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Comment on "Evo-Devo and the lungfish: the last gasp of intelligent design"

Department of Pediatrics, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA Harbor Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA

¹Correspondence: RB1, Box 446, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA. E-mail: jtorday{at}gcrc.rei.edu

We have read the editorial entitled "Evo-Devo and the lungfish: the last gasp of intelligent design" (1) with great interest. The mere thought that Intelligent Design could even be put forward in this day and age is mind boggling to most scientists. But with all due respect, merely citing that the transition from water to land was accompanied by the appearance of the aldosterone receptor does not explain how this may have occurred based on natural selection. Without a mechanism for this process, the evolutionists are telling Kipling "Just So Stories" that are no more credible than those of the Intelligent Design proponents, which is why the Intelligent Designers maintain credibility with the lay public. We have published several position papers showing how the lung may have evolved from the swim bladder based on cell–cell signaling mediated by a specific gene regulatory network that functionally integrates the structure and function of the lung from fish to man (2 3 4) , providing a testable mechanism for selection based on stretch-regulation of the surfactant system. We predict that this mechanistic comparative functional genomic evo-devo approach will ultimately elucidate the selection pressure for the aldosterone receptor of the kidney as well.

FOOTNOTES

The opinions expressed in editorials, essays, letters to the editor, and other articles comprising the Up Front section are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of FASEB or its constituent societies. The FASEB Journal welcomes all points of view and many voices. We look forward to hearing these in the form of op-ed pieces and/or letters from its readers addressed to journals@faseb.org.

REFERENCES

1. Weissmann, G. (2007) Evo-Devo and the lungfish: the last gasp of intelligent design. FASEB J. 21,1623-1626[Free Full Text]
2. Torday, J. S., Rehan, V. K. (2004) Deconvoluting lung evolution using functional/comparative genomics. Am. J. Resp. Cell Mol. Biol. 31,8-12[Abstract/Free Full Text]
3. Torday, J. S., Rehan, V. K. (2007) The evolutionary continuum from lung development to homeostasis and repair. Am. J. Physiol. Lung Cell Mol. Physiol. 292,L608-611[Abstract/Free Full Text]
4. Torday, J. S., Rehan, V., Perry, S. F., Hicks, J. W., ang, T., Maina, J. N., Weibel, E. R., Sommer, R. J., Hsia, C. C. W., Torday, J. S. Deconvoluting Lung Evolution: from phenotypes to gene regulatory networks. Integr. Comp. Biol. (in press)

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