“If ID triumphs, science will go on—but some scientists will be interested in different questions.  Chemical evolution will probably be abandoned for the same reasons that alchemy was abandoned, and Darwinism will join its cousins Marxism and Freudianism in the dustbin of intellectual history.  But deciphering the genetic code will be more interesting than ever.”
—Phillip E. Johnson, “The Rhetorical Challenge of Intelligent Design,” Darwinism, Design, and Public Education (Mich. State, 2003), p. 353.

Rockfish Prefer Oil-Rig Real Estate   06/30/2006    
Environmentalists may complain about offshore oil platforms, but the rockfish in the Santa Barbara channel aren’t paying attention.  According to a study announced by UC Santa Barbara, rockfish are finding better living through human chemistry.  The platforms provide security and prime nursing habitat, such that their numbers, once dangerously low, are now resurging.  The artificial reefs are apparently doing more for the fish than their natural ones.

Of course man did not have this in mind when drilling for oil, but it shows that human activity is not always an environmental curse.  We’re part of the ecology, too, and sometimes our animal friends learn to adapt – even profit – from our ventures.
Next headline on:  Marine Life • Politics

Hereby, we would like to propose a novel solution, based on the astrophysical properties of our Galactic environment on large scales, as well as some economic and informational aspects of the presumed advanced technological civilizations (henceforth ATCs).  In doing so, we will suggest a radically new perspective on the entire SETI endeavor.

In sorting priorities, I adopt what I term the central principle of cultural evolution, which I refer to as the Intelligence Principle: the maintenance, improvement and perpetuation of knowledge and intelligence is the central driving force of cultural evolution, and that to the extent intelligence can be improved, it will be improved.

A natural extension of the Intelligence Principle is what can be called the digital perspective on astrobiology: After a particular threshold complexity is reached, the relevant relations between existent entities are characterized by requirements of computation and information processing.  It is related to the emergent computational concepts not only in biology, but in other fields such as fundamental physics, cosmology, neuroscience, and social sciences.

We conclude that the conventional radio SETI assuming beamed broadcasts from targets – selected exclusively on the basis of the old-fashioned biological paradigm – within the vicinity of our Solar System ... is ill-founded and has minuscule chances of success on the present hypothesis.  It is a clear and testable prediction of the present hypothesis that the undergoing SETI experiments using this conservative approach will yield only negative results.

There is no meaningful scientific hypothesis for resolving Fermi’s Paradox – or, indeed, any problem of importance in science – without a set of assumptions.  In building of the migrational solution to Fermi’s puzzle, we have relied on the following set of assumptions:

1. The Copernican principle continues to hold in astrobiology, i.e. there is nothing special about the Earth and the Solar System when considerations of life, intelligent observers or ATCs are made.²
2. Laws of physics (as applied to the classical computation theory and astrophysics) are universally valid.
3. Naturalistic explanations for the origin of life, intelligence and ATCs are valid.
4. The Milky Way galaxy exhibits well-established gradients of both baryonic matter density and equilibrium radiation field temperature.
5. Habitable planets occur naturally only within the GHZ (which evolves in a manner roughly understood), but ATCs are not in any way limited to this region.
6. We assume local influences both of and on ATCs.  Thus, we disregard overly speculative ideas about such concepts as cosmic wormholes or “basement universes”.  Interstellar travel is feasible, but it is bound to be slow and expensive (for anything larger than nanomachines) at all epochs.
7. Astroengineering on the scales significantly larger than the scale of a typical planetary system (on the pc-scale and above) will remain difficult and expensive at all epochs and for all ATCs.
8. ATCs will tend to maximize the efficiency of information-processing, no matter how heterogeneous their biological and cultural structures and evolutionary pathways are.

These assumptions are naturally of varying validity and importance.  Items 1 through 3 are essential methodological guidelines of the entire scientific endeavor.  Although item 1 has recently become controversial with “rare Earth” theorists, there is still no compelling reasons for relinquishing it.  Assumption 4 is an empirical fact, and 5 is quite close to it.  Assumptions 6 and 7 are conservative extrapolations of our limited scientific and technological perspective, but in our view should be retained until the contrary positions can be verified.  In particular, absence of the Galaxy-size astroengineering effects in external galaxies ... strongly supports the assumption 7.

Interesting paper.  Heavily sci-fi, profoundly speculative, politically incorrect, and somewhat amusing, perhaps, but thought-provoking.  Is it scientific?  Does its presence in a scientific journal indicate it is worthy of more serious consideration by rational truth-seekers than if it appeared in a theological journal or in Mad Magazine?  After all, they made predictions and provided a falsification criterion.  They talked about baryons and physical laws and thermodynamics.  And look – they even had equations!  Surely no one could accuse this kind of sober, rigorous analysis as being equivalent to religion.  What do you think?
    Religion is a misleading word in this context.  It conjures up images of candles, robes, icons and prayer wheels.  World view is a more appropriate term: a way of looking at the world, of answering the big questions: who are we?  Where did we come from?  Why are we here?  Where are we going?  Science cannot answer these questions, yet world-view issues loom big in this article.  They have attempted to give their opinion about the origin and ultimate fate of the universe, dress it in a lab coat and pass it off as science.  Yet by any measure of scientific criteria, they always left a way out.
    Their prediction is hollow, because it would require proving a universal negative.  Their falsification test is hollow, because we could all be dead before anyone finds a way to detect an unknown kind of technology at intergalactic distances, and even if someone did, another would find a natural explanation for it.  Predictions and falsifiability are not necessary components of science anyway, according to some philosophers of science.  And equations – well, nice, but the ones in the paper describe observable physical properties of temperature distribution in galaxies and have nothing to do with the social habits of intelligent beings.  Sentient beings are notoriously resistant to obeying equations about what they should do or will do.  In short, the scientific props of this article are distractions from the fact this is nothing more than a world view paper.
    Their entire thesis breaks down on one of their assumptions.  It was nice of them to list their assumptions, but not so nice to glibly claim that the least plausible is one of “essential methodological guidelines of the entire scientific endeavor,” namely, “Naturalistic explanations for the origin of life, intelligence and ATCs are valid.”  Did you catch it?  They just attempted to baptize naturalism in the waters of science as if we wouldn’t notice.  (Only Cirkovic has a PhD, but they both attempted to doctor a philosophy.)
    Why should this tactic be allowed for sci-fi speculation, but not for other kinds of scholarly investigation?  After all, theologians can make testable predictions.  A conservative Bible scholar, for instance, could predict that evidence for King David will be found, even point to the Tel Dan inscription as confirming evidence.  Some preachers argue that the equation “nothing times nobody equals everything.” has been falsified.  Should sufficiently scholarly sermons be allowed in scientific journals, then?  Not a few theologians are well trained in mathematical physics, and not a few scientists doubt the assumptions listed by these two speculators.  They should have no privilege in this game.  The quality of the reasoning and the support of evidence, not the scientific trappings and venue, need to carry weight in evaluating world view claims.  Cirkovic and Bradbury may wish to believe that life and intelligence are emergent properties of matter in motion, but they cannot support this world view with scientific evidence.  In fact, the tide of evidence is overwhelmingly against it (06/12/2006, 04/17/2006, online book).
    These sci-fi speculators pulled off a shifty sidestep.  They merely assumed that “naturalistic explanations” for these things are “valid,” and then hid behind an arbitrary rule that naturalism is an essential methodological guideline for the entire scientific endeavor.  Oh yeah?  It wasn’t for many of the greatest scientists in history (see online book).  This claim is only made now by the Eugenie Scotts and Ken Millers of the world who want to shield their philosophical speculations from critical scrutiny.  It’s a tactic not unlike the childhood ploy “King’s X” that allows them to evade rules of the game to which the others are bound.
    Cirkovic and Bradbury are as free as anyone to speculate, but need to take their speculations out of New Astronomy and argue them before philosophers and theologians, not claim special privilege for things that cannot be observed or known – indeed, things that run contrary to what we do know about the propensities of matter in motion.  What they wrote, though, is bound to make the SETI Institute angry.  A lot of investment capital is bound up in traditional SETI strategies.  These two warring parties may make any further comments superfluous; they may end up falsifying each other.
Next headline on:  Astronomy • Cosmology • SETI • Origin of Life • Physics • Evolution • Intelligent Design • Theology

Foraging Saharan desert ants, Cataglyphis fortis, use a mode of dead reckoning known as path integration to monitor their current position relative to the nest and to find their way home.  This enables them to return on a direct route, rather than retracing the tortuous outbound journey performed when searching for food items in their flat desert habitat, which is often completely devoid of landmarks.  The path integrator requires two kinds of input information: about directions steered, as obtained via the ant’s celestial compass, and about distance traveled, as gauged by the ant’s odometer.

There was no mention of evolution in this paper.  Only in evolutionary theory would someone attempt to say, with a straight face, that celestial compasses, path integrators and odometers are the result of a blind process lacking a navigation target.
    This discovery is all the more reason to get the kids an Uncle Milton’s Ant Farm (03/16/2006).  It might stimulate a good science project, too.  If stilts, why not pogo sticks?  or how about a treadmill or moving sidewalk?  or a rotating table?  Don’t let students be cruel to the little puzzle-solvers, but use it as an opportunity to reverse-engineer the amazing GPS software embedded in their tiny heads (not referring to the students’ heads, of course, but to those of the ants).
Next headline on:  Terrestrial Zoology • Amazing Stories • Intelligent Design

• Go to H*** / H*** No, We Won’t Go:  One would think the editor of the prestigious journal Nature would get a little respect by virtue of his position, but when he tried blogging as an overture to the public, he got an earful for his mouthful.  Nature decided to join the blogosphere in April as part of its initiative for openness, in the aftermath of recent scientific scandals over peer review (06/13/2006).  One of the first experiments was a Nature Blog in April about the fish-o-pod Tiktaalik (04/06/2006).  After getting worked up over some creationist responses to the find, Gee jumped into the fray.  He argued that creationists cannot embrace the science that gave us modern health care and cheap travel and abjure other parts like evolution.  He likened creationists to those wanting to return to the Dark Ages and live like Bedouins.  Though he claimed to believe in God (as a Jew), Gee ended his tirade against Biblical creationism with:

  I object to the cheap, wilful [sic], nasty traduction of my religious faith by a group of people who would pervert it to further their questionable political ideals.  I call on all scientists of faith to join me in its damnation, and to educate certain in the evolutionary biology community of the rank and damning illogicality of their position.

  Some of the “Evolution is a FACT!” folk said Hear, hear, but not everyone.  Gee may have felt smug in consigning “fundamentalists” to the flames, but for some of his targets, the feeling was mutual.  One signing himself a biochemist called the Tiktaalik missing link claims “Pure rubbish” and said “The fact that this article is being heralded in media rags is one sign of payola and not necessarily substance.”  Another retorted, “macroevolution is a fairy-tale for those grown-ups who personally feel the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible to be unacceptable.”  Another commented, “Dr. Gee repeats an error so egregious that I cannot resist commenting; The Scientific advances he mentions from which we all benefit are all the result of impirical [sic] science.  They have absolutely nothing to do with evolution.”  Another pointed out, “The irony of this find is lost on the authors – that a single find of a fossil of a supposed transitional life form is a major news item.”  Another advised, “If you actually want to do something about the rise of 6-day creationism, arrogance isn’t going to help,” indicating what he thought of Gee’s decorum.  One wonders how often the editor of Nature has had to leave the comfort zone of academia and face live hecklers.
• Medical Malpractice:  A similar blog counterattack came when Stanford Medicine Magazine made anticreationism its summer cover story, “Darwin Lives.”  After a series of attack pieces like “Scientists mobilize to fight the forces of intelligent design,” the magazine invited readers, “Visit our evolution blog and tell us what you think.”  Despite the magazine’s portrayal of creationists as nothing more than politically-motivated religious zealots, many of the uncensored responses were not shy about refusing to be pushed into that corner.  “Saying over and over that it is a religion vs. science debate doesn’t make it so,” said one.  “Sure, you can find politicians and creationists to bash, but to be taken seriously, you must address the critics of Darwin who hold prestigious scientific positions within our universities and science organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences.”  Another called the magazine’s tactics “propaganda.”  Those supportive of the magazine’s assessment were outnumbered nine to five.  Many of the anti-evolution responses appeared reasoned and informed, not the work of religious dogmatists; they argued that the dogmatic Darwinist position is the real fundamentalism.
• The Great Unconvinced:  Curtis Dahlgren had some fun in an op-ed piece for Renew America, commenting on the apparent chagrin with which an alumni paper from the University of Wisconsin wrote,

  ”Putting Faith in Science,” the subhead of which is, “Intelligent design – an alternative theory of life supported by many Christians – argues that science alone can’t explain the mysteries of our existence.  And most Americans agree.  Why has science been so unconvincing?

  Dahlgren accused the accusers of blind faith, retorting, “So who is calling whom ‘stupid’?”
• Poll Homeostasis:  Lest one think blog entries do not represent a scientifically-valid sample, Evolution News listed polls from 1982 to 2005 that show “skepticism of evolution continues to remain at a very high level in the United States” despite the fact that “For years Darwinists have been doing their best to remind the world of the good news that evolution and religion can be compatible.”  In another piece, Evolution News argued that students reject evolution because of the science, not religion.  In a third piece, Evolution News noted that the pace of scientists willing to sign their Dissent from Darwin list is accelerating (see also a separate list for doctors).

To me, the struggle in the late 20th Century between creationists and evolutionists does not represent another battle between science and religion because rarely do creationists display hostility towards science.  If you read their literature, you’ll rarely come across an anti-scientific notion.  They love science.  They love what science can do.  They hate the fact that science has been hijacked by agnostics and atheists to offer such speculative theories as organic evolution.  So, they don’t see themselves as being antagonistic to science any more than many of the advocates of evolution – those who see evolution as God’s method of creation – view themselves as hostile to Christianity.

We hope you see that CEH also loves science.  When you compare who wants rational discussion about these important issues and who wants to browbeat their listeners into submission, the choice is clear.
    We also like to keep our sense of humor.  Apparently the irony was lost on poor Ms. Amy Adams who, in her submission to the Stanford Medicine Magazine anticreationist barrage, summarized her thoughts on evolution as, “Evolution in a nutshell.”
Next headline on:  Darwinism • Intelligent Design • Education • Media

Specifically, it seems a growing number of people are retaining the behaviors and attitudes associated with youth.  As a consequence, many older people simply never achieve mental adulthood, according to a leading expert on evolutionary psychiatry.  Among scientists, the phenomenon is called psychological neoteny.

“...While the human mind responds to new information over the course of any individual’s lifetime, Charlton argues that past physical environments were more stable and allowed for a state of psychological maturity.  In hunter-gatherer societies, that maturity was probably achieved during a person’s late teens or early twenties”, he said.
    Charlton explained to Discovery News that humans have an inherent attraction to physical youth, since it can be a sign of fertility, health and vitality.  In the
mid-20th century, however, another force kicked in, due to increasing need for individuals to change jobs, learn new skills, move to new places and make new friends.

“By contrast, many modern adults fail to attain this maturity, and such failure is common and indeed characteristic of highly educated and, on the whole, effective and socially valuable people,” he said.  “People such as academics, teachers, scientists and many other professionals are often strikingly immature outside of their strictly specialist competence in the sense of being unpredictable, unbalanced in priorities, and tending to overreact.”  Charlton added that since modern cultures now favor cognitive flexibility, “immature” people tend to thrive and succeed, and have set the tone not only for contemporary life, but also for the future, when it is possible our genes may even change as a result of the psychological shift.  The faults of youth are retained along with the virtues, he believes.  These include short attention span, sensation and novelty-seeking, short cycles of arbitrary fashion and a sense of cultural shallowness.

Charlton added that since modern cultures now favor cognitive flexibility, “immature” people tend to thrive and succeed, and have set the tone not only for contemporary life, but also for the future, when it is possible our genes may even change as a result of the psychological shift.

The obvious next question one should ask is if this immaturity has not already become apparent in the departments of Evolutionary Psychology.
    Assuming that all our psychological traits evolved due to environmental pressures, Charlton feels that if our environment encourages immaturity for long enough, we will become genetically disposed to immaturity.  This sounds Lamarckian.  History shows, contrariwise, that societies have only been successful at fostering maturity for a limited period of time.  How does he know our society is not simply paralleling the example of Rome, where maturity rose and fell with its civilization?
    Charlton seems to offer conflicting sources for our immaturity problem.  First, he attributes it to the pressure of the educational system, and uses as an example the immaturity of “academics, teachers, scientists, and many other professionals”.  If this is true (and this academic’s thinking provides anecdotal evidence for it) then we will be fine, since most people do not pursue advanced educations.  Most people, however, would agree that the problem goes well beyond academia.  It is a symptom of society in general.  Charlton’s second explanation, that the problem began in the mid 20th century with the pressure to “change jobs, learn new skills, move to new places and make new friends,” seems to contradict his first explanation. 
    Either way, since society has had these same pressures for thousands of years, why is there any vestige of maturity remaining now?  We should have evolved into children long ago, as soon as we got past the hunter-gatherer stage.  There is no reason evolution should wait until the middle of the 20th century.  We are becoming immature because evolutionary thinking like this rejected the absolute authority of our Creator over us, leaving us adrift to pursue our baser instincts and desires, like spoiled children.
—DK
This story illustrates how the universal acid of Darwinian thinking is more pervasive and insidious than a set of armchair speculations by academics.  Charlton’s type rationalize immature behavior as evolutionary adaptations rather than moral wrongs.  If immaturity leads to reproductive success, it must be OK; why fight it?  But under their own assumptions, it is impossible to determine who is calling whom immature.  For example, David Brooks of the New York Times is cited at the end of the Discovery Channel article lamenting the loss of wisdom and maturity of our predecessors in today’s society that blurs the “bourgeois world of capitalism and the bohemian counterculture.”  Yet what is wisdom in Darwinland if not reproductive success?  Brooks needs to let his hair down and get dirty with the new inhabitants of the fitness peak.  Then history will have to judge the outcome of the war between the Bohemians and the Visigoths (05/09/2006).
Next headline on:  Darwinism • Health • Early Man

this is an exciting finding, as it seems to defy one of the basic rules of cell biology and genetics: that genetic material is distributed randomly.  It appears that the cellular machinery distinguishes old from new when it comes to DNA, and it may use this distinction to protect the body from mutations and cancer.  It is also possible that this mechanism is used to silence gene expression in the stem cell.

Oh no, this is bad news for us Darwinians.  We need those mutations to advance the tree of life.  If the ID people get hold of this, it will give them another hammer to beat us with.  Let’s pre-empt it with a good just-so story.  Can somebody come up with one?  Anyone?
Next headline on:  Genetics

What a great subplot to add to endless tale.  There must have been some truth to the old Greek myths after all.  Centaurs cannot be far behind.
    More funny than the mythical fantasyland conjured up by the evolutionary molecular Chaldeans is the seriousness with which they admit that their evolutionary trees remain controversial despite large-scale efforts to resolve them.  “We need to look at fossils from a new point of view, because there must have been a common ancestor of bats, horses and dogs,” one of them said.  There must have been, you see; this is the deductive premise of evolutionary research, which cannot be questioned.  (We agree about the advice to look at fossils from a new point of view.)
    So we must keep trying to find the magic spells in the DNA code that bring back the tree of life and of knowledge of good and evil.  We can’t keep the horses and cows together any longer, even though they both eat hay and work weekend gigs as extras in Westerns.  Maybe if we put bat wings on this horse, the idea will fly.  But then each new proposal yields similar interjections of surprise: “I think this will be a surprise for many scientists,” one of the researchers remarked; “No one expected this.”
    Oh, really?*
Next headline on:  Evolution • Genetics • Mammals • Dumb Ideas
*See 09/29/2005, 08/27/2004, 12/12/2003, 12/03/2003, 03/03/2002, 12/17/2001, etc.

Do a word search in this article for anything about evolution.  We got “word not found.”  The research was not motivated by or benefited by evolutionary speculation.  The scientists just wanted “to more fully understand how photosynthesis works.”  Students use similar motivation in auto shop without assuming car engines evolved from rocks.
    Notice where this research came from: the Biodesign Research Institute at U of A, whose starting point is “exploring the remarkable structure and function of living systems.... Inspired by nature and powered by collaboration, our bold new approach ensures that discoveries are rapidly translated into real-world benefits.”  (We left out the sentence in the middle that made no sense: “From microbes to man, these systems have been honed by thousands of years of natural selection.”  At least thousands is down from millions, and the sentence could be interpreted to mean that the systems were already present.)  Anyway, good research is flowing from another of the popular new interdisciplinary academic centers seeking to understand and apply biological design (05/13/2006, 06/25/2005).  The Darwin Party has nothing to offer this new trend in biodesign research and should get out of the way.  This is intelligent design science at work: stimulating and productive.
Next headline on:  Plants • Amazing

• Washington Post led off with “Amber-preserved web shows early spider evolution” and mentioned evolution eight times in its short report.
• LiveScience mentioned three times that the evolution of web-spinning spiders must have influenced the evolution of flying insects. 
• National Geographic mentioned the surprise that orb-spinners appeared earlier than thought, back in the time of the dinosaurs, but also brought evolution prominently into the story.  One expert was quoted as saying, “amber such as this latest discovery does preserve vital information on spider evolution.”  (He also mentioned that 500 extinct spiders have been found in amber.)  Another expert explained that the discovery “helps researchers understand the evolution of both spiders and their prey,”  such as spiders “influencing the evolution of flying insects for millions of years.” 
• Associated Press (see Fox News) focused on the claim that web-spinning evolved only once.  It did, however, describe the exquisite detail in the amber: “The amber, found in Spain, preserved 26 strands of silk, many of them connected to one another.  Glue droplets are visible on the web and prey includes a fly, a mite, a beetle and a wasp.”
• BBC News spun their web story as all evolution, all the time: “Ancient web spins evolution story,” wrote Helen Briggs; “....The find, described in Science, sheds light on the early evolution of spiders and the insects they fed on.”  Her article included this twist on the word design:  “The fossil web appears to have been designed along the same lines as the round nets woven by modern spiders.”

We know our readers are more perceptive than the average dupe of mainstream science reporters.  We’re wondering if anyone saw any evolution sneak by through all this advanced, elegant, geometric structure evidenced by these modern-looking spiders and their modern-looking prey.  What?  You haven’t installed the software patch yet?  No wonder.  Just skip the EULA^* and go for it.
^*Caution: installing this free patch rearranges your memory stacks and forces compliance between conflicting inputs.  Click on the executable name to download: FrontalLobotomy.exe.
Next headline on:  Fossils • Terrestrial Zoology • Genetics • Evolution

It is curious that Rubisco should fix CO₂ at all, as there is 25 times more O₂ than CO₂ in solution at 25°C, and a 500-fold difference between them in gaseous form.  Yet only 25% of reactions are oxygenase events at this temperature, and carbon intermediates ‘lost’ to the carbon fixation reactions by oxygenase action are metabolized and partly recovered by the so-called photorespiratory pathway.  Catalysis begins with activation of Rubisco by the enzyme Rubisco activase, when first CO₂ and then a magnesium ion bind to the active site.  The substrate, ribulose bisphosphate, then reacts with these to form an enediol intermediate, which engages with either another CO₂ or an O₂ molecule, either of which must diffuse down a solvent channel to reach the active site.

Such observations provided the key to the idea that in the active site the enediol must be contorted to allow CO₂ to attack more readily despite the availability of O₂ molecules.  The more the enediol mimics the carboxylate end-product, Tcherkez et al. conclude, the more difficult it is for the enzyme to free the intermediate from the active site when the reaction is completed.  When the specificity factor and selectivity for CO₂ are high, the impact on associated kinetic properties is greatest: k_cat [i.e., the rate of enzyme catalytic events per second] becomes slower.
    So, rather than being inefficient, Rubisco has become highly tuned to match substrate availability.

Several other correlates are also explained by this relationship.  For instance, Rubisco discriminates more against ¹³C than against ¹²C, the two naturally occurring stable isotopes in CO₂.  But when the specificity factor is high, the ¹³C reaction intermediate binds more tightly, and so carbon isotope discrimination is higher (that is, less ¹³C is incorporated); in consequence, the carbon-isotope signals used to reconstruct past climates should perhaps now be re-examined.  In contrast, higher ambient temperatures (30-40 °C) reduce the stability of the enediol, and Rubisco oxygenase activity and photorespiration rate increase.

Other research avenues include manipulating the various components of Rubisco and cell-specific targeting of chimaeric Rubiscos.  Potential pitfalls here are that the modified Rubisco would not only have to be incorporated and assembled by crop plants, but any improved performance would have to be retained by the plants.  Finally, one suggestion is that we should engineer plants that can express two types of Rubisco – each with kinetic properties to take advantage of the degree of shading within a crop canopy.  Such rational design would not only offer practical opportunities for the future, but also finally give the lie to the idea that Rubisco is intransigent and inefficient.

Folks, here you have it again.  What Griffiths meant as a paper praising evolution is really a paper demonstrating intelligent design.  We dare any evolutionist to explain how this “highly-tuned” enzyme, with the optimized contortions of its intermediates and its “highly conserved” (i.e., unevolved) active site, arose by an unguided process, especially how a lowly bacterium – the simplest of organisms – evolved three forms of it and can switch between them depending on environmental conditions!  And don’t say it evolved because evolution is a fact.
    Here again, also, we see how further research is giving “the lie to the idea” that something in nature “is intransigent and inefficient.”  Evolutionists love to showcase examples of inefficiency in nature, to give the impression that any God or designer would not do such a bungled job.  The only bungling is in the theories of evolutionists who look at optimized, rational design in the face and can’t see a rational designer.  Human rational design applied to improving on nature’s engineering marvels does not support evolution, it supports intelligent design.  If human intelligence is required to copy or modify a design, one cannot say that the original design “emerged” by an unguided, purposeless, material process.  Why is that such a hard concept for the Darwinists to grasp?  Why can’t they see the illogic of their position?  As usual, they merely assume evolution can perform any engineering job necessary, even designing nanomachinery that exceeds our human capabilities.
    Notice the snippet about climate models in this story, also.  It goes to show that assumptions about the unobservable past, like foundations under a house of cards, can shift under new research.  Though Griffiths was not specific about the degree of alteration climate models might suffer, this is a point to remember whenever popular science reports glibly claim things like “218.24267 gazillion years ago, the atmosphere went through a period of global warming followed by a snowball earth.”
    You may never have heard about this indispensable enzyme that helps keep you breathing and gives you salad to eat (and, indirectly, meat from plant-eating animals).  Astrobiologists had better pay attention.  Mars and Venus have lots of carbon dioxide, but no Rubisco.  Earth has just enough CO₂ to help moderate the atmospheric temperature, but not too much to cause a catastrophic greenhouse effect; that balance is maintained in part by this highly-tuned enzyme.  Our ability to read and write and think these thoughts owes to the convergence of numerous improbable factors, including our planet’s optimal distance from the sun, a global magnetic field, a planetary mass that retains the right ingredients but lets others escape, a transparent atmosphere, a star that produces radiation with just the right energy range for molecular reactions, and optimally engineered molecular machines in plants that can harvest that energy.  As a result, our lungs have air, our bodies have food, and our eyes have beauty and variety to enjoy.  If this looks like intelligent design, and if that has philosophical or religious implications, so be it.  Thank God for Rubisco. 
Next headline on:  Cell Biology • Intelligent Design • Biomimetics • Amazing Facts

4. Since its first appearance on Earth, life has taken many forms, all of which continue to evolve, in ways which palaeontology and the modern biological and biochemical sciences are describing and independently confirming with increasing precision.  Commonalities in the structure of the genetic code of all organisms living today, including humans, clearly indicate their common primordial origin.

One can imagine that in the time of the Reformation, every Catholic academy across the Latin world would have unanimously risen up to condemn Luther.  The list of signatories would have been impressive.  It must have been a fearful moment for Luther to stand alone against the tidal wave of illustrious scholars and officials arrayed against him, and say, “Here I stand.  I can do no other.  God help me.”
    Don’t be impressed by the number of signatories to this dogmatic document (that, ironically, claims science is not dogmatic; if they really believed that, they would recognize the possibility that evolution is wrong and listen seriously to the claims it has been falsified).  A position statement issued by the upper echelons of management of a scientific society no more reflects the views of all scientists than a labor union’s political endorsement reflects the rank-and-file workers.  How many of them even knew this document was being published?  Most of the scientists in those societies don’t even study evolutionary biology in their day-to-day work, and probably many who accept evolution don’t feel that strongly about it.  Probably one or a few activist leaders at a meeting of these academies wrote the statement and pushed it through for a vote; perhaps it included “Yves Quere, co-chair of the Inter Academy Panel on International Issues,” whom the BBC article quoted: “So in this statement we say you cannot teach this to children, it is wrong.”  Here’s a guy with an agenda.
    Even if I.D. is a minority view at this time (but not among the public, only among Big Science organizations), science does not advance by majority vote.  As we saw from the case of Grote Reber (02/06/2003), the Lone Ranger is sometimes the good guy.  There have been many instances in the history of science where a maverick had to fight long and hard against entrenched ideas – sometimes for decades, facing official opposition that was sometimes strident and personal.  What’s important in science is not to be popular, but to be right.  There are notable nonconformists within the scientific societies.  Though pro-ID letters from scientists are routinely censored by most mainstream journals, Evolution News found a well-written letter to the Journal of Clinical Investigation that should be held up alongside the IAP document and any other saber-rattling position papers attacking intelligent design.  Read it and see who is taking the reasonable scientific position on this issue.
    The IAP statement, despite its self-righteous condemnation of anything that questions evolution, is noteworthy for what it does not say.  The BBC article ended with a statement by Steve Fuller, who promotes teaching the controversy.  Fuller thought it was “pretty mild” and “really doesn’t hit on the kinds of issues that would separate either contesting schools within evolutionary theory or evolution versus intelligent design.”  It lacks, for instance, any reference to a naturalistic mechanism – including Darwin’s – that could lead from hydrogen to humans.  Once you scrape away the rust of evolutionary assumptions masquerading as evidence, there’s really not much left to argue with: the universe appeared, life appeared, photosynthesis appeared, geology changes and science should be falsifiable.  Remove the E-word here and there, and nothing is offered to demonstrate all living things arose from a common ancestor by an undirected natural process.  (For a refutation of the argument from similarity, see Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells.)
    The statement also attacks a straw man.  No ID-friendly school board or organization is advocating removing the subject of evolution in the public schools, or replacing it with young-earth creationism.  Where has Quere been?  The whole controversy is about teaching the controversy and removing the artificial moat that protects Charlie’s castle from monitoring by independent inspectors.  One would think that scientific societies, committed to an open-ended process of inquiry and the formulation of falsifiable theories, would welcome the scrutiny.  So what if Darwin’s ideas are found to be false?  Great; science marches on.  So what if intelligent design wins?  Great; now we have another paradigm for trying to make sense of the natural world.  What’s the problem?  The only people working to conceal, deny and confuse the issue are the Darwiniacs.
    Official denunciations like this suggest an underlying insecurity.  There would not be a need if evolution were so obvious.  Instead of engaging their opponents calmly with rational discussion, they entrench themselves behind their castle walls and talk tough.  Wouldn’t it be cool to lob boxes of Ann Coulter’s Godless over the wall, just for the fun of watching their pointy heads turn red and explode.
Next headline on:  Evolution • Intelligent Design • Education

• Chimp off the old block?  Richard F. Harris in Current Biology¹ surveyed media coverage of a Nature story that human and chimp ancestors might have crossbred.  At first, Harris expected the anti-evolutionists to suffer the most over this seemingly bitter pill:

  A recent survey found that half of all Americans believe our species was not a product of evolution, but instead a direct creation of God (and Brits aren’t much different).  So imagine how hard that half of the population swallowed after reading the latest reported twist in human evolution.  Our relatives, it seems, were more than just kissin’ cousins, when it came to the early chimp line.

  Harris sampled some of the bawdy lines this story generated in news stories.  Later, however, he admitted the evidence is not all that clear:

  Whether it’s the truth or not remains to be seen.  In a paper in Nature, David Reich and colleagues are careful to say they just “suggest a provocative explanation” for their surprising genetic results.  Science journalists didn’t dig too deeply for other possible explanations.  They did, however, seek out some words of caution....
  In fact, nobody has a good picture of what these early hominids and chimp ancestors looked like.

  How an uncertain claim could prove distressing to anti-evolutionists, therefore, was not explained.  Time, however, won Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week for spinning confusion into certainty and clubbing the anti-evolutionists with it.  Quoted by Harris, the magazine announced confidently,

  It’s sure to be seized on right away, though, by anti-evolutionists, who will undoubtedly claim that evolutionary theorists will once again be forced to rewrite the theory in the face of inconvenient facts – and that this proves it’s not a valid theory.  But that’s bogus.... A mystery like this poses no threat to evolution – it just makes it more interesting.

• Hands Off Policy:  CEH got mentioned on MSNBC on Alan Boyle’s Cosmic Log.  He took a look at media coverage of the duck “missing link” story, including ours (see 06/16/2006) and the load of email he got, and decided to go on a diet of sorts: “This tongue-lashing over ‘missing links’ is enough to make me swear off the term from now on – even if the researchers themselves use it, or even if other news outlets apply the term to Gansus or past finds such as the Tiktaalik ‘fish out of water’” (see 04/06/2006 story).

• Fear of Godless:  Ann Coulter told Fox News she was surprised at the reaction to her new book Godless: The Church of Liberalism.  The surprise was not that there was a reaction, but the target of the reaction.  Most critics focused on her description of four widows of 9/11 victims, whom she claimed were profiting from their anti-Bush celebrity.  She expected the biggest negative response would come from the Darwinists.  “Liberal’s creation myth is Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, which is about one notch above Scientology in scientific rigor,” she had opened chapter 8; “It’s a make-believe story, based on a theory that is a tautology, with no proof in the scientist’s laboratory or the fossil record—and that’s after 150 years of very determined looking.”  On that point, the reaction from the scientific community and the mainstream media was an unexpected silence.

Readers can propose their own explanations for the lack of outrage against Coulter’s irreverence for Father Charlie (which only intensifies after her opening paragraph).  Either this book is completely off their radar screen (though a New York Times best-seller and the talk of the talk shows the week of June 12); or, they don’t want to dignify the views of an articulate woman they probably wish to characterize as a dumb blonde; or, they have no answers to her hard-hitting accusations.  It does seem strange to see no response at all from the Darwin Party against a high-profile columnist whose books are flying off the shelves.  It wasn’t long ago that any criticism of Darwin met swift and strident censure.  (Buy the real book, by the way, not the awful things liberals are saying about it.)
    If the Darwinists had such a strong case, they could trot it out every time some upstart calls their bluff.  They could produce the Emperor’s elegant robes, and the argument would be over, just like displaying the dead body of Jesus on the streets of Jerusalem would have snuffed out the Christian church on Pentecost afternoon.  That the Darwinists do not produce the goods is a strong indication that they know they cannot.  They used to keep the peasants in line with bluffing, authority and evasion.  Now that more writers, speakers and websites like CEH are challenging their authority and exposing their Emperor’s nakedness, their only recourse is diving into their holes and waiting it out, or by “finding a court to hand them everything they want on a silver platter,” as Coulter puts it (p. 200).
    Indications that some news sources are toning down their rhetoric (except for incorrigibles like Time) is an encouraging sign.  It probably means that the relentless public challenges to the Darwinist elitist rule are having an effect.  If so, it’s only a start.  Darwinist dictatorship will assert itself again at the slightest sign of weakness.  (Their only ethic is survival of the fittest, after all.)  There were strident attacks against Darwin’s book as soon as it was written and for a decade after, but they were effectively silenced by the shenanigans of Darwin’s four musketeers (see 01/06/2004 commentary).  This is a long-term conflict.  The noble-minded Visigoths (05/09/2006) who want to defeat the Darwin Party’s stranglehold on science must be willing to stay in the battle for the long term.  If you do write letters to the editor, please do so effectively.  Poorly-written missives with faulty reasoning do more harm than good.  Alan Boyle printed some particularly shoddy examples on his MSNBC column; hopefully these were exceptions.  Before saying anything, master the Baloney Detector, spelling, and grammar.  Know the issues, keep it succinct, stay on point, keep away from questionable arguments and claims, and your arrows will not miss the mark.
    So Time thinks the new claim about human-chimp ancestry poses no threat to Charlie’s tale, but just makes it more “interesting.”  That’s about the best spin that could be put on it.  It illustrates our running argument that what Darwinists care about is not truth but an entertaining plot line.  The more twists and turns, the better; they add suspense.  The show must go on, regardless.  Nothing can possibly falsify their open-ended tale, because the preface and conclusion were agreed on in advance.  The story may turn out to be more “interesting” than they can stomach.  (Perhaps hidden in some chapter in the middle, within some hopelessly convoluted situation appearing impossible to resolve, a sentence will jump out and say, “Do not finish this book.  To continue for the surprise ending, jump to this other book.”)  As the Chinese fortune cookie equivocally wishes, “May you live in interesting times.”
Next headline on:  Early Man • Genetics • Darwinism • Dumb Ideas

With polls continuing to show a majority doubt evolution, and with more school boards showing boldness enough to stand up against ACLU and Americans United threats, and with the inherent and obvious reasonableness of allowing controversial subjects to get a critical analysis, the AP and other mainstream media may be slowly catching onto the fact that they cannot continue to lie and sell papers.  Keep those well-written and soundly-argued letters to the editor flowing.
Next headline on:  Education • Darwinism • Intelligent Design

• Darwin’s Dilemma Solved?  Dr. J. William Schopf (UCLA), renowned discoverer of Precambrian microfossils, triumphantly announced the solution to “Darwin’s Dilemma” at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in a slide presentation to scientists 06/14/2006.  He showed examples of cyanobacteria, stromatolites (see 03/22/2006) and carbon isotope anomalies.  All these, however, showed evidence for microbes, not the complex body plans that burst on the scene in the Cambrian.  Moreover, he showed fossil cyanobacteria dated as 3.5 billion and 1.5 billion years old alongside modern species that looked identical; he even speculated that their biochemistry was probably the same.
• Bilateral Split:  Fossil embryos with “polar lobes” characteristic of bilaterians (animals with two-sided symmetry) were reported in Science this week from Precambrian deposits in China.¹  Though simple microscopic bundles of 3-5 cells, the authors claim, “these fossils imply that lobe formation is an ancient evolutionary device, and that the general strategy of precocious blastomere specification still used in most bilaterian groups was extant at least 40 million years before the Cambrian.”  Katherine Unger wrote in the same issue² that “Some scientists are reluctant to give the fossils their unequivocal endorsement.”  No adult forms were found; some speculate they could represent an extinct lineage of early bilaterians.

The Schopf talk was egregious for claiming Darwin has been vindicated.  For one thing, he gave no clue how microbes exploded into a plethora of complex body plans in the Cambrian.  For another, he guaranteed he cannot see evidence against evolution!  One of his criteria was, “Does it fit with evolution?”  This means that no matter what is found, if it doesn’t fit with evolution, it must be mistaken.  Darwin in, Darwin out.
    Bilaterian embryos are too little, too late.  These are just drops in the bucket, in a bucket too large for Darwin to fill.  Read the Paper View article from 04/23/2006 for a detailed account of the problem.
Next headline on:  Fossils • Evolution

This is scandalous.  The news media should be ashamed of themselves.  What should have been interpreted as the falsification of common notions about bird evolution has been twisted into support for evolution.  In an act of contortion astounding in scope, the media expect us to believe three more impossible things before breakfast: (1) that the anatomical features of modern birds including webbed feet, oil glands and all the other traits necessary for aquatic life, evolved quickly; (2) that soft tissues like webbed feet, downy feathers and “pelvic limbs with soft-tissue preservation” survived for 110 million years, and (3) that the cataclysm that spelled doom for dozens of kinds of survival-hardened dinosaurs, from the powerful carnivores to the pet-sized mini-sauropods (see 06/10/2006) – animals that presumably conquered the world from the arctic to the tropics, outlasting all kinds of environmental changes – somehow left our cute feathered friends unscathed.
    This is loony.  Aren’t you glad for the internet, and sites like Creation-Evolution Headlines, that can bring a dose of realism to out-of-control Darwin-infested science reporting?  Before, the mainstream media and networks fed this sleight-of-mind to the public unchallenged; well, now the public is calling out the propagandists and demanding honesty.  And welcome, all you at Panda’s Thumb; we know you’re paying attention.

Follow-up: Sidestepping at Panda’s Thumb:  Let’s examine how a PT critic answered the above entry:

.... Creation-Evolution headlines’ article on this find is particular execrable.  They call Gansus a ‘duck’; they claim the find is a ‘known species appearing much earlier than already thought’ (Gansus has always been assigned to the Early Cretaceous), and they mock the idea that birds survived the KT extinction (most of them did not; the enanthornithines did not, and there was a major genetic bottleneck in the ornithurines).  A shorebird, able to travel to find food, living largely off shoreline detritus and small shoreline scavengers, likely in the tropics, would be exactly the kind of species one would expect to survive a major catastrophe.

First of all, brush off the cussword execrable as mere emotional fluff, and examine the facts.  It wasn’t just CEH that called this a duck.  Every popular article linked above said it resembled a duck, was duck-like or was “just ducky.”  LiveScience began, “If it looks like a duck and paddles like a duck, it must be a duck, right?  That’s the conclusion of researchers....”  So let this critic castigate the other science reporters, then; the bird had webbed feet and swam, so why quibble about categories?  The original paper said that Gansus used to be thought of as a sandpiper, but “Its anatomy, however, demonstrates that it was more similar to, but not as adept as, foot-propelled diving birds such as grebes, loons, and diving ducks.”  The fossil didn’t come with a Linnaean sticker on it.  The criticism that we called it a duck when it isn’t is like complaining we called a vehicle a minivan when it was really a Caravan.  It’s a Dodge.
    As to Gansus always being assigned Early Cretaceous, the original paper stated, “Previously reported, alleged Early Cretaceous ornithurans are either fragmentary, of debatable age, or have received only limited examination.”  For instance, the first known specimen consisted of an “isolated partial left pelvic limb.”  The whole surprise of this discovery was to find a much more complete and well-preserved fossil of an Early Cretaceous bird with Late Cretaceous features.  The paper states, “this taxon possesses advanced anatomical features previously known only in Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic ornithuran birds.”  So the point is not where evolutionists had classified this species in their own incestuous dating scheme, but that it turned out to have “late” or modern features much “earlier” than expected.  The critic strains at a gnat and swallows a camel.
    Finally, about the extinctions, well, it’s nice that this critic was able to invent a just-so story to patch up an older just-so story.  There were shore-scavenging dinosaurs in the tropics, too, along with swimming dinosaurs.  This major catastrophe was shore selective in what shore creatures it wiped out.
    So how well did this critic do in attacking our report?  Now consider what he didn’t address – namely, the main points.  Evolutionists ask us to believe that a modern-looking aquatic bird, fully capable of swimming and diving, evolved all its advanced features quickly.  After being buried in pristine condition, its soft tissues, feathers and webbed feet survived intact for 110 million years.  That’s what all the science reporters are parroting without asking the obvious questions, and without considering any alternatives outside the Darwinian orthodoxy.  It’s time such nonsense was not foisted on the public as science without a challenge.
    Answering blogger blather such as that on Panda’s Thumb is not our style, lest we dignify what David Berlinski described as low-market, semi-literate posts with a “characteristic combination of pustules and gonorrhea that one would otherwise associate with high-school toughs” (ARN).  This was an experiment to see if they could deal with it honestly.  If you want creation-evolution news based on the original scientific sources along with critical analysis of reports issuing from the mainstream media, you know you can find it here.  We still invite the Thumb-suckers over there at PT to graduate to a higher education.
Next headline on:  Birds • Fossils • Evolution

The time has come for this claim, and its evidence, to be scrutinized critically yet fairly.  Though the pictures are intriguing, the burden of proof will be on the team to associate this object with the Ark of Noah.  Years ago Ferdinand Navarra wrote a book about his discovery of hand-hewn timbers found under a glacier on Mt. Ararat; he even had film to prove it.  Unfortunately, the artifacts were later discredited as too recent to be associated with Noah’s Ark.  Another film made great claims about a boat-shaped structure below Mt. Ararat, yet few became convinced it is anything more than a strange geological feature.  This reminder is not to put the new claim in the same boat, so to speak, but to show how initially spectacular photographic evidence does not always match the hoped-for results of scientific tests.
    A number of hard questions should be asked.  There are many places on the planet where dark rock outcroppings contrast with the surroundings.  There are also many mountains with seashell fossils.  Petrified wood is also widespread.  In many places, columnar basaltic lava looks very geometrical and can give the appearance of hand-hewn wood.  How do we know this is not just another spectacular example of an artificial-looking geological formation?  Does this object have the expected dimensions and shape of the vessel described in Genesis 6?  How conclusive is the evidence this petrified wood was tooled?  Are there nails or other marks of artificial construction?  Are the sizes and arrangements of the alleged beams consistent with shipbuilding?  Is there evidence the structure, now filled in, had internal rooms and compartments?  Is there any residual organic matter that can be carbon dated?  What is the history of this region, both geologically and archaeologically?  Are there other marks of ancient habitation here?  Even if this structure proves artificial, could it be something other than a ship, like some later structure that became petrified?  What about all the sightings on the traditional Mt. Ararat—were all of them in error?  What petrified the wood, if this was a boat—did it get re-buried?  If smothered by a landslide or other catastrophe, how could it remain recognizable?  Why would the timbers not be dismantled by the descendants of Noah or subsequent generations?  How did it get preserved, only to be discovered now?  Perhaps you can think of more questions.
    Most claims of this sort turn out to contain a mosaic of pieces of evidence, some more convincing than others, some even contradictory.  Confidence in the conclusion will rest on the inference to the best explanation from the preponderance of evidence.  It may never be convincing to all honest scholars under the best of conditions.  We cannot be influenced solely by the pictures or the enthusiasm of the team members—nor by the complaints of skeptics and rivals.  Detailed scientific tests will be required.  Other investigators should visit the site and consider all possible explanations.  The team should be open to sharing information, should be their own best critics, and should not give the appearance of capitalizing on this finding for personal gain or fame.  Now that the initial announcement is out, it’s up to the discoverers to prove this is not just an interesting geological formation.
Update 07/05/2006: Tas Walker at Creation on the Web urges caution.  He thinks it is a geological formation, similar to others found around the world.  National Geographic News also gave prominent press to the claims, but then debunked them with the opinions of geologists.
Next headline on:  Bible and Theology • Geology

Wade’s explanations commit various well-known errors, such as equating correlation with causation and extrapolating from individual traits to group characteristics.  Often his arguments and trait choices are laden with Western-oriented value judgements....
    Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.  In The New York Times on 15 January 2006, Wade warned against journalists being too ready to accept “overstated or wrong” claims from the science literature, but in too many places where it makes a difference he has ignored his own advice.  A journalist doesn’t create facts, but he does select what to repeat and how to colour it, and Wade is long on speculating about what “is reasonabl