Veggie Tales of Human Evolution   04/30/2008    
April 30, 2008 — Evolutionists may not know who our human ancestors were, but they know they were vegans.  That seems to be the essence of a couple of new twists on the human evolution saga.

1. Pear-shaped tones:  Paranthropus has been called the “Nutcracker Man” because of robust teeth assumed strong enough to munch on nuts and seeds.  Enter the Sugar-Plum Fairy into this Nutcracker Suite.  Science Daily reported it more likely that this “ancient hominin” (roughly a homonym for hominid) ate fruit.  Researchers at University of Arkansas examined microscopic scratches on the teeth and deduced that Paranthropus wasn’t eating nuts, even if he had the jaws and skull for them.  Instead, it appeared he had been dining on a kind of tutti-fruity jell-o.  The article is accompanied by an artist’s conception of the furry father figure sucking on a big juicy fruit.
       Gorillas, for instance, have the equipment for chewing tough leaves, but will take fruit every time if given the choice.  “The morphology suggests what P. boisei could eat, but not necessarily what it did eat,” said the lead researcher.  He explained why this change in thinking is more than a fad diet:

   “These findings totally run counter to what people have been saying for the last half a century,” said Peter Ungar, professor of anthropology in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.  “We have to sit back and re-evaluate what we once thought.”....
      This finding represents a fundamental shift in the way researchers look at the diets of these hominins.
       “This challenges the fundamental assumptions of why such specializations occur in nature,”Ungar said.  “It shows that animals can develop an extreme degree of specialization without the specialized object becoming a preferred resource.”

   This is indeed worrisome.  What will scientists in 2058 be overthrowing that today’s scientists will claim for the next 50 years?  Even then, who should re-evaluate the re-evaluators?
2. Cave Cookout:  What’s more iconic than brutish cavemen and cave-women barbecuing mammoth meat over a campfire?  Better add the salad bar.  National Geographic News now says that Neanderthals ate vegetables.  The truth is in the tooth, they say.  “It seems logical to me that they took advantage of any food sources they had available in their environments, which would vary from place to place and from time to time.”  An Iraqi Neanderthal apparently liked plant food, according to its discoverers.  The claim needs a disclaimer:

   Henry cautions that Shanidar III is only one fossil and does not provide enough evidence to make conclusive statements about the entirety of the Neandertal diet.
       “The finding suggests that characterizing Neanderthals as obligate meat-eaters may be wrong, but there is still a lot more work to be done on this issue,” Henry said.

   In spite of the disclaimers, the researchers claimed that by employing various methods they could get “a much more realistic picture of paleodiets.”

This powerful theory, which appears in the news virtually every week because of the controversy surrounding it, has vast implications that affect every aspect of our lives.  As the explanatory tool of all the related fields in the biological sciences, nothing makes sense except in the light of evolutionary process.  Our new exhibit makes this point during Penn’s Year of Evolution, which celebrates Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday.

The genesis of the idea came from Alan Mann’s realization that students seemed to understand the broad impact of evolutionary process if they could witness it for themselves in their own bodies and minds.  In order to evoke this response in the context of the exhibit, we challenge visitors to try to understand and define what it means to be human—to revel in the experience of humanness.  We ask them to witness the evolutionary process and to contextualize the human experience.  This part of the exhibit is peppered with over 200 touchable casts of both modern and extinct mammals and primates, including many of our human ancestors, our chimp relatives, and even comparisons to horses and whales.
    Visitors are now ready to see evolutionary history in their own bodies.

If the exhibit succeeds, our visitors will leave knowing that humans are part of the natural world—one species among the many mammals and primates all descended from a common ancestor—and that we are the product of the process of evolution, which has made us functional through a series of compromises, but not perfect, as can be seen in certain human ailments that may be the consequence of our evolution.  Our visitors will appreciate the many ways in which our evolutionary past defines our bodies, our minds, our culture, and our destiny.  They will understand that human societies and cultures have developed in different ways in response to specific environments around the world, but also in similar ways in response to the same basic human needs.  They will have seen that scientists are constantly searching for, finding, and interpreting evidence of the evolutionary process, and they will begin to imagine the impact of future medical and biological developments on human evolution as they join us in exploring our shared history and potential future as human animals.

The block quote above won Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week because it begs numerous questions and is self-refuting.  Experienced readers will know why.  Just look at all the values words: aims, succeeds, knowing, compromises, perfect, appreciate, searching for, finding, interpreting evidence as if an evolved monkey brain even has access to reality, let alone any hope of knowing anything.  The aims of this exhibit exceed the capabilities of an evolved cerebrum.  Why have aims, anyway, if evolution is aimless?
    Notice that the first two stories indicated major revolutions in the storytelling plot.  Mixed in with those were doubts about the ability of science in 2008 to say anything definitive about past behaviors.  As for the ailments our cave ancestors supposedly passed on to us, these have all been answered with creationary responses (e.g., Creation Magazine and Technical Journal) – as if that were even necessary.  It would be gratuitous to respond to any self-refuting proposition.
    We hope the bottom line message of Year of Evolution was not lost on pastors, churchgoers, students, parents and thinking citizens.  They told you themselves that this controversial issue of human origins is not just about science, fossils and bad backs.  It has “a profound impact on every aspect of our daily lives.”  If our “potential future as human animals” is anything like that being explored today (see next entry), with no moral compass, no values and no direction, be afraid – be very afraid. 
Next headline on:  Early Man • Dumb Ideas • Darwinism • Education • Politics and Ethics

1. Imaginary religion:  Those who saw Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed will remember Dawkins, Wilson, Myers and other Darwinians equating religion to fantasy.  A particularly acute recent example can be found in New Scientist.  Maurice Bloch of the London School of Economics ascribed religion to a “figment of the human imagination.” Why are humans the only animals who practice religion?  “because they’re the only creatures to have evolved imagination.”  Bloch did not explain how intangible realities emerge from physical ones.  By what criteria could one judge whether Bloch actually knew his proposition to be true, or was merely imagining it?
2. Having an affair with evolutionary ethics:  A pre-conference press release from University of Wisconsin - Madison about a bioethics forum held April 17-18 expected it to be “an evolutionary affair.”  The line-up included a who’s who of Darwinism promoters: Sean B. Carroll, Eugenie Scott, Ronald Numbers, and John Haught.  The press release felt it necessary to shout down any hecklers:

   Evolution, the process of change over time in the heritable characteristics or traits of a population of organisms, is a bedrock theory of modern biology.  In recent years, it has become socially controversial, as proponents of creationism and intelligent design have argued the theory does not adequately explain the complexity of life.  Efforts to integrate alternative theories of life into school curricula have generated much public debate and legal wrangling.

   The conference promised “accurate scientific information and discussion of related social and ethical issues” and the “implications of our work in the life sciences.”
3. Follow the money:  Erika Check Hayden reported in Nature¹ on happenings at California’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the embryonic-stem-cell research organization swimming in money from taxpayer’s $3 billion dole in a 2005 ballot initiative.  Recipients are almost giddy with disbelief at the windfall.  One scientist described like feeling in “la-la land” when it dawned on him that it was not $3 million, which seemed like a lot, but $3 billion with a “b” on the check.  “If $3 billion seemed like a dream four years ago,” Hayden said, “it is now a reality that is changing not only the way science is done in California, but is resonating across the US biomedical landscape.”
       The article mentioned embryonic stem cells 5 times, but nothing about adult stem cells or the new induced pluripotent stem cells derived from skin.
       Do the universities and labs receiving the money have any clear ethical guidelines to prevent abuse?  Hayden pointed to one episode involving apparent conflict of interest.  “The episode is only one in a series of incidents that have raised questions about the wisdom of putting the institutions that benefit from the CIRM in charge of governing it.”  Do they have any medical successes?  “No clinical trials of treatments derived from embryonic stem cells are yet under way,” and CIRM’s 10-year goal of demonstrating a cure for one disease seems “difficult, if not impossible, to meet.”  California taxpayers have given scientists a huge loan with no payback schedule, no ethical guidelines, and no external audit.  The year 2015 could come and go without a single patient getting relief, long after the voters have forgotten about what they authorized ten years before.
4. Playing God:  Even the progressive Scotsman newspaper seemed alarmed at experiments being proposed to breed human-animal chimeras.  Dr. Callum MacKellar, from the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, warned that little is stopping rogue scientists from inseminating a chimpanzee with human sperm in an attempt to produce a “humanzee.”  After all, they’ve bred a liger (lion + tiger) zorse (zebra + horse), wholphin (whale + dolphin), lepjag (leopard and jaguar), and zonkey (zebra + donkey).  The attempt of mating a human and an ape may not work, but it is within the range of possibility the offspring could be born alive.  “Dr MacKellar said the resulting creature could raise ethical dilemmas, such as whether it would be treated as human or animal, and what rights it would have.”
       If man is just an animal, what’s to stop the attempt – other than a universally-accepted standard of morality?  The “yuck factor” may not be enough.  Consider the statements of Professor Hugh McLachlan, professor of applied philosophy at Glasgow Caledonian University's School of Law and Applied Sciences.  He couldn’t find an ethical pole star to prevent it.  “If it turns out in the future there was fertilisation between a human animal and a non-human animal, it’s an idea that is troublesome, but in terms of what particular ethical principle is breached it”s not clear to me,” he said.  “I share their squeamishness and unease, but I’m not sure that unease can be expressed in terms of an ethical principle.”
       Moses, of course, expressed a divine injunction against bestiality.  Such antiquated norms were long ago discarded by most secular scientists.  That leaves any strictures as flimsy defenses against human pride and greed.  “It’s unnecessary and ridiculous and no serious scientist would consider such a thing,” said Professor Bob Millar, director of the Medical Research Council Human Reproductive Sciences Unit.  “Ethically, it’s not appropriate.”  Says who?  Reporter Jennifer Hawthorne had opened by asking, “Half man, half chimp – should we beware the apeman’s coming?” The article left it as an open – if ominous – question.

An inextinguishable human conscience, a prideful, selfish heart that has abandoned its Creator, no moral compass – the world is poised for evil like it has never seen, carrying the whimpering consciences of a few along on a wild ride into the darkness, who knows where. 
Next headline on:  Darwinism • Politics and Ethics • Bible and Theology

Sweet Solutions from Nature   04/29/2008    
April 29, 2008 — Human engineers continue to look at plants and animals for inspiration.  Biomimetics – the imitation of biology for design technology – shows no sign of running out of ideas.

1. Sweet gas:  A spoonful of sugar in the gas tank?  Science Daily reported on progress in converting plant sugars into clean-burning hydrogen – using biological enzymes.  This could give a new meaning to “power plant.”
2. Moooove on:  Speaking of enzymes, fuel technicians have isolated an enzyme in a cow’s stomach that shows promise for efficient conversion of plant sugars into ethanol.  Science Daily’s gut reaction to this story was positive: “The fact that we can take a gene that makes an enzyme in the stomach of a cow and put it into a plant cell means that we can convert what was junk before into biofuel,” said one professor of crop and soil science.
3. See ya sooner, alligator:  Yuck: alligator blood.  What good could come from that?  Infection-fighting drugs, reported National Geographic News.  Scientists are intrigued that alligators live with frequent bloody wounds in bacteria-laden muddy swamps but rarely get infected.  Scientists at Louisiana University found that alligator serum fights more bacteria than human serum.  If we can harness the alligator’s secrets, said one researcher, “we could be on the verge of a major advance in medical science.”
4. Drag queen:  The dragline silk of spiders continues to be a holy grail for materials scientists.  A German physics team reported in PNAS some initial success in getting the proteins to assemble into fibers.¹  To do it, they squeezed the proteins through tiny orifices similar to the spinnerets on a spider’s abdomen.  The BBC News published a report about it.  Spiderman, here we come.

In the alligator story, National Geographic noted that alligators have “innate” immune systems while humans have “adaptive” immune systems.  “Although innate immunity is often considered primitive, there is nothing primitive about its effectiveness, [Adam] Britton [biologist, northern Australia] said.”  Britton called the antimicrobial peptides in alligator serum “extremely effective agents” against bacteria.  Remember that the first extremely effective antibiotics were also found in a “primitive” organism – fungus.  Design follows design, not chaos.  Imitation is the highest form of flattery.
Next headline on:  Biomimetics • Plants • Terrestrial Zoology

• Missing branch on the family tree:  “The relationship of the Orchidaceae to other monocotyledons is poorly resolved,” they said.  Monocots are one of the major groups of flowering plants.
• The plant without a country:  “Equally confused is the geographical origin of the family.”
• Fossily paucity:  “To date the only unequivocal orchid fossil that has been found is the recently described orchid pollinia on the back of a bee trapped in amber,” said to be 76-84 million years old – but that may be dated assumptions about when bees evolved.
• The unfit:  “Orchids might be considered the epitome of plant evolution,” they said, “but sadly they are among the most threatened of all flowering plants” – a puzzling predicament for organisms that one would think possess the epitome of fitness.
• Profusion of confusion:  The authors said that “Numerous hypotheses have been put forward to explain why orchids should have such high levels of deception.”  This suggests that Darwinian theory provides no easy explanation of this phenomenon.

Much of the variation among these remarkably diverse and complex plants fits with horizontal diversification – i.e., segregation of existing information among populations that become more specialized.  Some of the variation is due to loss of function.  The authors did not provide any clear case of new genetic information arising from nowhere.  What Darwin needs to explain is the origin of orchids.  That relationship to other plants, they admitted, is “poorly resolved.”  Equally unresolved is the origin of a new kind of flowering plant.  They are all still orchids.
    Here was a natural testbed for evolutionary theory.  Variation within the kind is not the issue.  Some of the theories behind the observed variations (genetic drift, variable reproductive success, arms races leading to exaggeration of characters, founder events) fit within microevolutionary change.  Darwin himself studied orchids with a passion after writing The Origin, and called the origin of flowering plants an “abominable mystery.”  Here we are 146 years later with evolutionists still moaning there is “much still remains to be learnt”.  As far as observational science is concernt, Darwin has been spurnt, and the court is now adjournt.
Next headline on:  Plants • Evolution • Amazing Facts

Evolutionists would love to have another case of chimps becoming humans here.  The early hopes have not materialized.  Our prediction: the skeletons will be shown to be human.  Wait and see.  They’ll find a fingernail-sized cell phone or something.
Next headline on:  Early Man • Fossils

Inferences from Old Protein   04/26/2008    
April 26, 2008 — The dinosaur leg bone with the soft tissue was back in the news.  Back in 2005 (03/24/2005), a femur from a T. rex broke open during transport and was found to contain pliable tissue and blood vessels with apparent red blood cells.  This was a “phenomenon, once thought impossible” for such tissues to have survived for 68 million years.  In 2007, the team of Mary Schweitzer announced the presence of collagen in the dinosaur and in a mastodon bone (04/12/2007).  A short update on the story was printed in Science.¹  This paper said nothing about the sensation of finding soft tissue in old fossils.  The focus was almost entirely on evolution.
    The team from North Carolina State, Harvard and other institutions sequenced the collagen from both the dinosaur and the mastodon.  Finding evolution was their goal: “It was clearly the purpose of the research: “We performed phylogenetic analyses to infer the evolutionary relationships” of the dinosaur and mammal.  “Despite missing sequence data,” they said, “the mastodon groups with elephant and the T. rex groups with birds, consistent with predictions based on genetic and morphological data for mastodon and on morphological data for T. rex..”  They concluded that “molecular data from long-extinct organisms may have the potential for resolving relationships at critical areas in the vertebrate evolutionary tree that have, so far, been phylogenetically intractable.”
    The original paper only admitted to consistent data, therefore, and also admitted that many evolutionary relationships among vertebrates have been intractable.  But the statement that “The results extend our knowledge of trait evolution within nonavian dinosaurs into the macromolecular level of biological organization” was all the news media needed to promote Darwin.  Live Science trumpeted, “Gunk in T. Rex Fossil Confirms Dino-Bird Lineage.”  Ditto for Science Daily.  For a contrasting view, see what David Tyler wrote on Access Research Network.

We read the fine print, not the bold headlines.  If you don’t mind a wading expedition through muddy jargon, you will no doubt notice how much fudging and guesswork goes into these kinds of analyses:

Bayesian, likelihood, parsimony, and distance methods were used to generate evolutionary trees.  In the Bayesian analysis, the posterior distribution of trees reconstructed all extant groups in generally agreed-upon relationships (the posterior probability of clades ranged from 0.80 to 1.00), with the exception of green anole (A. carolinensis), which is inferred here to lie at the base of amniotes instead of grouping as the sister taxon to alligator and birds (archosaurs) (Fig. 1).  LC/MS/MS from tryptic digests produces fragmentary protein sequence data; however, we found unequivocal support (posterior probability of 1.00) uniting mastodon with elephant as members of Elephantinae, which together group with tenrec (E. telfairi) as members of the mammalian group Afrotheria.  Maximum likelihood produces the same groupings, although with less support (approximate likelihood ratio test; aLRT = 0.855 for Elephantinae and 0.872 for Afrotheria).  Maximum parsimony analysis also groups mastodon, elephant, and tenrec together (fig. S1, B to D).  For the T. rex sample, we used five peptide sequences from collagen {alpha}1(I) and one from collagen {alpha}2(I) for a total of 89 amino acids (Fig. 1).  The T. rex clusters within the Archosauria (posterior probability of 0.92), more closely related to birds (chicken and ostrich, 0.9) than alligator, although a lack of informative sites in the ostrich and T. rex leaves Dinosauria unresolved.  The likelihood tree is identical to the Bayesian tree, except for higher support at these locations in the tree (aLRT = 0.969 for Archosauria and 0.907 for Dinosauria).  Branch lengths (expected rates of change per site) indicate a relatively stable and uniform rate of evolution, lacking evidence for a deviation from a molecular clock.  Maximum parsimony analysis also groups the T. rex with the chicken and ostrich, although bootstrap support is low (fig. S1, B to D).  Neighbor joining groups the T. rex with the birds, but miscalculates the branching order and misplaces alligator, mastodon, and several extant organisms (fig. S1, B to D).

If a group of scientists sets out to find Darwin in the trees, with funding from the NIH, NSF and two private foundations, is it any wonder they find him?  Doubtless the funding might dry up if they came back saying, “Sorry, all we found was intelligent design.”  It may be worthwhile to recall that phylogenetic algorithms are subject to many problems.  Bayesian analysis, for instance, is a garbage-in, garbage-out method that is not without serious epistemological issues (02/05/2004 bullet 4, 10/01/2005).  Using D for Darwin and G for Garbage, we propose three new acronyms in addition to the famous GIGO (garbage in, garbage out):

DIDO: Evolutionary reasoning, from assumption to conclusion.

GIDO: The belief that Darwin’s mind arose from chaos.

DIGO: How creationists view evolutionary inference.
It is clear that the team gravitated to the methods that supported their preconceived notions about evolutionary ancestry.  Even the three most concordant results, however, left important relationships unresolved, and placed dinosaurs closer to chickens than to other reptiles (alligators, anole lizards, and perhaps other dinosaurs).  How well does that “confirm” evolution?  Readers may wish to review earlier entries about problems with tree-building algorithms (03/19/2007, 11/26/2002, 06/13/2003, 11/14/2005, 01/26/2008, and 07/25/2002).
    Aside from the fact that even strict creationists would expect to find many similarities in proteins used for similar functions, this paper strained at the gnat of similarity between 89 amino acids in one protein, using it to make sweeping generalizations about evolution, while swallowing the camel of the problem of soft tissue preservation.  When a person tries to hide a camel by swallowing it, however, it is hard for alert bystanders not to notice.
Next headline on:  Fossils • Dinosaurs • Mammals • Evolution

Does anyone see Darwin in this picture?  The article had no use for that hypothesis.  These scientists approached the human foot and ankle as if it were engineered, and advanced science accordingly.  Ferris is in a Department of Biomedical Engineering.  How would one even begin an evolutionary study of the human foot?  How many lucky mutations would it take to get this “incredibly efficient” system by accident?  Don’t expect adding a few more millions of years into the mix to help.
    Most of the real footwork in science is done with a presumption of intelligent design.  When mentioned at all, evolution is merely an afterthought in such studies.  The scientists might say something like, “Isn’t it amazing what evolution produced.”  Bosh; this was a design study from start to finish.  Give credit where it is due.  Intelligent Design promises much more productive knowledge and discovery than evolutionary theory ever did.  Junk the just-so stories and let’s race to understand design in nature, because it’s not just apparent; it’s real.
Next headline on:  Human Body • Intelligent Design • Amazing Facts

The universe as revealed by modern astronomical instruments indicates dynamic processes that appear to have taken long periods of time.  This may be a challenge to Biblical creationists.  What do the images mean?  We should keep in mind several caveats of interpretation.
    As with any piece of scientific evidence, the data are on the surface of the earth in the present.  The photons from these sources are gathered up in real time by telescopes here on the earth.  The human mind projects “realities” out in space based on a combination of facts, assumptions and interpretations.  Just as photons are focused and magnified by a telescope lens, the resultant galaxies we think we understand are “scientific objects” that are filtered through the theoretical lens of what finite humans perceive them to be.
    Recall that, just last week, the Galex telescope revealed arcs of hydrogen far beyond the visible arms of galaxy M83 (04/21/2008).  Those invisible parts, which surprised the discoverers, now become part of the new reification of the term “galaxy.”  There are other invisible parts astronomers speak of, such as dark matter and dark energy.  In addition, astronomers maintain a host of assumptions about the processes that brought these objects into their current form.  The press release speaks of astronomers watching stars being born, when actually, all they are seeing is light in the present.  No man could ever watch the whole process of star birth.  Observations of stars are taken to represent stages in theoretical models.  It becomes difficult to see where observation ends and theory begins.  A feel for how difficult is apparent when one considers that the assumptions and interpretations about which early 20th century astronomers felt confident changed dramatically since Edwin Hubble first wrote his epochal papers on the nature of the spiral nebulae he observed in the 1920s.

The word galaxy itself reveals the historical character of scientific interpretation.  From the Latin root for milk, galaxy prior to 1923 meant The Milky Way – The Galaxy, which at the time was assumed to constitute the entire universe.  By extension, “galaxies” means “Milky Ways” since after Hubble, astronomers reinterpreted the spiral nebulae to be comparable scientific objects to the Milky Way, but far beyond it.  Some called them “island universes” (a logical contradiction, since there can only be one uni-verse).

Subsequent revolutions in the interpretation of galaxies – some of them profound – have occurred up to the present day.  What confidence can we have, therefore, that our current conceptualization of these scientific objects is accurate or complete now?
    All this is to caution that a scientific object should be understood, therefore, as a mixture of raw data, assumption and interpretation.  None of the above should cast doubt on the reality of what the Hubble Telescope has revealed.  Creationists as well as evolutionists tend to be scientific realists; they understand our empirical evidence to correspond to objective reality.  Galaxies are real; they have a history.  It is the ability of the human mind to fully grasp and understand them that should be questioned.  If the creation of the universe involved one-time, special circumstances (God “stretched out the heavens” – 04/18/2008 commentary) any attempts to understand them using “natural” laws and processes is doomed.  This would be a good time to re-read the 05/11/2006 entry that addressed the question, “Is our universe natural”?

Notice that three of the entries in the catalog have Arp numbers.  These were discovered by astronomer Halton Arp, whose story is instructive about consensus science.  Arp was arguably one of the best astronomical observers in the 20th century.   His Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies documented dozens of colliding galaxies, some of which the HST has now revealed in color at higher resolution.  Halton Arp used some cases as evidence that redshifts cannot be reliable indicators of distance.
    Since Arp challenged the Big Bang consensus, he was considered a maverick and was not welcome in some astronomical circles.  He was even denied telescope time to continue his research.  Many historians of science have considered the treatment he got from his peers as a reprehensible abridgement of the scientific values of openness and honest debate.  Some use it as an example of how “normal science” treats anomalies and marginalizes those outside the paradigm.

All that is preface to some possible interpretations of cosmological history that the creationist can reconcile with a Biblical worldview.  Some of these allow for vast ages to have occurred in the galactic context: e.g., a pre-hexameron creation of the universe (Schroeder, Gray), rapid structure formation with plasma physics and zero-point energy (Setterfield), time dilation due to general relativity (Humphreys), or local “time zone” solutions – i.e., the stars were created on the fourth day “Earth Local Time” (Lisle).  Videos that discuss the last two options can be found at Answers in Genesis.  None of these options is without problems and detractors.  That AIG would promote at least two interpretations such as these, however, is evidence that the strictest young-earth creationists can handle issues of apparent age that come to attention when pondering the Hubble images.
    Any world view, whether secular or religious, will have challenges and problems when looking out at the universe.  The old triumphalist, progressivist vision of science marching onward to Truth must be set aside in this post-Kuhn, post-Quine world.  Let us all view the Hubble catalog of colliding galaxies with fresh awe and rational reflection toward improving our understanding of cosmology (so far as is humanly possible) with integrity, openness and humility.
Next headline on:  Astronomy • Cosmology • Dating Methods • Physics

Can Hardwired Humans Have Rational Choice?   04/23/2008    
April 23, 2008 — Two articles recently claimed that we humans are “hardwired” for certain processes. 

1. Fairness:  Science Daily reported on work by UCLA psychologists that suggest humans are “hardwired for fairness.”  A sense of contempt arises when games appear rigged unfairly, they found.  The psychologists found a particular region of the brain was activated during this response, but a different region when the subject was uplifted by seeing fair treatment.  The study found “these emotional firings occur in brain structures that are fast and automatic, so it appears that the emotional brain is overruling the more deliberate, rational mind,” the article said.  “Faced with a conflict, the brain’s default position is to demand a fair deal.”
2. Hierarchy:  Another Science Daily article claimed humans are “hardwired for hierarchy.”  Humans have a pecking order, and the brain responds to changes in social status, scientists at the National Institutes of Health concluded.  Again, the study involved putting subjects into artificial game situations and watching brain firing patterns.  One researcher said, “The processing of hierarchical information seems to be hard-wired, occurring even outside of an explicitly competitive environment, underscoring how important it is for us.”

There’s no question that human beings, as “rational animals” have numerous mind-body connections.  Fear makes the adrenal glands secrete adrenaline, and we breathe faster and run harder.  Happiness makes us laugh and feel the rush of endorphins.  The sight of food makes us salivate.  We can use our minds to study minds, just like we can use our eyes to study eyes.  There is no way, though, for research like this to argue for determinism over free will.
    To show that determinism cannot be proved by rational means, invert the argument.  Ask a scientist to disprove the thesis that she is hardwired to do science.  When she does science, you can say, certain parts of the brain light up on the screen.  Perhaps her research was predetermined by the social network in which she found herself.  Choosing a science career lit up the attractive impulse of becoming elevated in the pecking order.  Making certain inferences and scientific conclusions produced a pleasurable sensation in her ventral striatum.
    If she agrees thus far, ask her how she could possibly know any of the above to be true, outside her brain’s hardwired propensities.  Sounds like a fair question.
Next headline on:  Human Body • Politics and Ethics • Theology

1. Lungless frog:  Science Daily reported a frog without lungs in Borneo.  Lunglessness in tetrapods has been reported in salamanders and other amphibians, but this was the first frog found without functioning lungs.  Apparently the frog gets its needed oxygen through its skin.  National Geographic News has a video clip of the unusual frog.
       David Tyler at Access Research Network wrote about the implications for evolution, as did Carl Wieland for Creation Ministries International.
2. Legged snake:  The BBC News reported a fossil snake possessing two legs.  The 2-cm long limbs, possessing tibia and fibula, were apparently non-functional.  Answers in Genesis commented on the implications for creation vs evolution.  The response included links to their earlier articles from 2006 and 2000 about snake fossils with rudimentary legs.
3. Tapired eleph-hippo:  National Geographic News said that the ancestor to the elephant was like a tapir that lived in the water like a hippopotamus.  The interpretation was based on teeth of a fossil named Moeritherium that they say lived 37 million years ago.  “It seems to have lacked a trunk but may have had a prehensile upper lip,” the article states (again, based on the teeth alone).  The article was accompanied by artwork of a cross between a tapir and a hippo.
       The fossil was found in Egypt in what was interpreted as a swampy area, “But it was difficult for scientists to tell whether the ancient animals had actually lived in such an environment or whether their bodies had washed up there after their deaths.”  One scientist doubted the interpretation.  He thinks Moeritherium was a unique, specialized animal.  He “cautioned against assuming an aquatic ancestry for modern elephants or even suggesting that all early proboscideans were aquatic.”  He questioned the “popular myth” that the elephant evolved a trunk by using its nose like a snorkel (see 11/07/2002).  That would involve a terrestrial mammal evolving into an aquatic animal, then re-adapting to to the terrestrial environment inhabited by modern elephants.

Many extinct animals are known from fossils.  As far as we can tell, they were well adapted to their particular habitats and were not evolving into something else.  Among living animals, some oddballs are found, like the lungless frog or blind cave fish – but these indicate loss of function, not upward-and-onward evolution.  How justifiable is it to piece them into ancestral trees after the fact?  The sociopolitical and rhetorical aspects of such interpretations cannot be ignored.
    The few fossils evolutionists point to for confirmation of Darwin’s evolutionary tree are either unrelated, degenerative, questionable, subject to alternative explanations, fragmentary, figmentary, dubious, specious, facetious, hoaxious, or noxious examples of the habit of reifying imagination.  Where are the billions of missing links Darwin expected?  Only in the dreams of artists who illustrate high school textbooks.  Charlie didn’t change our understanding of nature; he changed certain gullible disciples’ perception of reality, natural or not.  The many counter-examples and falsifications get underreported in the press.  Evolution revealed?  No; evolution re-veiled.
Next headline on:  Evolution • Fossils • Mammals • Terrestrial Zoology

Fred Reed on circling the paradigm—protecting Darwinism at all cost (funny but logical).

Findings vs Surmisings in Astronomy   04/21/2008    
April 21, 2008 — The Galex satellite (Galaxy Evolution Explorer) found “bright features” with an ultraviolet glow in the outskirts of a spiral galaxy, reported the BBC News.  What are they?  Scientists “think” they are large clusters of stars.  How much is known, and how much is interpreted?
    The region imaged is the dark area around spiral galaxy M83 in the constellation Hydra.  Symmetrical arms of glowing hydrogen appear in the periphery of the more familiar central spiral.  If these are starry regions, the discovery is surprising: “The finding has surprised astronomers because the galactic periphery was assumed to lack high concentrations of ingredients needed to form stars.”  Each pixel in the Galex image would have to contain hundreds of thousands of stars.  It is impossible, therefore, for Galex to actually resolve them.  The Galex researchers compared their image with radio telescope data from the Very Large Array in New Mexico.  Did the VLA find the elusive stars?

Light emitted in the radio portion of the electromagnetic spectrum can be used to locate gaseous hydrogen atoms.  These are seen as a good sign that the molecular form of the gas is also present.  And it is from this molecular gas that stars are born.
    When the astronomers combined the radio and the Galex data, they found that they matched up.
    “Clearly, the basic ingredients for star formation are out in those regions,” said Dr [Mark] Seibert [Carnegie Observatories].

The radio telescope did not resolve stars, either.  The leap from glowing gas to large clusters of stars was bridged by theory.  From there, another leap into cosmology was made, but this time it was labeled a speculation:

The astronomers speculate that the young stars seen in far-flung regions of M83 could have formed under conditions resembling those of the early Universe, a time when space was not yet enriched with dust and heavier elements.
    But this process is not well understood.

Despite the disclaimer, the above paragraph still claimed the stars were “seen” when, in actuality, the radio and UV instruments merely showed the presence of atomic hydrogen gas, from which they assumed molecular gas was present, from which they assumed stars would form, even though regions of this low density were not expected to have stars.
    The Galex satellite is operated by JPL and Caltech.  The original press release is on the Galex home page.

Maybe there are stars there.  These astronomers did little to ground their interpretations in empirical data.  Not a single star was observed in this gas, yet we are supposed to believe there are hundreds of thousands of them in each pixel?  Are we supposed to respect a pure speculation about the early universe resting on the admission that “this process is not well understood”?  Try that with gnome theory.  “We did not find any gnomes, but we think we found some gas they emit.  We didn’t expect to find that gas in the desert.  It might shed light, however, on how gnomes arose on the early earth, before the land was enriched with toadstools.”
    If a scientist is not sure of something, let him say so or keep his speculations to himself.  Today’s scientists often do a very poor job of discriminating between observation and interpretation.  News reporters shift between them seamlessly and shamelessly.  It is up to the reader, and to sites like this, to sift the shift and lift the fogma.
Next headline on:  Astronomy • Cosmology

Findings vs Surmisings in Evolutionary Biology   04/20/2008    
April 20, 2008 — What part of the following story is a finding, and what is a supposition?  Science Daily told about work by Julie Baker (Stanford) and a graduate student who set out to discover the evolutionary origin of the mammalian placenta.  They evaluated differences between placentas and eggs of a number of different animals, and told stories about how they came to be – but the article spoke of all the above as “findings.”
    Consider, for instance, the paragraphs right before the statement that refers to them as these findings:

They found that the placenta develops in two distinct stages.  In the first stage, which runs from the beginning of pregnancy through mid-gestation, the placental cells primarily activate genes that mammals have in common with birds and reptiles.  This suggests that the placenta initially evolved through repurposing genes the early mammals inherited from their immediate ancestors when they arose more than 120 million years ago.
    In the second stage, cells of the mammalian placenta switch to a new wave of species-specific genes.  Mice activate newly evolved mouse genes and humans activate human genes.
    It makes sense that each animal would need a different set of genes, Baker said.  “A pregnant orca has different needs than a mouse and so they had to come up with different hormonal solutions to solve their problems,” she said.  For example, an elephant’s placenta nourishes a single animal for 660 days.  A pregnant mouse gestates an average of 12 offspring for 20 days.  Clearly, those two pregnancies would require very different placentas.

The shift between descriptions of observable organs in living animals and evolutionary stories about their relationships is seamless.  Clearly Baker never watched one animal’s placenta evolve into another type of placenta.  She also spoke in Lamarckian terms, suggesting that an animal’s need was sufficient to produce the effect.  Yet all the research was labeled as findings.
    Charles Q. Choi on Live Science took the evolution angle further.  He said the placenta is “rather reptilian” in its ancestry, “new research suggests.”  He also used the word findings for suppositions: “These findings suggest the placenta initially evolved when early mammals found new uses for genes they inherited from their reptile-like ancestors.”  Yet he admitted repeatedly that much remains unknown, and had just quoted Baker saying, “The placenta is this amazing, complex structure and it’s unique to mammals, but we’ve had no idea what its evolutionary origins are.”  He himself said in the opening paragraph, “Scientists have no clue, either, at least insofar as evolution is concerned.”  How cluelessness can be called a finding was left unexplained.  Yet in spite of the admitted ignorance, Choi did not hesitate to title his entry, “Gooey origin of human placenta revealed.”

Baker found living, functional, designed placentas that meet the needs of each animal perfectly.  She did not find evolution.  She did not find anything about evolution.  Instead, she lost something: common sense.
    Evolutionists get away with murder.  They murder rationality in their mythoids but no science reporter takes them to court.  Except here.  Repurposing genes – did you catch that little infraction?
Next headline on:  Evolution • Mammals

  The politics of astrobiology, from 04/17/2006.

Nature Topples ID Straw Man   04/19/2008    
April 19, 2008 — It’s easier to knock down a straw man than a strong man.  Maybe that explains the human tendency to fantasize about victory over one’s enemies.  In scientific journals, however, one would expect to deal in facts and to realistically portray adversarial positions.  Even better would be to let the adversary respond.  Nature, however, in its latest issue, did neither.  Matthew Bennett and Jeff Hasty mentioned intelligent design just enough to discredit it.¹
    The two scientists from the Department of Bioengineering and Institute for Nonlinear Science at the University of California in San Diego were reviewing an experiment in the same issue where a team of European geneticists “rewired” a genetic network to see what would happen.²  In other words, they made certain proteins interact that normally did not.  Fortunately for the E. coli subjects, they survived, and some even did better under artificial selection pressures.  It suggested “the possibility that organisms can evolve by changing the architecture of their genetic network,” though no new structures, functions or organelles emerged from the experiment.  What does this mean for the idea that cells are intelligently designed?  Bennett and Hasty said,

This conclusion also flies in the face of the popular misconception among opponents of the evolutionary theory, who believe that the genetic code is irreducibly complex.  For instance, advocates of ‘intelligent design’ compare the genome to modern engineered machines such as integrated circuits and clocks, which will cease to function if their internal design is altered.  Although sometimes it is instructive to point to similarities between the design principles behind modern technology and those behind genetics, the analogy can only go so far.  Engineered devices are generally designed to work just above the point of failure, so that any tampering with their construction will result in catastrophe.  In the event of failure, new clocks can be purchased or central processing units replaced.  But nature does not have that option.  To survive – and so evolve – organisms must be able to tolerate random mutations, deletions and recombination events.  And Isalan and colleagues’ work provides an important step forward in quantifying just how robust the genetic code can be.

Intelligent design literature does not claim that everything in biology, including the genetic code, is irreducibly complex.  ID scientists already know that mutations occur frequently yet organisms survive.  They claim that the genetic system contains complex specified information that could not have arisen by natural processes.  Irreducible complexity is reserved for molecular machines, like the flagellum, that cease to function when parts are removed.  The genome, everyone knows, survives in spite of mutations because of quality control mechanisms, backups and repair mechanisms that exhibit design.  In fact, they have noted that robustness against mutations is a good strategy that exhibits another level of design above just the information in the genetic code.

---

1.  Matthew R. Bennett and Jeff Hasty, “Systems biology: Genome rewired,” Nature 452, 824-825 (17 April 2008) | doi:10.1038/452824a.
2.  Isalan et al, “Evolvability and hierarchy in rewired bacterial gene networks,” Nature 452, 840-845 (17 April 2008) | doi:10.1038/nature06847.

Why doesn’t Nature ever let ID scientists speak for themselves?  Why do they rarely let an ID scientist respond to a claim made against them? (and when they do, only in highly edited fashion).  These scientists did not see anything evolve.  No new genetic information arose without their interference.  They did some artificial selection experiments under artificial conditions and watched the robust organisms survive.  Did any functional genetic information arise naturally?  No.  Did they show that the mutated organisms would survive better in the wild?  No.  This is not evolution; it is semi-intelligent tinkering with nature.
    Bennett and Hasty hastened to another fallacy: the phrase “to survive – and so evolve” commits a non-sequitur.  You might survive a world war by the skin or your teeth, but you would be exactly the same individual as before, broken bones, scars and all.  Survival is not evolution.  Evolution requires generating novel genetic information that produces new structures, functions, organs and senses – like eyes, wings, sonar, and all the things that mammals have that E. coli did not.
    Next time, Nature, let your adversaries define their own positions.  It’s interesting that critics of ID complain that it is not science because it is not testable – then they go and claim it has been tested and found false.  They can’t have it both ways.
Next headline on:  Evolutionary Theory • Intelligent Design • Genetics

Is Inflation Theory in Trouble?   04/18/2008    
April 18, 2008 — For more than a quarter of a century, “inflation” has been viewed as the savior of the Big Bang theory.  The Big Bang was in trouble in the late 1970s because of the flatness problem and the horizon problem: our universe appeared to be too homogeneous and isotropic to be an accident.  If a runaway inflation occurred within the first second of the expansion, cosmologist Alan Guth calculated, it would even out any differences and produce the nearly-uniform universe we all know and love.  It seemed an elegant, simple solution.
    Many argued in the meantime that inflation was untestable.  Some said it was an ad hoc “rescuing device” to save a theory in trouble.  Nevertheless, Guth and others have claimed that it has passed every test thrown at it (02/21/2005).  Astronomers have pretty much incorporated one of the varieties of inflation into the standard model.  This week in News at Nature, however, a study was reported that doesn’t need cosmic inflation. 

Could the Big Bang have come not at the beginning of the universe, but after a long, slow period of shrinkage?
    That’s one theory bolstered by a new analysis of the Big Bang’s afterglow, which shows that the early universe did not inflate with the smoothness that many theorists expected.
    “The standard, canonical models will be ruled out if this holds,” says Amit Yadav, an astronomer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  “The simplicity is gone.”

There’s a lot at stake in the result, the article states: “it could also lead to a radical reinterpretation of what the Big Bang was and whether it marked the universe’s beginning.”
    On another campus, a different study is calling inflation into doubt.  According to Science Daily, Lawrence Krauss at Case Western Reserve University failed to find the expected noise pattern in the cosmic background radiation expected from inflation theory.  The article, in passing, questions the testability of inflation:

Inflation theory arose in the 1980s as a means to explain some features of the universe that had previously baffled astronomers such as why the universe is so close to being flat and why it is so uniform.  Today, inflation remains the best way to theoretically understand many aspects of the early universe, but most of its predictions are sufficiently malleable that consistency with observation cannot be considered unambiguous confirmation.

The team claims the polarization pattern that had been used by inflationists as confirmation could be produced by a different mechanism.

If the universe is older and more complex than a recent inflationary Big Bang, other questions arise.  According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the universe cannot be infinitely old.  It would have gone to its heat death infinitely long ago.
    The only solution appears to be a controlled expansion done by intelligent design.  Enter the Bible, that claims a dozen times that God stretched out the heavens.  That fits not only the expansion evidence, but the fine-tuning as well.  Materialists are left totally baffled trying to account for these observations without design.
Next headline on:  Cosmology • Intelligent Design

Imagination as Science   04/17/2008    
April 17, 2008 — Can a science exist without evidence?  Astrobiology, and its subcategory “the search for extraterrestrial intelligence,” involve a great deal of scientific equipment, trained researchers, and funding, but still have no observational evidence to support their reason for being: extraterrestrial life.  Where is the line between imagination and reality in these fields?
    Some insight into the answer can be gained by looking at reports about the activities and beliefs of those involved.  At Astrobiology Magazine, a news feature of NASA’s Astrobiology Institute, reporter John D. Ruley spoke about the conclusions of Andrew Watson of the University of East Anglia about alien intelligence.  Watson, who was strongly influenced by James Lovelock and the “Gaia Hypothesis,” has come up with a rather pessimistic model of the evolution of intelligence.  He concludes intelligence will be rare in the universe.  Since we have no examples of intelligence on other planets, how could he present this as a scientific claim?
    Watson employed mathematics.  Since mathematics is ostensibly the language of science, that would seem to lend some scientific credibility to his work.  But if the assumptions behind his numbers are no more credible than the speculations of a teen-ager on spring break, can the result be any more trustworthy?  Watson first assumed the lifetime of likely stars with habitable zones, then assigned probabilities to four major evolutionary transitions:

Applying the limited lifespan to a stepwise model, Watson finds that approximately four major evolutionary steps were required before an intelligent civilization could develop on Earth.  These steps included the emergence of single celled life about half a billion years after the Earth was formed, multicellular life about a billion and a half years later, specialized cells allowing complex life forms with functional organs a billion years after that, and human language a billion years later still.
    Several of these steps agree with major transitions that have been observed in the archeological [sic] record.

Each of these assume evolution and its geological timeline.  Moreover, it could be that he omitted many other factors that should have been included in the equation, each with its own speculative probabilities.  When multiplying unknowns together, the error bars multiply accordingly.  The relationships between each factor must also be taken into account, and these are unknown.  The bottom line, therefore, can be so error-prone as to be meaningless.  The article, nonetheless, made it sound like Watson’s conclusions are more scientific because of the use of mathematics:

The mathematical methods Watson used assume that each evolutionary step is independent of the others, though they must occur in sequence.  Watson considers this “a reasonable first approximation for what is, after all, a very idealized sort of model, deliberately simplified enough that the math can be solved analytically.”

The words solved analytically seem to lend a false credibility to the exercise.  Does a speculation admittedly this simplistic deserve the time of day?  The BBC News science page thought so.  Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute said, however, there is no way to prove it true.  He did think there is a way to prove it false: to “do the experiment” by detecting signals from alien civilizations (i.e., SETI).  But SETI is another “science” with zero evidence.
    Those who write for the Space.com “SETI Thursday” report are courageous, though, in the face of this lack of data.  Douglas Vakoch, Director of Interstellar Message Composition for the SETI Institute was at it again this month (cf. 03/17/2007) preparing civilization for contact with whomever.  “As the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) enters a new phase, with the recent start of observations for radio signals from other worlds with the SETI Institute’s Allen Telescope Array, the international scientific community has begun preparing all the more earnestly for the cascade of events that would follow the detection of an alien civilization.”  But the presence of instruments carries no promise of success.  Compare the Allen Array with a multimillion dollar array of bigfoot detectors, for instance.  It might enjoy great success videotaping squirrels and pine trees, just as the radio telescopes may detect pulsars and gamma-ray bursts.  But unless and until its prime target is detected, its grip on “science” is tenuous at best.
    Vakoch left himself an out:

But even if we never make contact with another world, the process of preparing for contact may help us become better, more integrated humans.  By reflecting on how we would portray ourselves to other worlds, we also have an opportunity to grow in our own self-understanding.  And part of that increased self-understanding can come about through a recognition of those aspects of ourselves that we would rather not be true, but that are a part of ourselves.

This sounds strangely like a psychoanalytic session than a science experiment.  Indeed, Vakoch pointed to Carl Jung for inspiration: “Unfortunately, there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be.”  A number of questions get begged here.  Jung, largely discredited as a scientist today, built a whole model of dreams and archetypes after he split with Freud (another discredited scientist).  Be that as it may, how does Vakoch, or Jung, define good, better, or understanding?  With what scientific instruments would they measure these things?  How does Vakoch even know that a “more integrated human” is “better” than a disintegrated one?
    The employment of non-scientific language continued right through the end of the article.  By this time it sounded more like an inspirational desideratum than an entry for a science news website:

In a sense, the composition of messages to other worlds becomes a process not merely of being in touch with alien worlds beyond, but of unknown worlds within.  And such an exploration into our souls requires as much fortitude as does building and sustaining telescopes that will search the stars for decades and centuries, seeking evidence of life beyond Earth.  As we look within, let’s not forget to look at those parts of ourselves that we would rather look away from.  As Jung reminded us, “no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort.  To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real.  This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.”

Even Eugenie Scott recognized that the “oughts” and “shoulds” belong to moral philosophy, not science (04/14/2008, bullet 3).  Why should Carl Jung have been given prominence here, instead of Billy Graham?  What qualitative or quantitative difference puts the observation-free speculations of a SETI Institute person into a scientific category different from those of anyone else?  Should a variety of theologians and philosophers get equal time at Space.com’s SETI Thursday pulpit?

We hope it was apparent that there is no justification for the SETI and Astrobiology folk to call what they do science.  They deserve no more respect than a Raelian.  Their use of mathematics and scientific instruments is an irrelevant distraction: “no evidence” equates to “no science.”
    Progress will be made only when science reporters get the courage to nail the mythmakers with the hard questions they typically ask politicians.  Here are some suggestions: “How can you say that?  How do you know that?  Dr. Vakoch, a lot of critics would argue that your views have no scientific merit, and that you are making up stories out of your own imagination.  How would you respond to them?”  If he gives the typical smug elitist answer that he is doing “science,” not “religion,” keep pounding away.  “Dr. Vakoch, which definition of science are you using?  Do you follow Bacon, Buffon, Herschel, Whewell, Mill, Popper, Quine, von Fraasen, Laudan, Feyerabend, Foucault, Kuhn, Cartwright, etc. whose views contradict one another?  Are you a rationalist or an empiricist?  Does the use of scientific instruments and mathematics make something scientific?  Where is your evidence?  How do you define what is good or moral?  Why did you pick Carl Jung over other experts?  Wasn’t he a spiritualist who claimed to have a demonic spirit guide?” (source)  Shove the microphone to his face after this barrage, and make sure the camera gets a good shot of the flushed expression.  It will look lovely on the front page of the New York Times under the headline, “Charlatan Exposed.”
Next headline on:  SETI • Evolution

  Struggles for equity: trying to pass the Academic Bill of Rights in 2005, from 04/13/2005.  Guess who opposes it.

Darwin and Hitler: A Trumped-Up Connection?   04/16/2008    
April 16, 2008 — If there is anything critics of Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled are griping about, it is the association of Hitler with Darwin.  What is the movie claiming and not claiming, and how solid is the historical connection?
    Scientific American, in particular, loathed the implication that Darwinism has anything to do with the Holocaust (but see rebuttal on Evolution News).  The American Thinker was a little sympathetic, but still asked whether the imagery of Dachau and Hademar “begs [the] question of the ontological connection between Darwinism and Nazism”
    In response, historian Richard Weikart, PhD at UC Stanislaus, wrote an article for the The American Spectator to clarify the relationship between “Darwin and the Nazis.”  He acknowledges that today’s Darwinists are not Nazis—far from it.  Nevertheless, he listed six principles embedded in Darwin’s world view that cheapen the value of human life:

1. Humans are animals.
2. There is no soul.
3. Morality is relative.
4. Humans are unequal.
5. Nature is a struggle for existence.
6. Death is an engine of progress.

These principles were imbibed wholeheartedly by German scientists and philosophers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  They, in turn, strongly influenced Hitler.  In addition, Weikart, author of From Darwin to Hitler, showed how today’s staunch Darwinists believe the same principles.  “Today’s Darwinists are not Nazis and not all Darwinists agree with Dawkins, Wilson, Ruse, Singer, or Watson,” he ended.  “However, some of the ideas being promoted today by prominent Darwinists in the name of Darwinism have an eerily similar ring to the ideologies that eroded respect for human life in the pre-Nazi era.”
    Dennis Prager interviewed Ben Stein on his radio program Tuesday.  In the interview, which can be heard on DennisPrager.com (34 minutes), Prager made a similar point.  He stated emphatically that neither he, Ben Stein, nor the film are claiming that Darwinists are Nazi sympathizers or that Darwinism produced the Holocaust.  The point made by Expelled was that the Darwinian world view facilitated the devaluation of human life – and that Nazis pointed to Darwinism as a scientific justification for their views.  That, Prager said, is a fact of history acknowledged by all historians.
    A great deal of misinformation about this film has been circulating.  Chuck Colson addressed some of these myths on BreakPoint.  His commentary has links for additional information.  Expelled the Movie also has blogs, news, downloads, and many other features.  Some others who have addressed the Darwin-Nazi issue on Evolution News & Views include Robert Crowther and David Klinghoffer #1 and #2.

The Darwin Party attack force is in full battle array to destroy this film.  Reviews by science journals and pro-Darwin rags have unleashed a torrent of invective.  The NCSE has launched a campaign to pre-empt the damage this movie could do to the DODO (Darwin-Only 2x) policy (see rebuttal by John West).  The mainstream media are strangely silent.  It’s as if the culture is poised to see what is going to happen on opening night.
    You can make a difference.  Go see this movie.  Take your friends, your family, your church, your co-workers.  Tear down this wall that protects atheistic materialism from scrutiny.  Open the gates.  Start the debate.  Nothing is gained by inaction, and the status quo is intolerable.  If you want to start to loosen Darwin’s grip on the culture, the schools, the courts, the media, science and religion, then here is a chance to do something.  Vote at the box office.
    Some movie reviews worth checking: MovieGuide.org, AIG, ICR, CMI, Rush Limbaugh and World Magazine.
    Bloggers and debaters sometimes joke about “Godwin’s Law” or reduction at Hitlerum – the tendency for an argument to degenerate into a discussion about Hitler.  It is true that references to Hitler against an opponent are tasteless if overdone.  But it is worse to forget!  When the shoe fits, and there is a real case to be made, it is cowardly to avoid making the association out of fear of Godwin’s Law.  Cowardice in the face of a battle for truth is the Devilwin’s Law.
Next headline on:  Media • Darwinism

Itemized Deductions   04/15/2008    
April 15, 2008 — Here are some free deductions to take the edge off Income Tax Day.... as long as one deduces correctly.

1. Israel is picking a national bird.  So what feathered friend will represent the Holy Land?  “The nine finalists include the hoopoe, the owl, the spur-winged plover, and the griffin vulture, but no doves.”  Source: Science, Random Samples, 4/10/2008.  WWJD?
2. Do I hear $700,000?  Step right and buy your own triceratops at the dinosaur auction.  Video at National Geographic.  Wouldn’t that be a conversation piece. (Science Random Samples, 30:5873 04/11/2008).
3. An evolutionary biologist is coming to revitalize research at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.  What are David Mindell’s goals?  “He wants to expand research in comparative genomics, strengthen ties with local university researchers, and do more public outreach--especially about evolution.”  (Science Newsmakers, 320:5873, 04/11/2008.)  Do they have a theater?  They could show Expelled nonstop.
4. David Berlinski has answered the Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion with one of his own, The Devil’s Delusion (the identity of the devil is left as an exercise).  His book tour began on C-SPAN’s Book TV, and sounds to his critics like the raking of fingernails across Slate.
5. Don’t tell the creationists: a biophysical complexity researcher has called into question the whole notion of fitness and natural selection, according to a Wired Blog.  “You always get into trouble if you say these things out loud with creationists around,” Maya Paczuski groaned.
6. Bruce Chapman of the Discovery Institute has responded to the NCSE’s Expelled Exposed website with “Expelled Exposed” Exposed.  Could this be the start of an infinite regress?
7. Richard A. Kerr gets the pun award for mixed metaphors: “An Early Big Hit to Mars May Have Scarred the Planet for Life” he said in Science (320:5873, 04/11/2008, pp. 165-166), calling the big show a “striptease.”  But if Mars put on a show and nobody was there to see it, would it be risque?
8. Cassini got two years; NASA granted a two-year extended mission to the Saturn orbiter, reported JPL.
9. The Israeli Antiquities Authority is in its third year of a trial accusing an Egyptian antiquities merchant of forgery for the famed James Ossuary and Jehoash Inscription, said Todd Bolen.  A speedy trial means something else in a land that boasts a 7,000 year history.
10. Inconvenient facts?  Science Daily reported on a panel that praised Al Gore’s movie An Inconvient Truth for its visual excellence and persuasiveness – but not necessarily for its facts.
11. All fired up: “Some scientists are urging Florida’s Legislature to reject a bill that would protect teachers from being fired if they present information challenging evolution,” reported ABC News SunCoast.com.
12. Oh, the irony: critics of the documentary Expelled, which opens in theaters this Friday, have accused the producers of plagiarizing animations of the cell from a Harvard production (a charge Premise Media denies).  Of course to make this claim, the critics had to make an inference of intelligent design.  What message would it send to get Expelled expelled?

Exercise:  Is the IRS tax code a product of intelligent design?  (Hint: not all complexity is “complex specified information”.)  Caution: there are no simple answers.
Next headline on:  Evolution • Intelligent Design • Education • Birds • Media

Darwinism and Logic: How Strong a Grip?   04/14/2008    
April 14, 2008 — Science and logic are inseparable.  Whether one approaches the study of nature from reason (rationalism) or evidence (empiricism), logical inferences and deductions are essential for understanding – or for claiming one’s scientific work produces understanding.  When it comes to the reigning evolutionary perspective, though, how can a blind, chancy process like evolution produce reason, laws of logic, morality or knowledge?
    The best way to see how Darwinism scores on logical inference from its own premises is by examining the views of its leading defenders in the most prestigious publications.

1. Nature editors:  The editorial in Nature April 10 asked,¹ what is “natural”?  The occasion for the question was a transgendered woman-who-became-a-man announcing on Oprah that he/she/it had become pregnant.  The editors seemed to waffle on the answer to the question.  Uneasy to accept this person’s sexual identity crisis as natural, they had more questions than answers: e.g., “if drugs enhance performance on a standardized test, what is so ‘natural’ about prep courses designed to improve scores?”
       The question of what we mean by “natural” is a profoud issue (see 05/11/2006 for a deep discussion about it).  Nature, however, started the editorial with a statement that begged much bigger questions: whether logic and intelligence is natural, and how they could have evolved:

   From an evolutionary perspective, we humans have good reason to be wary of things that seem to be ‘unnatural’.  Anything out of the ordinary can be dangerous.  But the evolutionary origin of that response also guarantees that it will be guided more by emotion than by reason.

2. Michael Ruse:  Philosophy of science is a field where logic and reason should be on full display.  It was most interesting, therefore, to see what Michael Ruse, a self-proclaimed “hard-line Darwinian” philosopher, thought of a new book, Why Think?  Evolution and the Rational Mind by Ronald DeSouza (Oxford, 2008).  He reviewed the book in the March Literary Review of Canada.
       Ruse liked the book very much, and shared its usual speculations about what intelligence is good for in evolutionary biology: e.g., having fewer offspring means greater care must be invested in their care – which requires judgment.  That, in turn, “means brains and all of the rest– getting on with others, finding protein and so forth,” he said, adding in his off-the-cuff way, “I am not sure if this is really an evolutionary justification for eating Big Macs, but one can say that this is all very much a feedback situation.”
       Where Ruse seemed to get tied up in knots was considering the comeback argument to all this from philosopher Alvin Plantinga.  Ruse said Plantinga “loathes and detests” evolutionary biology.  But he seemed disappointed that DeSousa in his book did not provide a satisfying answer to Plantinga’s challenge: “the unreliability of reason in the Darwinian scenario is reason enough to reject evolution and embrace God.”  He elaborated:

   As Plantinga points out, what counts in evolution is success and not the truth.  So how can we ever be sure of the truth?  Perhaps none of our thoughts can tell.  Perhaps none of our thoughts can tell us about reality.  Perhaps we are like beings in a dream world....
   Everything we believe about evolution could be false.

   Ruse acknowledged that this question even troubled Darwin himself:

   With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or are at all trustworthy.  Would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?

   Surprisingly, Ruse conceded that Plantinga could have employed this quote of Darwin to make his point.  How did DeSousa respond to “Darwin’s Doubt”?  In short, he argued that our mathematical knowledge could not have evolved by natural selection.  Our brains evolved for other things.  Since our brains discovered mathematics along the way, and found it useful for all kinds of other things (including predictions that came true), this implies our brains are able to comprehend external reality as it is, not just as we experience it.
       Ruse felt that DeSousa did not adequately answer Plantinga’s challenge.  Ruse himself did not have a good answer, but shrugged it off: “you are probably right,