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Month-End Close-Out 10/31/2007

Sometimes the creation-evolution news comes in too fast. Heres a bakers
dozen from the October shelf, lest they go stale; time to start a new batch for November.
- Charity begins at worldview: David Cyranoski in
Nature
(450, 24-25, 10/31/2007)
investigated why the level of charitable giving in prosperous Japan is a tenth of
that in America. Its not just due to economic realities, regulatory policies and
taxes. The behavior is consistent from rich to poor, from corporate to private.
The most intractable problem, he wrote, was a culture in which individuals, rich or not,
do not generally donate. Cyranoski interviewed a patient advocate and a
scientist who are trying to change the culture. People think the government is
going to do everything for them, explained a leader of a philanthropic organization
in Tokyo. The author did not delve into possible religious reasons for the disparity
between Japanese and American attitudes about charitable giving Japan is less than
1% Christian, while America is nominally 75% or more but did refer to societal
belief in the collective rather than the individual. Is this a problem science
can fix?
- Dino adventure: Alison Abbott in
Nature
(450, 18-20, 10/31/2007) wrote up an adventure story about attempts to excavate
dinosaur bones along the Colville River, Alaska. The ill-fated expedition was full of troubles,
woes, infighting and only partial success, but spoke of this whole trove of dinosaur fossils
mostly fragmented skulls and bones belonging to hadrosaurs as quite remarkable,
a home to diverse species of polar dinosaurs. Unfossilized bone has
reputedly been found in this 200 km bone bed, which displays evidence of a watery
catastrophe, says creationist writer
Margaret Helder. Remember
the tracks found at the south pole? (See article on
EurekAlert
and the 10/18/2007 entry).
- No room for error: Biophysicists constructed their own protein loops,
reported a team from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and found them to be
delicate. Tiny changes in the amino acid order produced large changes in the
loops. Writing in PNAS,
they said, These results suggest that the high-resolution design of protein loops is
possible; however, they also highlight how small changes in protein energetics can
dramatically perturb the low free energy structure of a protein.
- How the sherpas do it: Tibetans live at high altitude and carry heavy
loads with ease in conditions that would quickly exhaust most flatlanders (see
06/17/2005). How do they do it?
A mostly-American team found that they have more nitric oxide (NO) in their bloodstream,
which increases blood flow. This suggests that NO production is increased and
that metabolic pathways controlling formation of NO products are regulated differently
among Tibetans, they found. These findings shift attention from the traditional
focus on pulmonary and hematological systems to vascular factors contributing to
adaptation to high-altitude hypoxia, they concluded. This seems to suggest
that a simple change in a regulatory factor, rather than substantive physiological
changes, allowed these people to adapt to their unique environment.
- Spanish tiger tusks: Large mammal bones in abundance have been found
in a vast fossil hoard near Granada, Spain, reported the
BBC News.
Giant hyenas, sabretoothed cats, giraffes and zebras lived side by side in Europe
1.8 million years ago. About 4,000 fossils have been found so far.
They say this place, near a crossroads of ecological zones, was a hyena den,
where hyenas feasted and left the bones. Must have been some hyenas to feast
on mammoths and sabretooth cats.
- Lava vs meteor: Chixculub didnt do in the dinosaurs, Gerta
Keller is still arguing. Despite the nearly weekly matter-of-fact statements about
the meteor that made the dinosaurs go extinct, a press release from the
Geological Society of America
discussed Kellers view that supervolcanism in India was responsible.
Not only was the impact event too early, it produced one tenth of the deadly gases
that came from Indias Deccan traps, she calculated.
- Dino tracks in China: Parallel trackways of raptor dinosaurs
have been found in China, reported
Science Daily,
suggesting that this species did hunt, or at least hike, in groups.
- Reptile tracks in Canada:
News@Nature
reported a discovery of reptile tracks from Canada claimed to be 315 million years old
1 million and 3 million years older than the previous find (and a kilometer
lower in the rock strata).
- Western science:
Science
magazine (11/02/2007, Vol. 318. no. 5851, p. 733) gave a portrait of Xu Guangqi,
the Renaissance man of China (b. 1562). He brought science and geometry to the East.
Where did he get it? From the West. He learned it from Jesuit missionary
Matteo Ricci, and spread its influence across the land.
Xu Guangqi brought calendar reform, improvements to irrigation, and Euclids Elements
to China, along with other Western ideas. For his achievements, he has been
compared to Leonardo da Vinci and Francis Bacon (provided he reference his sources).
- Eastern stem cells: China and Australia are collaborating on stem cell
research with adult stem cells, that is: see
ScienceScope
Oct. 26 in Science. The $1 million Australia-China Centre for Excellence in Stem Cells
will be using adult mesenchymal stem cells to treat cancer and diseases of the lung and liver,
then combining the research with immunology to push the field forward, the paragraph said.
- Make like a lemur: Were all related to flying lemurs,
reported National
Geographic based on a phylogenetic study in
Science
(11/02/2007, Vol. 318. no. 5851, pp. 792-794). Look before you leap.
- Ringmoons: More small embedded moonlets have been found in Saturns
A ring, reported Science
Daily. They seem confined to a narrow belt. Scientists think they are
relatively recent, not related to the initial origin of the rings. Even so, explaining
the apparently youthful age of the entire ring system remains a challenge.
- Convergent design: Elaborate tri-cusped molars evolved separately
more than once, if a story in
National
Geographic is credible. A new species of Jurassic mammal found fossilized
in China had the same molars, very advanced in terms of its tooth structure,
that unrelated mammals also had.since Pseudotribos robustus belongs
to a different and long-lost lineage, it must have evolved the cut-and-grind tooth
independently, the article said matter-of-factly. This is an example
of a process known as convergent evolution. The National Geographic Society
partially funded the research that was published in
Nature
(11/01/2007, 450, 93-97).
Encore: A letter in last weeks
Science
by two molecular biologists recommended that we should be borrowing from
biology. They were particularly struck by the efficient way plants extract
all the energy from sunlight in their photosynthetic reaction centers.
Perhaps we should study biology more often and more directly for solutions
to our pressing modern problems.
These are just a few examples of the dozens of
articles that pass before our editorial eyes in an attempt to inform our readers
of noteworthy discoveries relating to origins. Your letters keep this
service going. Write here if you have a comment.
Next headline on:
Fossils
Politics and Ethics
Mammals
Dinosaurs
Cell Biology
Human Body
Solar System
When Bad Religion Confronts Good Science, and Vice Versa 10/31/2007

A spooky Halloween thought: there are still witch doctors in the world today.
If they were harmless spooks, they could be dismissed as kooks, but they can have
a devastating impact on the ecology as well as the souls of men.
National
Geographic had a disturbing story this month about the witch doctors of Uganda, who are driving
the beautiful gray-crowned cranes of the country extinct, because of superstitious
beliefs.
These birds with golden headdresses, also known as crested cranes,
are among the most beautiful in Africa. They are popular and beloved icons for most
people in the region.
In the past decade, though, the crane population in Uganda has fallen from 50,000
to 20,000, primarily due to witch doctorsalso known as traditional healerswho
use the animals in folk medicine and poachers who take the birds from their natural habitat....
The healers crush the eggs with herbs to sell as a love potion.
Feathers, claws, and beaks of the cranes are also used in drinks and as decorations
for promoting monogamy and affection.
The crane is also perceived as a good omen that can cast away evil
spirits from children.
Because the cranes mate for life, village people think that by consuming
the birds eggs and feathers, they too will have better relationships. A team of researchers found
40 dead cranes in the shrines of witch doctors. Because the birds are treated
cruelly in capture and transport, poachers often have to catch 4 or 5 for every one
that actually makes it to the black market.
For a study in contrasts, when the good-guy/bad-guy roles are reversed,
consider what is happening in schools and universities across America. The website for the
upcoming movie Expelled (see
08/22/2007 and
10/25/2007)
is holding a contest for true stories from students, professors and scientists who have been
ostracized, fired, denied tenure, or otherwise expelled simply
for doubting the reigning paradigm of Darwinian evolution.
In just a few days, the site at
Expelled has collected
16 stories. These include teachers and senior research scientists with impressive
academic research records. The movie itself will detail many of the notable
cases. It is expected that many will refrain from telling their stories, though,
for fear of retribution.
If you are appalled at both cases, good. You
have not bought into the white science vs. black religion dichotomy, which has been
roundly debunked by most historians of science, such as Lawrence M. Principe (Johns
Hopkins; see Teaching
Company lecture series). It means you are wise to the
either-or fallacy. It also
means that you assume Judeo-Christian morality as a precondition of judging right from
wrong.
Clearly there is plenty of good and bad in both science and religion.
If we can judge between good and bad science, as does James Randi, the skeptics
societies and the Ig Nobel Prize judges, we
should also be able to judge good and bad religion. If it is wrong to judge
science based on bad examples, it is wrong to judge all religion because of witch
doctors who drive beautiful birds extinct based on foolish superstitions.
A little more reflection will reveal that science and religion are not watertight
compartments but have many aspects that overlap and reinforce one another.
If you are an evolutionist, or an atheist, on what basis could you
claim that what the witch doctors are doing is bad? According to Darwinism,
primitive peoples and their religious sensations evolved, as did their prey, the
cranes. If the cranes are wiped out by the humans, too bad. The humans
are obviously the fittest. Evolutionists should actually praise the selfishness
of the native people who are trying to improve their reproductive fitness, because
selfishness is the ultimate good in Darwinland. Darwinists believe that even
altruism is a byproduct of selfishness.
Decrying the birds fate only makes sense if humans have souls, who have an
innate sense of true moral categories that should make us care about such things.
On a scatter plot of case studies in science and religion, we should
expect to find clusters of good religion and good science, bad religion and bad
science, good religion and bad science, and good science and bad religion.
We can make these judgments only if we presuppose a righteous Creator.
Because Christians and Jews believe in a holy, personal God who called all things
He made good, and created man in His image, they alone have a foundation for making
sound moral judgments based on Gods holy standard.
So, Darwin Dogmatists, ease up on your fellow academics who disagree with the
reigning paradigm, and hear them out. Stop judging them until you can
define and defend your moral categories, and consistently judge your own actions
and beliefs accordingly (including the integrity of science). This means
you will have to acknowledge Judeo-Christian moral standards at the outset.
If not, please explain where your moral categories come from, and why anyone else
should feel the way you do.
Then, let the good scientists and
good Jews and Christians join the fight to save the endangered creatures God
has put under our stewardship.
Suggested method: win the Ugandans to Christianity, so that they have a basis for sound
moral judgment and appreciation for creation. Then educate them in science
and ecology so they will know how best to care for their fellow created things.
Educate them in logic and Bible doctrine so that they will not fall for superstitious myths
(II
Timothy 2:23-25, Ephesians
4:14-15). This will heal a fallen society from within so that the population
will have an internal motivation to do good, without the need for police and government
regulations.
Halloween is also Reformation Day.
The Protestant Reformation was not just a theological quibble over
doctrine. It was a call to freedom of conscience for each individual to
respond to his or her Creator in faith, love and reason to have personal
access to the Word of God in their own language. Many historians have attributed
the rise of science, political liberty, the end of tyranny and slavery, and a plethora of
new social institutions based on personal responsibility to that fateful day on October
31, 1517, when Martin Luther, in a one-man crusade of righteous indignation at a moral
evil he witnessed (his people enslaved by a foolish superstition), nailed his
95 Theses
to the church door in Wittenburg.
The story is complex, and Luther was far from a perfect man; he also
was indebted to brave predecessors such as Jon Hus and John Wycliffe.
Luthers crusade bore good fruit because he
studied Gods word intently, using his God-given reason, instead of acquiescing to
the doctrines of mere men, and had the courage and opportunity to open this door of freedom to
others. One of his passions was to get the Word of God into the common language
so that individuals could study it for themselves. Western civilization
has benefited immensely since. (For a summary of the benefits,
see this Reformation
Society article). The ending of the movie
Martin Luther says,
Luthers influence extended into economics, politics, education and music,
and his translation of the Bible became a foundation stone of the German language.
Today over 540 million people worship in churches inspired by his Reformation.
Is this not morally superior to the Halloween haunts of witch doctors who
enslave poor people in dark superstitions? Lets give the captive
people of tribal villages the same opportunity. Jesus Christ can turn the
heart of darkness
to everlasting light (I
John 1). When that light illuminates both science and religion, the
fusion of good religion and good science is a recipe for whooping cranes and
joyful people.
Exercise: List leaders in various fields who were products of the Reformation,
along with the benefits they brought to humanity. Examples: J.S. Bach and G.F. Handel (music),
William Wilberforce (human rights), Johannes Kepler (astronomy), John Milton (literature),
Adam Smith (free market economics), John Adams (political liberty).
Suggested reference:
How
Christianity Changed the World by Alvin J. Schmidt.
Next headline on:
Darwinism
Intelligent Design
Politics and Ethics
Theology
World War II fighter entombed under 250 feet of ice in how many years did you
say? See 10/28/2002.
Amphioxus Is Green, Like Coral 10/30/2007

Evolutionists may want to combine their song Its a long way from
Amphioxus
(02/23/2006)
with It isnt easy being green.
Green fluorescent protein (GFP) has been found in the lungfish Amphioxus, according
to a press release from
Scripps Institution
of Oceanography. Why is this not easy? Because its a long
way: The researchers say amphioxus GFPs are very similar to those of corals,
an interesting fact since the two animal groups are separated by hundreds of
millions of years of evolution. Now they are trying to find a function
for GFP in the slender, slippery lancelets that allowed them to hold onto an ancient
evolutionary innovation for so long.
If you are laughing out loud, good. It shows you are not completely hypnotized
by evolutionary mists and vapors. How did you like that
euphemism they tossed out,
as if we werent paying attention? Interesting fact,
they called it. Try devastating falsification.
GFP may well have a function in lancelets,
but that has nothing to do with helping Charlie weave his fable that they got it
from corals. Finding GFP in lancelets is like finding human genes in a shark
its not at all what Charlie would have expected. Wait a minute
they found that, too (12/26/2006).
Next headline on:
Marine Life
Evolution
Fitness for dummies, from 10/29/2002.
Is it running in circles?
Crystal Power Is Not Evolution 10/30/2007

What would Max Planck think? The Institute named after him put out a
press
release, Evolution in the Nanoworld, that claims that synthetic
molecules can organize themselves by an evolutionary principle of selection:
The automatic molecular assembly and selection steps exhibited by
the molecules, which start as random mixtures, demonstrates a fundamental step
in the evolution of life. The organization is activated by
instructions which are built-in to the molecules. During assembly,
molecules exhibit active selection: those in incorrect positions move to
make room for others which fit properly. The molecular-level observation
of such self-selection gives, for the first time, direct insight into
fundamental steps of the biological evolution from inanimate molecules
to living entities.
Dr. Klaus Kern added, The ability of molecules to selectively
sort themselves in highly organized structures is a fundamental requirement
for all molecular based systems, including biological organisms.
Yet it becomes clear from reading the details that the researchers at the Max Planck
Institute had pre-programmed the molecules to assemble into the patterns:
Dr. Mario Rubens research team at KIT [Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, a
partner in the research] is responsible for designing molecules
with built-in instructions, which when read out activate the self-selection
process. He comments: Spontaneous ordering from random
mixtures only occurs when built-in instructions are carefully designed and
sufficiently strong to initiate successful self-selection.
So this was a form of determinism, like crystallization, not natural selection.
Also, the resulting structures lacked any significant coded information content
as in the genetic code. Genetic instructions are different from molecular built-in
instructions, because they can be translated and conveyed in ways that do not depend
on the particular molecules used.
Any analogy to living organization was further stretched by the fact
that they used highly specialized conditions unlike anything in a plausible prebiotic scenario:
The molecules are placed on ultra-clean metal surfaces and heated gently
to enable motion, sorting, and organization, the press release said.
Furthermore, the molecules, once locked in place, were incapable of further evolution.
Note: The following commentary should not be perceived as anti-research.
On the contrary: we want a return to rational science that follows the evidence and
avoids making preposterous metaphysical claims. The press release contained
an escape clause: The resulting nanostructures also hold great promise as an
efficient avenue to new catalysts, nanotechnologies, and surface applications.
Great! Focus on those goals, without the evolutionary nonsense,
and you can get positive vibes here. The evolution-talk has absolutely nothing to do
with the nanotechnology. Like a parasite, it only hangs on and saps the energy.
OK, what is wrong here? Making a connection from this research to the origin
of life is so far-fetched, it is patently absurd. ID people and creationists
have been pointing out for decades the difference between the biological genetic
code and crystallization, but no creationist should be required the fallacy
should be obvious to any thinking person, especially a scientist. A grade-school
child could understand the difference between a snowflake and a book.
Notice that these researchers are esteemed men at Germanys
highest ranking research institute. Were not talking about intellectual
slouches here. This is the degree of absurdity you get in scientific reasoning
and explanation when science becomes so entrenched in a materialistic paradigm it
is incapable of thinking outside of it. These guys have chained themselves in Platos
fun-house, thinking the warped mirrors represent reality.
Meanwhile, the incorrigible Darwinists at Univ. of Georgia are still
at it, according to EurekAlert,
thinking abiotic adenine is a step toward the origin of life (see
10/22/2007 entry), and EurekAlert gives them full court press.
How do you get scientists to stop making absurd claims?
Two suggested therapies: (1) shame, and if that doesnt
work, (2) cut off the funding. If the mad scientists still wont change their
evil ways, well, then we have Max Plancks own view on scientific progress.
The renowned physicist, a Christian through his life, once quipped,
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and
making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and
a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. ID needs about
30 more years for the attrition in the Darwin Party to clear the field. (And the air.)
Next headline on:
Origin of Life
Intelligent Design
Dumb Ideas
Amphibian Imprints Found 10/30/2007

Full-body imprints of amphibians claimed to be 330 million years old have been
reported from Pennsylvania. The imprints show the unmistakably webbed
feet and bodies of three previously unknown, foot-long salamander-like critters
that lived 100 million years before the first dinosaurs.
The story in a press release from the
Geological Society of America
contains a photo
and drawing
of the unusual fossils. Spencer Lucas, paleontologist from
the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, said,
Body impressions like this are wholly unheard of.
Other interesting things were found in the same formation, including
a monster in time for Halloween:
Also found in rocks from the same formation and of the same age are
footprints of other relatively large animals and fossils of insects
and plants, Lucas explained. There is even a saucer-sized footprint
of an unknown vertebrate that suggests larger four-footed beasts lived
far earlier than ever before suspected.
The impressions were not found in the field. They were found when examining
specimens that had been sitting for decades in the Reading Public Museum Collection.
Sound familiar? Larger, advanced creatures
living much earlier than previously believed, in exquisitely preserved rock that
they just know is hundreds of millions of years old. Sounds
like a broken record in more than one sense
(09/18/2007 commentary).
Next headline on:
Terrestrial Zoology
Fossils
Neo-Darwinism falsified in the lab, from
10/19/2004.
Book: Intelligent Design Argument Turns Leading Atheist to God 10/29/2007

There is a God, announces a former leading atheist on the cover of
his new book. Antony Flew changed his mind a few years ago partly because of the design
argument: the fine-tuning of the universe, according to the blurb on
Amazon.com. New arguments by philosophical theists like Alvin Plantinga and Richard
Swinburne also played a large part. The Amazon description sums up the
import of this book: In one of the biggest religion news stories of the
new millennium, the Associated Press announced that Professor Antony Flew, the
worlds leading atheist, now believes in God
(see 12/09/2004).
In an exclusive interview with Benjamin Wiker on
To the Source,
Antony Flew made it clear that intelligent design was a decisive factor in his
change of heart:
Anthony Flew: There were two factors in particular that were decisive. One
was my growing empathy with the insight of Einstein and other noted scientists that
there had to be an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical
Universe. The second was my own insight that the integrated
complexity of life itself which is far more complex than the physical
Universe can only be explained in terms of an Intelligent Source.
I believe that the origin of life and reproduction simply cannot be
explained from a biological standpoint despite numerous efforts to do so.
With every passing year, the more that was discovered about the richness
and inherent intelligence of life, the less it seemed likely that a
chemical soup could magically generate the genetic code. The difference
between life and non-life, it became apparent to me, was ontological and not
chemical. The best confirmation of this radical gulf is Richard Dawkins
comical effort to argue in The God Delusion that the origin of life can be
attributed to a lucky chance. If thats the best argument
you have, then the game is over. No, I did not hear a Voice. It was
the evidence itself that led me to this conclusion.
Flew has only come as far as to believe God is a Person, but is not a Christian.
The book, however, which he calls his last will and testament, includes
a Christian extra: The book concludes with an appendix by New Testament scholar
and Anglican bishop N.T. Wright, arguing for the coherence of Christian belief
in the resurrection. Flew praises Wright, though he maintains some distance
still from orthodox Christianity.
Its good N.T. Wright has added a Christian
apologetic to this book. He made a good impression with his inputs to the
new film The Case for Christ
(09/16/2007).
Rejection of atheism is only a halfway house; we hope Flew considers the same
evidence that convinced Lee Strobel. Having a sincere friend like Gary Habermas is
probably helping.
The significance of this book is not that everything Flew says will
be agreeable to Christians, but that it illustrates the power of the evidence for
design. Antony Flew, an influential atheist for over 50 years, retained enough
intellectual integrity to follow the evidence where it leads. This is
especially courageous after publishing the opposite view for so long. It is extremely rare for someone to
retract an opinion after they have published it not just an error, but a deeply
held belief. The argument for design convinced Dean Kenyon to do so, and
now Antony Flew.
We hope fair-minded atheist readers will take this
opportunity to consider the evidence these two men found powerful enough to
make them swallow their pride and switch sides. How about starting with Lee Strobels
film The Case for a Creator,
followed by The Case for Christ.
Drop by these pages regularly, too.
Next headline on:
Intelligent Design
Bible and Theology
Cosmology
Machiavellian Monkeys Made Us Compassionate 10/28/2007

Love, loyalty, patriotism all the qualities that imbue a romantic novel
with soul came from Rhesus monkeys acting badly. This is the belief of Dario Maestripieri, a primatologist
and Associate Professor in Comparative Human Development and Evolutionary Biology
at the University of Chicago, according to an article in
Science
Daily.
Dr. Maestripieri observed behavior between groups of Rhesus monkeys
and saw ruthless aggression, nepotism, and complex political alliances.
Machiavelli was right, he figured: success involves using whatever tactics necessary to hold onto power.
But alas, sometimes poor outcasts became the patriots of a new revolution.
Thus, us:
Our Machiavellian intelligence is not something we can be proud of,
but it may be the secret of our success. If it contributed to
the evolution of our large brains and complex cognitive skills,
it also contributed to the evolution of our ability to engage in
noble spiritual and intellectual activities, including our love and
compassion for other people, Maestripieri said.
But why shouldnt we be proud of something evolution has built into us?
What is the evolutionary origin of shame? If anything, we should be ashamed
of the kinds of senseless values noble spiritual and intellectual activities,
love, and compassion that contradict the secret of our success.
Maestripieri did not explain whether his new book, Machiavellian Intelligence:
How Rhesus Macaques and Humans Have Conquered the World, intended to propose
something that might be true about the world, or was itself a
Machiavellian ruse to gain personal power for himself (see
self-referential fallacy in the
Baloney Detector). He also did not explain why the
Rhesus monkeys got stuck in an eddy with small brains in an endless cycle of group power struggles
if, in our case, during the same period of time,
big brains and complex cognitive skills were natural by-products of the very same process.
His theory also ascribes evolutionary
success to those who use sex for power. Ladies and gentlemen used to despise
their fellow humans who acted like brute beasts. Its not that people
prior to Darwin failed to notice that we share much in common biologically with
other creatures. They just understood that there are superior values to our
biological drives, such as self-control, honor, integrity, righteousness, fairness,
justice, unselfishness, rationality and common sense. Brute beasts, lacking
these moral and intellectual capacities, were never held responsible for them,
but neither were they held up as models for human behavior. Evolutionary philosophy,
by contrast, celebrates our baser nature unconstrained by reason and ethics.
Darwinists only get away with it by borrowing rationality and ethics long enough to
dispense with them, a self-refuting position.
For undermining all vestige of human nobility by
ascribing it to monkey antics under mindless evolutionary forces, for excusing
bestial behavior as the secret of success but then saying we should be ashamed of it, and for
shooting his argument in the foot by assuming the ontological existence of love and
nobility, Maestripieri handily wins Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week.
We cant believe anything you said, professor; youre just in a
mindless, truthless, toothless, ruthless power grab.
Next headline on:
Mammals
Early Man
Darwinism
Dumb Ideas
Whoops! Geologists change a rocks date from one end of the geologic timescale to the other,
from 10/01/2003.
Fall Colors Have a Function 10/27/2007

Deciduous trees have an investment decision to make when fall chill sets in:
do they send their sunlight-produced nutrients to the roots early, and so risk damage to the
leaves from autumn sunlight, or should they spend more energy creating a sunscreen that allows
them to produce nutrients longer, and thereby increase food storage in the roots for the
upcoming winter?
The determining factor may be the amount of nitrogen in the soil,
claims a press release from the
Geological Society of America.
According to research done by a graduate student at University of North Carolina,
in nitrogen-poor soils the balance is tipped toward investing in sunscreen. It
takes energy to produce the reddish anthocyanins, but these allow the leaves to
work overtime producing nutrients from the impoverished soil. Trees in more
nitrogen-rich soils can simply fade to yellow before falling.
The students advisor remarked, The rainbow of color we see in the fall
is not just for our personal human enjoyment -- rather, it is the trees going on
about their lives and trying to survive.
There are a couple of problems with the advisors
remark. First, it ascribes personality
and intent to a plant. The plant has no brain to figure out what to do; rather,
it has been pre-programmed with elaborate mechanisms that ensure its survival.
Did the tree figure out how to manufacture anthocyanins? Did it know in advance
that these molecules will allow it to extract more nutrients from the nitrogen-poor
soil? Was it trying to survive? Of course not.
The mechanisms discovered are marks of engineering for robustness.
The second problem is an either-or fallacy
between plant survival and human enjoyment. These functions are not mutually
exclusive. They also raise interesting philosophical questions.
Why should humans feel enjoyment at the rainbow of color in the fall? What is
the evolutionary advantage to pleasure at a scene that does not produce food or
offspring? Why shouldnt a human sense alarm at the apparent death of
a source of food?
Actually, the advisor left open the possibility that joy
might be a purpose, by saying it is not just for our personal human enjoyment.
But to push the point, she would have had to explain how the pleasure response in
humans to apparently useless beauty had adaptive value. That would not be
very romantic, would it? It would be just another example of evolutionism
taking the soul out of life. If you are an evolutionist feeling good walking
through the rainbow of colors in a fall display, maybe you should be
surprised by joy.
Next headline on:
Plants
Amazing Facts
Cilia Are Antennas for Human Senses and Development 10/26/2007

The little hair-like projections on cells, called cilia, have more functions than
previously believed. A press release from
Johns Hopkins University
said that researchers found cilia are important for the sense of touch particularly,
for heat sensation. In fact, cilia are implicated in at least three of the five
traditional senses.
The article explained that some people thought to have
psychological problems may actually be victims
of ciliopathy or defects in cilia formation. Dr. Nico Katsanis
said, People with ciliopathies are often thought to have mental retardation
or autism because they appear slow. Now it appears that
many aspects of their mental capacity may be just fine, they are just slow
because they cant sense things as well as other individuals.
Another press release from
Johns Hopkins
earlier in the month reported that Katsanis team found that cilia act like
little radio antennas that control the development of the body:
Johns Hopkins researchers say they have figured out how human and all
animal cells tune in to a key signal, one that literally transmits
the instructions that shape their final bodies. It turns out the cells
assemble their own little radio antenna on their surfaces to help them
relay the proper signal to the developmental proteins listening
on the inside of the cell.
The transmitters are primary cilia, relatively rigid, hairlike
tails that respond to specialized signals from a host of
proteins, including a key family of proteins known as Wnts. The Wnts in
turn trigger a cascade of shape-making decisions that guide cells to
take specific shapes, like curved eyelid cells or vibrating hair
cells in the ear, and even make sure that arms and legs emerge
at the right spots.
Katsanis commented on the importance of this finding: Weve just reset
a huge volume of literature under a new light.
Exciting discoveries in the cellular realm continue
apace. Some will remember that cilia were the first
examples in Michael Behes classic book
Darwins Black
Box of irreducibly complex structures. That was in 1996; no one knew
the half of it back then.
Is intelligent design a productive scientific theory? One way to
tell is to see if the case gets better with new discoveries. Darwinisms proponents
have to keep adding patches and hotfixes to the theory to explain away new problems
with the fossil record, the tree of life and the complexity of the cell.
The case for Intelligent Design, by contrast, gets stronger with each new finding.
Imagine: a radio antenna on each cell, signalling the inside world about the
outside world. Most signal-relay stations we know about were intelligently
designed.
Signal without recognition is meaningless. Communication implies
a signalling convention (a coming together or agreement
in advance) that a given signal means or represents something: e.g., that S-O-S
means Send Help! or, in this case, that Wnt proteins mean put this arm here.
The transmitter
and receiver can be made of non-sentient materials, but the functional purpose of the system
always comes from a mind. The mind uses the material substances to perform an
algorithm that is not itself a product of the materials or the blind forces
acting on them. Thus the analogy in the press release:
cilia are just like radio antennas. Antennas may be composed of mindless matter,
but they are marks of a mind behind the intelligent design.
Next headline on:
Cell Biology
Intelligent Design
Amazing Facts
Ghost of Hitler still haunts Western medicine, from
10/21/2004 and
10/18/2004.
Academic Intolerance: Ben Stein, the lead in the upcoming documentary
Expelled,
explained the problem of academic persecution of Darwin doubters to
Bill OReilly on Fox News Monday night, Oct. 22. The interview is available on
YouTube.
Next headline on:
Media
Education
Darwinism
Intelligent Design
Neanderthals Have Become Like Us 10/25/2007

The change in attitude about Neanderthals is almost complete. The formerly
brutish missing links were pretty modern after all. DNA sequencing of Neanderthal
remains, along with new fossil discoveries, have made this subgroup of Homo sapiens
for all intents and purposes the equivalents of us. For example:
- Talk to me bro: Neanderthals probably spoke languages like modern
humans. A genetic study announced by
Science Now1
claims their FOXP2 gene, implicated in language capacity, was identical to
modern mans. Some arent willing to concede this essential mark
of humanness, thinking the similarity might be due to contamination, but Svante Paabo,
one of the investigators, thinks not. One gene doesnt prove ability to
speak, he recognizes. Still, he was willing to state that with respect to FOXP2,
theres nothing to say that Neandertals could not speak just like we do.
Other indications are that they had large brains (larger on average than those of
modern man) and lived in groups.
- Better redhead than deadhead: Some Neanderthals had red hair and pale
skin, a study in Science claimed. The genetic study hinted
that Neanderthal hair and skin color varied as much as that of moderns; this questions
the assumption of their being a dark-skinned race recently migrated from Africa. (See also
National
Geographic, Science
Daily and the BBC
News.)
- We Neanderthal, the cosmopolitan cognoscenti: Neanderthals have been found farther east.
Nature reported the discovery of Neanderthals in southern Siberia.2
The DNA of fossils fell within the range of European Neanderthals, the international
team reported.
Thus, the geographic range of Neanderthals is likely to have extended at least
2,000 km further to the east than commonly assumed. This followed a report
on ENews earlier this
month about Neanderthal bones found in China.
The Nature article claimed that Neanderthals ruled the planet for a long time:
Morphological traits typical of Neanderthals began to appear in European hominids at
least 400,000 years ago and about 150,000 years ago in western Asia. After
their initial appearance, such traits increased in frequency and the extent to which
they are expressed until they disappeared shortly after 30,000 years ago.
If their intelligence, travel and culture was this advanced, however, it seems a
stretch to believe they were completely supplanted by near equals after 370,000
years of success. Considering the entry in March that Neanderthals and modern
humans lived contemporaneous for some time (03/08/2007, bullet 8),
and in August that
Neanderthals and modern humans possibly interbred (08/02/2007),
it appears that further adjustments to the evolutionary tale are in the offing.
1. Elizabeth Culotta, Talk Like a Man,
Science,
18 October 2007.
2. Krause et al, Neanderthals in central Asia and Siberia,
Nature
449, 902-904 (18 October 2007) | doi:10.1038/nature06193.
If you are not so thoroughly brainwashed by evolutionary
myths that you can still think rationally about evidence, join the movement to jettison the
Neanderthal tale and start over (01/16/2007).
It seems crazy, on the face of it, to assume that
Neanderthals lived on this planet at least 120,000 years, if not 370,000 years, without
inventing the horse and buggy, rodeos
(01/19/2001),
ships, drip irrigation and hot air balloons. Look how quickly
their equivalents (us) went from simple farming to conquer sea, air, land, and even space
even with smaller brains! These people were better hunters, better at playing
Survivorman, and probably as intelligent and more agile than we are, yet Darwinians expect us
to believe they did nothing but hunt meat for the cave cookout day after day for
hundreds of thousands of years. How do you spell b-e-l-i-e-f?
Its time for a complete overthrow of the Neanderthal myth.
In its place, we suggest these three replacement assumptions:
- Taxonomy: The Neanderthal classification is a
Darwinian fabrication. The set of Neanderthal traits was completely within the range of
human variability. They are, and were, Homo sapiens sapiens.
- Variability:
They lived not that long ago, and may still be among us. The variability is
a continuum, not a distinct cut-off. It would be like classifying Eskimos or
the Nephilim/Rephaim/Emim of Old Testament records as missing links. We have stated several times that
if you took skeletons from living individuals at the extremes of modern variability, they
would look like separate species (e.g., 07/22/2007).
- Chronology: The entire span of human history
fits within thousands of years, not tens or hundreds of thousands. If it were
not so, we would have a right to expect, based on the rapid advance of civilization in
recorded history, that these people, who were identical to us, would have developed
written language and technology with clear traces in the fossil record. A corollary
is that the Darwin-based dating methods are seriously flawed.
If you were to approach the data with Darwinian glasses off, and these assumptions
in mind, without doubt you would find plenty of supporting evidence. Since Darwinism
is now falsified (10/08/2007), lets do it.
Next headline on:
Early Man
Dating Methods
Dogbert takes on Darwin! Watch the YouTube clip at
Evolution News.
Next headline on: Media Darwin
Evolutionary Science Reporting Battles Creationists 10/24/2007

If creationism is so discredited as to not warrant any further discussion, some
science writers are sure going out of their way to refute it. Some recent
examples:
- Eye of the Hydra: Little sea creatures known as hydrae have light-sensitive
molecules called opsins, reported
Science Daily.
Scientists think the opsin proteins, which exist all over the tiny animals but are
concentrated near the gut, help the hydra find its prey.
Todd Oakley, a notable anti-creationist involved in the study, used this as a barb
against Darwin doubters:
Oakley said that anti-evolutionists often argue that mutations, which are essential
for evolution, can only eliminate traits and cannot produce new features.
He goes on to say, Our paper shows that such claims are simply wrong.
We show very clearly that specific mutational changes in a particular
duplicated gene (opsin) allowed the new genes to interact with different proteins
in new ways. Today, these different interactions underlie the genetic machinery of
vision, which is different in various animal groups.
Yet the story begs the question that mutational evolution produced the opsins or led to their
function. A team member illustrated the circular thinking when he inferred, because we
dont find them in earlier evolving animals like sponges, we can put a date on
the evolution of light sensitivity in animals. Another problem with the idea
that evolution produced it is that it pushes the origin
of light sensitivity further back in the evolutionary time frame to 600 million years ago.
See also Live Science.
- Skull of the St. Bernard: In a surprising display of misunderstanding
of the issues, a University
of Manchester press release claimed that artificial selection in St. Bernard dogs
refutes creationism. The skull shape in St. Bernards has changed a little in 120
years since the breed standard was defined. These changes evolved purely
through the selective considerations of breeders. But this is, of course, artificial
selection not natural selection. The press release continues,
Creationism is the belief that all living organisms were
created according to Genesis in six days by intelligent design and
rejects the scientific theories of natural selection and evolution.
But this research once again demonstrates how selection
whether natural or, in this case, artificially influenced by man is the
fundamental driving force behind the evolution of life on the planet.
A quick check of creationist literature would have shown that not even the most literal
Biblical creationist believes God created St. Bernards directly. Creationist books
and lectures often include diagrams of all the various dog breeds, from St. Bernards to
poodles to Dobermans, as descended from an original dog kind that was probably like
a wolf. Many would include all the wolves, coyotes, dingoes and foxes in the
original dog kind.
In addition, most creationists would admit an extensive
amount of natural and artificial selection in the sorting out of traits in dog
populations since the creation. Even in this press release, the dogs started
and ended as St. Bernards one variety within one species so there was
no origin of species or variation on the scale Darwin envisaged.
EurekAlert,
a news service of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
reproduced this press release without alteration; so did
Science Daily.
- Brain of the Behe: Science (Oct. 20) gave Michael Behe 200 words to clarify
a point, but then let Sean Carroll have 500 words to trash it. A complete account
is given at Access
Research Network by David Tyler. The lopsided exchange omitted the fact that
Behe has written extensive responses to Carroll on his
Amazon blog,
as noted by Anika Smith at Evolution
News, and to many of his other critics, as noted by Robert Crowther on
Evolution
News.
Science, by picking and choosing a small portion of Behes writing,
gave the distinct impression that he was conceding a major point of Darwinism, when in
fact Behe proceeded beyond the quoted part to explain why it was irrelevant to evolutionary theory.
Carroll, nonetheless, accused Behe of a complete disregard of a massive literature
surrounding protein interactions crucial to Behes entirely unfounded conclusion.
Carroll did not cite any examples of such literature.
It is appalling to see the low level of intellectual
rigor in the typical science press release these days when they deal with matters of
creation vs evolution, and the deliberate anti-creationist bias in the journals.
In the typical popular science report, creationism, when mentioned at all, is
made into a caricature, a straw man to
ridicule and shoot down. Dont they realize that refuting an accurate
presentation of an opponents view is more likely to succeed in the long
run? Maybe they know they cannot. They use the only weak munitions
they have: the pop-guns and spitballs of propaganda.
We hope our readers appreciate the detail and fairness
in these pages. Links to all the original sources are provided so you can
check whether what is represented here is in fact what the evolutionists are claiming.
Much of our reporting comes straight from the original science journals.
While we try to present the news in ways that are thought-provoking and occasionally entertaining,
we do not pander to ignorance or bias. We do not regurgitate the party-line
talking points. We invite the reader to investigate the evidence and evaluate
the logic on both sides. After decades of Darwin-only propaganda in the news
media, we hope you find this liberating.
Next headline on:
Darwinism and Evolution
Intelligent Design
Marine Life
Mammals
Jewish First Temple Period Uncovered 10/23/2007

Artifacts dating from the First Temple period have been found in trenches illegally
dug by Muslims on the Temple Mount: for the story, see the
Jerusalem
Post, the
Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
and Bible Places.
Dr. Leen Ritmeyer has diagrams of where the artifacts relate to the Temple
position in his Ritmeyer Blog.
The First Temple was built by Solomon (see
I Kings 5-8).
After the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BC, the Jews returning
from exile built a Second Temple
(Ezra 3-8).
This temple was elaborately enlarged by Herod the Great into the magnificent Temple of
Jesus day (Matthew 24).
That temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
Portions of the Herodian walls from the Temple Mount remain to this day, including
the Western Wall, a sacred site for the Jews. The Muslims, however, deny the
existence of a Jewish temple on the summit. The Dome of the Rock now sits over the
site.
The Temple Mount has been off limits to archaeologists and is under
control of Muslim police. Muslims have been performing unauthorized and reckless
trench-digging with a bulldozer, forbidding archaeologists to examine the trenches.
A fortuitous by-product of the illegal digging is that it
allowed artifacts from under the present level to be seen for the first time in
thousands of years. Although the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) did nothing
to stop the reckless trenching, they verified that some of the artifacts date from
the First Temple period.
The only bright side of this atrocity is providing
proof of the Biblical claims of the First Temple. Muslims show no concern for
the sensibilities of other religions but react with violence if any non-Muslim approaches
their sacred sites. In recent years, they dug into the southeast corner of the Temple Mount
into soil richly laden with artifacts, to build an underground mosque.
Their level of carefulness and concern was to pile the debris into mounds
and toss tons of it over the wall. Dedicated archaeologists have found bits
of precious artifacts among the dirt
(10/31/2006,
04/17/2005).
Who knows what additional treasures lie under the Temple Mount?
Archaeologists reveal amazing things at the periphery, but these are only tantalizing
glimpses of artifacts that millions of people would rejoice to see, were it not for the bullying and threats of
the religion of peace to wage global jihad if they dare to look. Where is the U.N. in this blatant example
of disrespect for priceless relics from antiquity? Oh, theyre too busy helping the dictators of the world and
outlawing righteousness. Whats unfathomable is why the Israeli government
and the IAA have been so silent and appeasing.
Christians and Jews believe that a Third Temple will someday arise
on the Temple Mount. Some orthodox Jews even have the plans and preparations
underway. Given the volatility of the politics of Jerusalem, one would think
this might trigger a kind of apocalypse.
Next headline on:
Bible and Theology
Politics and Ethics
National Geographic asks, Was Darwin Wrong? from
10/24/2004.
Is Adenine Additive? 10/22/2007

A paper in PNAS argues that adenine can form in plausible prebiotic conditions.1
Does this add to the story of chemical evolution leading to life on Earth?
Some chemists at the University of Georgia explored the chemical steps
necessary to form adenine (one of the bases used in DNA). Adenine has been
found in extraterrestrial environments. They found that ammonia or water can
act as a catalyst to get the incipient molecule past some of the energy hurdles
of ring formation. After describing their investigation in detail, they remarked,
Finding a viable, thermodynamically feasible, step-by-step mechanism that
can account for the formation of adenine did not prove to be easy.
Nevertheless, they felt that their success will motivate others to find how the
remaining DNA bases could have formed naturally.
The authors went far beyond merely elucidating
the mechanism behind the formation of adenine in meteorites or interstellar space.
They explicitly claimed that it contributes to understanding how life originated:
Our report provides a more detailed understanding of some of the chemical processes
involved in chemical evolution, and a partial answer to the
fundamental question of molecular biogenesis. Our investigation
should trigger similar explorations of the detailed mechanisms of the
abiotic formation of the remaining nucleic acid bases and other
biologically relevant molecules.
In fact, the first line in the paper is, How did life begin? The presence
of biomolecules was a prerequisite, but the origin of even the simplest of
these remains a fascinating but unsolved puzzle. Understanding the
origin of adenine, to them, thus would constitute progress in the story of lifes
origin.
1. Roy, Najafian and Schleyer, Chemical evolution: The mechanism of the formation
of adenine under prebiotic conditions,
Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences USA, published online before print October 19, 2007;
10.1073/pnas.0708434104.
Did you notice the logical trick? It is one
question to account for the observed extraterrestrial formation of a chemical,
but quite another to suggest it is relevant to the origin of life. This
presupposes naturalismthe very question that ought to be up for debate.
If that is what they wanted to do (prove naturalism)
they should have stated their presuppositions and goals objectively, but they didnt.
They snuck their presuppositions into the paper as if nobody would notice or care.
Well, we care. We are not going to let them suggest that explaining adenine
has anything to do with supporting philosophical naturalism, any more than would
explaining water, dust, plasma or the laws of nature. This is like a Democrat
claiming, We explained the mechanism of voting machines, therefore President
Bush stole the election. Voters used voting machines, but that has
no bearing on the very different question of how they were used. They might
as well explain the chemical pathway of a component of a computer chip as support
for the belief that computer software wrote itself. Adenine is a substrate
used in life for coded messages. Just like understanding the chemistry of paper and
ink says nothing about the origin of the message in a book, understanding the chemistry
of adenine says nothing about the genetic code. Is a cathode-ray tube aware
that Survivorman is playing through its electrons? Did the CRT organize itself
for this purpose? Neither does adenine form
for the purpose of self-organizing into a living system.
We must not allow materialists to invoke the chemistry lab as support
for their philosophy. That is called begging the question. Only by
assuming that life is no more than chemistry can they make that connection.
Next headline on:
Origin of Life
Searching for Natural Selection in a Wildflower 10/19/2007

Evening snow (Linanthus) is an amazing little wildflower that adorns desert areas of southern
California. Its blossoms open in the evening, spreading fragrance across a
harsh landscape. Two varieties have been noticed; one with white flowers,
and one with blue flowers. Scientists noticed that the white ones sometimes
grow on one side of a ravine, and the blue ones on the other; in other places,
the two varieties grow in a blue-white mosaic. Is this pattern
due to genetic drift (i.e., chance), or to natural selection?
Elisabeth Pennisi wrote about this in Science.1
Her opening line might open some eyes about the difficulty of deciding a question
this simple: Sixty years ago, studies of these patterns provided key support
for a powerful evolutionary theory. Now, two evolutionary biologists have
found that the theory doesnt hold in this species.
Two researchers decided to settle the debate with a long-term field study.
Their decision was that natural selection was the winner, at least a little:
In the seed-transplant studies, each color flower typically did best
on its own turf, indicating that selection played a role.
There may have been some environmental influences at work, in other words, that
tended to make one color predominate in one environment and the other in different
environments. But is anyone certain?
The study shows the unimportance of drift in Linanthus, says
evolutionary biologist Masatoshi Nei of Pennsylvania State University in State College.
In this sense, [the] finding shakes the ground of the shifting balance theory.
But he is cautious about making generalizations, given that other studies suggest otherwise:
The relative importance of selection and drift depends on the genes and populations studied.
1. Elisabeth Pennisi, Natural Selection, Not Chance, Paints the Desert Landscape,
Science,
19 October 2007: Vol. 318. no. 5849, p. 376, DOI: 10.1126/science.318.5849.376.
So in a 13-year study, these scientists could only
point to a little bit of natural selection that might have played a role in
the color pattern of two varieties within the same species? And they expect
us to believe that science has proved that humans have bacteria ancestors due to this
wondrous mechanism of natural selection?
Next headline on:
Plants
Evolutionary Theory
Genetics
Mega-Dinosaur Found in Argentina 10/18/2007

Check out this dinosaur: 105 feet long, 43 feet tall, having a neck 56 feet long.
The spinal column alone probably weighed 9 tons.
Thats Futalognkosaurus dukei, one of the
largest dinosaurs ever found, recently reported from Argentina (see
BBC News and
PhysOrg). A single
vertebral bone was nearly 3 feet long.
National
Geographic called it a behemoth
(see Job 40:15-24).
The four-story-tall plant-eaterbelieved to be a new specieswas found
alongside fossils of fish, crocodile-like reptiles, a flying pterosaur, and a
sickle-clawed meat-eater called a megaraptor, the article said.
Update 10/22/2007: Another species of polar
dinosaur was found in Australia, reported
Science
Daily. This one, a carnivore, might have resembled Allosaurus but was 20% smaller,
based on the tracks that were discovered.
Still, youd be looking straight at its hip in real life. The press release
noted the low latitude of the vicinity but did not speculate on what this implies about
the environment and this dinosaurs ability to cope with it:
The tracks are especially significant for showing that large dinosaurs were
living in a polar environment during the Cretaceous Period, when Australia was
still joined to Antarctica and close to the South Pole.
If evolution is progressive, why are all the really
big success stories extinct? Where is all the lush plant life that allowed
this behemoth to exist? Why was the fossil found with fish and leaves? Why are all
the bones found under a
0.5 meter rock layer? How did a beast this large get fossilized in the first place?
If something this large escaped detection in the fossil record till recently, how
can scientists say for sure that we wont find large Jurassic or Cambrian
mammals somewhere? How did evolution engineer a head at the end of a 56 foot long neck that could
one minute nibble the top of a tall tree, then next minute reach down and get a drink without
bursting its brains out?
And where was the meat for a carnivore living near the South Pole?
What does this imply about the foliage available for its prey to eat?
What does this say about global warming?
There are just a few questions to think about that never get asked
in the evolutionary literature.
Next headline on:
Fossils
Dinosaurs
Amazing Facts
How a Darwinist explains living fossils, from 10/13/2004.
Prominent Biologist Espouses Darwinian Racist Views 10/17/2007

The history of evolutionary thought includes many aspects modern evolutionists
would rather forget, such as racism and eugenics. Old ideas that blacks
are evolutionarily inferior have cropped up again, though, not from some redneck
schoolhouse but from the co-discoverer of the DNA structure.
James Watson, outspoken secular humanist, let loose with some comments about
racial inferiority that set off a firestorm, reported
The Independent
(UK). Watson was promoting his new book Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science,
which includes this statement:
There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of
peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have
evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of
reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so.
His comments to a London newspaper made it clear who he had in mind:
Dr Watson told The Sunday Times that he was inherently gloomy about the
prospect of Africa because all our social policies are based
on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours whereas all
the testing says not really. He said there was a natural
desire that all human beings should be equal but people who
have to deal with black employees find this not true.
Watson tried to clarify that he did not mean blacks should be discriminated
against, but did not back away from his scientific claims.
Civil rights groups are studying his remarks and expressing
extreme displeasure.
Fox News also
reported on some of the aftermath.
Science wrote in 1990, according to The Independent article,
To many in the scientific community, Watson has long been something of a
wild man, and his colleagues tend to hold their collective breath whenever he
veers from the script (cf. 08/24/2003).
But Watson himself made it clear in the quotes
above that his opinions were inextricably tied to views on human evolution
that he must feel are fairly typical among scientists.
Update 10/19/2007:
The Guardian
reported that Watson apologized for his remarks. To all those who have
drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow
genetically inferior, I can only apologise unreservedly, he said.
That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view,
there is no scientific basis for such a belief. Yet parts of his
statement seem to put the blame on his listeners: I cannot understand how
I could have said what I am quoted as having said. The article also
notes that Prof Watsons statement did not clarify what his views on
the issue of race and intelligence are, but he hinted that he had been misquoted.
He said, I am mortified about what has happened, but none of his
apology explicitly took responsibility for earlier statements or explained what
he really meant by them. The article quotes some of the heated response his
remarks instigated. See also:
Live Science.
Update 10/24/2007:
Watson has been suspended from administrative duties at Cold Spring Harbor
Laboratory (Long Island, NY) because of his remarks about race.
News@Nature
reported that this may indicate the end for Watson: senior US colleagues said things like
It is a sad and revolting way to end a remarkable career, and
He has failed us in the worst possible way. See also the
BBC News and a
commentary on MSNBC that said
Watson appears to have a foot-in-mouth gene.
An Editorial in
Nature
10/25 entitled Watsons Folly was similarly unsparing, but regretted
that this episode might hinder the openness and critical debate scientists need when dealing
with controversial subjects including the sensitive task of unravelling
differences between the worlds population groups, all the while acknowledging
that race is an emotive and unscientific word. The editorial
blamed Watson for sheer unacceptable offensiveness that can lend
succour and comfort to racists around the globe, yet was just as concerned
about the chilling effect his remarks will have on scientific inquiry, such as
investigating the equally sensitive genetics of desirable traits,
such as cognitive ability.
The editorial acknowledged such investigations can lead to
abuses: Asking such questions has always been controversial, given the potential
for abuse of the outcomes demonstrated by the history of eugenics. But it
agreed with a point Watson himself was trying to make: Scientists explore the
world as it is, rather than as they would like it to be. This presupposes
that scientists are not subject to biases like other investigators an assumption
some would point out was used just as readily by abusers of the past.
Update 10/25/2007: Watson, age 79, has retired
under a cloud of disgrace from his position at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, reported
the BBC News.
He said his resignation was more than overdue. The circumstances in
which this transfer is occurring, however, are not those which I could ever
have anticipated or desired.
Watsons apology does not go far enough.
The same reporters who hound politicians to apologize for a controversial statement
should press Watson to give a full accounting of what he meant to say, and should demand
he take complete responsibility for his remarks, not blame his listeners. His
apology sounds like the joke about a brat whose mom tells him, Did I hear you
call your sister stupid? Tell her youre sorry! He dutifully
walks over to Susie and says, Sis, Im sorry youre stupid.
Read Watsons apology carefully, and you see him shifting the blame to others for
misquoting or misinterpreting him. Fine; we all get misunderstood. Tell
us, then, Jim, what you really think about black people and their intelligence,
and explain whether you still believe tens of thousands of years of evolution has
made some races more intelligent than others. Tell us whether society should
treat all people as equal or not. Tell us on what evolutionary basis a
government should say that people have inalienable human rights.
Two books should be read by anyone who doubts the
influence of Darwinian thinking on racism: The Mismeasure of
Man by Stephen Jay Gould, and From Darwin to Hitler by Richard Weikart
(info).
Darwinists in past days put a black man in a zoo
(article),
categorized black people as closer to apes than to Europeans
(article),
did experiments rigged to show racial superiority of Europeans and males
(article), and committed actual genocide in Namibia
(article) and Tasmania
(article) because of
evolution-based racism. While evolutionists could argue that Darwinism does
not imply racism, many evolutionists used alleged primitive peoples as
evidence that human evolution was true.
The script that Watson veered from has been
modified to expunge those incriminating episodes, but every once in awhile they
emerge again, because they are a natural outgrowth of evolutionary beliefs that have
different people groups evolving separately for tens of thousands of years or more.
Biblical creationists, by contrast, believe that all people are of
one race the human race. We are all one family, descended from one
original pair, and related once again through Noah and his offspring just a few
thousand years ago. While abilities (both cognitive, artistic, physical and
intellectual) can vary substantially even within one biological family, we are all
one race, one family, one blood, and one creation. We are each individually
equally precious in Gods sight and worthy of equal dignity as creatures made
in His image. Choose what kind of worldview you want governing our world.
Next headline on:
Darwinism
Early Man
But Is It Evolution? 10/17/2007

Some key features in evolutionary theory do not match up to observations.
Here are a few recent examples from PNAS abstracts:
- Oh no, a dilemma: Gene duplication is supposed to be a mother
of evolutionary invention. Some Swedish evolutionary biologists considered
a problem with this idea: Maintaining a duplicated gene by selection for the original function
would restrict the freedom to diverge. (We refer to this problem as Ohnos dilemma).
Susumi Ohno years ago had considered duplicate genes fodder for innovation (see
01/02/2003). In this paper, the team
modeled a way around the dilemma but only if Before duplication,
the original gene has a trace side activity (the innovation) in addition to
its original function.1 The paper, however,
only speculated that new functions might arise: e.g., New genes might
arise during speciation under selection. They did not identify any
innovations arising by duplication. It is suggested that new
genetic functions arise when selection is imposed on a minor
side function of a preexisting gene, they summarized, but amplification
of an existing function is not innovation of a new function.
Sean B. Carroll and Chris Todd Hittinger had written the previous week (10/10/2007)
in Nature about experiments showing adaptation of a duplicated gene.1a
Despite getting a favorable write-up on PhysOrg
as an example of natural selection in action, the original paper only described a case
of subfunctionalization in yeast: that is, one gene with two functions apparently split into two
genes with one function in another species. In this division of labor,
therefore, no new genetic innovation was added. The authors also engineered
the lab yeast organisms according to their own human measures of what constituted
fitness. This is a form of artificial selection, not natural selection.
Yet Carroll told PhysOrg that they had retraced the steps of evolution of the gene.
PhysOrg said that The work illustrates, at the most basic level,
the driving force of evolution. Carroll, described as one of the
worlds leading evolutionary biologists, went even further, extrapolating
this one experiment with yeast to all of biology:
This is how new capabilities arise and new functions evolve.
This is what goes on in butterflies and elephants and humans.
It is evolution in action. They did not address the problem of
getting around Ohnos Dilemma.
- Oak joke: A tradeoff between growth and reproduction, often
inferred from an inverse correlation between these two variables, is a fundamental
paradigm of life-history evolution, began three biologists writing in
PNAS.2 Like sports records, paradigms are
made to be broken. Oak species provide a unique test of this
relationship because different species mature acorns either in the year of
pollination or in the year after pollination, they said, so they studied
13 years of data on five oak species.
So what did evolution have to do with it?
Nothing, they found: the relationship was caused by environmental conditions.
Thus, contrary to the current consensus, growth and reproduction
in these species are apparently largely independent of each other,
they concluded. In contrast, tradeoffs between current and future
reproduction appear to be much more important in the life-history evolution of
these long-lived plants. We also conclude that a negative correlation does
not necessarily imply a causal mechanism and should not be used as the
only evidence supporting a tradeoff.
- Robust against evolution: Some British and American scientists studied
the effects of pleiotropy (one gene affecting more than one trait) and epistasis
(the effect of one gene suppressing another) in plants. Although the
occurrence of epistasis and pleiotropy is widely accepted at the molecular level,
its effect on the adaptive value of fitness-related genes is rarely
investigated in plants, they began. Yet, Knowledge of these
features of a gene is critical to understand the molecular basis of adaptive
evolution.
That being so, its time to experiment.
Working with Arabidopsis thaliana, the
lab plant of choice, they studied a candidate gene, FRI, which is
associated with flowering time a seemingly key fitness gene. The results? For one thing,
FRI was less associated with fitness than previously thought.
They also found an epistatic relationship with the FLC locus; the variation in FRI,
therefore, was not associated with fitness.
We show that nonfunctional FRI
alleles have negative pleiotropic effects on fitness by reducing the numbers
of nodes and branches on the inflorescence. We propose that these antagonistic
pleiotropic effects reduce the adaptive value of FRI, and helps explain the
maintenance of alternative life history strategies across natural populations of
A. thaliana.
This is not adaptive evolution, therefore, but robustness
against evolution.
- Speed limit: Three Harvard biologists studied the mutation speed
limit of proteins and published their results in PNAS.4
They showed with models of evolutionary fitness there is a fine line between protein
stability and evolvability. Too unstable or mutable, and a protein can lead to
mutational meltdown and the extinction of the species.
The theory provides a fundamental relation between mutation rate, maximal
genome size, and thermodynamic response of proteins to point mutations.
It establishes a universal speed limit on rate of molecular evolution by
predicting that populations go extinct (via lethal mutagenesis)
when mutation rate exceeds approximately six mutations per essential part
of genome per replication for mesophilic organisms and one to two mutations per
genome per replication for thermophilic ones. Several RNA viruses function
close to the evolutionary speed limit, whereas error correction mechanisms
used by DNA viruses and nonmutant strains of bacteria featuring various genome
lengths and mutation rates have brought these organisms universally ~1,000-fold
below the natural speed limit.
The costs of error-correction mechanisms and cell division, however, pose additional
constraints on mutational load. The authors also did not consider effects of
epistasis and pleiotropy on their model. They basically showed that even without
those complications, there are limits on how many mutations an organism can endure
in its quest to evolve into something more complex. They felt their theory
needs to be considered in computer models of evolution and in origin-of-life scenarios
to avoid mutational meltdown and error catastrophe.
- Natural selection tug-o' war:
Another recent paper in PLoS One
by Steven A. Frank (UC Irvine) seems to suggest that evolution works toward the maladaptation
of species, not beneficial adaptation.5 Thats
because Organisms use a variety of mechanisms to
protect themselves against perturbations. The robustness of organisms
against perturbations (like mutation) shields them from natural selection.
He concluded that evolutionary dynamics drives systems in the direction of
repeated rounds of enhanced robustness and decay. Because robustness
works against natural selection, selection will tend to drive the organism toward
cheaper designs and lowered performance: i.e., maladaptation.
Frank thought that robustness would increase genetic variability
over time, because Reduced sensitivity to inherited mutations slows the rate at
which natural selection clears deleterious mutations from the population.
But considering the previous paper about mutational speed limits, it seems it could
also accelerate an organism toward mutational meltdown and extinction.
1. Bergthorsson and Andersson and Roth, Ohnos dilemma: Evolution
of new genes under continuous selection,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
published online before print October 17, 2007, 10.1073/pnas.0707158104.
1.a. Hittinger and Carroll, Gene duplication and the adaptive evolution of a classic genetic switch,
Nature
449, 677-681 (11 October 2007) | doi:10.1038/nature06151.
2. Knops et al, Negative correlation does not imply a tradeoff between
growth and reproduction in California oaks,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
USA, published online before print October 16, 2007, 10.1073/pnas.0704251104.
3. Scarcelli et al, Antagonistic pleiotropic effects reduce the potential adaptive value of the FRIGIDA locus,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
USA, published online before print October 16, 2007, 10.1073/pnas.0708209104.
4. Zeldovich, Chen and Shakhnovich, Protein stability imposes limits on
organism complexity and speed of molecular evolution,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
USA, October 9, 2007 (vol. 104, no. 41) pp. 16152-16157, 10.1073/pnas.0705366104.
5. Steven A. Frank, Maladaptation and the Paradox of Robustness in Evolution,
Public Library
of Science One, 2(10): e1021. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001021.
Links to these articles are included for those who would like to research them further.
From the abstracts, it seems that each team attempted to verify a key component of
evolutionary theory, yet found the evidence contrary to established beliefs.
So what else is new?
In none of these papers did the evolutionists demonstrate that random
mutation could actually invent something new and beneficial. They merely assumed
that it could. But in
each case, the powerless mechanism of natural selection was clearly unable to compensate
for the accumulating damage of harmful mutations. At best it could maintain the
status quo, thanks to the help of exquisitely-designed proofreading and repair
mechanisms. Natural selection: what a flimsy hope on which to base
ones entire philosophy.
Next headline on:
Darwinism
Genetics
Botany
Cassini Celebrates 10 Years in Space 10/16/2007

The Cassini team is reveling in the outpouring of public praise for the mission.
Launched on October 15, 1997, Cassini-Huygens has spent ten years in space and is over
three fourths the way through its prime mission, to explore the Saturn system, its
rings, moons, magnetic field and the large moon Titan
(see ESA and
NASA).
Scientific discoveries
continue to pour in. Unless the spacecraft fails or funding is cut off, there
is no end in sight for one of the most successful outer planet missions in history.
The Cassini Imaging Team has posted a gallery of recent hi-res color images
at Ciclops.org. One picture
in particular seems suitable for the occasion: a dazzling
rainbow on the rings caused by
the opposition effect of sun glint on icy ring particles
(also posted by JPL).
Several recent discoveries were reported in the literature:
- Tropical Titan: the
University of Chicago
described Titan as a tropical moon in its own way. Despite the -290 degree
chill, Titan has an atmosphere saturated with methane that acts like the humidifier and
moisturizer for this bizarre world. At that temperature, in fact, methane is even
more volatile than water is on Earth.
EurekAlert
even gave the weather forecast: Morning forecast on Titan calls for widespread
methane drizzle off Xanadu. See also another
EurekAlert
article that says the European Southern Observatory shares credit for this discovery.
- Southern Lakes: The latest radar swath taken by Cassini across Titans
southern latitudes revealed some lakes there, too but fewer, apparently,
because it is summertime in the south. If the mission continues for several
more years, scientists are eager to see if the southern lakes grow and the northern
lakes dry up as summer shifts northward. See the
JPL
press release for a montage of the northern lakes and a shot of the southern lake;
see also European Space Agency.
- Runaway Iapetus: Preliminary explanations for the black-and-white
case of Iapetus are starting to come in after last months close flyby
(see 09/13/2007). Some scientists think,
according to a JPL
press release, that solar heating leads to a process called thermal segregation.
The water ice in the more-absorbent dark material sublimates and
re-deposits on the cold white parts a runaway and irreversible effect.
This may explain why dark material tends to puddle in the bottoms of craters
or hang on crater walls facing the equator. They believe the dark material is only
about a foot deep. Whatever the explanation, the amazing images of Iapetus from the
September 10 flyby are sure to occupy scientists for years to come.
- The Ancient Mountains of Iapetus: Because the mysterious mountain
ridge on Iapetus is heavily cratered, scientists assume it is ancient. They
are ruling out theories that a ring collapsed onto the surface, because it would not
explain apparent tectonic features associated with the ridge. See the
JPL
press release.
- Jet Blue: A lovely limb shot of Enceladus with its geyser plumes
colored blue was released in another
JPL
press release. Imaging team scientists Jason Spitale and Carolyn Porco
were able to line up the plumes with the tiger stripes. Their results,
published in Nature last week,1 suggest that more
hot spots will be found in future flybys.
1. Spitale and Porco, Association of the jets of Enceladus with the
warmest regions on its south-polar fractures,
Nature
449, 695-697 (11 October 2007) | doi:10.1038/nature06217.
Like Jupiter (10/15/2007),
Saturn was filled with surprises. Nothing in the Saturn system requires
billions of years; many things require mere thousands. A lot of needless
cerebral horsepower is expended trying to keep apparently young phenomena going
for unnecessary eons. We can enjoy the show without the mythology.
Next headline on:
Solar System
Sweden Bans Creationism 10/16/2007

Creationism and intelligent design are being banned in Swedish schools, reported the English
version of the Swedish news source, The
Local. Intelligent design (ID) makes no claim about the Creator, but only
the detectability of design; nevertheless, both were banned equally.
This may not be unexpected after the Council of Europe resolution last week
(10/06/2007). Whats unusual
about this decision, though, is that creationism has been banned from church schools
because Sweden, like many European countries, has a state church.
The Swedish government is to crack down on the role religion plays in independent faith schools,
the article began. Pupils must be protected from all forms of fundamentalism.
Teachers can still start the day with prayers, but when science lesson
time comes, they must stick to the curriculum. Religious education is still
allowed, but all elements of religious worship would have to be completely
separate from class teaching.
Most independent schools in Sweden are privately owned but funded by government grants,
the article said. Schools that break the rules can be closed by the
Swedish National Agency for Education, which is doubling the number of inspectors
to ensure compliance.
Look at the web page, and you will see another story: increasing
numbers of Swedes are converting to Islam. This means that the Swedish political
dunderheads who cant read their tea leaves had better wake up to the fact that
the country will become creationist soon anyway. They must choose, while there is still time,
whether they want peace-loving Christian creationists, who want to reason with them and debate
the evidence, or Islamic fascists who will make them convert via a sword at the neck.
Either way, the Church of Darwin cannot survive. It is obviously not the fittest, because it just
imploded (10/08/2007).
Compare this story with the
09/14/2007 entry,
Some Christian Colleges Love Darwin More than Jesus.
Next headline on:
Intelligent Design
Education
Politics and Ethics
Bible and Theology
New Horizons at Jupiter 10/15/2007

New Horizons, a spaceship bound for Pluto, took a good look at the Jupiter system when
passing by on Feb. 28. The scientific findings were featured in a special section
of Science last week, with 11 articles. Joanne Baker said in the
Introductory article,1 The papers in this special
issue record how the probe witnessed lightning and aurorae in Jupiters atmosphere,
volcanic eruptions on the moon Io, and the pulsing of Jupiters magnetosphere,
a cocoon of charged particles that swathes the entire system.
- Ios magnetic personality: Of special interest is Io, the volcanic inner moon of Jupiter.
The spacecraft witnessed a major eruption of a polar volcano seen earlier by the Galileo mission:
An eruption of the Tvashtar volcano on the satellite Io was caught in the act,
allowing the mechanics of the sulfurous plume and the lava temperature to be measured.
Pollution from Ios volcanoes has even reached the shores of Europa, an
icy |