Bacterial motors carefully studied (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, March 30, 2016, 12:41 (3160 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Using very advanced techniques a lab has delineated a grappling hook type motor and the workings of a flagellum type:-http://phys.org/news/2016-03-up-close-view-bacterial-motors.html-David's comment: These nanomotors are so complex they have to be developed all at once. Half a motor or less is useless. Darwin doesn't work here. As Darwin's theory collapses, it has just been reported that epigenetic changes can be inherited across generations guided by small RNA's.-Thank you for another marvellous piece. However, it is unworthy of you to join the fundamentalists of both sides who use exaggerated language to discredit one another. Darwin's theory of evolution is not “collapsing”, and you know it. What has long since “collapsed” - and was already regarded as a weakness in his own time - is his gradualistic explanation of the innovations that drive evolution. You and I and many others also reject the theory of random mutations, but there is no “collapse” in the basic theory of common descent or of natural selection as the process which results in the survival or extinction of organs and organisms. As for epigenetic changes, once more the question is whether the same mechanisms that power those smaller modifications might also be capable of innovation when the environment undergoes major changes that allow for new patterns.