The Challenge of Complex Adaptation for Evolution

Molecular biologist Douglas Axe explains the challenging problem of complex adaptation for evolution. According to Axe, complex adaptation is a problem because “you have to get lots of things together, none of which on its own would be beneficial, in order to get some new thing.” This talk is from Axe’s online course, “Douglas Axe Investigates Molecular Biology and Intelligent Design” at DiscoveryU.org. You can sign up for the course at www.discoveryu.org/courses/pr….

Douglas Axe is Maxwell Professor of Molecular Biology at Biola University, the founding Director of Biologic Institute, the founding Editor of the science journal BIO-Complexity, and the author of Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed. After completing his PhD at Caltech, he held postdoctoral and research scientist positions at the University of Cambridge and the Cambridge Medical Research Council Centre. His research, which examines the functional and structural constraints on the evolution of proteins and protein systems, has been featured in many scientific journals, including the Journal of Molecular Biology, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, BIO-Complexity, and Nature, and in such books as Signature in the Cell and Darwin’s Doubt by Stephen Meyer and Life’s Solution by Simon Conway Morris.