What’s even more striking is that this “near-perfect” level of efficiency is maintained throughout a “broad range” of operation conditions. It may well be as close to perfect as is physically possible. In their graph, the error bars transverse the slope for 100 percent efficiency (that is, for conversion of chemical energy to mechanical work). Īny deviation from perfection, however, could be due to experimental error.
Efficiency of chemomechanical energy conversion by this motor is always near-perfect under different ATP hydrolysis energy (Δ G ATP) conditions. It is a rotary motor enzyme and its catalytic portion F 1-ATPase hydrolyzes ATP to drive rotation of the central ? subunit. They use “near-perfect” in the title and throughout the paper:ĪTP synthase produces most of the ATP in respiratory and photosynthetic cells. The authors of the first paper, published in PNAS , seem hesitant to use the word “perfect” in their description of ATP synthase, the machine that generates energy currency for most cellular processes in all living things (see our animation of this amazing machine here). And two more recent papers suggest that, if anything, the evidence for design has only grown stronger. Was the perfection of cellular machines an illusion in 1985? Has Darwinian theory risen to the challenge in the meantime? Denton’s prediction was made before details of ATP synthase, the bacterial flagellum, and kinesin had come to light (see Denton’s 2014 description of kinesins and myosins here). The counter-position of natural selection should correspondingly weaken. If the design argument is scientifically credible, it should get stronger with time. The credibility of natural selection is weakened, therefore, not only by the perfection we have already glimpsed but by the expectation of further as yet undreamt of depths of ingenuity and complexity. In practically every field of fundamental biological research ever-increasing levels of design and complexity are being revealed at an ever-increasing rate. It would be an illusion to think that what we are aware of at present is any more than a fraction of the full extent of biological design.
He predicted that what was known at the time was sure to grow, concluding: He described molecular machines in the cell as phenomena inexplicable by chance. In his 1985 book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Michael Denton posed “The Puzzle of Perfection” as a challenge to Darwinism. Photo: A humpback whale, by Whit Welles Wwelles14 / CC BY ().
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