Even their own watchmen can't shake the Darwinian old guard from groupthink

"Old Theories Die Hard": Birds-Evolved-From-Dinosaurs Hypothesis Takes Big Hits With Two Recent Papers
Casey Luskin 

Two recent papers, one in the Journal of Morphology and another in Ornithological Monographs, as well as a ScienceDaily news release titled "Discovery Raises New Doubts About Dinosaur-bird Links," contain criticisms by evolutionists of the dino-to-bird hypothesis that you would normally expect to hear only from skeptics of neo-Darwinism. Their remarks not only cover problems facing the dino-to-birds hypothesis, but also lament the politically motivated drive to push that hypothesis and ignore scientific dissent. The ScienceDaily article observes that some aspects of bird morphology are simply incompatible with the standard hypothesis that birds evolved from maniraptoran theropod dinosaurs:

It's been known for decades that the femur, or thigh bone in birds is largely fixed and makes birds into "knee runners," unlike virtually all other land animals, the [Oregon State University] experts say. What was just discovered, however, is that it's this fixed position of bird bones and musculature that keeps their air-sac lung from collapsing when the bird inhales.
Warm-blooded birds need about 20 times more oxygen than cold-blooded reptiles, and have evolved a unique lung structure that allows for a high rate of gas exchange and high activity level. Their unusual thigh complex is what helps support the lung and prevent its collapse.

"This is fundamental to bird physiology," said Devon Quick, an OSU instructor of zoology who completed this work as part of her doctoral studies. "It's really strange that no one realized this before. The position of the thigh bone and muscles in birds is critical to their lung function, which in turn is what gives them enough lung capacity for flight."

However, every other animal that has walked on land, the scientists said, has a moveable thigh bone that is involved in their motion -- including humans, elephants, dogs, lizards and -- in the ancient past -- dinosaurs.

The implication, the researchers said, is that birds almost certainly did not descend from theropod dinosaurs, such as tyrannosaurus or allosaurus. The findings add to a growing body of evidence in the past two decades that challenge some of the most widely-held beliefs about animal evolution....

"But one of the primary reasons many scientists kept pointing to birds as having descended from dinosaurs was similarities in their lungs," Ruben said. "However, theropod dinosaurs had a moving femur and therefore could not have had a lung that worked like that in birds. Their abdominal air sac, if they had one, would have collapsed. That undercuts a critical piece of supporting evidence for the dinosaur-bird link.

(Discovery Raises New Doubts About Dinosaur-bird Links, ScienceDaily (June 9, 2009).)

In their technical paper in the Journal of Morphology, Quick and Ruben provide a more detailed explanation of how theropod dinosaurs differ from birds in this important way:
Theropods examined in this study uniformly lacked the specialized sternal and costal features of modern birds (Hillenius and Ruben, 2004a). Theropods also exhibited significantly less pelvic cross-sectional space with which to have accommodated abdominal air-sacs similar in development to those in modern birds. In addition, the deep, vertically-oriented lateral body wall of theropods apparently lacked lateral skeletal support for caudally positioned (e.g., abdominal) air-sacs: the theropod ''lumbar'' rib cage was reduced and the vertical, free-swinging femur almost surely could not have contributed to a rigid lateral abdominal wall (see Fig. 5). Notably, the gastralia (imbricating slender ''belly ribs,'' Fig. 5) do not articulate solidly with other bony elements nor do they significantly invest the lateral body wall (Claessens, 2004b). Thus, in the absence of a bird-like ribcage, a dearth of space to accommodate fully avian sized abdominal air-sacs in the caudal body cavity or a skeletal mechanism to resist their paradoxical collapse, theropods were unlikely to have possessed functional bird-like abdominal air-sacs
(Devon E. Quick and John A. Ruben, "Cardio-Pulmonary Anatomy in Theropod Dinosaurs: Implications From Extant Archosaurs," Journal of Morphology (2009).)

Quick and Ruben also provide a potent counterpoint to the argument that theropods were the ancestors of birds because theropods have postcranial pneumatization, i.e. air cavities in their bones:
It has been previously argued that postcranial pneumatization signals the existence of functional abdominal air-sacs in theropods. Supposedly, these air-sacs could have been ventilated via relatively unmodified rib cages with well developed gastralia or uncinate processes or a combination of both (Carrier and Farmer, 2000a; O'Connor and Claessens, 2005; Tickle et al., 2007; Codd et al., 2008). However, there are several reasons to question these arguments. Skeletal pneumatization is well documented in pterosaurs, sauropods, some early birds, numerous theropods and possibly even the Late Triassic archosauriforms Erythrosuchus and Effigia (Nesbitt and Norell, 2006; O'Connor, 2006). Given so wide a phylogenetic distribution, postcranial pneumatization is likely plesiomorphic for Ornithodira (birds, dinosaurs and pterosaurs) and possibly as ancient as basal Archosauria (O'Connor, 2006)....
Interpretation of vertebral pneumatization as a lock-step indicator for the presence of a fully functional avian style lung air-sac system ignores the widespread distribution of posterior, nonvascularized air sacs in many living reptiles and undoubted selective pressures for skeletal mass reduction. Furthermore, as discussed earlier, reconstruction of theropods with modern avian lung air-sac anatomy and function neglects the absence of requisite skeletal morphology necessary for its ventilation in modern forms.

(Devon E. Quick and John A. Ruben, "Cardio-Pulmonary Anatomy in Theropod Dinosaurs: Implications From Extant Archosaurs," Journal of Morphology (2009).)

The authors conclude that "there are few data supportive of there having been an avian style lung air-sac system in theropods or that these dinosaurs necessarily possessed cardiovascular structure significantly different from that of crocodilians."
Of course Darwin-skeptics have been noting for years that there are key morphological differences between birds and theropod dinosaurs that challenge claims of an evolutionary link. Another recent extensive review of the standard hypothesis that birds evolved from maniraptoran theropod dinosaurs (called the "BMT" hypothesis) found "no [cladistic analysis-based] statistical difference between the hypothesis that birds were a clade nested within the Maniraptora and the hypothesis that core clades of Maniraptora were actually flying and flightless radiations within the clade bracketed by Archaeopteryx and modern birds (Aves)." (Frances C. James and John A. Pourtless IV, "Cladistics and the Origins of Birds: A Review and Two New Analyses," Ornithological Monographs, 66:1-78 (2009).)

In other words, statistical tests show that when compared to the BMT hypothesis, it's just as likely that the maniraptoran theropod dinosaurs were not the ancestors birds, but were actually descendants of birds and were simply secondarily flightless birds. (Such views are shared by a variety of other experts.) This alternate view is made even more convincing when one considers an admission by zoologist John Ruben in the aforementioned ScienceNews news release. He notes something that many Darwin-skeptics have pointed out in the past, that maniraptoran theropod dinosaurs don't appear in the right place in the fossil record to be ancestors of birds:

"For one thing, birds are found earlier in the fossil record than the dinosaurs they are supposed to have descended from," Ruben said. "That's a pretty serious problem, and there are other inconsistencies with the bird-from-dinosaur theories.
(Discovery Raises New Doubts About Dinosaur-bird Links, ScienceDaily (June 9, 2009).)

So if it wasn't theropod dinosaurs, then where did birds come from? James and Pourtless's article also reports that under cladistic analyses, a method of comparing morphological traits usually used to enforce the standard "BMT" hypothesis, it's equally possible that birds are descended from a completely different type of non-dinosaurian reptile, perhaps an ancient crocodile-like form, or another primitive group of reptiles, the early archosaurs:
Additional statistical tests showed that both the "early-archosaur" and "crocodylomorph" hypotheses are at least as well supported as the BMT hypothesis. These results show that Theropoda as presently constituted may not be monophyletic and that the verificationist approach of the BMT literature may be producing misleading studies on the origin of birds....
Our cladistic and statistical analyses of our new data set indicate that several predictions derived from the BMT hypothesis are not supported and that alternatives to the BMT are at least equally viable. Altogether, three hypotheses for the origin of birds -- the BMT, early-archosaur, and crocodylomorph hypotheses -- are most compatible with currently available evidence.

(Frances C. James and John A. Pourtless IV, "Cladistics and the Origins of Birds: A Review and Two New Analyses," Ornithological Monographs, 66:1-78 (2009).)

In other words, the cladistic argument that has been used to support the BMT hypothesis has itself been exploded from the inside out. James and Pourtless show that there is much morphological data that contradicts the standard BMT hypothesis, while other alternative hypotheses are at least as compatible with the data.
But these alternative hypotheses are not without their own problems. One problem facing these alternative hypotheses is not that birds arrive before their alleged ancestors (as is the problem with standard BMT hypothesis), but rather that anything remotely qualifying as an possible ancestor of birds appears many tens of millions of years (i.e., 70+ million years) before birds, with no fossils documenting the evolution of the first uncontroverted bird, Archaeopteryx. Needless to say, many evolutionist don't like this hypothesis because it leaves them with an uncomfortably large gap.

The bottom line is that all of the various theories that birds descended from reptiles face some severe difficulties.

"Old Theories Die Hard"
What is most interesting about these papers and the news release is the way they make clear how closed off the mainstream Darwinian scientific community has been to challenges to the dino-bird hypothesis. The ScienceDaily news release states:

"The conclusions add to other evolving evidence that may finally force many paleontologists to reconsider their long-held belief that modern birds are the direct descendants of ancient, meat-eating dinosaurs, OSU researchers say....
OSU research on avian biology and physiology was among the first in the nation to begin calling into question the dinosaur-bird link since the 1990s. Other findings have been made since then, at OSU and other institutions, which also raise doubts. But old theories die hard, Ruben said, especially when it comes to some of the most distinctive and romanticized animal species in world history.

"Frankly, there's a lot of museum politics involved in this, a lot of careers committed to a particular point of view even if new scientific evidence raises questions," Ruben said. In some museum displays, he said, the birds-descended-from-dinosaurs evolutionary theory has been portrayed as a largely accepted fact, with an asterisk pointing out in small type that "some scientists disagree."

(Discovery Raises New Doubts About Dinosaur-bird Links, ScienceDaily (June 9, 2009).

Likewise, James and Pourtless's paper in Ornithological Monographs states forthrightly that when it comes to the theropod dinosaur-to-bird hypothesis, "Criticism has usually been dismissed, often with the comment that no more parsimonious alternative has been presented with cladistic methodology," further stating that "uncertainties about the hypothesis that birds are maniraptoran theropods are not receiving enough attention." Their conclusion provides a noteworthy warning about how a lack of scrutiny of the BMT hypothesis has led to unwarranted acceptance of that view:
We have pursued two goals: evaluation of whether the BMT hypothesis is as well supported as has been claimed, and evaluation of alternative hypotheses for the origin of birds within a comparative phylogenetic framework. We conclude that, because of circularity in the construction of matrices, inadequate taxon sampling, insufficiently rigorous application of cladistic methods, and a verificationist approach, the BMT hypothesis has not been subjected to sufficiently rigorous attempts at refutation, and the literature does not provide the claimed overwhelming support. Our analyses and independent data indicate that two of the alternatives to the BMT hypothesis are as probable as the BMT and are potentially supported by specific osteological data. These alternatives are the early-archosaur hypothesis, positing a sister-group relationship between Longisquama and Aves, and a variant of the crocodylomorph hypothesis. Both hypotheses include the proposition that some maniraptorans are actually birds more derived than Archaeopteryx.
(Frances C. James and John A. Pourtless IV, "Cladistics and the Origins of Birds: A Review and Two New Analyses," Ornithological Monographs, 66:1-78 (2009).)

These analyses not only raise significant reasons for doubting the maniraptoran theropod-dinosaur-to-bird ("BMT") hypothesis, but they show that there is much discomfort even within the Darwinian scientific community about how dissent from the BMT hypothesis is not being heard.

On The difference between Science and philosophy re:I.D theory.

Bad Bugs, Good Designs — The Case of the Mosquito
Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC

There are many organisms on earth that give us the creeps: spiders, snakes, ticks, and many more. Then there are countless microbes that bring disease and death. How these creatures became a part of what some call “natural evil” is an important question, but is beyond the bounds of intelligent design. ID can only look at functional information that is irreducibly complex to determine if an intelligent cause is the best explanation for its origin.

This limitation is unsurprising, since we can have the same moral agnosticism about artificial designs. A computer virus capable of destroying a nation’s infrastructure may be so well designed it eludes our national security team’s best experts. Nobody doubts the high level of intelligence behind nuclear weapons, despite their destructive power. Much as we want to leap to the “why” question, we can independently address the “what” question.

Flight: The Genius of Mosquitos

Who cannot bemoan the scourge of malaria, which kills upwards of 600,000 people per year? (CDC). Then there’s yellow fever, dengue, Zika and other diseases that plague mankind, all delivered by flying craft and injected into human skin by those familiar buzzing pests. (It must be noted that not all mosquitos in this family of 1,000 species bite humans or carry disease germs.)

A recent paper in Nature, “Smart wing rotation and trailing-edge vortices enable high frequency mosquito flight,” considers peculiarities in mosquito flight dynamics. Mosquitos (the name means “little fly”) operate unique aerodynamic equipment in unusual ways:

Mosquitoes exhibit unusual wing kinematics; their long, slender wings flap at remarkably high frequencies for their size (>800 Hz) and with lower stroke amplitudes than any other insect group. This shifts weight support away from the translation-dominated, aerodynamic mechanisms used by most insects, as well as by helicopters and aeroplanes, towards poorly understood rotational mechanisms that occur when pitching at the end of each half-stroke. [Emphasis added.]
The team of four scientists from UK and Japan must have had a challenging task. Imagine measuring wingbeats, angles, and rotations on these tiny flyers that dart to and fro constantly. Somehow, they did it, and found out that mosquitos use three methods to keep their weight aloft. (Slight as mosquitos are, they can’t fly without sufficient lift.)

We show that, although mosquitoes use familiar separated flow patterns, much of the aerodynamic force that supports their weight is generated in a manner unlike any previously described for a flying animal. There are three key features: leading-edge vortices (a well-known mechanism that appears to be almost ubiquitous in insect flight), trailing-edge vortices caused by a form of wake capture at stroke reversal, and rotational drag. The two new elements are largely independent of the wing velocity, instead relying on rapid changes in the pitch angle (wing rotation) at the end of each half-stroke, and they are therefore relatively immune to the shallow flapping amplitude. Moreover, these mechanisms are particularly well suited to high aspect ratio mosquito wings.
The second feature, unique to mosquitos among insects, is the trailing edge vortex. This is “fundamentally distinct” from the well-known leading-edge vortex, producing a flow pattern essentially reversed from the former. The trick is similar to the one used by hummingbirds, the authors note by reference. Hummingbirds’ unique shoulder bones rotate, allowing them to get lift on both wing strokes, as shown in Flight: The Genius of Birds. Here’s how it works for mosquitos:

Instead, the flow separates at the trailing edge, with streamlines reattaching further forward along the wing chord, enveloping a coherent attached vortex (Fig. 3f, t1). It is also distinct from previous descriptions of a starting vortex (sometimes referred to as a trailing-edge vortex) because it is both bound to the wing surface, rather than left in the wake, and makes a positive contribution to weight support. This transient trailing-edge vortex is quickly shed into the wake as the wing accelerates into the short translational phase, giving way to a leading-edge vortex (Fig. 3g) and a corresponding second peak in lift.
Transient is an understatement! This is happening 800 times per second, remember. The mosquito “shoulder” must be capable of flipping the orientation of the wing on each flap to gain this lift advantage. But mosquitos, of course, are not related to hummingbirds! This must be another case of that miracle of Darwinism, “convergent evolution.”

The third unique feature, rotational drag, is also interesting.

A third peak in lift occurs owing to rapid supination during the onset of stroke reversal at the end of the downstroke (Fig. 3, t3). The mechanism for this is the recently described phenomenon of rotational drag. The wing rotates initially around an axis close to the leading edge, resulting in strong forces normal to the posterior wing surface. The signature of this effect is that an intense negative pressure appears, again, in the region of the trailing edge.
These little master flyers are getting all the lift that seems theoretically possible by three independent mechanisms, two of them unique to mosquitos. Sounds like they are well designed — exquisitely so, the authors say:

The effect of leading-edge vortices is to generate sufficient lift with smaller wings; a clear advantage for flying taxa. Instead, we observed lift enhancement through two mechanisms that are exclusive to mosquitoes thus far; (i) lift enhancement due to a trailing-edge vortex captured during stroke reversal and (ii) partial weight support due to a newly described rotational effect at the end of each half-stroke. The latter mechanism, rotational drag, has been postulated previously but, here, is mediated by exquisitely timed kinematic patterns that cause a leading to trailing edge shift of the pitching axis during stroke reversal.
Good design? The proof’s in the itching; mosquitos really get around, and the female bloodsuckers always seem to find their target (us) despite our best efforts to evade them. Realize, too, that the pest you swat is equipped with compound eyes, sexual reproduction, articulated limbs, a digestive tract, respiration, a precision drill and feeding tube, saliva containing a protein anticoagulant to prevent clotting, and sensory equipment to find us by our odors and breath. Then they hone in for a precision landing in any orientation.

Who taught these miniature jet pilots about tricks that human engineers only knew about in theory? Do the scientists have any idea how these “exquisitely timed” tricks of physics evolved?

It remains an open question as to why mosquitoes have evolved to operate far outside the usual bounds of kinematic patterns used by other insects. Given that high-frequency flapping will undoubtedly incur greater inertial power requirements, one can presume compensatory selective advantages, perhaps in the domain of acoustic communication.
We get it; Come buzz for me, my love. I just evolved the coolest flight machinery. My wings flap 800 beats per second just for thee. Or, maybe that buzzing is the mosquito soundtrack from Dracula. Whatever the story they have in mind, it won’t help evolution. “Acoustic communication” implies functional information, a hallmark of intelligent design.

Faced with this clear evidence for precision flight engineering in a pest that spreads death, probing minds will ask: How did this come about? What kind of intelligence would design such a thing? Evolutionists, of course, will say that in their dog-eat-dog world of survival of the fittest, mosquitos just do whatever they can to pass on offspring, and if it means killing others, so be it. Everything is at war with everything else; natural selection favors the selfish accumulation of power. The ramifications of that belief have multiplied human death and misery on genocidal scales. Rational minds intuitively back off from that explanation.

Some might theorize that in the big ecological picture, each organism has its role that contributes to the greatest good for the most. As an alternative, they might instead posit that some original good designs became twisted for harm in the past, like robots run amok. There’s some empirical evidence supporting this view, showing that a particular agent of harm has a beneficial function in a different environment. Many of our gut microbes are beneficial, for instance.


Others insights drawing on religious teachings could be cited, including the reply to Job from the whirlwind. Such answers, though worth exploring, drift far beyond the limited scope of intelligent design. The job of ID is to identify design, not comment on its morality. We gladly leave such matters in the capable hands of philosophers and theologians. To the objective observer, mosquito aerodynamic systems look well designed. They may not get our love, but deserve our respect.

Darwinism v. healthcare?

Evolution’s Influence Is Bad News for Your Health
Cornelius Hunter

There is much disagreement over evolution but one thing we can all agree on is that evolution is a highly influential theory. Like it or not, few scientific theories are as influential as evolution. Darwin’s theory injected its deeply flawed science into biology, but it did not stop there. One area where evolution’s damaging influence is important today is human health.

There is much to say about how evolution has influenced our thinking about health and our health care system. I will focus on two basic myths evolution has propagated which have done enormous damage: the random causation myth and the king gene myth.

You don’t need to be a scientist to know that random change is fundamental to evolution. From Darwin to today’s evolutionists, the key point in arguments for evolution is that this world was not designed. This age-old, Epicurean idea asserts that the world arose from unguided, random forces.

Evolution’s main mechanism is random change. You have heard of natural selection but it, as even Alfred Wallace agreed, is not a mechanism as such. It doesn’t cause or coax helpful biological change to occur. It merely kills off the weaker designs. Evolution is a theory of randomness.

Evolutionists did not understand just how such random change could be caused until genetics was better understood in the 20th century. Evolutionists needed to explain how biological change could occur randomly, yet be inherited once it occurred. Modern genetics provided the answer: the gene. Random mutations could alter genes and later be passed on to future generations.

This Version 2.0 of Darwin’s theory vaulted the gene to hero status as genes were viewed as the veritable blueprint of the body. The old proverb “You are what you eat,” became “You are what your genes say you are.”

Not surprisingly there were high expectations for the Human Genome Project, which would transcribe the human genome. Its initial results, produced in the year 2000, were announced with much fanfare, as scientists and politicians proclaimed great things to come. That early optimism, however, eventually faded as years later scientists would admit the problem was far more complex. Genes are important, but not that important. The idea that your genes determine your body has not held up well.

Evolution’s dual myths of random causation and the king gene have not been good for biology, and they also have done damage elsewhere. In the area of human health, our cultural uptake of evolutionary ideas contributed to the dangerously flawed notion that health is a random affair. True, genetic mutations are capable of producing all kinds of diseases, but the vast majority of health issues stem from, or can be alleviated by, lifestyle and workplace decisions. In a great many cases, you are not what your genes say you are, but what you eat and how you live. Diet, stress, exercise, and exposure to toxins play an enormous role in determining your health history.

That shouldn’t be a surprise. But too often it is completely missed or underemphasized, and an unfortunate example of this flawed evolutionary influence is our health care system and health insurance.

Our skyrocketing costs could be reduced by half or even an order of magnitude with proper education and personal decisions. Instead, our health is too often viewed as essentially the luck of the draw. For instance, billionaire Mark Cuban recently expressed this sentiment in advocating for healthcare as a legal right:

I believe that, given we all face the exact same genetic and wrong place, wrong time risks, coverage of most chronic and life-threatening illnesses or injuries should be a right.
In other words, everyone faces about the same healthcare risks. Our health is a crapshoot.


This is an astonishing demonstration of scientific ignorance. There is no doubt Cuban is very good at making money. But he fails to grasp the most basic aspects of human health. He can hardly be blamed, however, given how dominant this evolutionary myth has become. Evolution’s influence is enormous, and that is bad news for more than just biology.

The animal kingdom's master navigators vs. Darwin

The Magnetic Sense Is More Complex than Iron Bits
Evolution News & Views

Many unrelated animals, from bacteria to birds, have tiny particles of magnetite in their bodies. For many years, biologists assumed that these magnetized bits of iron were the key to understanding the geomagnetic sense in migrating organisms: cells sense the torque of these iron crystals when they align north, like tiny compass needles. This theory, however, might be only part of the story. The real key may rely on proteins that respond with intrinsic iron atoms of their own. At least, that's the working hypothesis currently growing in popularity.

Cryptochromes are light-sensitive proteins in the retina that respond to blue or green light. They are thought to form pairs of free radicals in response, perhaps interacting with iron-rich proteins. This would link magnetoreception to vision and to circadian rhythms, which also involve cryptochromes. Kenneth J. Lohmann, who has long studied magnetic navigation in sea turtles, was intrigued by the hypothesis from Chinese physicists writing in Nature Materials last January. As we noted last November when the discovery was first publicized, they proposed that the long-sought mechanism is a "magnetic protein biocompass" involving cryptochromes and an iron-containing protein named MagR.

In the same issue of Nature Materials, Lohmann described how "maddeningly difficult" it has been to discover the secret shared by such diverse animals as sea turtles, birds, mollusks, and insects. Resolving the debate between the cryptochrome hypothesis and the more orthodox magnetite hypothesis has been difficult because magnetic fields pass right through the body and are not localized to a specific organ.

"Trying to locate a small number of submicroscopic structures of unknown appearance, scattered throughout an animal's body in unknown places, is an enormous challenge," he says. The new cryptochrome hypothesis looks promising, but Lohmann offers this caveat:

...the putative magnetoreceptor has been identified largely on the basis of theory, genomics, biochemistry and three-dimensional protein-structure modelling. Pigeon genes for MagR and cryptochrome were expressed in bacteria and the resulting proteins were found to co-purify. This is certainly an important first step, yet whether the complex actually exists in any animal, much less whether it functions as a magnetoreceptor, remains unknown. Also, at least two crucial elements of the current model remain to be elucidated. The first is whether and how cryptochromes interact with MagR to mediate light-dependent effects. The second involves the fundamental question of transduction -- how the putative magnetoreceptor converts a stimulus into electrical signals that can be interpreted by nerve cells. [Emphasis added.]
A team of theoretical physicists at Oxford has now added their support to the cryptochrome model. Their March 2016 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences doesn't, unfortunately, satisfy either of Lohmann's crucial elements. But if they are right, magnetoreception puts animals on the cutting edge of human understanding of quantum mechanics. The American Physical Society explains:

One explanation [for why radiofrequency interference disrupts a bird's magnetic sense] is that the electromagnetic noise has quantum-level effects on cryptochrome's performance. This would suggest that the radical pairs in cryptochrome preserve their quantum coherence for much longer than previously believed possible. Such a finding could have broader implications for physicists hoping to extend coherence for more efficient quantum computing.
The fact that they are considering a biomimetic application implies that the physicists didn't know quantum coherence could last so long. Birds know more about quantum mechanics than the human experts! The paper says:

...the spike discussed here is undeniably a quantum effect, arising from the mixing of states associated with avoided energy-level crossings, and is not captured by the semiclassical theory. In this sense, radical pair magnetoreception may be more of a quantum phenomenon than hitherto realized.
For reasons unrelated to the actual lab research, the lead physicist, Peter Hore of Oxford, lugged Darwin's theory into the discussion. "Physicists are excited by the idea that quantum coherence could not just occur in a living cell, but could also have been optimized by evolution," he said. "There's a possibility that lessons could be learned about how to preserve coherence for long periods of time." Here's how the Oxford team inserted evolutionary speculation into their paper:

...the compass could have been optimized by evolution....

We conclude that there is ample scope for a cryptochrome-based radical pair compass to have evolved with a heading precision sufficient to explain the navigational behavior of migratory birds both in the laboratory and in the wild.

...random mutations in the sequence of the protein ... could have provided evolution with the scope to optimize the compass precision.

...this is another property [spin relaxation time] that could have been optimized by evolution.... Because the spike only emerges when the coherence time exceeds 1 μs, its presence could explain why slow relaxation might have evolved.

All of these comments are superfluous to the research. The authors provide no evidence of specific beneficial mutations that arose and were selected, or how the compass arose in the first place so that it could be "optimized" in some aimless fashion. The comments are all hedged in suppositions: "could have been" and "might have evolved." Lohmann points out that MagR is "conserved evolutionarily," allowing "a sort of universal magnetic-sensing structure that can be adapted for different purposes by different animals." Is it helpful to say that a structure with a purpose "can be adapted" by all kinds of unrelated animals? How many miracles of chance did that take?

Far more productive to the research is the reason they tackled the problem in the first place. Here's what they describe as significant:

Billions of birds fly thousands of kilometers every year between their breeding and wintering grounds, helped by an extraordinary ability to detect the direction of the Earth's magnetic field. The biophysical sensory mechanism at the heart of this compass is thought to rely on magnetically sensitive, light-dependent chemical reactions in cryptochrome proteins in the eye. Thus far, no theoretical model has been able to account for the <5 able="" and="" are="" b="" birds="" can="" coherences="" computer="" crucial="" cryptochrome="" detect="" dynamical="" field="" genuinely="" geomagnetic="" here="" identified.="" in="" long-lived="" mechanical="" migratory="" models="" molecular="" necessary="" of="" precision.="" precision="" properties="" provide="" quantum="" realistic="" show="" simulations="" spin="" structural="" that="" the="" to="" using="" vector.="" we="" which="" with="">
The precision, the mechanism, and the extraordinary ability of birds motivated this research. Design, not evolution, made them excited to understand it.

To migrate successfully over large distances, it is not sufficient simply to distinguish north from south (or poleward from equatorward). A bar-tailed godwit (Limosa lapponica baueri), for example, was tracked by satellite flying from Alaska to New Zealand in a single 11,000-km nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean. A directional error of more than a few degrees could have been fatal. Because the magnetic compass seems to be the dominant source of directional information, and the only compass available at night under an overcast (but not completely dark) sky, migratory birds must be able to determine their flight direction with high precision using their magnetic compass. Studies have shown that migratory songbirds can detect the axis of the magnetic field lines with an accuracy better than 5°.
The news item, indeed, begins by pointing to one of the champions of Illustra's documentary Flight: The Genius of Birds.

Each year, the Arctic Tern travels over 40,000 miles, migrating nearly from pole to pole and back again. Other birds make similar (though shorter) journeys in search of warmer climes. How do these birds manage to traverse such great distances when we need a map just to make our way to the next town over?
The next film in Illustra's Design of Life series, Living Waters, includes a list of two dozen animals, including birds, reptiles, mammals, insects, and fish that are able to navigate by the earth's magnetic field. How could evolution deal with those empirical observations? As Tim Standish notes, there's a better explanation.

Darwinian natural selection is blind. It doesn't know that a solution has been arrived at in some other organism.
It can't think, "Wow, the salmon have that elegant solution to the problem. Why don't we evolve towards that in the turtles?" It's not an explanation that's possible.

Now conversely it's not surprising at all to see an intelligent agent know of a solution to a problem and apply that same solution under different circumstances over, and over, and over again. This is what we see intelligence do. And it's not what we would expect from an unguided process.


As the current work shows, a cause able to provide birds, sea turtles and salmon with quantum-mechanical precision points to intelligence at a very high level.

The Watchtower Society's commentary on "earth,earthly"as mentioned in the holy scriptures

EARTH
The fifth-largest planet of the solar system and the third in order of position from the sun. It is an oblate spheroid, being slightly flattened at the poles. Satellite observations have indicated other slight irregularities in the shape of the earth. Its mass is approximately 5.98 × 1024 kg (13.18 × 1024 lb). Its area is about 510,000,000 sq km (197,000,000 sq mi). Earth’s measurements are (approximately): circumference at the equator, just over 40,000 km (24,900 mi); diameter at the equator, 12,750 km (7,920 mi). Oceans and seas cover approximately 71 percent of its surface, leaving about 149,000,000 sq km (57,500,000 sq mi) of land surface.

The earth rotates on its axis, bringing about day and night. (Ge 1:4, 5) A solar day or an apparent day is a period of 24 hours, the time taken for an observer at any one point on the earth to be again in the same position relative to the sun. The tropical year, which concerns the return of the seasons, the interval between two consecutive returns of the sun to the vernal equinox, is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds, on the average. This figure is the one used in solar-year calendar reckoning, and its fractional nature has caused much difficulty in accurate calendar making.

The axis of the earth tilts 23° 27ʹ away from a perpendicular to the earth’s orbit. The gyroscopic effect of rotation holds the earth’s axis in basically the same direction relative to the stars regardless of its location in its orbit around the sun. This tilt of the axis brings about the seasons.

The earth’s atmosphere, composed principally of nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, and other gases, extends over 960 km (600 mi) above the earth’s surface. Beyond this is what is termed “outer space.”

Bible Terms and Significance. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the word used for earth as a planet is ʼeʹrets. ʼEʹrets refers to (1) earth, as opposed to heaven, or sky (Ge 1:2); (2) land, country, territory (Ge 10:10); (3) ground, surface of the ground (Ge 1:26); (4) people of all the globe (Ge 18:25).

The word ʼadha·mahʹ is translated “ground,” “soil,” or “land.” ʼAdha·mahʹ refers to (1) ground as tilled, yielding sustenance (Ge 3:23); (2) piece of ground, landed property (Ge 47:18); (3) earth as material substance, soil, dirt (Jer 14:4; 1Sa 4:12); (4) ground as earth’s visible surface (Ge 1:25); (5) land, territory, country (Le 20:24); (6) whole earth, inhabited earth (Ge 12:3). ʼAdha·mahʹ seems to be related etymologically to the word ʼa·dhamʹ, the first man Adam having been made from the dust of the ground.—Ge 2:7.

In the Greek Scriptures, ge denotes earth as arable land or soil. (Mt 13:5, 8) It is used to designate the material from which Adam was made, the earth (1Co 15:47); the earthly globe (Mt 5:18, 35; 6:19); earth as a habitation for human creatures and animals (Lu 21:35; Ac 1:8; 8:33; 10:12; 11:6; 17:26); land, country, territory (Lu 4:25; Joh 3:22); ground (Mt 10:29; Mr 4:26); land, shore, as contrasted with seas or waters. (Joh 21:8, 9, 11; Mr 4:1).

Oi·kou·meʹne, translated “world” in the King James Version, denotes “inhabited earth.”—Mt 24:14; Lu 2:1; Ac 17:6; Re 12:9.

In each case of all the above senses in which these words are used, the form of the word in the original language, and more particularly the setting or context, determine which sense is meant.

The Hebrews divided the earth into four quarters or regions corresponding to the four points of the compass. In the Hebrew Scriptures the words “before” and “in front of” designate and are translated “east” (Ge 12:8); “behind” may mean “west” (Isa 9:12); “the right side” may denote “south” (1Sa 23:24); and “the left” may be translated “north” (Job 23:8, 9; compare Ro). East was also (in Heb.) sometimes called the sunrising, as for example, at Joshua 4:19. West (in Heb.) was the setting of the sun. (2Ch 32:30) Also, physical characteristics were used. Being almost the total western boundary of Palestine, the “Sea” (the Mediterranean) was sometimes used for west.—Nu 34:6.

Creation. The planet’s coming into existence is recounted in the Bible with the simple statement: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Ge 1:1) Just how long ago the starry heavens and the earth were created is not stated in the Bible. Therefore, there is no basis for Bible scholars to take issue with scientific calculations of the age of the planet. Scientists estimate the age of some rocks as being three and a half billion years, and the earth itself as being about four to four and a half billion or more years.

As to time, the Scriptures are more definite about the six creative days of the Genesis account. These days have to do, not with the creation of earth’s matter or material, but with the arranging and preparing of it for man’s habitation.

The Bible does not reveal whether God created life on any of the other planets in the universe. However, astronomers today have not found proof that life exists on any of these planets and, in fact, know of no planet besides the earth that is at present capable of supporting the life of fleshly creatures.

Purpose. Like all other created things, the earth was brought into existence because of Jehovah’s will (“pleasure,” KJ). (Re 4:11) It was created to remain forever. (Ps 78:69; 104:5; 119:90; Ec 1:4) God speaks of himself as a God of purpose and declares that his purposes are certain to come to fruition. (Isa 46:10; 55:11) He made his purpose for the earth very clear when he said to the first human pair: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving upon the earth.” (Ge 1:28) There were no flaws in earth or the things on it. Having created all necessary things, Jehovah saw that they were “very good” and “proceeded to rest” or desist from other earthly creative works.—Ge 1:31–2:2.

Man’s habitation on earth is also permanent. When God gave man the law regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, he implied that man could live on earth forever. (Ge 2:17) We are assured by Jehovah’s own words that “all the days the earth continues, seed sowing and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, will never cease” (Ge 8:22) and that he will never destroy all flesh again by a flood. (Ge 9:12-16) Jehovah says that he did not make the earth for nothing but, rather, that he has given it to men as a home and that death will eventually be done away with. God’s purpose, therefore, is for the earth to be the habitation of man in perfection and happiness with eternal life.—Ps 37:11; 115:16; Isa 45:18; Re 21:3, 4.

That this is the purpose of Jehovah God, sacred to him and not to be thwarted, is indicated when the Bible says: “And by the seventh day God came to the completion of his work that he had made . . . And God proceeded to bless the seventh day and make it sacred, because on it he has been resting from all his work that God has created for the purpose of making.” (Ge 2:2, 3) The seventh, or rest, day is not shown in the Genesis account as ending, as in the case of the other six days. The apostle Paul explained that the rest day of God had been continuous right through Israelite history down to his own time and had not yet ended. (Heb 3:7-11; 4:3-9) God says the seventh day was set aside as sacred to him. He would carry out his purpose toward the earth; it would be fully accomplished during that day, with no necessity of further creative works toward the earth during that time.

The Bible’s Harmony With Scientific Facts. The Bible, at Job 26:7, speaks of God as “hanging the earth upon nothing.” Science says that the earth remains in its orbit in space primarily because of the interaction of gravity and centrifugal force. These forces, of course, are invisible. Therefore the earth, like other heavenly bodies, is suspended in space as if hanging on nothing. Speaking from Jehovah’s viewpoint, the prophet Isaiah wrote under inspiration: “There is One who is dwelling above the circle of the earth, the dwellers in which are as grasshoppers.” (Isa 40:22) The Bible says: “He [God] has described a circle upon the face of the waters.” (Job 26:10) The waters are limited by his decree to their proper place. They do not come up and inundate the land; neither do they fly off into space. (Job 38:8-11) From the viewpoint of Jehovah, the earth’s face, or the surface of the waters, would, of course, have a circular form, just as the edge of the moon presents a circular appearance to us. Before land surfaces appeared, the surface of the entire globe was one circular (spherical) mass of surging waters.—Ge 1:2.

Bible writers often speak from the standpoint of the observer on the earth, or from his particular position geographically, as we often naturally do today. For example, the Bible mentions “the sunrising.” (Nu 2:3; 34:15) Some have seized upon this as an opportunity to discredit the Bible as scientifically inaccurate, claiming that the Hebrews viewed earth as the center of things, with the sun revolving around it. But the Bible writers nowhere expressed such a belief. These same critics overlook the fact that they themselves use the identical expression and that it is in all of their almanacs. It is common to hear someone say, ‘it is sunrise,’ or ‘the sun has set,’ or ‘the sun traveled across the sky.’ The Bible also speaks of “the extremity of the earth” (Ps 46:9), “the ends of the earth” (Ps 22:27), “the four extremities of the earth” (Isa 11:12), “the four corners of the earth,” and “the four winds of the earth” (Re 7:1). These expressions cannot be taken to prove that the Hebrews understood the earth to be square. The number four is often used to denote that which is fully rounded out, as it were, just as we have four directions and sometimes employ the expressions “to the ends of the earth,” “to the four corners of the earth,” in the sense of embracing all the earth.—Compare Eze 1:15-17; Lu 13:29.

Figurative and Symbolic Expressions. The earth is spoken of figuratively in several instances. It is likened to a building, at Job 38:4-6, when Jehovah asks Job questions concerning earth’s creation and Jehovah’s management of it that Job obviously cannot answer. Jehovah also uses a figurative expression describing the result of earth’s rotation. He says: “[The earth] transforms itself like clay under a seal.” (Job 38:14) In Bible times some seals for “signing” documents were in the form of a roller engraved with the writer’s emblem. It was rolled over the soft clay document or clay envelope, leaving behind it an impression in the clay. In similar manner, at the arrival of dawn, the portion of the earth coming from the blackness of night begins to show itself to have form and color as the sunlight moves progressively across its face. The heavens, the location of Jehovah’s throne, being higher than the earth, the earth is, figuratively, his footstool. (Ps 103:11; Isa 55:9; 66:1; Mt 5:35; Ac 7:49) Those who are in Sheol, or Hades, the common grave of mankind, are regarded as being under the earth.—Re 5:3.

The apostle Peter compares the literal heavens and earth (2Pe 3:5) with the symbolic heavens and earth (2Pe 3:7). “The heavens” of verse 7 do not mean Jehovah’s own dwelling place, the place of his throne in the heavens. Jehovah’s heavens cannot be shaken. Neither is “the earth” in the same verse the literal planet earth, for Jehovah says that he has established the earth firmly. (Ps 78:69; 119:90) Yet, God says that he will shake both the heavens and the earth (Hag 2:21; Heb 12:26), that the heavens and earth will flee away before him, and that new heavens and a new earth will be established. (2Pe 3:13; Re 20:11; 21:1) It is evident that “heavens” is symbolic and that “earth” here has symbolic reference to a society of people living on the earth, just as at Psalm 96:1.—See HEAVEN (New heavens and new earth).

Earth is also symbolically used to denote the firmer, more stable elements of mankind. The restless, unstable elements of mankind are illustrated by the characteristic restlessness of the sea.—Isa 57:20; Jas 1:6; Jude 13; compare Re 12:16; 20:11; 21:1.


John 3:31 contrasts one that comes from above as being higher than one who comes from the earth (ge). The Greek word e·piʹgei·os, “earthly,” is used to denote earthly, physical things, especially as contrasted with heavenly things, and as being lower and of coarser material. Man is made of earth’s material. (2Co 5:1; compare 1Co 15:46-49.) Nevertheless, he can please God by living a “spiritual” life, a life directed by God’s Word and spirit. (1Co 2:12, 15, 16; Heb 12:9) Because of mankind’s fall into sin and their tendency toward material things to the neglect or exclusion of spiritual things (Ge 8:21; 1Co 2:14), “earthly” can have an undesirable connotation, meaning “corrupt,” or “in opposition to the spirit.”—Php 3:19; Jas 3:15.

Jehovah's servants continue to stand up for religious liberty in Russia.

Further Arguments Presented on Day Four of Russian Supreme Court Case

NEW YORK—With a large number of observers in attendance, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation continued into its fourth day of hearings, considering a claim from the Ministry of Justice to liquidate the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia. The Court announced a recess late in the afternoon, and the hearing will resume on Wednesday, April 19, 2017, at 10:00 a.m.

Attorneys for Jehovah’s Witnesses opened with arguments in defense of the Administrative Center, followed by a cross-examination from attorneys representing the Ministry of Justice. Reacting to evidence presented by the defense, the judge requested the Ministry of Justice to identify the specific legal basis for liquidating Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Administrative Center. The attorneys for the Ministry of Justice were unable to provide a response to the judge’s request and other related questions. The day’s proceedings concluded after hearing testimony from witnesses for both parties.


Next week, the court is expected to begin their review of the case materials.

Media Contacts:

International: David A. Semonian, Office of Public Information, +1-845-524-3000


Russia: Yaroslav Sivulskiy, +7-911-087-8009

The cell as walled city.

A clash of Titans. LI

Verified science v. Darwinism's theology.

Evolutionists’ Certainty Comes from Metaphysics, Not Science
Cornelius Hunter

We have seen  here  and here  that a new book,Adam and the Genome , co-authored by theistic evolutionist Dennis Venema is influenced by the mythical Warfare Thesis.

The book, for example, informs readers that the basic issue of the 17th-century Galileo Affair was “the veracity of the new science, and its perceived threat to biblical authority.” As we saw, this is the false, evolutionary rendition of history. The Warfare Thesis is a myth, and the Galileo Affair is perhaps the favorite example for evolutionists.

After framing the discussion with this bit of Whig history, Venema introduces scientific evidences that he believes make evolution to be compelling. He begins with the fossil record. This is a bit surprising given how badly the theory fares on the fossil evidence. Later in the book Venema will state that according to evolution truly new features should be rare:

One of the things evolution predicts is that seldom will any feature in an evolutionary lineage be truly “new.” [37]
This is an example of an evolutionary prediction that has gone terribly wrong, and the fossil record gives a plethora of examples. As we have explained many times, the general character of the fossil record is precisely the opposite of what evolutionists had expected. Rather than the traditional evolutionary tree pattern of new species gradually appearing over time, the fossil record reveals the exact opposite. The strata show several bursts of new species appearing on the scene, followed by a winnowing.

This is upside down. Like a Christmas tree, you have a wide expanse of branches and twigs at the bottom, or beginning, and over time there is a narrowing as the species are lost to extinctions. Rather than a tree becoming increasingly wide over time from narrow beginnings, the strata often reveal the opposite pattern. Of course it is far more complicated than this simple analogy, but what is important is that the fossil record reveals so many “explosions” of new species. The so-called “Cambrian explosion” (yes, it is called an “explosion”) is the most famous, but there are several others. In these events, new species appear abruptly in the fossil record. Not only do a great many “truly new” features appear, but entirely new lineages appear as well.

Clearly, the fossil record repeatedly falsifies this prediction of evolution.

In a great example of confirmation bias, evolutionists often downplay the importance of these fossil data and the falsifications they present. In fact, sometimes these are ignored altogether.

And so it is with Venema’s treatment of the fossil record. He appeals to the general pattern of the fossil record, and to the specific example of the evolution of cetaceans. The latter is his primary example of why the fossil record is such strong evidence for evolution.

A collection of fossils can be arranged from land mammals to whales, which is precisely what evolution needs since whales are mammals. The idea is that mammals first evolved on land, and then certain species made their way back into the water, thus introducing mammals to marine environments.

Venema agrees that some of these fossil species may not be in the actual lineage leading to modern whales. That is good because the literature often illustrates these species as forming a clean, simple, lineage, from ancient mammals to modern whales.

While one may draw a line between the fossil species, the fact is there are many species suggesting more of a bush than a branch, and any such line is imposed onto the data rather than read out of the data.

And if these species did arise from evolution, and if the modern whale did arise from such a land-to-sea transition then, as usual, it would be quite a mystery. For a great transition, including the loss of hind limbs, grinding teeth, and pelvises, while developing a host of new features, must have occurred relatively quickly.

The new features include the fluke tail with its unique vertical propelling motion, the huge filter-feeding jaw, and the ability to give live birth and raise young in the marine environment. The latest entry to the community could swim, dive, and feed better than most fish and sharks. All sorts of evolutionary scenarios can explain why the whale acquired such advanced skills, but they are speculative. The whale’s aquatic prowess does not refute evolution, but it raises the question of how we can be so sure about the purported evolutionary change that is supposed to have created the whale.

Why then are evolutionists so taken with the patterns of the fossil record, and examples such as the fossil sequence that is supposed to lead to the whale? Yes, it provides a good sequence, but there are many questions of just how random mutations could accomplish such heroics. And there are the many other aspects of the fossil data that are problematic, such as the many “explosions.”

These are serious evidential problems, and it would seem the fossils would be the last thing to which evolutionists would appeal. What’s going on?

The answer is, as usual, that the evolutionist’s certainty comes from metaphysics, not science. The idea is not that the whale-like fossils prove evolution directly, but that they disprove any notion that God created them independently. Therefore they must have evolved. Venema makes several such arguments. Here is one of his passages (emphasis added):

Of course, some might argue that it simply pleased God, as Creator, to create a series of unrelated species at this time in earth’s history that happen to suggest an evolutionary relationship. Many Christians find this plausible; but note how this type of argument cannot ever be ruled out by additional evidence. Any additional such species we find in the fossil record would then merely be more separate species that God elected to create at this time. This explanation also leaves scientists bereft of a hypothesis to test with further research. If the species we observe in the fossil record are the direct, special creations of God, then we will not necessarily find a pattern in the fossil record. Faced with such an explanation, a scientist would not have the ability to make predictions about what should be found in the fossil record at certain times. [13]
Here Venema makes two strong arguments. First, there is is the classic argument from the intellectual necessity of evolution. Science, as Venema argues, won’t work with creationism. Venema explains that such creationism (i) is not vulnerable to the evidence, (ii) makes it impossible to form testable hypotheses, and so (iii) leaves scientists unable to make predictions.

These are arguments from the philosophy of science that mandate evolution. We must have evolution in order to do science properly. Creationism must be ruled out.

These metaphysics render the scientific evidence irrelevant and, ironically, make evolution untestable and not vulnerable to the evidence. Fossil species appearing abruptly in the strata don’t matter when your philosophical argument makes creation untenable. As usual, the evolutionary argument is guilty of the very criticism it casts.

Second, there is the age-old theological argument about how God would create the world. Rather than using patterns that appear arbitrary to us, God should fill the design space randomly.

Venema goes on to make the usual evolutionary arguments that the patterns we observe are unlikely. The evolutionary premise here is that the alternative to evolution is a random design of the species. For example, Venema writes:

The probability of mammalian characteristics (such as having hair and feeding their young with milk, as well as a number of defining skeletal characteristics) arising in a separate, unrelated lineage is a pretty big stretch. [14]
This argument hinges entirely on random design being the sole alternative to evolution. Either the species are designed randomly, or it’s evolution. This reasoning dates back centuries and, as Venema has explained, entails beliefs about how God would create the world. In other words, it is religious.

What if God would not necessarily create the species randomly? In that case, the evolutionist’s powerful argument absolutely fails. It would be fatal to the entire position.

In other words, the evolutionary argument entirely hinges on a silly, strawman claim about God.

In my studies of the arguments for evolution, I find they fall into two broad categories: philosophical arguments about man, knowledge, and science; and religious arguments about God. In typical fashion, Venema has appealed to both these long-standing categories of strong arguments for evolution.

If the evolutionist’s premises are correct, then evolution is a no-brainer. We must be evolutionists — regardless of the scientific evidence. The species arising from random causes, such as mutations, makes no sense scientifically, but would be a must. As usual the religion and philosophy steer the science.


This new book is yet another example, in a long line of works going back to Darwin and before, of how evolution is our modern-day mythology. New species appearing out of nowhere. Fantastic designs arising from random mutations. And all of this mandated to be a fact. If you cannot see a problem with this, then you must be an Epicurean.

Why atheistic sophistry keeps giving birth to self-refuting incoherence.

Can a Determinist Change the World?
Michael Egnor

G.K. Chesterton told an amusing story of a young man who wrote to him extolling the truth of solipsism. The young man believed it was the only rational viewpoint he could take, and he wondered why it wasn't a more popular viewpoint.

Witless self-refutation is amusing. Which brings us to a post by determinist and free will-denier Jerry Coyne, who writes:

Our behaviors are solely and uniquely decided by our genes and our environments, and nothing else. [I]f you returned to the "original situation" ... you would always decide the same thing. We feel as if we are agents who could have chosen otherwise, but in reality we can't. Hard determinists like me feel it's pointless to talk about "free will."

So why does Coyne prattle on so much about determinism and his denial of free will? After all, he thinks the future's baked in the cake, so to speak. Why would he write about something he can't do anything about?

You'll also know that the reason I bang on about this at length -- frustrating compatibilist readers -- is because I believe that fully grasping determinism has a huge potential effect on human behavior, including in particular how we treat transgressors or criminals. It also has import in politics in general... Finally, we all surely agree that accepting determinism will sink the libertarian free will inherent in many religions, which I think is a good thing. You simply CANNOT freely accept whether or not to hold Christ as your savior, or Muhammad as Allah's prophet. To punish people for eternity on the basis that they could have chosen otherwise makes no sense at all...

While we're on the topic of "makes no sense at all," let's consider Coyne's ambitious program for changing our minds about free will...

Wait. Coyne denies that he can change his own mind, so how can he change the minds of others? How can anyone without free will, in a deterministic universe, change anything? The future, according to Coyne, is already determined, so what's the use of "banging on" about determinism? It can't change anything at all. Why not retire from "banging on" and find some other pointless pastime? It won't make any difference. It can't make any difference, in a determined world.

If determinism is true, there are no "huge potential effect[s] on human behavior." There are no huge potential effects on anything. There's no "potential" at all. There are no choices and there are no options. It's baked in the cake.

Or half-baked, as befits Coyne's puerile self-refuting determinism.

Prokaryotes v. Settled science.

Programmable Memory in Prokaryotes
Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC

In the past couple of days (here and  here), we’ve documented upsets in conventional evolutionary thinking. Here’s a third. Three strikes and you’re out?

Excitement over the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing tool has led to more research on how the system works in bacteria, from where it was plagiarized by human geneticists. Science Magazine now says that it appears to provide adaptive immunity to prokaryotes. Most interesting is how the system works. Again, we will need to read past the evo-speak to understand what’s really going on:

The arms race between prokaryotes and their perpetually evolving predators has fueled the evolution of a defense arsenal. The so-called CRISPR-Cas systems — clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats and associated proteins — are adaptive immune defense systems found in bacteria and archaea. The recent exponential growth of research in the CRISPR field has led to the discovery of a diverse range of CRISPR-Cas systems and insight into their defense functions. These systems are divided into two major classes and six types. Each system consists of two components: a locus for memory storage (the CRISPR array) and cas genes that encode the machinery driving immunity. Information stored within CRISPR arrays is used to direct the sequence-specific destruction of invading genetic elements, including viruses and plasmids. As such, all CRISPR-Cas immune systems are reliant on the formation of CRISPR memories, known as spacers, to facilitate future defense. To form these memories, small fragments of invader nucleic acids are added as spacers to the CRISPR memory banks in a process termed CRISPR adaptation. The genetic basis of immunity means that CRISPR adaptation provides heritable benefits, an attribute that is unparalleled in eukaryotic immune systems. There is widespread evidence of highly active CRISPR adaptation in nature, and it is clear that these systems play important roles in shaping microbial evolution and global ecological networks.
Think of it: a “simple” bacterium can identify a foreign invader, capture part of its genetic sequence, and store it in a memory bank. The article goes on to say that it uses a kind of last-in-first-out algorithm, placing the most recent sequence at the active end. Moreover, the enzymes monitoring the database are able to determine if the invader is entirely new or a mutated version of a previous attacker.

Here’s a small taste of the article to savor the design implications:

Before integration, accurate processing of the spacer precursors is required to ensure that the new spacers are compatible with the protein machinery in order to elicit CRISPR-Cas defense. For a given CRISPR-Cas system, spacers must typically be of a certain length and be inserted into the CRISPR in a specific orientation. It is becoming increasingly apparent that Cas1-Cas2 complexes from diverse systems are capable of ensuring that these system-specific factors are met with high fidelity.
Would anyone have expected such sophistication in the smallest, supposedly most primitive forms of life? This has the hallmarks of precision anti-hacking software. In modern computers, antivirus programs store sequences of known viruses to be able to distinguish friend from foe. Can blind processes of nature do this?

Think about it; a mechanism for storing alien sequences would be useless without the recognition and response system. But recognition and response would be useless without the ability to store the alien sequences with high fidelity, in the right orientation, in the right length, in the right order.

Here’s more:

New findings also account for the ordering of stored memories: Typically, the insertion of new spacers is directed to one end of CRISPR arrays, and it has been shown that this enhances immunity against recently encountered invaders. The chronological ordering of new spacers has enabled insights into the temporal dynamics of interactions between hosts and invaders that are constantly changing. Some CRISPR-Cas systems use existing spacers to recognize previously encountered elements and promote the formation of new CRISPR memories, a process known as primed CRISPR adaptation. Viruses and plasmids that have escaped previous CRISPR-Cas defenses through genetic mutations trigger primed CRISPR adaptation. Several recent studies have revealed that primed CRISPR adaptation is also strongly promoted by recurrent invaders, even in the absence of escape mutations. This has led to previously separate paradigms of invader destruction and primed CRISPR adaptation beginning to converge into a unified model.
As noted, in three days we’ve observed three genetic mechanisms that destroy the Central Dogma, fail to confirm neo-Darwinism mutation/selection expectations, and undermine the Tree of Life itself.

If an  octopus can edit its own RNA and prevent neo-Darwinism, it is not becoming more fit; it is fit and always has been. If a  virus can be almost as complex as a cell but gain its complexity by theft of existing parts, it is not a stepping-stone to the first cell. And if bacteria can operate a complex adaptive immune system using stored memories and active response systems, they do not deserve the epithet “primitive” nor a lowly position in the hierarchy of living things.

We may need to cast off Darwinian metaphors to understand life. The language of an “arms race” or “evolutionary strategy” or “tree of life” tends to obscure understanding, not enlighten it. If Darwinian evolution doesn’t work, why maintain the icons of Zombie Science   it entails?


A design perspective would expect cooperation, homeostasis, and programmed adaptability using very complex, interacting parts. These three discoveries fit that picture well.

Darwin's tree catches a virus.

Giant Virus Attacks Darwin’s Tree
Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC

Viruses have long been an enigma to microbiologists. A new paper in the journal  Science says that viruses are infecting Darwin’s tree, but not in a healthy way (for Darwinism, that is). Mitch Leslie summarizes:

Researchers used to think that viruses were small and simple, but they’ve identified giant viruses that are larger than many bacteria and carry more genes. Now, scientists report that they’ve uncovered genomes of the most cell-like viruses discovered so far. Compared with previous giant viruses, the new viruses have more of the genes necessary for protein synthesis, including a complete set of genes that code for enzymes that ensure delivery of amino acids to sites of protein synthesis. The researchers’ analysis of the viruses’ gene sequences challenges a controversial hypothesis that giant viruses descended from cells and represent a new domain, or a new branch on the tree of life.
Nature is hedging its bets on what this means for evolution:

Evolutionary biologists have never known what to make of viruses, arguing over their origins for decades. But a newly discovered group of giant viruses, called Klosneuviruses, could be a ‘missing link’ that helps to settle the debate — or provoke even more discord.
It’s clear that anything this complex cannot be a stepping-stone to the first life. But if viruses don’t fit an evolutionary place as a “fourth domain of life” near the root of Darwin’s tree, how did they become “a network of stolen parts” from cells?

One researcher says that the giant virus’s “translation machinery does not match that of any other known organism.” Jordi Paps at The Conversation likens these entities to zombies. “Maybe it would be just easier to consider viruses undead,” he says. “The big question is: where do they come from?” He’s not ready to bet on the Darwin Tree defenders:

The researchers conclude that the giant viruses analysed in this study have evolved multiple times from smaller viruses, rejecting the idea they evolved from cellular lifeforms.

However, the new evidence doesn’t kill viruses completely. New gnarls in the tree of life are discovered every day, and a new finding could still provide a link between cellular and acellular life — or prove the opposite. Until then, we will keep thinking about the nature of life, the relationship between zombies and viruses, and wondering “what the hell is that?”

As we noted yesterday, there are interesting developments for the Darwin Tree support team: even the managers are calling time out because of the shakeup on wiggly field. We call them as we see them.