Episode Details

Three internationally-recognized, world experts on the bacterial flagellum connect the dots regarding the evolutionary origin of the flagellum, and draw some compelling comparisons to the evolutionary emergence of the Bible!

Three episodes ago, Dr. Michael Behe used the bacterial flagellum as Exhibit A in his defense of the Intelligent Design proposal. Last week, we heard Dr. Nicholas Matzke, who actually does cutting edge research on the flagellum, give his understanding of the bacterial flagellum, with comparisons to claims frequently made by the ID community.

In this episode, we hear three world-leading scientific experts on the flagellum discussing the latest scientific data on an amazing evolutionary journey which seems to explain the origin of the flagellum. Those three are Drs. Matthew Baker (University of New South Wales, Australia), Mark Pallen (University of East Anglia, UK), and Nick Matzke (University of Aukland, New Zealand).

Some of the technical points they discussed include:

• how to make direct measurements of individual flagellum motors freshly isolated from a test tube of bacteria
• why is there so much interest in the bacterial flagellum ….. why have so many researchers using such high-tech equipment studied this thing?
• the flagellum is not just one unchangeable thing (as ID proponents will often suggest); instead, the broad scientific community agrees that there are MANY different kinds of bacterial flagella (hundreds of thousands), each with different genetic sequences, and some of which seem to be missing parts, and yet still work for their hosts
• at the heart of two bacterial nanomachines there is a third nanomachine called “the type III secretion system” whose function is to squirt out proteins; the one in the flagellum squirts out the proteins that make the long propellor whip, while the one in “the injectosome” squirts out the toxins that the bacteria uses to capture its prey
• these are two examp