Singled-celled eukaryotic organisms known as Tetrahymena contain many features that make them a good candidate model for front-loading evolution. At first glance, there does not seem to be anything all that special about them. They are pear-shaped protozoa that are widely distributed around the globe, mainly found in freshwater. Their lifestyle is predatory, where they will eat just about any organic substance they come into contact with. And their cell surface is covered with cilia, reflecting the fact that they are closely related to Paramecia, a protozoan that is familiar to all first-year biology students.

Several years ago, I noted one feature of Tetrahymena that helped us approach evolution through the perspective of front-loading: the elimination of histone protein H1 does not seem to have any deleterious effect in this protozoan, while H1 is essential in a complex metazoan state. While I will not expand on this story, it turns out Tetrahymena has more to offer when it comes to helping us envision the front-loading and design of evolution.

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This method mapped three stages of folding. First, the short-range contacts between amino acids that are very close to each other were mapped, revealing the initial nonpolar (hydrophobic) folds. The next two stages show folds that occur between points that are farther from each other along the polypeptide chain. These secondary folds may attach two or three hydrophobic pockets. – Here

For some reason, this research reminds me of something.

Here are some of the summary comments from one of the book’s editors:

Thank you for this truly engaging project….I have no particular bias on this issue, with the exception of one against its current politicization. I’m lucky to have some excellent molecular biologists as friends, though my science background isn’t a formal one……Overall, you put forward a fair and well reasoned argument. Its great strength is that it attempts to circumvent a polarized issue by providing a fresh interpretation, and then provides a tool for progress. You bolster your points with many good, specific examples, and on the whole you present your topic in a smart, accessible style. Any reader interested in the topic will be lucky to lay hands on your book…..On the whole, my experience of your argument was that it started out shaky and gradually got much stronger. This may be a natural consequence of how readers approach a new idea, guarded at first, and more accepting as the writer earns their trust……Your book was a delightful intellectual project, and I can’t wait to see it in print.

An interesting consequence of these findings, among others, is the support to the hypothesis that life came from outside Earth with the additional indication that it was already present in those materials that accreted to form the solar planetary system. - Here

Here

Intelligent design theorist Paul Nelson argues that it is time for ID proponents to abandon the socio-political activity associated with ID and instead focus on using ID as a research guide to understand the living world. Ed Brayton, who is co-founder of Michigan Citizens for Science and The Panda’s Thumb, finds himself agreeing with Nelson:

he’s certainly right to point out that the truth or falsehood of ID and/or evolution will not be determined by a school board vote or a judicial decision, but by whether they are actually able to produce anything that helps us understand the world or not.

In general, I think he’s right when he takes his fellow IDers to task for spending so much time and energy on getting any hint of ID into science classrooms rather than focusing on research and development of their ideas.

In light of these comments, I’m struck by the timely nature of The Design Matrix. The “target audience” for this book is not skeptics of design, as I provide no powerful demonstration of design that mandates acknowledgment. Nor is the “target audience” those who wish to insert intelligent design into the public school curriculum, as the book will provide no ammunition for such an agenda.

The target audience are those people who find themselves agreeing with Nelson and Brayton. If you are sympathetic, or at least, open-minded, about Intelligent Design playing some role in biotic history, The Design Matrix was written for you. The book may not solve any problems in any immediate sense, but it does make signfiicant steps for those who want to begin thinking about Intelligent Design in postive terms.