--
-- __-
a clear sense of this by following discussions
A-life on evolutioniinly oriented newsgroups on the
Internet (for example, sci.bio.evolution).
A third and more general point concerns our
expectations about modeling?. Evolutlonaly and
population bloiogists Consider a model useful
Can shed light - especlaliy by making qua?tzta?iW
predictions -on the behavior of a Spe :Ific I;ysttm
That is one 0: the criteria of falslfiabrlity A 11%
models. as fascinating as they are from a
heuristic standpoint (or in solvingSpecific
computational problems), do not fit this scheme
Even Wright’s shifting balance theory, as much
as it is less mechanistic than Fisher’s
fundamental theorem of natural selection, 15
still order of magnitudes more ‘testable inan
A-life gz?ora! datements about con~plrx
systems”~‘.
This last conundrum mght reflect an Important
properly of the real world. not just rout <‘l’*‘r;ill,:S!!!!~J
to come up with powerful theotetic;tl r~ioJcls F6
since t E discovery of
chaos and nonlmear
dynanir,:s”. physlc6tS have suggested that
comple j systems mfght be mherent/y
unpredi :table in the long term. That Irustratrs liur
mechar istic viewpoint 111 the same way that wc nip?
frustrat:d at our inability to predict changes ln ihe
weather over a period Ion@ than ilvc days,
noiwiths tanding super-computers and
meteorological satellites. On the other hand. we
might gain an understanding of general propertIes
of complex systems, in the same way In which we
know of Lecurring patterns in atmospheric
phenomena. This realization could be the major
contribution of complexity theory (of which A-hfe is
a branch) to biology.
NOW,what could be the contribution of biology
to A-life research? Well. A-life scientists can
create as many artificial worlds as they wish InsIde
a computer. and then just watch what happens.
But there is no substitute for the real thing. The
differences between gcnctic algonthms and real
biological systems might tell us a lot about what
happens when you ~movefrom an abstract
mathematical world to the much more messy and
complex physical reality. A bcltrr ~indcrsl;lildlil~~ of
the rolationshigs between mathematics and
physics-biology would certamly be a worthy joint
area of investigation.
--
Of
---- ___---
a-win’s
if It
hat is sad about this book is that the
author thinks that he has something
to say and is contributing tc science. He
believes that life is so biochemicali:! con-
plex that it cannot have evolved by mutation
and sclcciicm. Instead,~~ioc~em~c~9 corn-
plex;ity must be att&uted to intelligent
desigrp. He claims that ‘the theory of intellli-
~~11 drsiqn is new ho modern science’ and
ri?,als those of Newton, Einstein, Lavoisier,
Sc91riitlioq3. n”aStCur and Darwin, and he
attriba~tes the unwilhngness of biology to
‘~reetlrly embrace its sllartlirag discovery’ Bo
p;&‘ntific prejudice againnst ‘supernatural
q~Pa~~licins’. Like many books purporting
to show that the scientific establ
wrong, this one appeals to tbe gen
rather than to scientists. Clearly an
written with relatively few factual errors,
but numerollas logical onrs, it has a pleasing
air of pop scholarship that may Mind the
innocenl reader with science and conceal its
fundamenta9ly antiscientiffic character.
‘to effectively cease fu~ctjo~~~~g’. 9-9~2
asserts
that all the for~oi~~~ examples are irreduc-
ibly complex, cannot have evolved directly
s, and are unlikely to have
rect circuitous routes. I-lis
itiatcd by his ignorance of
the importance of shifts of function in the
origin of novelry 4nd compPexity and the
nmnerous ways in which non-leth
tations can radically change pbenoty
fUnction of Some complex biochemical ma-
rhine9-y and muddkd. ignorant and unfairly
Slanted attacks on seiciitilic ~xl)~a~~~t~~~~~scf
their evolutionary origin. Me rightly poinls
0:rt that biochemistry textboo~~s either ig-
nore or deal most i~ade~~ate9y with the ori-
gin Qf SUCh thin$5 as cilia or vesicle tram+
port. He faiPs to see that he himseZf is as
ignorant of evo9~tiorlary biology as are the
textbooks he criticizes, or that his education
as a biochemistry professor reared on such
n~rr~~w-mjnded textbooks may be deficient
in the very qualities needed to understand
biochemical evolution.
The blurb’s assertion that Behe is not
a creationist is at best a haif truth. He pays
iip service to evolution, accepts an ancient
earth. and seems to accept degenerative evo-
lution - especialiy where it can be used to
weaken classical attacks on the argument
from design - and some other ill-specified
aspects of evolution, but has no grasp what-
ever of phylogeny. Though design without a
maker is useless. he is silent about the making
side of his ‘theory’, and whether designer(s)
and maker(s) were t?le same entity/ies. He
implies that a single creation at hkizbeginning
of life might have h~cs sr?fitrient, but to make
any phylogeoetic sense he woulrf have to
position resembiies that of Wallace’ who m-
voked dirrctive mind or infinite Deity in cre
sting ihe complexities of the cell and animal
development. in addition to mutation and se-
lection; but compared with Wallace’s depth,
and breadth of knowledge, Gehe’s book is
intellecPua9Uy shallow and unoriginal Given
what we now know of ce99 evolution, I doubt
that Wallace wouid still wish to invoke divine
intervention.
For none of the cases mentioned
is there yet a co~~~re9~e~sive and
explanation of the I;:-obable steps in
lution of the observed complexity. T
leans have indeed been sorely neg
ihoqh B&c repeatedly exaggerates this
neglect with such hyperboles as ‘an eerie
and complete silence’. But when criticizing
existing evolutiO99ary explanatio99s, Behe
uses intellectually dishonest double stand-
ards. He dismisses my Lirst treatment ol the
origin of cilia2 as ~o~i~~~ant~~a~ive and there-
fore ‘utterly useless’, and ignores my later
work on the topic?,‘. But it does not worry
him that his emply, religious notion of ‘intel-
ligent design is equally ~~~)~-quantitative;
worse still, lacking even qualitative detail of
what did the designing. and how the hypo-
thetical design was excculed, it explains
nothing. t-9estates that ‘if a theory claims to
be able to explain some ~beno~leno[~ but
does not even generate an attempt at an ex-
planation il should be banished’ and ‘with-
out details, discussion is doomed to be un-
scientific and fruitless’. If he bad a
these strictures to his panacea of ‘i~ite9~~~e~lt
design’ we wouki have be3~ spared this
worthless book.
Behe’s attack on RusseH DoOPittBe’s Bpis-
CUSSiOn Gf gene ~~~9icat~~~~ and divergence
in the origin of b9ood clotting involves an
almost wilful ~~~s~~~ers~a~~~~~, and his nu-
merical criticisms are as BaPlaclous as others
debunked by Ford Doo!ittle”.
Behe, ignorant of much of the literature,
claims that no scientist has ever discussed
the origin ofvesicle targetir,g (actually dis- genetic parasiies”,lO, in tent, g10baQclimate. .Most of the earlier coo-
cussed in Ref. 3, nOt cited by Bebe, though view of life but alien to ck#SiOnS about timing and patterns of the
the most detailed one On the origin Of eu- design-oriented, engineering view of liie so isthmian connection have been speculative
kaayotic biochemical properties) Or protein widespread among biochemists, pervading and chrcuiar, using present distributions tO
P~~MXi3iiQil (Ssee Refs 6 and 7, most- even the cartoons in Trends in 5~Oc~~~~?~c~~ infer probabie iimrzs and ecotogies of a s0i1d
detailed discussion of the origin of most- Sciences. laMi corridor. R2Eiabl2 answers. however,
basic complex celhuiar biochemicai prsper- Are these various omissions merely can only come fr0m careful, dated. g2OlOgi-
ties, which he deceitfully ignored despite thraugh ignorance Or cal ancl paleobiologicab studies. III this b0Ok
citing the volume containing it as ‘evidence’ because, as a Catholic, kXbon, Budd and Coates have assembled
that no paper Ras ever been published on the sion of an intelligent b an impressive c:olk~tiOn of studies that ad-
subject!). Maybe he did not want his readers mutations and the blin dress the formatio’ : : the Central herican
to find the papers (Kefs 3 and T) that most molecules? land bridge and its co quences fur marine
clearly Show how one can explain (in outline and terrestrial tropical biotas. Most of the
at least - obviously they are not the final an- &ta are from studies conducted by the
swer) the origins of complex biochemical and Evolutionary Biology Programme. Panama PaleontOBogy Project, which has
cellular Structures in lOgicA steps using mu- Canadian lnstiture for Advanced Resear~:n. been Sampling Neogene marine faunas On
and Dept of Botany. University of Bntrsh the two sides of Central America for the past
Columbia, Vancouver. BC, Canada Vi5T 124 decade but the last two chapters deal with
neOtropicaQ mammals and ~~~~~~s~)~~I~s”
cell is refuted by the absence of the trans- There are three main issues rwnni~q
lation arrest domain in the eubacterial signal through the chapters: the timing of the cl@
recognition particle (SW) RNfV, which pro- sure, the effect of the closure 9n biodiversity,
vides d simpler ancestor to the mor2 com- and the climat2 of thl- ilclpiss subsequent to
plex arc~aebac~~r~al/2ukary~)t~c particle. ‘The tlae closure. Although presaged to smne ex-
problem he raises ip. 112]for the origin of sc- tat by ecrkr pulAic;ali~~nS’-‘3,the picture that
t’dvalicn-Smilh, ‘1’. ( IW2)in l%i> Orrqri crnd
creted eukarycltic giycoproteins is spurious, emerges frOm these Standies may Surprise
Euolulion ~YTUI~ G/l (Hartman, H. and
because the sugar muc;t have been added to Malsuno, K.. 4s). pp, 79-106, World Scientific many. First, there is no evi
the protein on the non-cytosolic side of the Publish?rs tinuous connection until late in the PIiOcene.
membrane in the common ancestor of eu- Doolittie, V, .F. (1994) in Crrc/iue Eliolufion”! Rather, Over and over zgain, a datf of 3.5 mil-
karyote acteria, n before (Campbell. J.H. and Schopf, J.W.. eds). lion years is given IOr the final complete clo-
the ER reticuhi evolved. pp. 47-73, Jones and Bartlett sure, although there is abundant evidence
since it t the arc bacterial Blobel, C. (1980) Proc Null. Acad Ser. L! S A for island arcs and continental extt‘nsions
cell surface, as any good b~ocbemist should i:. 1496-MNP bridgAg the interoceanic seaway ~e~~~~~~~
iavalier.Smith, T. (1987) CofdSprq ffdwr
have known, even without rea in the early Miocene. Likewm, data show
Synp. @MU. Biol. 52.805-824
cussion of the origin ot the ER (Ref. 3). that the solid land connection was broached
Poritz, MA. (3989) Cell 55.4-6
Behe is unaware of the extensive com- at least Once after the isthmus was formed.
Erickson H.P. and Stoffler. I). (1996) J Cell
parative evidence, for example, the exist- &o/. 135.5-8 Since the formation of thr connection was
ence of fully motile diatom cilia lacking the Cavalier-Smith. 1‘. ( 1991) 7’+wd.s ~&wrl i. gradual, it affected various cnmponc~r~isGI!
central ~a~rmicrOt~~~les, that cilia (thr most 1.:3-14!1 the biota differently. Studies :~i bcnthic for-
complex cell organelies ol all) are not, in fact, arninifera (C’ollins,) thiit rife iiS!ilK’33lNi With

irreducibly complex by his definikn. He C~~lW~~t~-~iCh ~~Vi~Oli~lHldS SIIOW Itt~li~Rll~~

does not mention the evidence that the pro- ii;:rt+ses in diversity ~e~~~n~~~ in the late
tein t~b~~i~~ the major ronsti Miocene?. In this case, constrictioil of the sea-
micrdubules: evoived from th way, not co ete closure. initiated new en-
division protein itsZ (Ref. 9) vironments rals (Budd cf ol.) and cheilo-
motility organelles much sim stome bryozoans (Cheetham and .lacksorm)
6or example, protozoan axe show more recent changes with p~Ono~nce~
from bundles of ~~icr~~tu~~u~esby acquiring fauna1 turnover (e~~~ct~o~s plus originations)
, which he implies is im- occurring between 4-1 million years ago. In
possible. Of course, there is no mention of both cases, animals associated with seagrass
protozaa, in which cilia arose: probably (like ~n~~m’mr~en~s suffered the greatest extinc-
chemists), the author knows next tions. Strombirrid gastropods (Jackson et ul.)
The IJniversity 06 Chitago Press. 19%
g about them. Though he criticizes also declined in the Caribbean during thP
$(i5.00 hbk, $27.50 pbk (ix + 408 pages)
me in particular, and evolutionary biology in Plio-Pleistocene, but unlike the c:As and
lSBN II 226 38944 8
general, for ‘fuzzy word pictures’, I Suspect bryyozoans, they Showed a simultaneous in-
that the Past thing Behe wants is a scientific enuously stretched between Central and crease in alivt‘rsity in the Pacific.
ex~~a~~t~o~ for the origin Of cilia. Bfhe r&ly South America, the isthmus Of Panamip is
‘nc interest in m0lecuEar evolu- youngest BancP ccsrrnection brtwatdn two
s he never ~~~~~~~~~2d
On the sub- major continents. Its creation, although re-
in scientific journals? cent and iragile, produced both a major cor-
Behe states ‘the r2asOn that “interrupted ridor for the migration Of land plants and
genes”exist at all is still a mystery’, btit cites animals and a barrier for marine organisms.
none oi the ~~~~dred5of papers on their eve= is the key to many of
i&ion, ~~~ss~~~~y
un re Of the ‘selfish’ trans- grai~b~c~f patterns we
poS0n theorylo of t e 3ipecled following such a tern--Ð
of the closing of the Paoa~a~~~a~ perature depression or of southward migr-
ocean circulation, salinity, ant!, to sajme elt- atjon of northern @,a dtwi~g gk~id pWidS.