complexity

This is the fifth of five posts in which I reply to Dr. Ian Musgrave’s “Open Letter to Dr. Michael Behe” on the Panda’s Thumb blog. Finally, Dr. Musgrave objects to my placing viral protein – cellular protein interactions in a separate category from cellular protein-cellular protein interactions. In Chapter 8 of The Edge of Evolution I had written: Another, more important point to note is that I’m considering just cellular proteins binding to other cellular proteins, not to foreign proteins. Foreign proteins injected into a cell by an invading virus or bacterium make up a different category. The foreign proteins of pathogens almost always are intended to cripple a cell in any way possible. Since there are so many more ways Read More ›

This is the third of five posts in which I reply to Dr. Ian Musgrave’s “Open Letter to Dr. Michael Behe” on the Panda’s Thumb blog. In my reply to Smith I quoted from a review (3) which asked the question why, with so much genetic variation, do we just see “interesting variations” in biological properties. Smith, replying to me on her blog in high dudgeon, quotes the next paragraph of the review which details some of those interesting variations: The long terminal repeat region (LTR) of the HIV genome regulates transcription and viral replication, acting as a promoter responsive to the viral Tat protein. Although all subtypes share the same LTR function, they differ with respect to LTR sequence Read More ›