Unlocking the Mystery of Life Revisited

About a year and a half ago, I reviewed the NCSE’s attempts to critique the video documentary Unlocking the Mystery of Life. In preparing that review, I was disappointed to have to conclude that the NCSE not only had shown its colors as a less than objective organization, but had also utterly failed to provide any meaningful scientific critique of UML, despite blustery (and typically vague) accusations about the documentary’s scientific failings. In personal correspondence with the NCSE at the time, I was informed that a critique of the science contained in UML would be posted “in the very near future.” Unfortunately, no such critique has ever been posted, nor at this stage do I expect it ever will.

I also have corresponded with the two main outside experts that contributed to the NCSE critique, Andrea Bottaro and Darryl Domning, and although both were very kind and professional in their correspondence, I was left with the distinct impression that their concerns were not so much with the substance of UML as with the fact that UML was a perceived threat to the evolutionary enterprise and thus needed to be denounced. At any rate, Bottaro and Domning have certainly not provided any reasonable substantive criticisms and have failed to back up their original accusations of UML as “subtly designed to mislead” as Domning charged, or as a “systematic distortion of mainstream science” as Bottaro charged. Although it would be both appropriate and professional under the circumstances, I doubt we can expect a retraction of the initial charges. Yet I can only hope that my review and subsequent correspondence with Bottaro and Domning will at least give them pause the next time the NCSE comes seeking pawns to participate in its larger political objectives.

I, on the other hand, have come to the conclusion since writing my initial review that UML does contain a fundamental weakness that needs to be exposed. Specifically, I have had an opportunity in the intervening months to delve a bit deeper into cellular mechanisms and also took occasion to again watch UML a week or two ago. As a result, I believe it is appropriate to critique UML on the following point: the process of protein synthesis described in UML is woefully simplistic compared to the astounding integrated complexity of the process actually found in cells.

For example, UML talks about the nuclear pore complex being the “gatekeeper for traffic in and out of the cell,” but it does not provide any information about how this occurs. It speaks of the chain of amino acids being “directed” to the proper location and the folded protein being “shepherded” to its final destination. Yet it does not discuss the intricate mechanisms that perform the “directing” and the “shepherding.” The translation process is presented with little detail, although an entire documentary could be produced on that aspect alone. One does come away from UML with a strong sense of the intricate mechanisms and apparent design found in the cell. Yet UML’s presentation but scratches the surface.

The cellular mechanisms elucidated by modern science are astounding almost beyond description. Hopefully the creators of UML will have an opportunity in the future to prepare a subsequent documentary focusing more time and attention on some of these mechanisms. With more in depth coverage and with the additional new insights revealed by science, such a documentary would present a further powerful challenge to putative evolutionary mechanisms and even greater evidence of the design that underlies the mystery of life.

Eric Anderson

April 21, 2005