“Charles Darwin presented On the Origin of Species to a disbelieving world in 1859—three years after Clerk Maxwell had published “On Faraday’s Lines of Force”... Maxwell’s theory has by a process of absorption become part of quantum field theory, and so a part of the great canonical structure created by mathematical physics.  By contrast, the final triumph of Darwinian theory, although vividly imagined by biologists, remains, along with world peace and Esperanto, on the eschatological horizon of contemporary thought.”
—David Berlinski, “The Deniable Darwin,” Darwinism, Design, and Public Education (Mich. State, 2003), p. 157.

Leading Evolutionist Provides His Best Proof: HIV   05/30/2006    
[Guest article]  Sarah Crown reports in the Guardian Unlimited (“Why Creationism Is Wrong”) on biologist Steve Jones’ speech to a crowd at an English bank holiday, the Hay Festival:

The aim of the talk, he explained, is to establish the testability and therefore prove the truth of evolution.  After gaining the audience’s sympathy with a few well-aimed gags at the creationists’ expense ...he waltzed them off at top speed on a whistle-stop tour of evidence for that evolution, this fundamental theory which he described as “the grammar of biology”.

“...the progression of the HIV epidemic.  This example proves illustrative when it comes to the other great principle of evolution, natural selection: if you contract the HIV virus, Jones explained, your chance of remaining asymptomatic depends on your possession of a protective gene.  Chimpanzees, in whom the virus first appeared, tend to have the protective variant; in Africa it is becoming more common; in Europe it remains rare.  However, said Jones, if he were to make an evolutionary prediction, it is that in 1000 years time, every one of us will possess the protective gene, rendering the HIV virus no more harmful than flu.

He stuck with the example of HIV in his concluding examination of the ways in which we as humans are evolving now.  While we have as a species evolved very little on a genetic level for many thousands of years, Jones said, there are other ways in which we have, quite clearly, evolved dramatically.  Despite our extreme physical susceptibility to HIV, for example, we do, unlike chimps, have the power to contain the epidemic, via education and the development of drugs – cultural and intellectual evolution, in other words.  “There are,“ he concluded, “intelligent designers out there.  But they work for the pharmaceutical industry.“

The only problem, in the end, is that Jones was – to use an inappropriately religious metaphor – preaching to the converted this morning.  One is left wishing that the 100m American creationists – or the one in three people in the UK who allegedly believe that the universe was designed – could be made to listen to him talk.  Surely even they would find it difficult to resist him.

That’s it?  Surely there must be something more concrete than this.  Again, we have witnessed microevolution slipped in cleverly in place of some real evidence for macroevolution
    So, the evidence that we evolved is that we now have the ability to design intelligently, by evolving it.  The evidence of millions of years of random events worked on by natural selection is a creature that can design intelligently.  No proof here – only a logical non-sequitur
    They would find him difficult to resist only because they have never been taught the truth.  Unless Jones can, in the words of ID champion Phillip Johnson, follow the evidence wherever it leads, he is as much a preacher of religion as any pastor on the podium on Sunday morning
    The evidence here of course, leads nowhere if one if trying to reach Evolutionary Promised Land.  Weeding out information from the human genetic code to gain resistance to HIV is not evidence of evolution, it is evidence of loss of information.  It is evidence of natural selection, but where did the information come from in the first place?  Jones skipped right by that problem, and for good reason: he had no answer.
Next headline on: Darwinism and Evolutionary Theory • Intelligent Design

A Challenge to our Victorian Ethics: Humans and Chimps Interbreeding   05/22/2006    
[Guest article]  Newspapers chipped away at Christian ethics last week with articles describing evidence that “early humans” bred (hybridized) with their supposed ancestors, the chimpanzees, for millions of years after becoming another species.  The New York Times reports:

David Page, a human geneticist at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, said the design of the new analysis was “really beautiful, with all the pieces of the puzzle laid out.”  Whether the hybridization will turn out to be the right solution remains to be seen, “but for the moment I can’t think of a better explanation,” he said.  “These crucial events in early human evolution are hard to judge dispassionately”, Dr. Page noted.  “We’d like to have a more Victorian view of our genome,” he said.  “This reminds us that we are really animals and gives us a glimpse of our past and a story that we might like to have told in a different way.”

The genetic divergence time between two species varies substantially across the genome, conveying important information about the timing and process of speciation.  Here we develop a framework for studying this variation and apply it to about 20 million base pairs of aligned sequence from humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and more distantly related primates. Human-chimpanzee genetic divergence varies from less than 84% to more than 147% of the average, a range of more than 4 million years.  Our analysis also shows that human-chimpanzee speciation occurred less than 6.3 million years ago and probably more recently, conflicting with some interpretations of ancient fossils.  Most strikingly, chromosome X shows an extremely young genetic divergence time, close to the genome minimum along nearly its entire length.  These unexpected features would be explained if the human and chimpanzee lineages initially diverged, then later exchanged genes before separating permanently.

Anthropologist Jeffrey H. Schwartz of the University of Pittsburgh sees no merit in the new findings.  Reich’s team looked for data to support an assumption of close genetic ties between humans and chimps but skimmed over evidence of human similarities to other primates, Schwartz asserts.  The hybridization hypothesis “pushes the limits of credulity,” Schwartz says.

So what was really found in this study?  Evidence of evolution, or was evolution just assumed?  The StarNewsOnline article reports:

A principal finding is that the X chromosomes of humans and chimps appear to have diverged about 1.2 million years more recently than the other chromosomes... One explanation for this finding, Reich’s team says, is that there was a hybridization between the recently separated chimp and human lineages.

The principal finding of the study was not that the X chromosomes appear to have diverged over 1.2 million years more recently than other chromosomes.  This just assumes evolution and takes off from there.  The principal finding was that there is less percentage difference between the human and chimp X chromosomes than between other chromosomes.  That this happened because humans and chimps were hybridizing is an explanation for the difference, not a finding, and is based on the assumption of Evolution and Long Ages.  Hybridization is just speculation, however, it gets good headlines.  When you have no evidence, speculation is all you have, and there is no shortage of it.  Dr. Reich is quoted in the StarNewsOnline report:

...chimpanzee ancestors, well-adapted for living off fruit in tropical forests, seem to have been adept at spinning off variations, such as gorillas, who live on vegetation, and the human lineage, which exploited the drier woodlands that opened up between the forests... Reich said.

So now we not only know a bit about early man’s sex life, but also what they ate and where they lived.  And all this from variations in gene frequencies.  What will they come up with next?  Would you believe sexism?  Notice this astonishing claim from PoliticalGateway.com:  “Geneticists have also found that women are biologically closer to chimpanzees than men are.  That is because the Y chromosome, which only men carry, has changed more than the X chromosome.”
Next headline on: Early Man • Genetics

While scientists, like Leonardo DaVinci, looked to nature for inspiration centuries ago, biomimetics has recently caught on as a hot area of research at universities across the country.  Last year, Georgia Tech launched the Center for Biologically Inspired Design (CBID) as a way to encourage more of the interdisciplinary research that was already taking place among research groups.  Now, the center boasts 20 members comprised of researchers from various fields of engineering, biology, chemistry, psychology, applied physiology and architecture.

• Worm brains:  How tiny worms express genes might yield brain-inspired sensors.
• Cat balance:  Learning from cats and frogs (yes, frogs) and the way their muscles produce balance might yield better prosthetic devices for the handicapped.
• Fish teeth:  Fish jaws can help us better understand the mechanical properties of jaws and teeth under stress.
• Spider silk:  Spider web studies are improving elasticity of artificial materials.
• Butterfly wing structure:  The arrangement of butterfly scales looks promising for structural patterning.
• Gecko glue:  The dry adhesive properties of gecko hairs are inspiring new artificial adhesives.
• Diatom strength:  Patterns and processes in the construction of diatom shells help nanotechnologists build reinforced, shatterproof glass and porcelain.

Q: How did the Animal Plan It?  A: Not by watching the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Channel, but through the Discovery Channel of its own built-in Design Network.
    The evolution talk in these biomimetics stories (when it occurs at all) is, as Phillip Skell phrases it, “brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss” (02/28/2006).  What is really inspiring this explosion in productive research?  It’s the D word: biological design.  Once the researchers realize that the Charlie mumbo jumbo is only a bad habit, a traditional password in scientific circles that has lost its authority, a holy undergarment that only itches and gets in the way, productivity will be liberated in this exciting field.  Pretty soon the handicapped may be leaping over tall buildings like Superman and you may be scaling buildings like Spiderman.  Go, Bioneers!
Next headline on: Intelligent Design • Terrestrial Zoology • Mammals • Marine Life • Biomimetics

One expert called the discovery the first substantial evidence of group living by large meat-eaters other than tyrannosaurs like T. rex.  The creature, which apparently measured more than 40 feet long, is called Mapusaurus roseae.  The discovery of Mapusaurus included bones from at least seven to nine of the beasts, suggesting the previously unknown animal may have lived and hunted in groups.  That hunting strategy might have allowed it to attack even bigger beasts, huge plant-eating dinosaurs...  Coria noted the dig showed evidence of social behavior in Mapusaurus.  The excavation found hundreds of bones from several Mapusaurus individuals but none from any other creature.  That suggests the animals were together before they died, Coria said.  Perhaps they hunted in packs, though there is no direct evidence for that, he said in an e-mail.  Currie, in a statement from his university, speculated that pack hunting may have allowed Mapusaurus to prey on the biggest known dinosaur, Argentinosaurus, a 125-foot-long plant-eater.  Holtz called the finding the first substantive evidence of group living by giant two-legged carnivores other than tyrannosaurs. It’s not clear whether the animals cooperated in hunting, as wolves or lions do, or simply mobbed their prey or just gathered around after one of them made a kill, he said.

The only difference between this find and others is that there were no other animal bones mixed in, and yet this is called “substantial evidence” of group living.  Some scientists feel a need to answer questions that are beyond the ability of piles of bones to answer, such as the behavior of these animals.  This leads to unjustified speculations such as those found here.  Notice the large amount of qualifiers in the above excerpt: might have, suggests, speculated.  Such just-so stories add an air of respectability to the Big Story: Evolution, but the only real facts we have here are that a jumble of bones was found, all of the same species, all in one place, and with no other species mixed in.  If you took off Old Earth glasses and put on Young Earth glasses, you would see just what one would expect the Genesis Flood to produce.
—Don K.
Next headline on: Dinosaurs • Fossils

“[Our] analyses suggest that several key elements of cactus ecological function were established prior to the evolution of the cactus life form,” explain the authors.  “Such a sequence may be common in evolution, but it has rarely been documented as few studies have incorporated physiological, ecological, anatomical, and phylogenetic data.”

The press release is shamefully titled, “How did cactuses evolve?”  It should be titled, “Did cacti evolve?”  Apparently not; they were already adapted for their water use lifestyle from the start.  If “this sequence is common in evolution,” where the function already exists before the evolution begins, it sounds like creation, not evolution.
    Enough with the Darwinian tales.  Focus instead on the design features of these amazing plants.  The article rightly states, “The cactus form is often heralded as a striking example of the tight relationship between form and function in plants.  A succulent, long-lived photosynthetic system allows cacti to survive periods of extreme drought while maintaining well-hydrated tissues.”  That is design, folks, not evolution.
Next headline on: Plants • Evolution

It goes without saying that we are stuck with the Universe we have.  Nevertheless, we would like to go beyond simply describing our observed Universe, and try to understand why it is that way rather than some other way.  When considering both the state in which we find our current Universe, and the laws of physics it obeys, we discover features that seem remarkably unnatural to us.  Physicists and cosmologists have been exploring increasingly ambitious ideas in an attempt to explain how surprising aspects of our Universe can arise from simple dynamical principles.

What makes a situation ‘natural’?  Ever since Newton, we have divided the description of physical systems into two parts: the configuration of the system, characterizing its particular state at some specific time, and the dynamical laws governing its evolution.  For either part of this description, we have an intuitive notion that certain possibilities are more robust than others.  When we come across a situation that seems unnatural or finely tuned, physicists seize upon it as a clue pointing towards some underlying mechanism that made it that way.  Such clues can occasionally be misleading, but they often serve to guide our thinking about how we can extend our understanding into unknown domains.

Given this situation, physicists have been exploring dramatic extensions of our known theories, in an attempt to provide a larger context in which our apparently unnatural Universe is seen to make perfect sense.  Interestingly, attempts to account for both the low entropy of the early Universe and the disparate energy scales of fundamental physics lead us to a similar idea: that the local Universe we observe is part of a much larger ensemble.  This casts new light on the problems of naturalness, while raising vexing issues of its own; considerable advances in both theory and experiment will be necessary before we can decide whether we are learning the appropriate lessons from the clues provided by nature.

It is worth emphasizing that the only role of inflation is to explain the initial conditions of the observable Universe.  And at this it does quite a good job: inflation predicts that the Universe should be spatially flat, and should have a scale-free spectrum of adiabatic density perturbations, both of which have been verified to respectable precision by observations of the cosmic microwave background.  But we are perfectly free to imagine that these features are simply part of the initial conditions—indeed, both spatial flatness and scale-free perturbations were investigated long before inflation.  The only reason to invoke inflation is to provide a reason why such an initial condition would be natural.
    However, as Penrose and others have argued, there is a skeleton in the inflationary closet, at least as far as entropy is concerned.  The fact that the initial proto-inflationary patch must be smooth and dominated by dark energy implies that it must have a very low entropy itself; reasonable estimates for this entropy SI range from about 1 to 10²⁰.  Thus, among randomly chosen initial conditions, the likelihood of finding an appropriate proto-inflationary region is actually much less than simply finding the conditions of the conventional Big Bang model (or, for that matter, of our Universe ten minutes ago).  It would seem that the conditions required to start inflation are less natural than those of the conventional Big Bang.

In the first case [i.e., we were lucky], there are two separate possibilities: either we are really lucky, in the sense that the observed hierarchies are truly unnatural and have no deeper explanation, or there exist unknown dynamical mechanisms that make these hierarchies perfectly natural.  The latter possibility [environmental selection] is obviously more attractive, although it is hard to tell whether such dynamical explanation will eventually be forthcoming.  Environmental selection, sometimes discussed in terms of the ‘anthropic principle’, has received renewed attention since the discovery of the dark energy.  The basic idea is undeniably true [sic]: if our observable Universe is only a tiny patch of a much larger ‘multiverse’ with a wide variety of local environments, there is a selection effect due to the fact that life can only arise in those regions that are hospitable to the existence of life.  Of course, to give this tautology any explanatory relevance, it is necessary to imagine that such a multiverse exists.

More importantly, limitations in our current ability to calculate expectation values in the multiverse are not evidence that there is no truth to the idea itself.  If we eventually decide that environmental selection plays no important role in explaining the observed parameters of nature, it will be because we come to believe that the parameters we measure locally are also characteristic of regions beyond our horizon, not because the very concept of the multiverse is aesthetically unacceptable or somehow a betrayal of the Enlightenment project of understanding nature through reason and evidence.

Naturalness is an ambiguous guide in the quest to understand our Universe better.  The observation that a situation seems unnatural within a certain theoretical context does not carry anything like the force of an actual contradiction between theory and experiment.  And despite our best efforts, naturalness is something that is hard to quantify objectively.

The ultimate goal is undoubtedly ambitious: to construct a theory that has definite consequences for the structure of the multiverse, such that this structure provides an explanation for how the observed features of our local domain can arise naturally, and that the same theory makes predictions that can be directly tested through laboratory experiments and astrophysical observations.  To claim success in this programme, we will need to extend our theoretical understanding of cosmology and quantum gravity considerably, both to make testable predictions and to verify that some sort of multiverse picture really is a necessary consequence of these ideas.  Only further investigation will allow us to tell whether such a programme represents laudable aspiration or misguided hubris.

This article is filled with fodder for philosophers of science, historians of science, and theologians.  Modern cosmology has followed the Enlightenment dream, only to end up in the middle of nowhere, bankrupt.  The attempt to naturalize everything has pushed them out of scientific bounds; they have no equations, no predictions, no falsification criteria, no confirming data, and no reason to continue the quest other than that they find “natural” explanations more “attractive.”  This basically admits that naturalism, as opposed to theism, is only a preference.  Carroll cannot even explain what natural means; he debunks the word as ambiguous and unquantifiable in one paragraph, only to hope, a few sentences later, that science will some day find a natural explanation.  Substitute a nonsense word for natural in those sentences, to see that this makes scientific naturalism a meaningless and futile quest.
    This paper arms the intelligent design movement in the current fight over the definition of science.  The Darwinists and other materialists insist that the rules of science require only naturalistic explanations, regardless of one’s personal religious beliefs.  But if scientific naturalists cannot even define what natural means, they have no case for insisting on that rule.  Why should materialistic cosmologists be permitted to speculate about unobservable entities beyond the reach of observation and testability, and get their speculations published in Nature, without competition?  And, why could not a theistic cosmologist turn a meaningless word to his advantage, and call intelligent design a “natural” explanation?
    For the most part, Carroll wrote thoughtfully and perceptively, except for one thing: he totally ignored theism as an option.  He is like Robert Jastrow’s mountain climber, scrambling over the last highest peak, only to find a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.  Yet he doesn’t even bother to say Howdy.  Instead, he walks over to them and tries to describe them with equations, and puzzles about how they emerged by a natural process.  As he does this, one of the theologians taps on his head and says, “Hello?  Anybody home?” yet Carroll continues, now trying to naturalize the pain he feels in his skull.
    You have to feel sorry for the Enlightenment secular scientist.  Granted a fair measure of success explaining physical phenomena by natural causes, he has attempted to extrapolate this programme to all the universe, only to find, as with Gödel’s theorem, it cannot be done from within: one cannot prove the consistency of a system from within the system.  Extending the system into a hypothetical “natural” multiverse does nothing to change the predicament.  Naturalism has led to a self-refuting absurdity.
    Whenever a path of inquiry leads to absurdity, it may be a clue all right, but a clue that real understanding lies elsewhere.  Accelerating on the wrong road only accelerates lostness.  Progress may require a new direction, even backtracking.  By analogy, though naturalism may have done well explaining the operation of the car, it cannot justify the direction it is traveling.  A futile insistence on naturalism is like the stubborn driver with “misguided hubris” insisting he doesn’t need to stop for directions, though he may be an excellent mechanic.
    To complete T. S. Eliot’s circuit – to arrive back from where you started and to understand it for the first time – consider taking a fresh look at an old, musty book on the home coffee table.  It just might, after all you’ve learned, seem remarkably perceptive and insightful – you know, that book that begins, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”^*  Maybe it’s no coincidence that most of your fellow sentient beings have found that explanation, without the long detour, perfectly natural.
Next headline on:  Cosmology • Physics • Intelligent Design • Bible and Theology

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^*If you continue reading to the end of the book, you will learn about a startling and hopeful consequence of its opening premise: we are not stuck with the Universe we have.

Like Humpty Dumpty, a comet is more easily broken than put together as it makes its great fall toward the sun.  This destructive process cannot be maintained for long.  See Mark Looy’s AiG article on why this provides evidence that the solar system cannot be nearly as old as believed.  Claims of long age must invoke ad hoc scenarios involving unobserved sources of new material to replenish what we see disappearing before our eyes.
Next headline on:  Solar System • Dating Methods

Kids need vigorous physical activity and fresh air, the wholesome food of healthy living, instead of the processed junk food of artificial reality.  We all do.  Get outdoors and see the real world; escape to reality.  Let the Creation Safaris Photo Gallery inspire you.  Then turn off the computer and go take a hike.
    Though the researchers measured national park attendance, we should remember that national parks are mere artificial boundaries put around particularly interesting parts of creation.  Don’t feel you have to pay the $20 entrance fee to experience the benefits of outdoor activity.  Many of the most striking pictures in the gallery were taken outside the national parks.
Next headline on:  Health

Someone should date that rock with radiometric methods and find out how many millions of years old it is.  Since there are no fossils in it, it must be Precambrian.
Next headline on:  Geology • Dating Methods

OK, time for Battle of the Blurbs.  If they can summarize the points of each essay in a sentence or two, we can summarize some quick responses.  With apologies to Illustra, we’ll call this “Unmasking the Blustery of Lie.”

• Fool’s goal:  In the introduction, John Brockman is chagrined; he supposes Europeans must think Americans are “collective fools” for trying to “redefine science to include the supernatural,” right here in the 21st century.  Well, America leads, not follows, least of all the Europeans, who are busy committing mass suicide (see WND).  Since everyone is someone else’s weirdo, we’ll return the compliment and call it a draw.  Now, anything of substance you want to say, Mr. Brockman?
• Inferior science:  Jerry Coyne argues that “Not only is ID markedly inferior to Darwinism at explaining and understanding nature but in many ways it does not even fulfill the requirements of a scientific theory.”  And Darwinism does?  Describe for us in detail, Jerry, how Tinker Bell (01/13/2006, 09/22/2005) created endless forms most beautiful (06/29/2005) through the mystical process of speciation you wrote about (07/30/2004).  While you’re at it, tell us your feelings about the vicious atheism of your friend Dawkins (04/23/2003).  Are you claiming that science is what Darwinian science does?  Or would you allow that scientific explanations must invoke causes appropriate to their observed effects?  While puzzling over that, we’d like to hear about your peppered moth flipflop again (07/05/2002, 06/25/2004).
• The Good Fight:  Susskind tries to find the hidden agenda of ID.  He suspects it is “to discredit the legitimate scientific community” so as to “inconvenience if one is trying to ignore global warming, or build unworkable missile-defense systems, or construct multibillion-dollar lasers in the unlikely hope of initiating practicable nuclear fusion.”  Now, who brought politics into a discussion about science?  Is Susskind revealing that Darwinists are political leftists?  If he likes debate and dissent so much, why not debate Darwinism, then?  This red herring has nothing to do with intelligent design, and is flimsy sidestep for someone who may be missing something fundamental himself (see 08/13/2002 and 12/18/2005).  No fair misusing Biblical phrases, Lenny; St. Paul’s idea of a good fight was completely different than yours, and you would be one of the mythmakers he warned about. (II Timothy 4).
• Hoax Blokes:  Daniel Dennett, in his essay “The Hoax of Intelligent Design and How it Was Perpetrated,” agrees evolution hasn’t explained everything, but “intelligent design hasn’t yet tried to explain anything at all.”  This from a man who hasn’t yet realized that his Darwinian “universal acid” eats through everything, even his own rationality.  He cannot invoke rationality without plagiarizing theism.  So at least he is consistent; he employs irrationality, including the big lie.
• Natural creationism and other brain teasers:  Nicholas Humphrey makes the bizarre argument that since belief in special creation leads to “biologically fitter lives,” it must have evolved.  “Thus one of the particular ways in which consciousness could have won out in evolution by natural selection could have been precisely by encouraging us to believe that we have not evolved by natural selection,” he says.  If he really believed this line of argument, he would abandon natural selection and embrace special creation, to increase his fitness, so that he could pass on his selfish genes, which are just using him by playing tricks on his mind to believe things that aren’t true.  There must be a point in here, somewhere.  Could Humphrey explain why this argument is not invertible, or how he could ever know anything? (see self-refuting fallacy).
• And now... the evidence:  Tim White is at the bat to give us “Human evolution: the evidence.”  He says, “A denial of evolution – however motivated – is a denial of evidence, a retreat from reason to ignorance.”  Thank you for that unsolicited and mistargeted sermon.  Now, the evidence please?  Strike one (03/28/2003), two (06/11/2003), three (09/24/2004)... yer out.
• Fish-o-pod Transition:  Neil Shubin is pictured smug with arms akimbo, looking ready to take on challengers to his prize catch, the fish-o-pod (see 04/06/2006).  He got an extended excerpt included in this book review.  It includes the argument from bad design (dysteology), his favorite just-so story about Great Transformations, and why his find was the biggest thing in paleontological history.  One concession he makes is that mudskippers are not evolving into tetrapods – but his reason is circular; you have to believe evolution to consider it evidence.  Is Shubin as convincing as he makes himself out to be?  See Brad Harrub’s response on Apologetics Press.
• Intelligent Aliens?  Richard Dawkins is slain in the spirit of natural selection: “an idea whose plausibility and power hits you between the eyes with a stunning force, once you understand it in all its elegant simplicity.”  Let’s see; the fit survive, survivors are the fittest, therefore survivors survive.  Gosh, Dr. Dawkins, you’re right; I’m dumbfounded.  (See evolution songs verse 2).
• Darwin rejected design, so we should, too:  Frank Sulloway puts his trust in the word of Charlie: “The more extensive his reexamination became, the more he realized that the theory of intelligent design, which gave creationism its scientific legitimacy, was overwhelmingly contradicted by the available evidence.”  And what was the evidence?  Simply put, God wouldn’t have made the world this way.  Since this would require knowing the mind of God, it is a religious argument and therefore should not be taught in public school.
• From chance to absolutes:  It must be a fun read to see Scott Atran explain how “Nothing indicates that people who believe that life arose by chance also believe that morality is haphazard.”  That isn’t so obvious to historians of communism and Nazism.  If morality is not haphazard, what is directing the undirected process?  Could not replaying the tape end up with opposite moralities?
• Pinko ethics:  Steven Pinker continues the morality play: “An evolutionary understanding of the human condition, far from being incompatible with a moral sense, can explain why we have one.”  But if your moral sense outrages mine, who wins, if not the one deemed the fittest? (i.e., the side that wins through raw exercise of power).  Maybe Pinker should listen to some of his auditory cheesecake and ponder Michael Balter’s wisdom, “Some of the things that make life most worth living are not biological adaptations” (see 11/12/2004).
• Darwin all the way down:  Lee Smolin is not surprised that Bible-believers reject evolution, but asks this “disturbing” question: “Why do so many non-fundamentalist theologians and religious leaders have no trouble incorporating Darwin into their worldview?”  Why, indeed.  Maybe they need to study the issues.  His line “all the way down” reminds us of a story... (see turtle cosmology).
• Self-organizing contradictions:  Stuart Kauffman, a prophet of self-organization, sweeps away centuries of probability theory by saying it doesn’t apply to the biosphere.  That’s right, if one believes in Tinker Bell who can make all your Darwinian dreams come true.  Has Kauffman changed his mind since debating Phillip Johnson? (11/20/2001).
• Thus saith Lloyd:  Seth Lloyd gives us the deep thought of the day: “The universe is scientific.”  Apparently people are not, and “In societies where government or religion has tried to replace it with ideologically inspired fictions, scientists and nonscientists alike have resisted.”  Please explain the difference with Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot who tried Darwin-inspired ideologies – and when resistance was futile.
• CBA: Cute (blasphemous) acronyms:  Lisa Randall flippantly remarks, “We don’t have an intelligent designer (ID), we have a bungling consistent evolver (BCE).  Or maybe an adaptive changer (AC).  In fact, what we have in the most economical interpretation is, of course, evolution.”  Sorry, religious arguments are not allowed, remember?  You’re a scientism-ist.
• Parental guidance:  Marc D. Hauser asks a fair question: “What counts as a controversy must be delineated with care, as we want students to distinguish between scientific challenges and sociopolitical ones.”  Agreed.  Many have argued that Darwinism was symptomatic of economic and sociopolitical currents in Victorian Britain, drunk on the idea of progress during the Industrial Revolution and pinnacle of the British Empire.  Can we move on?  Now, let’s talk about scientific challenges like irreducible complexity, and other issues appropriate for the Information Age.
• Wonder as I wander:  Scott Sampson rhapsodizes, “Rather than removing meaning from life, an evolutionary perspective can and should fill us with a sense of wonder at the rich sequence of natural systems that gave us birth and continues to sustain us.”  Then why did your comrade Steven Weinberg say, “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless”?  What’s your point?  What is a point?  A point in this context is a vector, with magnitude and direction.  Darwinian evolution, though, is supposed to be undirected.  Tell us about the natural selection of wonder and its survival value, and where these things are pointing (if not a heat death).  No fair borrowing from the Psalms.

The Darwin Party faithful are holing themselves up in their castle, shielded from debate, sending out their diatribes like cannonballs, hoping the Visigoths will just go away.  The ID party, by contrast, welcomes debate and discussion and invites their opponents to a parley (notice how their book Darwin, Design and Public Education included thoughtful chapters by critics).
    The ID Visigoths feel somewhat puzzled by the savage label applied to them.  They feel quite cultured (some even enjoy Mozart: see ID the Future), and count among their chieftains many esteemed scientists like Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell and many others.  On the contrary, some of the tactics of their enemies seem barbaric.  All the Visigoths demand is that the Darwinians lay down their arms, confess their war crimes, and discuss truth with reason and civility.  (Good luck, heh heh.^*)
Next headline on:  Darwinism and Evolutionary Theory • Intelligent Design • Education
^*If truth, reason and civility evolve, they have no validity.  On these terms, therefore, as long as the Visigoths insist both sides play by the rules, the Darwinians must capitulate without a fight, having no recourse – and there will peace in our time.  But if the Darwinians force a battle on their terms, it’s all about power and survival of the fittest.  Things could get ugly.  The first item of business, therefore, should be to agree on whose rules will prevail.

A high frequency of mutation in any gene implies that there may be an evolutionary benefit for carriers.  “It is well known that various genetic mutations that cause sickness in particular geographical areas sometimes also protect against local diseases, so there is a trade-off,” says [David] Kelsell.

Darwinists, come back when you can figure out how to get the benefits without the trade-offs.  Your price is too high.  We’ll take the slower healing and keep the ears.
Next headline on: Darwinism and Evolutionary Theory • Dumb Ideas

When God gives an animal a technology, he doesn’t do it halfway.  (Evolutionists would have us believe jellyfish figured this out on their own, but this particular article mentioned nothing about evolution.)  Another amazing fact is that some sea slugs called nudibranchs are able to ingest these nematocysts without setting them off, and line their backs with the borrowed technology.  Figure that one out by slow, gradual, evolutionary processes.
Next headline on: Marine Life • Amazing Facts

OK, so now will they go back and revise all the textbook illustrations, slide sets, posters, planetarium shows, and TV programs to reflect the fact that all the models were wrong, and we really don’t know what happened in some past eons?  No way; it would stir the pot and put the heat on too much for public consumption.
Next headline on:  Solar System • Origin of Life • Dating Methods • Physics

As medical doctors we are skeptical of the claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the origination and complexity of life and we therefore dissent from Darwinian macroevolution as a viable theory.  This does not imply the endorsement of any alternative theory.

How soon we forget.  We must not!  Less than two months ago, Professor Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, President of Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), lamented the willing cooperation of doctors and scientists in the Nazi regime:

I must admit that it strikes me as bitter and disturbing that we ... at the DFG can find barely a trace of resistance, no outcry against the exclusion of Jewish scientists and their expulsion from universities, not a murmur against the abuse of agriculture and humanities for the criminal purpose of displacement of nations in Eastern Europe, no questioning of the execution or the purpose of medical experiments.  Rather, the radicalisation of science in the service of the Nazi regime was evidently sanctioned without query.

The ability of educated and otherwise rational people to quickly descend into hideous depths of human depravity for the sake of an ideology was shockingly illustrated in a sobering article by John Kekes in City Journal.  He retold the story of Robespierre, dictator during the Terror of the French Revolution, who rationalized unbelievable acts of human violence, cruelty and debauchery in the name of reason and liberty.  Kekes draws parallels with later ideologues of the Communist era, and today’s terrorists, to warn us that we must never assume such things could never happen again.  This article is a must read.  (The contrast with the American Revolution is most instructive.)
    With radical Darwinists pushing the new eugenics on the one side, and radical Muslims pushing terrorism on the other, this is no time for appeasement or apathy.  Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty – and of life.
Next headline on: Politics and Ethics • Health • Intelligent Design • Evolution

He came to the same conclusions because the conclusions are scientifically reasonable and based on observational facts.  What is shameful is that Shostak gave no credit for prior research done more thoroughly on this question by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards in the book The Privileged Planet.  He pretends as if he were the first to think of these things.  He obviously knows that he appears in the film, and undoubtedly has watched it and understands its notoriety in the mainstream scientific community.  So we challenge Seth Shostak to come forward and admit that he got his best ideas (that design detection is a scientifically valid reasoning process, and that the earth is designed for discovery) from his predecessors in the intelligent design movement.  Intellectual property demonstrates the ontological character of information.  Acknowledging someone else’s intellectual contribution is the only “ethical” thing to do (and ethics don’t evolve).
Next headline on:  Solar System • SETI • Intelligent Design

What an incredible finish to one of the biggest adventures in interplanetary exploration.  The world’s strangest moon, one that long-age scientists were convinced had to be covered with a liquid ocean, is dry.  Despite Titan’s bizarre color, orange you glad Huygens was a smashing success?
Next headline on:  Solar System

• Rapid Gradualism?  New Scientist reported that many human genes must have “evolved recently” – even as recently as within the last 15,000 years.  While some of the 700-odd genes they studied, they claim, appear to have been targets of natural selection after the human line diverged millions of years ago, “some of the newly identified genes fall into categories not previously known to be targets of selection in the human lineage, such as those involved in metabolism of carbohydrates and fatty acids.”  (Ker Than at Live Science took this to mean humans are still evolving.)
• Transcript Complexity:  PLoS Genetics had a special issue about the complexity of the “transcriptome,” the body of all transcribed DNA.  The lead article’s teaser sounds pretty dramatic:

  Besides revealing staggering complexity, analysis of this collection is providing an increasing number of novel mRNA classes, expressed pseudogenes, and bona fide noncoding variants of protein-coding genes.  In addition, new types of regulatory logic have emerged, including sense-antisense mechanisms of RNA regulation.  This high-resolution cDNA collection and its analysis represent an important world resource for discovery, and demonstrate the value of large-scale transcriptome approaches towards understanding genome function.

  After the human genome was deciphered, scientists were puzzled by the seeming small number of genes – about 30,000.  Now, it appears that the exons of genes can be assembled and reassembled in a modular way by alternative gene splicing (09/23/2005), yielding many protein variants from one gene.  Not only that, the DNA “negative” on the opposite (antisense) strand can play a role in regulating the gene.  These articles speak as if a whole new world of complexity is coming to light.
• Who Regulates the Regulators?  Nature March 23 reported on important pathways that regulate the fate of RNA transcripts of genes.  David Tollervey wrote in the introduction,

  Cells alter their rates of mRNA transcription to change mRNA levels, and so rates of protein synthesis, in response to many stimuli.  To adjust mRNA levels, cells must be able to rapidly get rid of normal mRNAs that were previously synthesized (turnover).  In fact, different mRNAs differ radically in their rates of degradation, and this is subject to both metabolic and developmental regulation.  In addition, cells must guard against the synthesis of abnormal mRNAs (surveillance), which can produce defective, potentially toxic, protein products.

  The mechanisms described in the article, including “go/no-go” checkpoints unveil a higher level of complexity beyond the information contained in the genes themselves.
• Ring Job:  The copies during cell division must be accurate.  Many protein parts cooperate to ensure high levels of quality control.  Nature reported March 23 on a discovery of a ring that slides along the microtubules in the all-important stage of separation of the paired chromosomes.
• High Fidelity Proofreading:  Albertson and Preston talked about quality control of the DNA copying process in an article in Current Biology March 23:

  Proofreading is the primary guardian of DNA polymerase fidelity.  New work has revealed that polymerases with intrinsic proofreading activity may cooperate with non-proofreading polymerases to ensure faithful DNA replication.

  This means that some polymerases (copy machines) have better fidelity than others, but they cooperate to ensure a precision product.  A low-fidelity machine might be necessary to get past a bad break, for instance – like when a heftier wrench is needed (09/19/2005).  How good is the system?  Orders of magnitude better than a human copyist:

  Normal cells replicate their DNA with remarkable fidelity, accumulating less than one mutation per genome per cell division.  It is estimated that replicative DNA polymerases make errors approximately once every 10⁴-10⁵ nucleotides polymerized.  Thus, each time a mammalian cell divides approximately 100,000 polymerase errors occur, and these must be corrected at near 100% efficiency to avoid deleterious mutations.  This is accomplished through the combined actions of... exonucleolytic proofreading and post-replication mismatch repair.

• New Uses for Junk:  “Just because we don’t know what it does, doesn’t mean it’s really junk,” said Christina Cheng of non-coding DNA (U of Illinois) in an interview for Radio Netherlands.  Her work has found that arctic cod produce antifreeze proteins (05/13/2004) from non-gene regions of DNA, “a gene that appears to have evolved [sic] out of this DNA that supposedly serves no purpose.”  Yet “Preserving this rubbish [sic] seems an inefficient use of time and resources.  Evolutionary pressures [sic] should favour creatures with less junk DNA” said author Marnie Chesterton.  “So its conservation may be because it has functions that we don’t yet know.”  Cheng said, “conventional thinking assumes that new genes must come from pre-existing ones because the probability of a random stretch of DNA somehow becoming a functional gene is very low if not nil.” (see online book).
• No More Mr. Simple Guy:  Embley and Martin in Nature March 30 had some words for those who tell simplistic tales about an ancient prokaryote being co-opted as a mitochondrion in the first primitive eukaryote (see 08/06/2004):

  The idea that some eukaryotes primitively lacked mitochondria and were true intermediates in the prokaryote-to-eukaryote transition was an exciting prospect.  It spawned major advances in understanding anaerobic and parasitic eukaryotes and those with previously overlooked mitochondria.  But the evolutionary gap between prokaryotes and eukaryotes is now deeper, and the nature of the host that acquired the mitochondrion more obscure, than ever before.

• Modular Programming:  An article in Nature March 30 by 37 European scientists found an exquisite example of modular programming – in yeast.  They even spoke machine language:

  The richness of the data set enabled a de novo characterization of the composition and organization of the cellular machinery.  The ensemble of cellular proteins partitions into 491 complexes, of which 257 are novel, that differentially combine with additional attachment proteins or protein modules to enable a diversification of potential functions.  Support for this modular organization of the proteome comes from integration with available data on expression, localization, function, evolutionary conservation, protein structure and binary interactions.  This study provides the largest collection of physically determined eukaryotic cellular machines so far and a platform for biological data integration and modelling.

  Question is, what evolutionist would want to model 257 novel proteins and 491 complexes, all tightly regulated and “evolutionarily conserved” (i.e., unevolved)?
• Pas de Deux:  We know that we have two copies of each gene, one from the father and one from the mother, but which copy leads and which follows?  As in marriage, this process is surprisingly complicated.  Spilianakis and Flavell explored this important question in a Perspectives article in Science April 14.  They showed how the dance involves the help of many servants:

  The genetic information of higher organisms is encoded in DNA that is not randomly dispersed within the cell nucleus, but is organized with nucleoproteins into different kinds of chromatin, the building blocks of the chromosomes.  Each chromosome resides in a specific region of the nucleus when the cell is not undergoing cell division, and usually genes that are actively being expressed loop out from their condensed chromatin territory and localize to a region of transcriptional activity.  These “transcription factory” areas are thus abundant with protein factors that initiate and regulate gene expression.

  The dance gets really wild, but not chaotic, when a gene on one chromosome is regulated by factors on another chromosome.
• The Parallel Universe of RNA:  The title of this article in PNAS hints at previously-unknown complexity: “Short blocks from the noncoding parts of the human genome have instances within nearly all known genes and relate to biological processes.”  This article was discussed in more detail here 04/27; see also the 09/08/2005 entry.
• Guardian Spirits:  In today’s Nature (May 4), Paul Megee titled an article, “Molecular biology: Chromosome guardians on duty.”  He begins, “Curiously, in cell division the proper separation of chromosomes into daughter cells needs set periods when they are stuck together.  So how do they come apart at the right time and place?  Their ‘guardian spirits’ intercede.”  Reminding the reader of the importance of high fidelity in cell division, he discusses work by Japanese scientists who “describe how proteins known as shugoshins – Japanese for ‘guardian spirits’ – and an associated regulatory enzyme temporally and spatially control the removal of cohesins from chromosomes.”  Cohesins keep the chromosomes together while they line up on the spindle, but need to be broken at the right time (03/04/2004) in a coordinated way – thanks to their guardian spirits.

Darwinists are fond of storytelling with glittering generalities.  When challenged, they retreat into accusations that anything other than 100% pure materialistic Darwinism is religion, not science, and use other shifty-feet tactics.  The answer is to pile on the evidence.  These articles are the tip of a truckload of data-rich, fact-filled laboratory studies that shout design instead of evolution.  Let’s rid secular science of its bad storytelling habit, and let the evidence speak for itself.   The Darwinists are sliding downhill with an avalanche of data racing down against them.  Perhaps a better cartoon of their predicament is to picture Wiley Coyote hanging by his fingers on a cliff.  Jonathan Wells, by debunking the icons of evolution, is like the Road Runner lifting Mr. Coyote’s fingers one at a time, while the genetic evidence is like Tweety Bird simultaneously piling weights on his feet.  Pretty soon he fall down go boom.
Next headline on: Genetics • Cell Biology • Intelligent Design • Darwinism

Well.  What do you know.  What do you know well?  Maybe you have repeated this story without knowing the facts; we all do that sometimes (email forwarding is one of the most unreliable sources of truth).  It’s nice to know the first man in space was not so dumb as to imagine that if he couldn’t see God in earth orbit, then God must not exist – or to even expect that God would be visible at all.  Not enough details were provided to know precisely what Gagarin did believe, but this can be a lesson for us – in not always trusting (and parroting) claims we hear.  A Google-search on “Yuri Gagarin Valentin Petrov God” will list many additional sources to check.
Next headline on: Media • Bible and Theology

Comparing Preferences for Pain or Gain   05/03/2006    
A group of researchers published in the Journal of Political Economy introduced the idea economic loss and gain incentives are innate, not learned.  To demonstrate this concept, the researchers presented capuchin monkeys two opportunities leading to two different outcomes for the monkey: pain or gain.  The capuchin monkeys had a tendency to choose the opportunity leading to gain.  The report was summarized in Science Daily.¹
    This demonstrates loss-averse behavior which is the very basis for economic decisions.  Since the monkeys have not previous had exposure to human economics, this must be instinctual choice, according to the researchers.  The author concludes the article listing the qualifications of the research team and foundation in order to qualify the opinions from the study.

In nature, animals act according to greatest benefit.  For example, when wolves hunt elk, they do not tend to attack those which are strongest and largest.  This is dangerous, and could lead to the escape of the elk, wasted vital energy of the wolves, and even death of the wolves.  So what do researchers observe?  Wolves tend to attack those old, straggling elk; or they attack those males who expended too much energy in mating season.  For what reason?  This is more beneficial to the wolves.
    If choosing a more beneficial option, such as living, eating and breathing, is an economic principle, then even protozoa have economic choice in choosing to eat.  Indeed, this seems to be far more deeply rooted than anticipated!  In fact, ecologists study animal behavior according to an “energy budget.”  This refers to their only having a limited amount of energy to expend when performing various vital activities.  Does this budgeting reflect economic choice?  No.  The animals act according to instinct to increase their own fitness, to survive day to day.  This is not analysis and reasoning.
    Evolutionists see humans as a higher evolutionary form.  Yet for decades the evolution of the human mind, analysis, etc., have presented a major gap to the evolutionary theory.  This study attempts to close this gap by “demonstrating” human reasoning, as put forth in the hypothesis of making economic decisions, is innate to animals in a lower form.  But this cannot be so.  Mankind is created in the image of God, able to make decisions, able to rule, able to appreciate and marvel at God’s creation.  This is not stated for any other creature.  Man stands alone with his intellectual capacity and reasoning.
—Rebekah E.
Next headline on: Mammals • Human Body • Evolution

Early snakes, the theory’s supporters say, are closely related to scolecophidians, a living group of primitive land snakes that still have vestigial pelvic regions.  But proponents of a watery origin believe that snakes most likely evolved from extinct marine reptiles called mosasaurs, powerful swimmers that spent their entire lives in the ocean.  “Snakes probably evolved during the Jurassic—150 million years ago,” Apesteguía said, “but there are no fossils.”  During the early Cretaceous—120 million years ago—they exploded [into] several forms, including some terrestrial like Najash, “...and some aquatic.  The fossil record shows that terrestrial and aquatic snakes both existed by the mid-Cretaceous—about 95 million years ago—leaving researchers unsure about which type evolved first.”  The question, Apesteguía said, is, “Which is more primitive, the terrestrial Najash or the most primitive water snakes, a group called pachyophids?”  He points to evidence that marine snakes are less primitive: Their skull bones suggest that they could expand their mouths to ingest larger prey—a characteristic of modern snakes.  The marine snakes, Apesteguía concludes, “are ancient versions of modern snakes, not really primitive.”

It is not a surprise that evolutionists cannot decide between an aquatic or terrestrial origin for snakes.  Although researchers have realized that marine and land snakes existed at the same time, they have only accepted this coexistence to an extent.  In fact, Sebastian Apesteguía has stated that the evidence of transition fossils does not exist.  As a result, Apesteguía and other researchers, including Hassum Zaher (University of Sao Paulo in Brazil), are uncertain about the position of either species on the evolutionary chain.  Zaher suggested that limbed snakes are related to pythons and boas and not marine snakes.  This conflicts with Apesteguía’s allusion to an aquatic origin.  The discovery of Najash will only rekindled the flame of controversy as evolutionists attempt to avoid another kink in their chain.
—Courtney N.
Next headline on: Fossils • Terrestrial Zoology • Evolution

The information in this article is presented with an evolutionary mindset.  All creatures come from common ancestors; therefore similarities seem to indicate homology.  The thyroid gland evolved from a marine organism’s gills, as fish came first, then mammals.  Functions of the “higher organisms” somehow relate to those of “lower organisms”.  Creationists assume that organisms have similar genes due to performing certain similar functions.  Evolutionary explanations employ circular reasoning: “These animals came from common ancestry.  Why?  Because they have similar functions.”  Why do they have similar functions?  “Because they share common ancestry.”  The creationist is compelled to ask, “Should God make his creation obscure, unrelated, and unconnected, so as to be incomprehensible to the observer?”  So as to disprove evolution, should God have made every single creature with its very own oxidative pathways, tissues, and building blocks of life (i.e. nucleic acids, proteins, carbohydrates, lipids)?
    In I Corinthians 14, Paul reprimanded the Corinthians for their disorderly worship services, stating, “God is not a God of disorder but of peace.”  What implications does this have upon his beloved creation?  How then should we interpret what is seen?
—Rebekah E.
Next headline on: Human Body