Dr.GH

A behe fan showed up at another BB (P.O.D.) and wanted to argue the "Darwin's Black Box" chapter 4. This is the idea that the blood clotting cascade is IC, and so could not have evolved. This seems to me to mean that IC systems can't evolve! So I wrote the following, and welcome critical response:

Lets look back to 1996. In an article on the molecular comparison of the modern genes
that produce a milk protein, casein, Gatesy et al concluded that whales and hippos
were related. Gatesy et al Evidence from milk casein genes that cetaceans are
close relatives of hippopotamid artiodactyls Molecular Biology and Evolution, Vol
13, 954-963
<a href="http://www.molbiolevol.org/cgi/content/abstract/13/7/954?ijkey=3sZ4.YhxIB9Nc" target="_blank">http://www.molbiolevol.org/cgi/content/abstract/13/7/954?ijkey=3sZ4.YhxIB9Nc</a>

There had been earlier molecular evolution studies that had made some similar
arguments based on different genes, and with different animals in the data group. But,
the paleontological data, actual fossils available at the time, didn’t indicate that whales
were closely related to hippos, but instead were more closely related to a different group
of extinct animals. Even better, Gatesy in 1997 authored More DNA Support for a
Cetacea/Hippopotamidae Clade: The Blood-Clotting Protein Gene Gama-Fibrinogen
Molecular Biological Evolution 14(5):537-543 (1997).
<a href="http://mbe.library.arizona.edu/data/1997/1405/8gate.pdf" target="_blank">http://mbe.library.arizona.edu/data/1997/1405/8gate.pdf</a>

This really excited the good folks at the Institute for Creation Research. Frank Sherwin,
who is identified as a biologist at the ICR wrote Scientific Roadblocks to Whale
Evolution ICR IMPACT No. 304 October 1998
<a href="http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-304.htm" target="_blank">http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-304.htm</a>

Sherwin cites Gatesy with great approval, partially quoting his 1997 abstract pointing to
the apparent conflict between the molecular evolution data, and the “stones-n-bones”
paleontology.

Below are links to articles on the paleontology of the early whale ancestors- the ones that
still had legs and feet and walked on them. Notice that these were reported in 2001. It
won’t matter if you don’t want to read them. The point is that two groups of workers
found fossils which strongly indicate that whales are artiodactyls (even-toed ungulates).

Almost like a whale
<a href="http://www.nature.com/nsu/010920/010920-11.html" target="_blank">http://www.nature.com/nsu/010920/010920-11.html</a>

This is the full article:
Skeletons of terrestrial cetaceans and the relationship of whales to artiodactyls
<a href="http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v413/n6853/full/413277" target="_blank">http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v413/n6853/full/413277</a>
a0_r.html&filetype=&dynoptions=

Thewissen et al Nature 413, 277 - 281 (2001) agree that the whales evolved from
artiodactyls, but stop short of joining then into the hippo group, arguing instead that the
cetaceans diverged from still earlier animals.

ScienceDaily News Release: New Fossils Suggest Whales And Hippos Are Close Kin
<a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/09/010920072245.htm" target="_blank">http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/09/010920072245.htm</a>

BBC News | SCI/TECH | When whales walked the land
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1553008.stm" target="_blank">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1553008.stm</a>

The original article can be read if you register (free!) with Science Magazine published
by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Origin of Whales from
Early Artiodactyls: Hands and Feet of Eocene Protocetidae from Pakistan Gingerich
et al Science, Vol. 293, Issue 5538, 2239-2242, September 21, 2001

Now, Gingerich et al do think that the fossils they found not only join the whales
(cetaceans) with the even-toed ungulates (artiodactyls), but converging with the DNA
studies of the evolution of Blood Clotting, they are most closely related to the
Hippos. It has only been a year, and as far as I know Thewissen isn’t budging, but
personally I’m betting on Gingerich. Maybe because the “imposible” to understand
evolution of the “irreducibly complex” blood clotting cascade has predicted the
Cetacea/Hippopotamidae Clade for years.
The evolutionary behavior of blood clotting proteins was used to make a specific,
testable prediction. Behe claims that the blood clotting cascade didn't evolve, indeed that
it can't have evolved. Thus, in Behe's terms the evolution of blood clotting can't make
predictions.

The paleontological confirmation of the relationship of hippos and whales is also the
confirmation of the analysis demonstrating the evolution of blood clotting proteins
which had reached the same conclusion.

The "take home message" is that this is an irrefutable demonstration that blood clotting
evolved, and the genes for blood clotting evolved. Consequently the blood clotting
cascade is not 'irreducibly complex' in either Behe's 1996 formulation of in Bill
Dembski's recent re-formulation.

Now, the IDistas will either deny the existance of cetacean evolution, or the relevence of
paleontology to the evolution of biomolecules. And/Or they might might just charge on to
the next molecular system that is not well understood.

Here is the point: Behe claims the blood clotting cascade can not evolve, the whale/hippo data show that the blood clotting cascade did evolve.

Weellll, I showed this to a few colleagues, two responded one a geneticist and one a biochemist. They both independently told me (more or less) why hadn’t I merely sent a copy of the following paper:

Evolution of enzyme cascades from embryonic development to blood coagulation Maxwell M. Krem and Enrico Di Cera

The recent discovery of molecular markers of protease evolution suggests that enzyme cascades evolved from an ancestral developmental/immunity cascade before the protostome/deuterostome split. Trends in Biochemical Sciences, 2002, 27:2:67-74

Abstract

Recent delineation of the serine protease cascade controlling dorsal–ventral patterning during Drosophila embryogenesis allows this cascade to be compared with those controlling clotting and complement in vertebrates and invertebrates. The identification of discrete markers of serine protease evolution has made it possible to reconstruct the probable chronology of enzyme evolution and to gain new insights into functional linkages among the cascades. Here, it is proposed that a single ancestral developmental/immunity cascade gave rise to the protostome and deuterostome developmental, clotting and complement cascades. Extensive similarities suggest that these cascades were built by adding enzymes from the bottom of the cascade up and from similar macromolecular building blocks.

I had to admit that I hadn’t read it even though it had been recommended to me months ago. OH WELL. I have read it now, and I doubt that Behe will be using either the clotting cascade, or the adaptive immunity (complement) cascade. Krem and Di Cera show very clearly that the all of the serine proteace cascades derived from the same precursers, and that “step by step” modifications can account for the results. I can’t post the whole article, but I will email the PDF version to you if you send me your email address by PM. Or, you can email the corresponding author Dr. Di Cera, enrico@biochem.wusti.edu and request a copy.

Matt Inlay in an article titled <a href="http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/Evolving_Immunity.html" target="_blank">Evolving Immunity</a>
pretty well demolished Behe’s Chapter 6. I have recently read that the bacterial flagella has been shown to have evolved from virulence factors, and a recent discussion at the ISCID - International Society for Complexity Information and Design (or maybe it was the ARN) board on the
organization of intracellular transport, IMO, left the IDistas gasping and grabbing at straws. I can’t imagine what the next edition of Behe’s book will have left in it.

I expect that Behe or some other IDista will try to maintain that the serine protease cascades from both the blood clotting cascade and the complement cascade are the IC parts of the system. And then they will retreat to the next hole.

Xeluan

Most excellent post Dr GH.

Ever thought about posting something similar over at Arn? The reaction would be interesting. Of course you could never post such information over at ISCID.

Xeluan

Bubba

Excellent post, Dr. GH!

Bubba <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

WinAce

*sends PM*

Also, there was no <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> smiley on the POD board, and Night Spawn was durn annoying anyway, so I didn't reply.

rafe gutman

GH, your theory that the blood-clotting system and the complement system co-evolved would be better supported if there were serine proteases common to both.

oh wait,

Dr.GH

Rafe, It's not really "my" theory. Thanks for the link.

Behe argued that the blood clotting cascade was "irreducibly complex.” By this, he claimed that the cascade was a system that could not function unless every component was present, and that no IC system could evolve “... because any precursor to an irredcibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctioning.” Behe 1996 pg 39). Krem and Cera show that the paired blocks of the blood clotting cascade did in fact evolve (cited above).

Much earlier Doolittle and his assiciates had demonstrated that the core molecule of the vertebrate’s blood Clotting cascade, fibriongen, was found in non-veretebrates and had undergone evolutionary modification. Behe facilely passed off Doolittle’s research with a long and heavily redacted (“edited for nontechnical readers&#8221) quote from just one article and a massive amount of obfuscation (pg 90-97). Behe characteristically ignored the key asspect of Doolittles work from the standpoint of IC arguments, and that is that the molecules involved had a variatiy of functions in other organisms only distantly related. From their abstract, Hajela et al (2002) add to the argument of Kerm and Di Cera by relating overlaps in the fucntion, and chemistry of two of Behe’s examples of IC; the blood clotting cascade and the complement system.

Thus, as early as 1990 Behe ought to have known that the molecules which he argued could not have evolved, had evolved with considerably different functions than they have in the vertebrate blood clotting cascade (Doolittle and Riley 1990, Xu and Doolittle 1990) . <a href="http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/Evolving_Immunity.html" target="_blank">Matt Inlay</a> does a good job of dismantling Behe’s argument for the ICness of the immunilogical complement system. And now, in another violation of Behe’s IC definition, we see that the BCC and complement systems are evolutionarily related.

With two of Behe’s central examples eliminated, it might seem that the core of the intelligent design movement is hollow. However, I suspect that the IDistas will merely abandon BCC, and the complement system (without ever admitting it) and instead focus on other poorly understood systems. This may have already taken place as Dembski more or less uses the bacterial flagellum as his favorite IC system. Intelligent Design is merly a repackaged "argument from ignorance," joined with Paley's Natural Philosophy.

I begin to think that we are being merely distracted by the scientific arguments, the real nature of "intelligent design" is political. IDistas are nothing other than the latest spear point depolyed by right-wing religious radicals.


Behe, Michael J.
1996 Darwin’s Black Box New York:Simon and Schuster

Doolittle, R. F., and Riley, M.
(1990) "The amino-acid sequence of lobster fibriongen reveals common ancestry with vitellogenin." Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. 167: 16-19.

Xu, X., and Doolittle, R. F.,
(1990) "Presence of a vertebrate fibrinogen-like sequence in an echinoderm." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 87:
2097-2101.

[ November 04, 2002: Message edited by: Dr.GH ]

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