DARWIN DevolvesThe New Science About DNA

That Challenges Evolution

M ICH A EL J. BEH E

darwin devolves. Copyright © 2019 by Michael J. Behe. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.

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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data

Names: Behe, Michael J., author.Title: Darwin devolves : the new science about DNA that challenges evolution    / Michael J. Behe.Description: First edition. | New York, NY : HarperOne, 2019 | Includes    bibliographical references. Identifiers: LCCN 2018034062 (print) | LCCN 2018040030 (ebook) | ISBN    9780062842688 (e- book) | ISBN 9780062842619 (hardcover) | ISBN    9780062842664 (paperback) | ISBN 9780062842688 (digital edition)Subjects: LCSH: Evolution (Biology) | DNA. | Molecular evolution. | Darwin,    Charles, 1809–1882.Classification: LCC QH367.3 (ebook) | LCC QH367.3 .B427 2019 (print) | DDC    576.8—dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018034062

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Figure 1.1. Our understanding of evolution is much less certain than our understanding of either economics or weather forecasting.

“ In an effort to make our economic reporting and projections more accurate, our resident weatherman will be delivering the economic news.”

Table 1.1. Levels of Explanation

Level Example Typical Application

Regular direct Newton’s laws Motion of a body

Regular indirect Ideal gas law Container of gas

Manageably irregular Statistical association Smoking and cancer; malaria and sickle- cell gene

Hopelessly irregular None Detailed long- term weather forecasting, evolution

Spandrels of intelligence Side effect of mind Traffic jams, stock market bubbles

Intelligent causes Intended effect of mind Complex machinery

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Figure 2.1. Leg gears of the planthopper. The bar marked “20 μm” is less than a thousandth of an inch in length. (From M. Burrows and G. Sutton, “Interacting Gears Synchronize Propulsive Leg Movements in a Jumping Insect,” Science 341 (2013): 1254–56. Reprinted with permission from AAAS.)

20 µm

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Figure 2.2. Some cells act as living fiber- optic cables to channel light to rod and cone cells in the retina.

Figure 2.3. Top: The magnetosome chain requires supporting cell structures to keep it in a line. Bottom: When a gene for supporting material is deleted, magnetosomes are in disarray.

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Figure 2.4. Wheels within wheels. Cross section of a proposed model for counterrotating flagellar gears. The larger gears represent closely grouped individual flagella (see Appendix, Fig. A.1, p. 287). The smaller, counterrotating gears represent fibrils that minimize friction. The large circle is the boundary of the structure.

Figure 2.5. Alternative splicing of messenger RNA can yield multiple proteins. The boxes on the top represent exons; the lines connecting them represent introns. Splicing can produce different arrangements of the exons, making different proteins, shown on the bottom.

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Figure 3.1. Amino- acid sequence of the first forty positions of the alpha chain of hemoglobin from various species. Each letter is the abbreviation for a different kind of amino acid (v for valine, l for leucine, etc.). Differences from the human sequence are capitalized. A space is added after each ten letters just to facilitate viewing.

Table 3.1. The Five Major Concepts of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution

1. The nonconstancy of species (the basic theory of evolution)

2. The descent of all organisms from constant ancestors (branching evolution)

3. The gradualness of evolution (no saltations, no discontinuities)

4. The multiplication of species (the origin of diversity)

5. Natural selection

Table 3.2. Acceptance of Some of Darwin’s Theories by Early Evolutionists

Evolution Common Gradualness Populational Natural as Such Descent Speciation Selection

Darwin Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Haeckel Yes Yes Yes ? In part

Neo- Lamarckians Yes Yes Yes Yes No

T. H. Huxley Yes Yes No No No

de Vries Yes Yes No No No

T. H. Morgan Yes Yes No No Unimportant

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Figure 4.1. A frame from a session of the Game of Life depicting a “space rake” plus five “spaceships.” The relevance to biology is not apparent.

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Table 5.1. The Major Transitions in Evolution (after Maynard Smith and Szathmáry, 1995)

The major unanswered question in evolution is: What do the arrows represent?

Replicating molecules ➛ Populations of molecules in compartments

Independent replicators ➛ Chromosomes

RNA as gene and enzyme ➛ DNA and protein (genetic code)

Prokaryotes ➛ Eukaryotes

Asexual clones ➛ Sexual populations

Protists ➛ Animals, plants, fungi (cell differentiation)

Solitary individuals ➛ Colonies (nonreproductive castes)

Primate societies ➛ Human societies (language)

Figure 5.1. A giraffe walks near a termite mound. The DNA of the giraffe stores much more information than does the structure of the mound.

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Figure 6.1. Galápagos finch species exhibit limited variation.

Geospiza difficilis

Geospiza

fortis

Geospiza

fuliginosa

Platyspiza crassirostris

Geo

spiz

a m

agni

rost

risGeo

spiza

conir

ostris

Camarhynchus

hellobates

Cam

arhy

nchu

s pa

llidus

Camar

hync

hus

parvu

lus

Camarhynchus

pauperCamarhynchus

psittacula

Certhidea

olivacea

Pinaroloxias inornataGeospiza

scandens

EDGE

CRU

SH

ING BEAK PROBE AND CRUSH PROBING BEAK

MAI

NLY

PLANT FOOD M

AINLY ANIMAL FOOD

TIP BITING BEAK

Table 6.1. Classification of Galápagos Finches and Their Ancestor

Level Ancestor Descendant

Domain Eukaryota Eukaryota

Kingdom Animalia Animalia

Phylum Chordata Chordata

Class Aves Aves

Order Passeriformes Passeriformes

Family Thraupidae Thraupidae

Genus Unknown Geospiza, Camarhynchus, Certhidea, Pinaroloxias

Species Unknown Various

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Table 6.2. Classification of African Great Lake Cichlids and Their Ancestor

Level Ancestor Descendant

Domain Eukaryota Eukaryota

Kingdom Animalia Animalia

Phylum Chordata Chordata

Class Actinopterygii Actinopterygii

Order Perciformes Perciformes

Family Cichlidae Cichlidae ≈ The Family LineGenus Unknown Various

Species Unknown Various

Figure 6.2. Cichlids of Lakes Tanganyika and Malawi. Fish species that evolved independently converged on similar forms.

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Table 6.3. New Classifications Produced by Luxuriantly Evolving Groups

Species Genera Families Higher Classifications

Finches 14 4 0 0

Cichlids ~1500 ~75 0 0

Anoles ~300 3 0 0

Honeycreepers 55 24 0 0

Fruit flies ~1000 2 0 0

Beetles 239 1 0 0

Silverswords 50 3 0 0

Lobelias 126 6 0 0 The Family Line

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Figure 7.1. Mutations at many different points in a gene will break or damage it. Comparatively very few mutations might constructively improve a gene.

Figure 7.2. As cute as dogs are, much of the variation between breeds is due to devolution— to broken or degraded genes.

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Figure 8.1. Cartoon of a simple metal rod “evolving” into a more specialized tool, the hammer, as described in the text. The new, complex shape hinders it from evolving into other specialized tools, such as a fishing rod.

Table 8.1. Dollo’s Law Compared to Dollo’s Timeless Law

Dollo’s Law Dollo’s Timeless Law

Any evolutionary pathway from a past Any evolutionary pathway from a . . . complex functional state of a protein to complex functional state of a protein a significantly different future functional to a significantly different . . . functional state of the same protein is unlikely to state of the same protein is unlikely to be reversed by random mutation and be traversed by random mutation and natural selection. The more the states natural selection. The more the states differ, the much less likely that a differ, the much less likely that a reversible pathway exists. traversable pathway exists.

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Figure 8.2. The different individual geometric shapes on the left represent individual proteins that cannot bind to one another. In order to bind, their shapes would first have to be modified into complementary forms, represented by the jigsaw puzzle on the right. This is intended to illustrate the enormous evolutionary problem of making multiprotein molecular machines, even from individual preexisting proteins.

Figure 8.3. Pioneers missing different tools might settle in alternative environments, as discussed in the text.

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Figure 9.1. A common mechanical mousetrap needs multiple pieces that are themselves complex.

Figure 9.2. A complex gearbox. If a simple mousetrap is irreducible, so is virtually all complex machinery.

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Figure 9.3. Hemoglobin simplified. To highlight various features, different renderings of a protein can show different amounts of detail. Yet life requires all of the detail. (A) A space- filling model of the thousands of atoms of hemo-globin. (B) A less detailed model with line segments connecting Cα- carbons of successive amino- acid residues. (C) A simple cartoon depicting the four subunits of hemoglobin as geometric squares, each of which can bind one oxygen molecule.

A B C

Figure 9.4. Even the simplest mini– irreducibly complex features are huge headaches for Darwinism. (A) A hook- and- eye latch. (B) Two cysteine groups forming a disulfide bond.

A B

Figure 9.5. The water is rising quickly. Should the man wait for delivery of a complex pump that’s on a ten- year back order from the hardware store? Or should he punch a hole in the wall to let the water drain out?

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Figure A.1. The bacterial flagellum.

bushing L ringP ring

Hook (universal joint)Filament (propeller)

Outer membranePeptidoglycan layerPeriplasmic space

Inner (plasma) membrane

statorstudsC ring

S ringM ring rotorRod (drive shaft)

{

{{

Table A.1. Symptoms of Mice with Gene Knockouts

Lacking plasminogen Lacking fibrinogen Lacking both

Thrombosis No clotting No clotting

Ulcers Hemorrhage Hemorrhage

High mortality Death in pregnancy Death in pregnancy

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Figure A.2. The blood- clotting cascade seesaw, alternating between promoting and inhibiting coagulation. To change the balance, degrading one side would be very much quicker than strengthening the other side.

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c r e d i t s

Figure 1.1: Aaron Bacall, www.CartoonStock.com.Figure 2.2: From A. Reichenbach and A. Bringmann, “New Functions of Müller Cells,”

Glia 61 (2013): 651–78. Copyright John Wiley & Sons. Reprinted with permission.Figure 2.3: A. Komeili, “Molecular Mechanisms of Compartmentalization and

Biomineralization in Magnetotactic Bacteria,” FEMS Microbiology Review 36 (2012): 232–55. Permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.

Figure 2.5: From J. Ruan et al., “Architecture of a Flagellar Apparatus in the Fast- Swimming Magnetotactic Bacterium MO-1,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109 (2012): 20643–48. Reprinted with permission of the National Academy of Sciences.

Figure 4.1: David Eppstein, Wikimedia Commons, public domain.Figure 5.1: Simon Greig, Shutterstock.Figure 6.1: From P. R. Grant and B. R. Grant, How and Why Species Multiply: The

Radiation of Darwin’s Finches (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008). Republished with permission of Princeton University Press. Permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.

Figure 6.2: From T. D. Kocher et al., “Similar Morphologies of Cichlid Fish in Lakes Tanganyika and Malawi Are Due to Convergence,” Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 2 (1993): 158–65. Permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.

Figure 7.2: Liliya Kulianionak, Shutterstock.Figure 9.1: Ilin Sergey, Shutterstock.Figure 9.2: Yutanga, iStock.Figure 9.5: Schab, Shutterstock.Figure A.1: From D. Voet and J. G. Voet, Biochemistry, 2nd ed. (New York: Wiley, 1995).

Copyright © 1995 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Reprinted with permission.Figure A.2: Gearstd, Shutterstock.

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