent been able to find a site about it.

Lobstrosity · 05-28-2003, 02:53 PM

There are snakes that can "fly." Though cool, I guess it has little to do with the topic at hand...

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05-27-2003, 03:18 PM	#2
NonHomogenized Veteran Member Join Date: May 2003 Location: no longer at IIDB Posts: 1,644	<blink> <blink> Wow. That's a really good point that I'd never even thought about. And the wheel is certainly more "irreducibly complex" than the eye. After all, a vaguely light sensitive proto-organ is more useful than any proto-wheel I can imagine.

05-27-2003, 04:07 PM	#3
Lobstrosity Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: San Diego, California Posts: 719	Well molecular motors have evolved to utilize rotary motion.

05-27-2003, 04:26 PM	#5
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	However, some species of plants have indeed invented the wheel. Tumbleweeds (Russian thistle, Salsola sp.). They grow in an approximately spherical shape, and when they go to seed, they die. The base of the stem breaks, and the above-ground part of the plant rolls as it is blown by the wind. And as it rolls, it releases seeds. The nutrition-supply problem disappears, because this plant only acts like a wheel when it is dead. Some bacteria have rotating flagella and the ATPase complexes of many cells are usually considered to have a rotating part. The nutrition-supply problem is resolved here also, since nuttrition here happens by diffusion. A simple random-walk analysis shows that (diffusion time) ~ (diffusion distance)^2, which is why most organisms beyond a few cells have a circulatory system.

05-28-2003, 02:53 PM	#10
Lobstrosity Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: San Diego, California Posts: 719	There are snakes that can "fly." Though cool, I guess it has little to do with the topic at hand...

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