Evolution of the the Bacterial Flagellum

[popeyespappy]

-Nor are we likely to find much in the way of fossilized bacteria from which something we can sequence is going to be pulled. You know what I think happened, I think that alien waffles genetically engineered the other half of those proteins.

So don't make claim that the bacteria flagellum can be completely explained TODAY by evolution. Say it's a work-in-progress or whatever. Easy enough.

That's the problem Kim. Behe and his ilk claim the bacteria flagellum couldn't possibly have evolved to its current state. They claim evolution doesn't have the necessary mechanisms for that to happen. Then they insert their hypothesis without a shred of evidence to support it. ID isn't a scientific argument for design. It is an argument from ignorance against evolution.

Biologists like Ken Miller don't claim we know the exact evolutionary path the bacteria flagellum took. In fact there is debate among biologists whether the flagellum evolved from a T3SS like structure or the T3SS evolved from a flagellum. Either path is possible and most biologists admit to that. Their argument with Behe is that the mechanisms for the evolutionary process to take either pathway exist. In fact that Behe himself admits as much in his paper Experimental evolution, loss-of-function mutations, and “the first rule of adaptive evolution.