Yet more on the climate change debate:Pros and Cons.

Pro & Con Arguments: "Is Human Activity Primarily Responsible for Global Climate Change?"

PRO Human Causation

Overwhelming scientific consensus says human activity is primarily responsible for global climate change. The 2010 Anderegg study found that 97-98% of climate researchers publishing most actively in their field agree that human activity is primarily responsible for global climate change. The study also found that the expertise of researchers unconvinced of human-caused climate change is "substantially below" that of researchers who agree that human activity is primarily responsible for climate change. [7] The 2013 Cook review of 11,944 peer-reviewed studies on climate change found that only 78 studies (0.7%) explicitly rejected the position that humans are responsible for global warming. [1] A separate review of 13,950 peer-reviewed studies on climate change found only 24 that rejected human-caused global warming. [5] A survey by German Scientists Bray and Von Storch found that 83.5% of climate scientists believe human activity is causing "most of recent" global climate change. [172] A separate survey in 2011 also found that 84% of earth, space, atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrological scientists surveyed said that human-induced global warming is occurring. [6] 


Rising levels of human-produced gases released into the atmosphere create a greenhouse effect that traps heat and causes global warming. As sunlight hits the earth, some of the warmth is absorbed by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (NO2). These gases trap heat and cause the planet to warm through a process called the greenhouse effect. [8] Since 1751 about 337 billion metric tons of CO2 have been released into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels and cement production, [9] increasing atmospheric CO2 from the pre-industrial level of about 280 ppm (parts per million), to a high of 400 ppm in 2013. [10] Methane, which is increasing in the atmosphere due to agriculture and fossil fuel production, traps 84 times as much heat as CO2 for the first 20 years it is in the atmosphere, [11] and is responsible for about one-fifth of global warming since 1750. [12] Nitrous oxide, primarily released through agricultural practices, traps 300 times as much heat as CO2. [13] Over the 20th century, as the concentrations of CO2, CH4, and NO2 increased in the atmosphere, [13][14] the earth warmed by approximately 1.4°F. [99]


The rise in atmospheric CO2 over the last century was clearly caused by human activity, as it occurred at a rate much faster than natural climate changes could produce. Over the past 650,000 years, atmospheric CO2 levels did not rise above 300 ppm until the mid-20th century. [100] Atmospheric levels of CO2 have risen from about 317 ppm in 1958 to 400 ppm in 2013. [10] CO2 levels are estimated to reach 450 ppm by the year 2040. [15] According to the Scripps Institution of Oceanology, the "extreme speed at which carbon dioxide concentrations are increasing is unprecedented. An increase of 10 parts per million might have needed 1,000 years or more to come to pass during ancient climate change events." [17] Some climate models predict that by the end of the 21st century an additional 5°F-10°F of warming will occur. [16]


The specific type of CO2 that is increasing in earth's atmosphere can be directly connected to human activity. CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels such as oil and coal [18] can be differentiated in the atmosphere from natural CO2 due to its specific isotopic ratio. [101] According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 20th century measurements of CO2 isotope ratios in the atmosphere confirm that rising CO2 levels are the result of human activity, not natural processes such as ocean outgassing, volcanic activity, or release from other "carbon sinks." [102] US greenhouse gas emissions from human activities in 2012 totaled 6.5 million metric tons, [19] which is equivalent to about 78.3 billion shipping containers filled with greenhouse gases. [20]


Average temperatures on earth have increased at a rate far faster than can be explained by natural climate changes. A 2008 study compared data from tree rings, ice cores, and corals over the past millennium with recent temperature records. The study created the famous "hockey stick" graph, showing that the rise in earth's temperature over the preceding decade had occurred at a rate faster than any warming period over the last 1,700 years. [23] In 2012 the Berkeley scientists found that the average temperature of the earth’s land increased 2.5°F over 250 years (1750-2000), with 1.5°F of that increase in the last 50 years. [21] Lead researcher Richard A. Muller, PhD, said "it appears likely that essentially all of this increase [in temperature] results from the human emission of greenhouse gases." [22] In 2013, a surface temperature study published in Science found that global warming over the past 100 years has proceeded at a rate faster than at any time in the past 11,300 years. [3] According to the IPCC’s 2014 Synthesis Report, human actions are "extremely likely" (95-100% confidence) to have been the main cause of 20th century global warming, and the surface temperature warming since the 1950s is "unprecedented over decades to millennia." [24]


Natural changes in the sun's activity cannot explain 20th century global warming. According to a Dec. 2013 study in Nature Geoscience, the sun has had only a "minor effect" on the Northern Hemisphere climate over the past 1,000 years, and global warming from human-produced greenhouse gases has been the primary cause of climate change since 1900. [26] Another 2013 study found that solar activity could not have contributed to more than 10% of the observed global warming over the 20th century. [27] Measurements in the upper atmosphere from 1979-2009 show the sun's energy has gone up and down in cycles, with no net increase. [28] According to a 2013 IPCC report, there is "high confidence" (8 out of 10 chance) that changes in the sun's radiation could not have caused the increase in the earth's surface temperature from 1986-2008. [29] Although warming is occurring in the lower atmosphere (troposphere), the upper atmosphere (stratosphere) is actually cooling. If the sun were driving global warming, there would be warming in the stratosphere also, not cooling. [103] 


Global warming caused by human-produced greenhouse gases is causing the Arctic ice cap to melt at an increasing rate. From 1953–2006, Arctic sea ice declined 7.8% per decade. Between 1979 and 2006, the decline was 9.1% each decade. [105] As of 2014, Arctic sea ice was being lost at a rate of 13.3% per decade. [163] As the Arctic ice cover continues to decrease, the amount of the sun’s heat reflected by the ice back into space also decreases. This positive-feedback loop amplifies global warming at a rate even faster than previous climate models had predicted. [30] Some studies predict the Arctic could become nearly ice free sometime between 2020-2060. [164]


Sea levels are rising at an unprecedented rate due to global warming. As human-produced greenhouse gases warm the planet, sea levels are rising due to thermal expansion of warming ocean waters as well as melt water from receding glaciers and the polar ice cap. [165] According to the IPCC, there has been a "substantial" human contribution to the global mean sea-level rise since the 1970s, and there is "high confidence" (8 out of 10 chance) that the rate of sea-level rise over the last half century has accelerated faster than it has over the previous 2,000 years. [29] A 2006 study found that "significant acceleration" of sea-level rise occurred from 1870 to 2004. [106] Between 1961 and 2003 global sea levels rose 8 inches. [102] An Oct. 2014 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the rate of sea level rise over the past century is unprecedented over the last 6,000 years. [32] [33] A separate Oct. 2014 study said that the global sea level is likely to rise 31 inches by 2100, with a worst case scenario rise of 6 feet. [34] Climate Central predicts that 147 to 216 million people live in areas that will be below sea level or regular flood areas by the end of the century if human-produced greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current rate. [35]


Ocean acidity levels are increasing at an unprecedented rate that can only be explained by human activity. As excess human-produced CO2 in the atmosphere is absorbed by the oceans, the acidity level of the water increases. Acidity levels in the oceans are 25-30% higher than prior to human fossil fuel use. [107] According to a 2014 US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, oceans have absorbed about 30% of the CO2 emitted by humans over the past 200 years, and ocean acidity could rise approximately 100-200 percent above preindustrial levels by 2100. [36] According to a 2013 report from the World Meteorological Organization, the current acceleration in the rate of ocean acidification "appears unprecedented" over the last 300 million years. [37] High ocean acidity levels threaten marine species, [16] and slows the growth of coral reefs. [38] According to a 2014 report by the Convention on Biological Diversity, "it is now nearly inevitable" that within 50-100 years continued human produced CO2 emissions will increase ocean acidity to levels that "will have widespread impacts, mostly deleterious, on marine organisms and ecosystems." [39]


Ocean temperatures are rising at an unprecedented rate due to global warming, and are causing additional climate changes. The IPCC stated in a 2013 report that due to human-caused global warming, it is "virtually certain" (99-100% probability) that the upper ocean warmed between 1971 and 2010. [29] An Oct. 2014 Nature Climate Change study said that the oceans are the "dominant reservoir of heat uptake in the climate system." [40] A separate Oct. 2014 study found that the oceans absorb more than 90% of the heat generated by human-caused global warming. [41] Since 1970 the upper ocean (above 700 meters) has been warming 24-55% faster than previous studies had predicted. [41] A May 2013 study published in Geophysical Research Letters found that between 1958-2009 the rates of warming in the lower ocean (below 700m) "appear to be unprecedented." [42] According to an Oct. 2013 study, the middle depths of the Pacific Ocean have warmed "15 times faster in the last 60 years than they did during apparent natural warming cycles in the previous 10,000." [43] Warmer ocean waters can harm coral reefs and impact many species including krill, which are vital to the marine food chain and which reproduce significantly less in warmer water. [166] Warming oceans also contribute to sea level rise due to thermal expansion, and warmer ocean waters can add to the intensity of storm systems. [167]


Glaciers are melting at unprecedented rates due to global warming, causing additional climate changes. About a quarter of the globe's glacial loss from 1851-2010, and approximately two thirds of glacial loss between 1991-2010, is attributable directly to global warming caused by human-produced greenhouse gases. [45] According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, global warming from human-produced greenhouse gases is a primary cause of the "unprecedented" retreat of glaciers around the world since the early 20th century. [44] Since 1980 glaciers worldwide have lost nearly 40 feet (12 meters) in average thickness. [110] According to a 2013 IPCC report, "glaciers have continued to shrink almost worldwide" over the prior two decades, and there is "high confidence" (about an 8 out of 10 chance) that Northern Hemisphere spring snow continues to decrease. [29] If the glaciers forming the Greenland ice sheet were to melt entirely, global sea levels could increase by up to 20 feet. [168] Melting glaciers also change the climate of the surrounding region. With the loss of summer glacial melt water, the temperatures in rivers and lakes increase. According to the US Geological Service, this disruption can include the "extinction of temperature sensitive aquatic species." [169]


Human-caused global warming is changing weather systems and making heat waves and droughts more intense and more frequent. The May 2014 National Climate Assessment report said human-caused climate changes, such as increased heat waves and drought, "are visible in every state." [16] A Sep. 2014 American Meteorological Society study found that human-caused climate change "greatly increased" (up to 10 times) the risk for extreme heat waves in 2013. [46] According to an Aug. 2012 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, there is a "high degree of confidence" that the Texas and Oklahoma heat waves and drought of 2011, and heat waves and drought in Moscow in 2010, "were a consequence of global warming" and that "extreme anomalies" in weather are becoming more common as a direct consequence of human-caused climate change. [47] A 2015 study found that globally, 75% of extremely hot days are attributable to warming caused by human activity. [174]


Dramatic changes in precipitation, such as heavier storms and less snow, are another sign that humans are causing global climate change. As human-produced greenhouse gases heat the planet, increased humidity (water vapor in the atmosphere) results. Water vapor is itself a greenhouse gas. [112] In a process known as a positive feedback loop, more warming causes more humidity which causes even more warming. [113] Higher humidity levels also cause changes in precipitation. According to a 2013 report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the recorded changes in precipitation over land and oceans "are unlikely to arise purely due to natural climate variability." [48] Higher temperatures from global warming are also causing some mountainous areas to receive rain rather than snow. According to researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, up to 60% of the changes in river flow, winter air temperature, and snow pack in the western United States (1950-1999) were human-induced. [111] Since 1991, heavy precipitation events have been 30% above the 1901-1960 average in the Northeast, Midwest, and upper Great Plains regions. [16] A 2015 study found that global warming caused by human actions has increased extreme precipitation events by 18% across the globe, and that if temperatures continue to rise an increase of 40% can be expected. [174]


Permafrost is melting at unprecedented rates due to global warming, causing further climate changes. According to a 2013 IPCC report there is "high confidence" (about an 8 out of 10 chance) that anthropogenic global warming is causing permafrost, a subsurface layer of frozen soil, to melt in high-latitude regions and in high-elevation regions. [49] As permafrost melts it releases methane, a greenhouse gas that absorbs 84 times more heat than CO2 for the first 20 years it is in the atmosphere, creating even more global warming in a positive feedback loop. [50][51] By the end of the 21st century, warming temperatures in the Arctic will cause a 30%-70% decline in permafrost. [52] According to a 2012 report, as human-caused global warming continues, Arctic air temperatures are expected to increase at twice the global rate, increasing the rate of permafrost melt, changing the local hydrology, and impacting critical habitat for native species and migratory birds. [53] According to the 2014 National Climate Assessment, some climate models suggest that near-surface permafrost will be "lost entirely" from large parts of Alaska by the end of the 21st century. [16]

CON Human Causation

More than one thousand scientists disagree that human activity is primarily responsible for global climate change. In 2010 Climate Depot released a report featuring more than 1,000 scientists, several of them former UN IPCC scientists, who disagreed that humans are primarily responsible for global climate change. [55] The Cook review [1] of 11,944 peer-reviewed studies found 66.4% of the studies had no stated position on anthropogenic global warming, and while 32.6% of the studies implied or stated that humans are contributing to climate change, only 65 papers (0.5%) explicitly stated "that humans are the primary cause of recent global warming." [54] A 2012 Purdue University survey found that 47% of climatologists challenge the idea that humans are primarily responsible for climate change and instead believe that climate change is caused by an equal combination of humans and the environment (37%), mostly by the environment (5%), or that there’s not enough information to say (5%). [173] In 2014 a group of 15 scientists dismissed the US National Climate Assessment as a "masterpiece of marketing," that was "grossly flawed," and called the NCA’s assertion of human-caused climate change "NOT true." [56]


Earth's climate has always warmed and cooled, and the 20th century rise in global temperature is within the bounds of natural temperature fluctuations over the past 3,000 years. Although the planet has warmed 1-1.4°F over the 20th century, it is within the +/- 5°F range of the past 3,000 years. [114] A 2003 study by researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics found that "many records reveal that the 20th century is probably not the warmest nor a uniquely extreme climatic period of the last millennium." [115] A 2005 study published in Nature found that "high temperatures - similar to those observed in the twentieth century before 1990 - occurred around AD 1000 to 1100" in the Northern Hemisphere. [116] A 2013 study published in Boreas found that summer temperatures during the Roman Empire and Medieval periods were "consistently higher" than temperatures during the 20th century. [59] According to a 2010 study in the Chinese Science Bulletin, the recent global warming period of the 20th century is the result of a natural 21-year temperature oscillation, and will give way to a "new cool period in the 2030s." [74]


Rising levels of atmospheric CO2 do not necessarily cause global warming, which contradicts the core thesis of human-caused climate change. Earth's climate record shows that warming has preceded, not followed, a rise in CO2. According to a 2003 study published in Science, measurements of ice core samples show that over the last four climactic cycles (past 240,000 years), periods of natural global warming preceded global increases in CO2. [117] In 2010 the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a study of the earth's climate 460-445 million years ago which found that an intense period of glaciation, not warming, occurred when CO2 levels were 5 times higher than they are today. [4] According to ecologist and former Director of Greenpeace International Patrick Moore, PhD, "there is some correlation, but little evidence, to support a direct causal relationship between CO2 and global temperature through the millennia." [60]


Human-produced CO2 is re-absorbed by oceans, forests, and other "carbon sinks," negating any climate changes. According to a 2011 study published in the Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Science, many climate models that predict additional global warming to occur from CO2 emissions "exaggerate positive feedbacks and even show positive feedbacks when actual feedbacks are negative." [75] About 50% of the CO2 released by the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities has already been re-absorbed by the earth’s carbon sinks. [118] From 2002-2011, 26% of human-caused CO2 emissions were absorbed specifically by the world’s oceans. [61] A 2010 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found evidence that forests are increasing their growth rates in response to elevated levels of CO2, [62] which will in turn, lower atmospheric CO2 levels in a negative feedback. According to an Aug. 2012 study in Nature, the rate of global carbon uptake by the earth's carbon sinks, such as its forests and oceans, doubled from 1960-2010 and continues to increase. [64] 


CO2 is already saturated in earth’s atmosphere, and more CO2, manmade or natural, will have little impact on climate. As CO2 levels in the atmosphere rise, the amount of additional warming caused by the increased concentration becomes less and less pronounced. [65] According to Senate testimony by William Happer, PhD, Professor of Physics at Princeton University, "[a]dditional increments of CO2 will cause relatively less direct warming because we already have so much CO2 in the atmosphere that it has blocked most of the infrared radiation that it can. The technical jargon for this is that the CO2 absorption band is nearly 'saturated' at current CO2 levels." [66] According to the Heartland Institute's 2013 Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) report, "it is likely rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations will have little impact on future climate." [67]


Global warming and cooling are primarily caused by fluctuations in the sun's heat (solar forcing), not by human activity. Over the past 10,000 years, solar minima (reduced sun spot activity) have been "accompanied by sharp climate changes." [68] Between 1900 and 2000 solar irradiance increased 0.19%, and correlated with the rise in US surface temperatures over the 20th century. [114] According to a 2007 study published in Energy & Environment, "variations in solar activity and not the burning of fossil fuels are the direct cause of the observed multiyear variations in climatic responses." [69] In a 2012 study by Willie Soon, PhD, Physicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, a strong correlation between solar radiation and temperatures in the Arctic over the past 130 years was identified. [70] According to a 2012 study published in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, "up to 70% of the observed post-1850 climate change and warming could be associated to multiple solar cycles." [71]


The rate of global warming has slowed over the last decade even though atmospheric CO2 continues to increase. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recognized a slowdown in global warming over the past 15 years in its 2013 report. [29] According to the Heartland Institute's 2013 NIPCC report, the earth "has not warmed significantly for the past 16 years despite an 8% increase in atmospheric CO2." [67] In Aug. 2014 a study in the Open Journal of Statistics analyzed surface temperature records and satellite measurements of the lower atmosphere and confirmed that this slowdown in global warming has occurred. [72] According to Emeritus Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Richard Lindzen, PhD, the IPCC's "excuse for the absence of warming over the past 17 years is that the heat is hiding in the deep ocean. However, this is simply an admission that the [climate] models fail to simulate the exchanges of heat between the surface layers and the deeper oceans..." [73] 


Predictions of accelerating human-caused climate change are based upon computerized climate models that are inadequate and incorrect. Climate models have been unable to simulate major known features of past climate such as the ice ages or the very warm climates of the Miocene, Eocene, and Cretaceous periods. If models cannot replicate past climate changes they should not be trusted to predict future climate changes. [58] A 2011 Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Science study using observational data rather than computer climate models concluded that "the models are exaggerating climate sensitivity" and overestimate how fast the earth will warm as CO2 levels increase. [75] Two other studies using observational data found that IPCC projections of future global warming are too high. [76] [97] In a 2014 article, climatologist and former NASA scientist Roy Spencer, PhD, concluded that 95% of climate models have "over-forecast the warming trend since 1979." [77] According to Emeritus Professor of Geography at the University of Winnipeg, Tim Ball, PhD, "IPCC computer climate models are the vehicles of deception… [T]hey create the results they are designed to produce." [78]


Sea levels have been steadily rising for thousands of years, and the increase has nothing to do with humans. A 2014 report by the Global Warming Policy Foundation found that a slow global sea level rise has been ongoing for the last 10,000 years. [79] When the earth began coming out of the Pleistocene Ice Age 18,000 years ago, sea levels were about 400 feet lower than they are today and have been steadily rising ever since. [60] According to Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Judith Curry, PhD "it is clear that natural variability has dominated sea level rise during the 20th century, with changes in ocean heat content and changes in precipitation patterns." [80] Freeman Dyson, Emeritus Professor of Mathematical Physics and Astrophysics at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, has stated that there is "no evidence" that rising sea levels are due to anthropogenic climate change. [81]


The acidity levels of the oceans are within past natural levels, and the current rise in acidity is a natural fluctuation, not the result of human caused climate change. [120] The pH of average ocean surface water is 8.1 and has only decreased 0.1 since the beginning of the industrial revolution (neutral is pH 7, acid is below pH 7). [121] In 2010 Science published a study of ocean acidity levels over the past 15 million years, finding that the "samples record surface seawater pH values that are within the range observed in the oceans today." [82] Increased atmospheric CO2 absorbed by the oceans results in higher rates of photosynthesis and faster growth of ocean plants and phytoplankton, which increases pH levels keeping the water alkaline, not acidic. [60] According to a 2010 paper by the Science and Public Policy Institute, "our harmless emissions of trifling quantities of carbon dioxide cannot possibly acidify the oceans." [63]


Glaciers have been growing and receding for thousands of years due to natural causes, not human activity. The IPCC predicted that Himalayan glaciers would likely melt away by 2035, a prediction they disavowed in 2010. [83] In 2014 a study of study of 2,181 Himalayan glaciers from 2000-2011 showed that 86.6% of the glaciers were not receding. [84] According to a 2013 study of ice cores published in Nature Geoscience, the current melting of glaciers in Western Antarctica is due to "atmospheric circulation changes" that have "caused rapid warming over the West Antarctic Ice Sheet" and cannot be directly attributed to human caused climate change. [85] According to one of the study authors, "[i]f we could look back at this region of Antarctica in the 1940s and 1830s, we would find that the regional climate would look a lot like it does today, and I think we also would find the glaciers retreating much as they are today." [86] According to Christian Schlüchter, Professor of Geology at the University of Bern, 4,000 year old tree remains have been found beneath retreating glaciers in the Swiss Alps, indicating that they were previously glacier-free. According to Schlüchter, the current retreat of glaciers in the Alps began in the mid-19th century, before large amounts of human caused CO2 had entered the atmosphere. [87]


Deep ocean currents, not human activity, are a primary driver of natural climate warming and cooling cycles. Changes in ocean currents are primarily responsible for the melting Greenland ice sheet, Arctic sea ice, and Arctic permafrost. Over the 20th century there have been two Arctic warming periods with a cooling period (1940-1970) in between. According to a 2009 study in Geophysical Research Letters, natural shifts in the ocean currents are the major cause of these climate changes, not human-generated greenhouse gases. [124] According to William Gray, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, most of the climate changes over the last century are natural and "due to multi-decadal and multi-century changes in deep global ocean currents." [122] Global cooling from 1940 to the 1970s, and warming from the 1970s to 2008, coincided with fluctuations in ocean currents and cloud cover driven by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) - a naturally occurring rearrangement in atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns. [123] According to a 2014 article by Don Easterbrook, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Geology at Western Washington University, the "PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling, perhaps much deeper than the global cooling from about 1945 to 1977." [88]



Increased hurricane activity and other extreme weather events are a result of natural weather patterns, not human-caused climate change. According to a 2013 report from the Tropical Meteorology Project at Colorado State University, the increase in human-produced CO2 over the past century has had "little or no significant effect" on global tropical cyclone activity. The report further states that specific hurricanes, including Sandy, Ivan, Katrina, Rita, Wilma, and Ike, were not a direct consequence of human-caused global warming. [89] Between 1995-2015 increased hurricane activity (including Katrina) was recorded, however, according to the NOAA, it was not the result of human-induced climate change; it was the result of cyclical tropical cyclone patterns, driven primarily by natural ocean currents. [125] Many types of recorded extreme weather events over the past half-century have actually become less frequent and less severe. [93] Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Judith Curry, PhD, states that she is "unconvinced by any of the arguments that I have seen that attributes a single extreme weather event, a cluster of extreme weather events, or statistics of extreme weather events" to human-caused climate change. [90] Richard Lindzen, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also states that there is a lack of evidence connecting extreme weather events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, or floods, to human-caused global warming. [92]







On taking earth's temperature.

Why debate Darwin?: Mr.Berlinski's two cents.

David Berlinski: Does Darwin Matter?

David Berlinski September 29, 2009 8:17 AM 

ENV: How do the scientific issues you write about affect the way we live? Why should the Darwin question matter to people who don't normally concern themselves with scientific theories?

DB: I think of the Darwinian debate in the way that Dickens thought of Jardynce v Jarndyce in Bleak House. It is awfully easy to be sucked into it, and once suckered, awfully difficult to get out. I have seen it so often. A man wakes and because has read a book or scanned an essay, he is persuaded that he can make a contribution. He is eager to make it. He offers his opinion on the Internet and is gratified by the prospect of the congratulations that he is shortly to receive. No one pays the slightest attention. He then discovers that to be heard, it is necessary that he amplifies his level of abuse. He does that, referring to the Discovery Institute as the Dishonesty Institute. Repeating the phrase as he moves his bowels affords him an unexpected pleasure. As his influence remains insignificant, his indignation mounts. In the morning, he scuttles to his computer to check his own postings; satisfied when he finds them, and beside himself when he fails. His appetite for conflict sharpens. He becomes determined to exaggerate every issue; and to magnify trivialities. Sooner or later, his Internet presence seems real, and his real life unreal. He ends in the state achieved by almost every Internet blogger: He commences to gibber repetitively. Glen Davidson, who posts to David Klinghoffer's blog, has recently entered the gibbering state.

It is all very sad. I have warned about the phenomenon many times.

Does Darwin matter? Yes, of course it matters. It matters a great deal. It matters whether the theory is true because for better or worse we value the truth and struggle to find it; but it would matter far more were we able to say once and for all that the theory is false. Darwinism involves a way of thought in biology, and were it to go, it would take a great many assumptions along with it. Just think of vitalism, for example. To say a word in its favor is at once to be accused of the cheapest kind of intellectual sentimentality. We know better and if we do not know better, they do. But hold on, please do. If by vitalism one means something like the 19th century idea of a vital fluid that informs living systems, then I am with them. That is so much sentimentality. But if by vitalism one means the thesis that living systems cannot be completely explained in terms of their physics or their chemistry -- what then? Something must explain the difference, no? And if it is not a fluid, as naïve 19th-century biologists sometimes thought, it does not follow that it is nothing.

Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.

This remark is half right: Nothing in biology does make sense. It is for the biology of the future to start making sense of it. If that in the end involves religious ideas or even religious I, that's fine with me. Let's ask the questions first, and reject the wrong answers when we know that they are wrong.

Biology as tech /Biology as art II

Coming Next Month, Michael Denton and The Biology of the Baroque; See the Trailer Now!
David Klinghoffer January 13, 2016 2:36 PM 

My family and I were watching Ninotchka last night -- the sly story of a dour, emotionally repressed Soviet official who travels to Paris and reluctantly discovers the allure of beauty, luxury, and love. Greta Garbo plays the title character. It's full of great lines, and I was especially tickled by Ninotchka's pre-transformation dismissal of herself as, "Just what you see. A tiny cog in the great wheel of evolution."

Cover with border made me think of our upcoming documentary, The Biology of the Baroque: The Mystery of Non-Adaptive Order, which you'll have the opportunity to enjoy when it premieres on YouTube next month. The stern, nearly robotic Ninotchka at first disclaims all interest in the lights of Paris or any of the city's other charms but only wants to inspect its sewers and other infrastructure, "from a technical standpoint." In a very similar way, evolutionary thinking asks us to ignore life's superabundance of numinous order and baroque artistry.


The video is based on a novel and incisive argument from Discovery Institute biologist Michael Denton in his new book Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis, to be published on January 26. You can see the trailer now:
Evolutionists have good reason for demanding that we avert our eyes from biology's delicate artfulness. None of that, after all, is explicable in light of the Darwinian theory that natural selection retains only what is useful from a "technical standpoint" of reproductive successive. In the book and the video, directed by Center for Science & Culture associate director John West, Dr. Denton puts this quality of superfluous, luxurious "non-adaptive order" front and center.

Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis follows in the tracks of Denton's groundbreaking work of thirty-plus years ago, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. The latter inspired a rising generation of pioneers in the field of intelligent design, notably Michael Behe. The forthcoming book is no mere update, however -- it reveals powerful new evidence of design in nature and opens a fresh frontier for the science of ID.

Dr. Denton concedes that when he wrote his first book, he did not recognize the abundance of non-adaptive features in life -- a realization that he details with authority in the new book. Watch for The Biology of the Baroque in this space on February 12.

The minority report:Nothing in Darwinism makes sense apart from biology.

Why Do We Invoke Darwin?:
Darwin's theory of evolution offers a sweeping explanation of the history of life, from the earliest microscopic organisms billions of years ago to all the plants and animals around us today.


By Philip Skell

Darwin's theory of evolution offers a sweeping explanation of the history of life, from the earliest microscopic organisms billions of years ago to all the plants and animals around us today. Much of the evidence that might have established the theory on an unshakable empirical foundation, however, remains lost in the distant past. For instance, Darwin hoped we would discover transitional precursors to the animal forms that appear abruptly in the Cambrian strata. Since then we have found many ancient fossils – even exquisitely preserved soft-bodied creatures – but none are credible ancestors to the Cambrian animals.

Despite this and other difficulties, the modern form of Darwin's theory has been raised to its present high status because it's said to be the cornerstone of modern experimental biology. But is that correct? "While the great majority of biologists would probably agree with Theodosius Dobzhansky's dictum that 'nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution,' most can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas," A.S. Wilkins, editor of the journal BioEssays, wrote in 2000.1 "Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one."

I would tend to agree. Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming's discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin's theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No.

I also examined the outstanding biodiscoveries of the past century: the discovery of the double helix; the characterization of the ribosome; the mapping of genomes; research on medications and drug reactions; improvements in food production and sanitation; the development of new surgeries; and others. I even queried biologists working in areas where one would expect the Darwinian paradigm to have most benefited research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I found that Darwin's theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss.

In the peer-reviewed literature, the word "evolution" often occurs as a sort of coda to academic papers in experimental biology. Is the term integral or superfluous to the substance of these papers? To find out, I substituted for "evolution" some other word – "Buddhism," "Aztec cosmology," or even "creationism." I found that the substitution never touched the paper's core. This did not surprise me. From my conversations with leading researchers it had became clear that modern experimental biology gains its strength from the availability of new instruments and methodologies, not from an immersion in historical biology.

When I recently suggested this disconnect publicly, I was vigorously challenged. One person recalled my use of Wilkins and charged me with quote mining. The proof, supposedly, was in Wilkins's subsequent paragraph:

"Yet, the marginality of evolutionary biology may be changing. More and more issues in biology, from diverse questions about human nature to the vulnerability of ecosystems, are increasingly seen as reflecting evolutionary events. A spate of popular books on evolution testifies to the development. If we are to fully understand these matters, however, we need to understand the processes of evolution that, ultimately, underlie them."


In reality, however, this passage illustrates my point. The efforts mentioned there are not experimental biology; they are attempts to explain already authenticated phenomena in Darwinian terms, things like human nature. Further, Darwinian explanations for such things are often too supple: Natural selection makes humans self-centered and aggressive – except when it makes them altruistic and peaceable. Or natural selection produces virile men who eagerly spread their seed – except when it prefers men who are faithful protectors and providers. When an explanation is so supple that it can explain any behavior, it is difficult to test it experimentally, much less use it as a catalyst for scientific discovery.Darwinian evolution – whatever its other virtues – does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology. This becomes especially clear when we compare it with a heuristic framework such as the atomic model, which opens up structural chemistry and leads to advances in the synthesis of a multitude of new molecules of practical benefit. None of this demonstrates that Darwinism is false. It does, however, mean that the claim that it is the cornerstone of modern experimental biology will be met with quiet skepticism from a growing number of scientists in fields where theories actually do serve as cornerstones for tangible breakthroughs.

Philip S. Skell tvk@psu.edu is Emeritus Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. His research has included work on reactive intermediates in chemistry, free-atom reactions, and reactions of free carbonium ions.

He can be contacted at tvk@psu.edu.

The epistle of James New Jerusalem Bible

1)1 From James, servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Greetings to the twelve tribes of the Dispersion.

2 My brothers, consider it a great joy when trials of many kinds come upon you,

3 for you well know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance, and

4 perseverance must complete its work so that you will become fully developed, complete, not deficient in any way.

5 Any of you who lacks wisdom must ask God, who gives to all generously and without scolding; it will be given.

6 But the prayer must be made with faith, and no trace of doubt, because a person who has doubts is like the waves thrown up in the sea by the buffeting of the wind.

7 That sort of person, in two minds,

8 inconsistent in every activity, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

9 It is right that the brother in humble circumstances should glory in being lifted up,

10 and the rich in being brought low. For the rich will last no longer than the wild flower;

11 the scorching sun comes up, and the grass withers, its flower falls, its beauty is lost. It is the same with the rich: in the middle of a busy life, the rich will wither.

12 Blessed is anyone who perseveres when trials come. Such a person is of proven worth and will win the prize of life, the crown that the Lord has promised to those who love him.

13 Never, when you are being put to the test, say, 'God is tempting me'; God cannot be tempted by evil, and he does not put anybody to the test .

14 Everyone is put to the test by being attracted and seduced by that person's own wrong desire.

15 Then the desire conceives and gives birth to sin, and when sin reaches full growth, it gives birth to death.

16 Make no mistake about this, my dear brothers:

17 all that is good, all that is perfect, is given us from above; it comes down from the Father of all light; with him there is no such thing as alteration, no shadow caused by change.

18 By his own choice he gave birth to us by the message of the truth so that we should be a sort of first-fruits of all his creation.

19 Remember this, my dear brothers: everyone should be quick to listen but slow to speak and slow to human anger;

20 God's saving justice is never served by human anger;

21 so do away with all impurities and remnants of evil. Humbly welcome the Word which has been planted in you and can save your souls.

22 But you must do what the Word tells you and not just listen to it and deceive yourselves.

23 Anyone who listens to the Word and takes no action is like someone who looks at his own features in a mirror and,

24 once he has seen what he looks like, goes off and immediately forgets it.

25 But anyone who looks steadily at the perfect law of freedom and keeps to it -- not listening and forgetting, but putting it into practice -- will be blessed in every undertaking.

26 Nobody who fails to keep a tight rein on the tongue can claim to be religious; this is mere self-deception; that person's religion is worthless.

27 Pure, unspoilt religion, in the eyes of God our Father, is this: coming to the help of orphans and widows in their hardships, and keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world.

2)1 My brothers, do not let class distinction enter into your faith in Jesus Christ, our glorified Lord.

2 Now suppose a man comes into your synagogue, well-dressed and with a gold ring on, and at the same time a poor man comes in, in shabby clothes,

3 and you take notice of the well-dressed man, and say, 'Come this way to the best seats'; then you tell the poor man, 'Stand over there' or 'You can sit on the floor by my foot-rest.'

4 In making this distinction among yourselves have you not used a corrupt standard?

5 Listen, my dear brothers: it was those who were poor according to the world that God chose, to be rich in faith and to be the heirs to the kingdom which he promised to those who love him.

6 You, on the other hand, have dishonoured the poor. Is it not the rich who lord it over you?

7 Are not they the ones who drag you into court, who insult the honourable name which has been pronounced over you?

8 Well, the right thing to do is to keep the supreme Law of scripture: you will love your neighbour as yourself;

9 but as soon as you make class distinctions, you are committing sin and under condemnation for breaking the Law.

10 You see, anyone who keeps the whole of the Law but trips up on a single point, is still guilty of breaking it all.

11 He who said, 'You must not commit adultery' said also, 'You must not kill.' Now if you commit murder, you need not commit adultery as well to become a breaker of the Law.

12 Talk and behave like people who are going to be judged by the law of freedom.

13 Whoever acts without mercy will be judged without mercy but mercy can afford to laugh at judgement.

14 How does it help, my brothers, when someone who has never done a single good act claims to have faith? Will that faith bring salvation?

15 If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on,

16 and one of you says to them, 'I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty,' without giving them these bare necessities of life, then what good is that?

17 In the same way faith, if good deeds do not go with it, is quite dead.

18 But someone may say: So you have faith and I have good deeds? Show me this faith of yours without deeds, then! It is by my deeds that I will show you my faith.

19 You believe in the one God -- that is creditable enough, but even the demons have the same belief, and they tremble with fear.

20 Fool! Would you not like to know that faith without deeds is useless?

21 Was not Abraham our father justified by his deed, because he offered his son Isaac on the altar?

22 So you can see that his faith was working together with his deeds; his faith became perfect by what he did.

23 In this way the scripture was fulfilled: Abraham put his faith in God, and this was considered as making him upright; and he received the name 'friend of God'.

24 You see now that it is by deeds, and not only by believing, that someone is justified.

25 There is another example of the same kind: Rahab the prostitute, was she not justified by her deeds because she welcomed the messengers and showed them a different way to leave?

26 As a body without a spirit is dead, so is faith without deeds.

3)1 Only a few of you, my brothers, should be teachers, bearing in mind that we shall receive a stricter judgement.

2 For we all trip up in many ways. Someone who does not trip up in speech has reached perfection and is able to keep the whole body on a tight rein.

3 Once we put a bit in the horse's mouth, to make it do what we want, we have the whole animal under our control.

4 Or think of ships: no matter how big they are, even if a gale is driving them, they are directed by a tiny rudder wherever the whim of the helmsman decides.

5 So the tongue is only a tiny part of the body, but its boasts are great. Think how small a flame can set fire to a huge forest;

6 The tongue is a flame too. Among all the parts of the body, the tongue is a whole wicked world: it infects the whole body; catching fire itself from hell, it sets fire to the whole wheel of creation.

7 Wild animals and birds, reptiles and fish of every kind can all be tamed, and have been tamed, by humans;

8 but nobody can tame the tongue -- it is a pest that will not keep still, full of deadly poison.

9 We use it to bless the Lord and Father, but we also use it to curse people who are made in God's image:

10 the blessing and curse come out of the same mouth. My brothers, this must be wrong-

11 does any water supply give a flow of fresh water and salt water out of the same pipe?

12 Can a fig tree yield olives, my brothers, or a vine yield figs? No more can sea water yield fresh water.

13 Anyone who is wise or understanding among you should from a good life give evidence of deeds done in the gentleness of wisdom.

14 But if at heart you have the bitterness of jealousy, or selfish ambition, do not be boastful or hide the truth with lies;

15 this is not the wisdom that comes from above, but earthly, human and devilish.

16 Wherever there are jealousy and ambition, there are also disharmony and wickedness of every kind;

17 whereas the wisdom that comes down from above is essentially something pure; it is also peaceable, kindly and considerate; it is full of mercy and shows itself by doing good; nor is there any trace of partiality or hypocrisy in it.

18 The peace sown by peacemakers brings a harvest of justice.

4)1 Where do these wars and battles between yourselves first start? Is it not precisely in the desires fighting inside your own selves?

2 You want something and you lack it; so you kill. You have an ambition that you cannot satisfy; so you fight to get your way by force. It is because you do not pray that you do not receive;

3 when you do pray and do not receive, it is because you prayed wrongly, wanting to indulge your passions.

4 Adulterers! Do you not realise that love for the world is hatred for God? Anyone who chooses the world for a friend is constituted an enemy of God.

5 Can you not see the point of the saying in scripture, 'The longing of the spirit he sent to dwell in us is a jealous longing.'?

6 But he has given us an even greater grace, as scripture says: God opposes the proud but he accords his favour to the humble.

7 Give in to God, then; resist the devil, and he will run away from you.

8 The nearer you go to God, the nearer God will come to you. Clean your hands, you sinners, and clear your minds, you waverers.

9 Appreciate your wretchedness, and weep for it in misery. Your laughter must be turned to grief, your happiness to gloom.

10 Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up.

11 Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who slanders a brother, or condemns one, is speaking against the Law and condemning the Law. But if you condemn the Law, you have ceased to be subject to it and become a judge over it.

12 There is only one lawgiver and he is the only judge and has the power to save or to destroy. Who are you to give a verdict on your neighbour?

13 Well now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow, we are off to this or that town; we are going to spend a year there, trading, and make some money.'

14 You never know what will happen tomorrow: you are no more than a mist that appears for a little while and then disappears.

15 Instead of this, you should say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we shall still be alive to do this or that.'

16 But as it is, how boastful and loud -- mouthed you are! Boasting of this kind is always wrong.

17 Everyone who knows what is the right thing to do and does not do it commits a sin.

5)1 Well now, you rich! Lament, weep for the miseries that are coming to you.

2 Your wealth is rotting, your clothes are all moth-eaten.

3 All your gold and your silver are corroding away, and the same corrosion will be a witness against you and eat into your body. It is like a fire which you have stored up for the final days.

4 Can you hear crying out against you the wages which you kept back from the labourers mowing your fields? The cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord Sabaoth.

5 On earth you have had a life of comfort and luxury; in the time of slaughter you went on eating to your heart's content.

6 It was you who condemned the upright and killed them; they offered you no resistance.

7 Now be patient, brothers, until the Lord's coming. Think of a farmer: how patiently he waits for the precious fruit of the ground until it has had the autumn rains and the spring rains!

8 You too must be patient; do not lose heart, because the Lord's coming will be soon.

9 Do not make complaints against one another, brothers, so as not to be brought to judgement yourselves; the Judge is already to be seen waiting at the gates.

10 For your example, brothers, in patiently putting up with persecution, take the prophets who spoke in the Lord's name;

11 remember it is those who had perseverance that we say are the blessed ones. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and understood the Lord's purpose, realising that the Lord is kind and compassionate.

12 Above all, my brothers, do not swear by heaven or by the earth or use any oaths at all. If you mean 'yes', you must say 'yes'; if you mean 'no', say 'no'. Otherwise you make yourselves liable to judgement.

13 Any one of you who is in trouble should pray; anyone in good spirits should sing a psalm.

14 Any one of you who is ill should send for the elders of the church, and they must anoint the sick person with oil in the name of the Lord and pray over him.

15 The prayer of faith will save the sick person and the Lord will raise him up again; and if he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven.

16 So confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another to be cured; the heartfelt prayer of someone upright works very powerfully.

17 Elijah was a human being as frail as ourselves -- he prayed earnestly for it not to rain, and no rain fell for three and a half years;

18 then he prayed again and the sky gave rain and the earth gave crops.

19 My brothers, if one of you strays away from the truth, and another brings him back to it,

20 he may be sure that anyone who can bring back a sinner from his erring ways will be saving his soul from death and covering over many a sin.

One of these things is not like the others (with apologies to sesame street)

What's the Difference Between a Buckyball and a BMC?
Evolution News & Views January 13, 2016 4:47 AM

We've all seen geodesic domes that were intelligently designed by humans. The inventor, the great designer Buckminster Fuller, might have been quite surprised to learn that nature got there first. Two years after his death in 1983, a new form of carbon was discovered: C60, a geodesic-dome shaped molecule that was named buckminsterfullerene in his honor. Since then, numerous other "fullerenes" have been discovered, comprising shapes of spheres, ellipsoids, and rods. The carbon nanotubes we hear about in electronics are rod-shaped members of the fullerene family. Spherical ones are the most common. Because they look like miniature soccer balls they are often called "buckyballs" for short. The smallest has 20 carbons, but others have hundreds.

Fullerenes can be synthesized in the lab, but some are produced naturally. One can only imagine Dr. Fuller's surprise if he were to learn, while constructing one of his famous domes, that similar structures could be found in his car's tailpipe soot! Natural fullerenes can be produced by lightning, and have been detected in some high-carbon minerals and even in interstellar dust. But now, here's a design-detection puzzle to consider: some geodesic domes are also found in living cells. Is there a difference?

A buckyball's shape is called a truncated icosahedron. Similar icosahedral shapes are widespread in bacteria, where they are called bacterial microcompartments, or BMCs. Some viruses also have icosahedral shapes called capsids. Let's focus on BMCs for now. BMCs are organelles entirely made of protein. They provide a protective shell for various enzymes, and function like membranes, in that they selectively let substances in or out. Interestingly, viral capsid proteins do not appear to have any sequence similarity to BMCs.

Now that we know what BMCs are, how are they formed? Perhaps you expect that we're going to say that they are genetically encoded and constructed by enzymes, so they meet the criteria for intelligent design. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, though. There is some self-assembly involved. A news item from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory says:

Scientists have for the first time viewed how bacterial proteins self-assemble into thin sheets and begin to form the walls of the outer shell for nano-sized polyhedral compartments that function as specialized factories. [Emphasis added.]

The research team spoke of this as "nature's masonry" and "natural origami." They're interested in BMCs because they'd like to imitate them. They'd like to manufacture 3-D "nanoreactors" that can "selectively suck in toxins or churn out desired products." To do that, they first have to understand how bacteria make them. Here's an interesting paragraph:

"We usually only get to see these structures after they form, but in this case we're watching them assemble and answering some questions about how they form," Kerfeld said. "This is the first time anyone has visualized the self-assembly of the facets, or sides, of the microcompartments. It's like seeing walls, made up of hexagonally shaped tiles, being built by unseen hands."

Whoa; that's cool. Sounds like design so far. But we mustn't rush our design inference. What about those buckyballs? Don't unseen hands make them, too? We have to be careful not to personify nature. ID proponents do not conceive of "unseen hands" doing the work of biological design any more than a chemist proposes unseen hands assembling a buckyball.

The building blocks of BMCs are hexagonal proteins. Inside the bacterium, the hexagons assemble into thin sheets like a honeycomb. Because the proteins are convex on one side, and concave on the other, they assemble into spheres. The researchers watched this happen outside the cell:

Liverpool's atomic-force microscope, BioAFM, showed that individual hexagon-shaped protein pieces naturally join to form ever-larger protein sheets in a liquid solution. The hexagons only assembled with each other if they had the same orientation -- convex with convex or concave with concave.

"Somehow they selectively make sure they end up facing the same way," Kerfeld added.

The study also found that individual hexagon-shaped pieces of the protein sheet can dislodge and move from one protein sheet to another. Such dynamics may allow fully formed compartments to repair individual sides.

If we're going to make a design inference, we have to take account of the fact that some natural self-assembly is involved. We need to distinguish between the assembly processes of BMCs and buckyballs to be able to argue that the former are designed and the latter are not. A few months ago we asked, "Are hexagons natural?" Now here's another interesting facet, if you'll pardon the pun: BMCs and buckyballs both have pentagons, too!

Fully-formed 3-D microcompartments have a soccer-ball-like geometry that incorporates pentagon-shaped protein structures known as pentamers, for example, that were not included in the latest study.

"The holy grail is to see the structure and dynamics of an intact shell, composed of several different types of hexagonal proteins and with the pentagons that cap its corners," Kerfeld said.

It's possible that simply adding these pentamers to the protein sheets from the latest experiment could stimulate the growth of a complete 3-D structure, but Kerfeld added, "I wouldn't be surprised if there's more to the story."

You now have the data on BMCs and buckyballs. Could you prove to a skeptic that BMCs give evidence of intelligent design, whereas buckyballs can be explained by natural law? Turn your head away for a minute and think it through before continuing.

We have two similar structures that self-assemble into spherical shapes with facets made of hexagons and pentagons. Why would we infer design for the BMC and not the buckyball? Consider what differentiates the two.

Carbon atoms are all the same (allowing for isotopes). Proteins are not.

The carbons form the vertices of the buckyballs, whereas proteins make up the facets of BMCs.

The proteins in BMCs are made up of amino acids that do not naturally link up into hexagons and pentagons, particularly ones that are convex on one side.

All the amino acids in the proteins are left-handed. There is no known way outside of life to get 100 percent pure homochiral chains of amino acids.

All proteins derive from complex specified information encoded in genes.

The genes for BMC proteins must be translated from one genetic language (DNA) into another (proteins) by means of a symbolic logic system.

The proteins must be folded into their proper orientation upon translation.

The bacterium has to "know" how to get an enzyme inside the BMC, and know which enzyme goes in which organelle.

The resulting BMC is selectively permeable.

Buckyballs don't "do" anything. BMCs have a function that is ensured by assembly instructions, maintenance, and repair systems.

You may be able to add to this list. The point is, you can explain a buckyball by laws of physics and the chemistry of the carbon atom. You cannot explain a BMC from its building blocks. Some amino acids can form naturally, but not homochiral polypeptide chains that perform a function. For that, you need complex specified information and irreducibly complex systems to translate it into functional structures: that is, you need intelligent design.

Those interested in following up on the Lawrence Livermore research can read the open-access paper in Nano Letters. It says very little about Darwinian evolution. Actually, nothing.


Incidentally, the carbon atom is quite interesting, requiring a finely tuned resonance in stars that made Sir Fred Hoyle wonder if someone had monkeyed with physics. But that's another story.

Sharks Vs. Darwin

Shark Knows with Its Nose Where It Goes in the Dark
Evolution News & Views January 12, 2016 3:26 AM 

As Illustra Media showed in Living Waters by taking viewers inside the nose of a salmon, the olfactory (smell) organs of fishes are stupefyingly complex. A mainframe computer network could hardly surpass the computing power packed into the tiny space of a fish nostril. Similar complexity has been demonstrated recently in cartilaginous fish such as sharks, which would only be distantly related to bony fish in the evolutionary scheme.

"The ability of sharks to navigate the vast and seemingly featureless ocean has been a mystery," Traci Watson writes for National Geographic. Michael Casey agrees at Fox News, "One of the great mysteries with sharks has been how they manage to navigate a straight path between distant locations in the ocean." They're commenting on a "tantalizing clue" that emerged from recent experiments with sharks by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. A news item from PLOS ONE explains what the scientists did:

Little is understood about how sharks navigate straight paths between distant sites in the ocean. The authors of this study used shoreward navigation by leopard sharks to test whether olfaction contributes to ocean navigation. About 25 leopard sharks were captured alongshore. About half had their sense of smell temporarily impaired, and then they were transported 9 km offshore, released, and acoustically tracked for approximately four hours each. [Emphasis added.]

The sharks with unhindered noses came back like the proverbial cat, 62.7 percent closer to shore than the nose-plugged sharks (37.2 percent). Significantly, the impaired sharks took more tortuous paths. Live Science quotes one of the researchers:

"We basically kidnapped these sharks from their home and confused them for an hour on the way out," said study lead researcher Andrew Nosal, a postdoctoral researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Birch Aquarium in California. "Yet, within 30 minutes of being released in the middle of the ocean -- a place that they had probably never been -- they [those without nose plugs] knew exactly where shore was, which was really neat."

Now that we see the overall result, how does the shark do it? What equipment is required? The open-access paper in PLOS ONE doesn't say. But it does describe how olfactory expertise is widespread in the animal kingdom:

Relatively little consideration has been given to chemical cues guiding animals through the pelagic environment, even though this dynamic three-dimensional medium in many ways resembles the dynamic three-dimensional atmosphere, where chemosensory modalities are widely accepted to participate in bird and insect navigation. Evidence for olfaction-mediated homing and navigation in fishes had heretofore been limited to salmonid fishes, rockfishes, and fish larvae, operating mostly in nearshore environments. Even the most recent work, which demonstrated olfaction-mediated homing in juvenile sharks, was conducted wholly within a shallow bay. Although olfaction has also been hypothesized to contribute to pelagic navigation in sharks, this had never been tested until now.

None of the five articles says anything about evolution, either. How could they? The scientists or reporters are faced with two major Darwinian dilemmas.

First, they would have to explain the irreducible complexity of olfaction. As shown in Living Waters, olfaction is composed of numerous systems that must work together as a unit. The cilia on the olfactory sensory neurons need receptors for odorants that fit like a glove. Each neuron must respond to an odorant with a complex cascade of signals, including gene-expression feedback loops and electrical currents that travel down the axons of the cell. The signals need to know where to go: to particular points on the olfactory bulb.

The olfactory bulb (shown in the animation) is a fantastic sorting device, that takes the incoming signals from millions of neurons, measures their strength, number and time delays, and reduces all that information into a combinatorial code. That information must then target specific parts of the fish's brain, where the information must be understood and recognized by the animal. The information will only be useful, though, if the fish has a way to incorporate it into a map sense, so it knows where it is and where it needs to go. Finally, the fish needs to have software to know what to do with the information: change direction, hunt prey, flee a predator, or perform whatever other action is appropriate. That software, in turn, must tie into muscles and nerves that can produce the appropriate behavior rapidly.

Second, the evolutionist would have to explain how this amazing ability evolved in insects, birds, and two groups of fish (bony fish and cartilaginous fish). "Convergent evolution" is not an answer. It's a phrase hiding the lack of an answer. If by some miracle you could imagine one animal arriving at olfaction and the ability to navigate with it, it strains credibility to expect it to evolve independently multiple times.

Adding to the challenge for Darwinian processes to explain this is the fact that sharks (like salmon and the other animals), can supplement olfaction with other senses that are just as complex: hearing, vision, and sensing the Earth's magnetic field.

Another interesting observation was that shortly after crossing back over the continental shelf, some sharks, even after swimming for hours at relatively constant depths, suddenly and deliberately dove to the benthos, as if they were confident a bottom of suitable depth was there (S3 Fig). Surely the sharks could not see the bottom from 50 m above it, but the 'soundscape' may be fundamentally different over the shallow shelf compared to deeper offshore areas. Lastly, geomagnetic cues are strongly suspected to play a role in shark navigation and these may very well contribute to shoreward navigation by leopard sharks. In short, olfaction plays a role in pelagic navigation, but is apparently supplemented by other sensory modalities, warranting further work to elucidate how these are integrated and organized hierarchically for navigation.

If an alien intelligence visited Earth and found only sharks with abilities like these, it would be justified in inferring an intelligent cause for them. How much more when thousands of other examples in the plant and animal worlds, to say nothing of the human body, are abundantly on display? The navigation of a monarch butterfly for 3,000 miles to the exact tree its grandparents knew (Metamorphosis), the flight of the Arctic tern from pole to pole (Flight: The Genius of Birds), and fish navigation are just a taste of what's out there to study.

All one has to do is look at any creature, even a single cell, in detail. As Paul Nelson says at the conclusion of Living Waters,

I want to understand the world. I want knowledge. I want to know what's true about the world; and the assumption that living things are not random assemblages but that there's a rational logic underlying them -- that assumption is enormously fruitful for gaining knowledge. And if it's knowledge that you want, that's the direction you should go. All you need is an open heart, open eyes, and an open mind, and that signal of design that's there in nature it will be clear to you. Unmistakably. It's everywhere."


What we have is a super-abundance of evidence for intelligent design. These systems rule out blind, unguided processes of natural selection. The authors of these articles did not need Darwinian theory to add to our understanding of animal navigation, or they would have mentioned it.

Another failed Darwinian prediction III

The DNA code is not unique:
Shortly after the discovery of the DNA code, which is used in cells to construct proteins, evolutionists began theorizing how it evolved. The same code was found in very different species which means that the same code was present in their distant, common ancestor. So the DNA code arose early in evolutionary history and remained essentially unchanged thereafter. And since it arose so early in evolutionary history, in the first primitive cell, the code must not be unique or special. For how could such a code have evolved so early in the history of life? As Nobel Laureate Francis Crick wrote in 1968, “There is no reason to believe, however, that the present code is the best possible, and it could have easily reached its present form by a sequence of happy accidents.” (Crick) Or as one widely used undergraduate molecular biology text later put it, “The code seems to have been selected arbitrarily (subject to some constraints, perhaps).” (Alberts et. al., 9) And an evolution textbook further explained, “The code is then what Crick called a ‘frozen accident.’ The original choice of a code was an accident; but once it had evolved, it would be strongly maintained.” (Ridley, 48)

In other words, somehow the DNA code evolved into place but it has little or no special or particular properties. But we now know that the code’s arrangement uniquely reduces the effects of mutations and reading errors. As one research study concluded, the DNA code is “one in a million” in terms of efficiency in minimizing these effects. (Freeland) Several other studies have confirmed these findings and have discovered more unique and special properties of the code. One found that the DNA code is a very rare code, even when compared to other codes which already have the error correcting capability. (Itzkovitz) Another found that the code does not optimize merely one function, but rather optimizes “a combination of several different functions simultaneously.” (Bollenbach) As one paper concluded, the code’s properties were “unexpected and still cry out for explanation.” (Vetsigian)

References

Alberts, Bruce., D. Bray, J. Lewis, M. Raff, K. Roberts, J. Watson. 1994. Molecular Biology of the Cell. 3d ed. New York: Garland Publishing.

Bollenbach, T., K. Vetsigian, R. Kishony. 2007. “Evolution and multilevel optimization of the genetic code.” Genome Research 17:401-404.

Crick, Francis. 1968. “The origin of the genetic code.” J. Molecular Biology 38:367-379.

Freeland, S., L. Hurst. 1998. “The genetic code is one in a million.” J. Molecular Evolution 47:238-248.

Itzkovitz, S., U. Alon. 2007. “The genetic code is nearly optimal for allowing additional information within protein-coding sequences.” Genome Research 17:405-412.

Ridley, Mark. 1993. Evolution. Boston: Blackwell Scientific.

Vetsigian, K., C. Woese, N. Goldenfeld. 2006. “Collective evolution and the genetic code.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103:10696-10701.

Why the real world continues to be the elephant in the room re:darwinism.

Common Sense Design Principles and the Real World:
Ann Gauger January 11, 2016 3:00 AM

A recent paper in PLOS Genetics considers the origins of new "genes" in humans and chimps. By comparing RNA sequences, researchers identified over 600 transcriptionally active "genes" that appear to be present only in humans and not in chimps or the other mammal species tested. They claimed that these "genes" were the product of evolution from previously non-coding, untranscribed DNA. They argued that some of the "genes" are made into proteins and perhaps may be subject to selection, meaning that they are evolving.

I put genes in quote because this is not what the term gene typically means. It used to be that a gene was a stretch of DNA that coded for a protein, meaning it was a stretch of DNA that was copied into RNA (transcribed), and then translated into protein.

These researchers are using "gene" to signify any stretch of DNA that is copied (transcribed) into RNA and that meets certain criteria (size, the frequency with which they found it, etc.). They do not require that the RNA be turned into protein. In fact most of the time it probably isn't. But still they call them genes. Only in some cases do they find evidence that these genes actually make protein, protein that may be evolving new functions, they say.

Something to bear in mind -- all these conclusions are based only on the comparison of DNA sequences among species. They are conclusions based on the assumption that the differences reflect some sort of genetic history based on common descent -- the conclusions are not based on any experiments or observations of real events happening in real time.

As to their claims: I believe them when they say there are more than 600 regions of the genome that are transcribed in a manner unique to humans. After all, humans are different from chimps and can reasonably be expected to have genetic differences. Second, they may even be genes, if they produce a functional RNA, which is possible. I suspect they will be functional as RNAs. Third, these genes are in parts of the genome that used to be thought of as junk. Well, that's no surprise either. ID proponents have always expected most DNA to have a function and not be junk.

What I doubt is the claim that these genes evolved from untranscribed random sequences that somehow acquired promoter sequences, became transcribed, and even further, sometimes became translated and then became functional. The reason I doubt this? Douglas Axe's and my work on the evolution of enzymes, and a dose of common sense.

First of all, it is no trivial thing to "acquire" the promoter sequences that turn on a gene's transcription, and the signals that say when to stop. That one little undemonstrated word hides a multitude of requirements, and probably signifies a designer's action. Second, the words "became translated" hide all sorts of complex signals and activities, and likely require a designer as well. But the biggest problem of all is the business of taking non-functional protein and turning it into functional protein.

This scenario is what we tested in our most recent paper in BIO-Complexity. First, how hard is it to take a piece of junk protein and turn it into a brand new functional enzyme -- without a designer -- even if the junk protein already has a small amount of the new function to start? The answer -- it's not possible. We tested it in silico (using a computer program called Stylus, available online), and in the lab with a real protein. We were unable to improve the "junk" protein's function much at all, even after multiple rounds of mutation and selection.

Second, it's not possible to take a weakly functional, but already structured enzyme and change it to a new function at wild-type levels, even when the protein's not junk to start, and already has a small amount of the new function. If it has the wrong shape, the function can't be improved much at all -- nowhere near the levels normal wild-type enzymes have.

Third, if you are only a few selectable mutations away from a new function, it is possible to get there -- as long as each step is an improvement. That means in order for evolution to be able to make a wild-type enzyme, it has to begin with something that is most of the way there -- it's already pretty much the enzyme that's needed. New proteins have to be essentially of the right design in order to be improved to wild-type function.

Why bother with these experiments on proteins in the first place, you may ask. The answer is this -- what is true in the microscopic world about evolution is also true in the macroscopic world. What works (or doesn't work) with enzyme evolution demonstrates what evolution can or can't accomplish on a large scale.

If it's not possible to evolve new proteins from any starting point, evolving buttercups or cows won't work either. That is, unless the buttercups and cows pretty much already are buttercups and cows.

Evolution can't build something new from scratch. And it can't reconfigure something that already exists into something different. That's why I doubt the story of evolving new human genes from random non-coding sequences. I don't doubt that the genes are there -- they are. It's just that I think they were designed, not evolved.

Now for the dose of common sense. Let's turn the microscopic to macroscopic analogy on its head and use what we already know of design in the macroscopic world.

We all know you can't take a pile of scrap metal and turn it into a washing machine. You'd have to start from scratch, even though they are both made mostly of metal. What about turning a washing machine into a dishwasher? There's more similarity there -- after all, they both wash things. Still, neither process will happen without a designer or without considerable refashioning. Now what if a washing machine was merely broken? What if it had a few loose bolts and a torn gasket on the door? A blindfolded repairman might be able to fix that. That would be harder but not impossible. But even this analogy breaks down because the repairman is intelligent.

These are not perfect comparisons to biological processes -- the examples used all require intelligence and are man-made. But these things are simpler than enzymes, so perhaps our design intuitions do transfer to the biological realm.


Don't just take my word for it, though. For the real experimental data, read the paper and see for yourself. Check out the experiments that demonstrate in real time what really can and can't be accomplished.