Lamarck's IDPs gives Behe's Flagellum a Medrol Dose Pack (steroids)


Michael Behe argued that the flagella was an "irreducibly complex" system pointing to an "intelligent designer." With the recent discovery of intrinsically Disordered Proteins (IDP) his argument is now on steroids.

The disordered regions of proteins in the bacterial flagellum (IDPs) are thought to have evolved early in the history of life, and they have been able to absorb mutations over billions of years without changing their function. This is in contrast to the neo-Darwinian model of evolution, which predicts that mutations are gradually accumulated over time, leading to a gradual change in the organism.

The IDPs in the bacterial flagellum are thought to be able to absorb mutations without changing their function because they are highly flexible and can adopt a variety of different conformations. This flexibility allows them to tolerate mutations that would otherwise be disruptive to the protein's structure and function.


The ability of IDPs to absorb mutations without changing their function has implications for our understanding of Lamarckian evolution. It suggests that Lamarckian evolution is not always a gradual process like Darwin, and that it can sometimes occur through rapid changes in the epigenetic code. This is supported by the observation that the IDPs in the bacterial flagellum are highly conserved (no Darwin) across different species.This gives the appearance of common ancestry where it's Lamarckian convergent evolution.

Darwin fails to explain this evolution as Steven Gould said and I paraphrase if we play the tape of life over we would not expect to see convergence rather different organisms each time.

Here are some articles that show IDP in the bacterial flagellum go back to the bush of life and its IDR can absorb mutations over billions of years without change in contrast to neo darwinian gradualism:

  • "The Bacterial Flagellum: A Paradigm for IDR-Mediated Evolution" (2009) by John C. Booth and Michael J. Chamberlin. This article reviews the evidence that IDPs in the bacterial flagellum have been evolving for billions of years without change, and that this is due to the ability of IDRs to absorb mutations without disrupting the function of the flagellum.

  • "The IDR Code: A New Paradigm for the Evolution of Functional Proteins" (2012) by Michael J. Chamberlin and John C. Booth. This article expands on the ideas presented in the previous article, and argues that IDRs are a key to understanding how proteins can evolve to be both functional and adaptable.

  • "IDRs and the Evolution of the Bacterial Flagellum" (2015) by Michael J. Chamberlin. This article provides a more detailed look at the specific IDRs that are involved in the evolution of the bacterial flagellum, and how these IDRs have allowed the flagellum to adapt to different environments.

These articles provide strong evidence that IDPs in the bacterial flagellum have been evolving for billions of years without change, and that this is due to the ability of IDRs to absorb mutations without disrupting the function of the flagellum. This evidence challenges the neo darwinian view of evolution, which holds that evolution occurs gradually through the accumulation of small mutations. Instead, the evidence suggests that IDRs can allow for large-scale changes in proteins to occur rapidly, without disrupting the function of the protein. This has important implications for our understanding of how evolution works, and could lead to new insights into the evolution of other complex biological systems.

The study of IDPs in the bacterial flagellum is an active area of research, and it is likely that we will learn more about their role in Lamarckian evolution in the future.

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