Thursday, 22 December 2016
A remedy for the doubt;Just add oxygen?
The Great Cambrian Whitewash
Evolution News & Views February 23, 2016 3:26 AM
Stephen Meyer's book Darwin's Doubt has been out for almost three years. Paleontologist Mark McMenamin called it a "game changer for the study of evolution..." It has over 700 reviews on Amazon (78 percent five-star, 6 percent four-star). When it came out in 2013, it ranked #7 for hardback nonfiction on the New York Times bestseller list. And last year, a follow-up book, Debating Darwin's Doubt, addressed all the known objections to the original work.
To read most of the scientific journals, though, you would think they know nothing about this. Nature, PNAS, Current Biology, you name it: they avert their eyes from Meyer's 500-page challenge whenever they discuss the Cambrian explosion. (The journal Science is the noble exception.) It is simply not possible that the authors of these papers, and the editors of these journals, are unaware of the controversy. Meyer has raised a significant challenge to the usual Darwinian explanation for the sudden appearance of complex animal life in the fossil record. It's time for the journals to face it and engage the scientific debate.
The leading science journal Nature, sad to say, whitewashed the controversy once again in a recent piece, "What sparked the Cambrian explosion?" Author Douglas Fox gives the usual positivist spin:
An evolutionary burst 540 million years ago filled the seas with an astonishing diversity of animals. The trigger behind that revolution is finally coming into focus. [Emphasis added.]
Such writing has all the comfort of Pravda telling the captives behind the Iron Curtain, deprived of alternative sources of information, that the famine will soon be over. Science should abjure a closed society. Besides, journals cannot afford the luxury of one-sided propaganda in this internet age. You can't wall off information for long. Search on "Cambrian explosion" and critiques pop up for the entire world to see. Not the least of those is Darwin's Doubt. Journals look foolish when they adopt the three-monkey posture, "Hear no controversy; see no controversy; speak no controversy." The smart strategy is to deal with it openly, so that consumers in the marketplace of ideas can decide who has the better product.
What is implied by Nature's line that the trigger for the Cambrian explosion is "finally coming into focus"? It can only mean one thing. It's been out of focus till now. When you consider that the problem of the Cambrian explosion troubled Charles Darwin, it's a sad commentary on the ability of scientists to admit being unable to focus on a solution for 157 years. That's enough time for 31 Five-Year Plans proverbially launched by the dear leader of evolution to find the fossils that would support his theory.
But Nature isn't really looking for support. As doctrinaire believers in Darwin's "mechanism" of natural selection, they don't need support. It's self-evident to them that an "evolutionary burst... filled the seas with an astonishing diversity of animals." Douglas Fox just wants to help by finding the "trigger."
And what is that trigger that is finally coming into focus? Oxygen.
Sperling has looked for insights into Ediacaran oceans by studying oxygen-depleted regions in modern seas around the globe. He suggests that biologists have conventionally taken the wrong approach to thinking about how oxygen shaped animal evolution. By pooling and analysing previously published data with some of his own, he found that tiny worms survive in areas of the sea floor where oxygen levels are incredibly low -- less than 0.5% of average global sea-surface concentrations. Food webs in these oxygen-poor environments are simple, and the animals feed directly on microbes. In places where sea-floor oxygen levels are a bit higher -- about 0.5-3% of concentrations at the sea surface -- animals are more abundant but their food webs remain limited: the animals still feed on microbes rather than on each other. But around somewhere between 3% and 10% oxygen levels, predators emerge and start to consume other animals.
The implications of this finding for evolution are profound, Sperling says.The modest oxygen rise that he thinks may have occurred just before the Cambrian would have been enough to trigger a big change. "If oxygen levels were 3% and they rose past that 10% threshold, that would have had a huge influence on early animal evolution," he says. "There's just so much in animal ecology, lifestyle and body size that seems to change so dramatically through those levels."
This excerpt illustrates why airing of the controversy is so drastically needed. Fox's prose hardly rises to the level of fairy tale. Would anyone outside the iron curtain of Darwinian explanations fall for a "just add oxygen" theory for the emergence of a trilobite or Anomalocaris?
Meyer would grant Fox and Nature all the oxygen they could ever want. He would let them inject copious quantities of oxygen bubbles into the Cambrian oceans right at the start of the explosion. No trilobites would emerge, he would argue, because the Cambrian explosion is not about gases, triggers, or influences. It's about information: the specifications to build animal body plans. That is the central challenge that the journals ignore.
Fox whitewashes the problem by repeating the party line no matter what. He offers pipe dreams that solutions will come someday, as long as everyone holds to the dogma.
Understanding how oxygen influenced the appearance of complex animals will require scientists to tease more-subtle clues out of the rocks. "We've been challenging people working on fossils to tie their fossils more closely to our oxygen proxies," says Lyons. It will mean deciphering what oxygen levels were in different ancient environments, and connecting those values with the kinds of traits exhibited by the animal fossils found in the same locations.
Communist ideologues were masters at interpreting every economic condition, including the failures in Russia and the riches in the West, in terms of class struggle and economic determinism. Yet now we look back at the fruits of that closed system.
Science should abhor iron curtains. Nature's willful neglect of the controversy surrounding the Cambrian explosion subverts the ideals of science. Besides that, it just looks bad. What are they hiding behind that wall? What do they have to lose by engaging scientific challenges? Only the story that oxygen causes trilobites. That's a tale worth losing. The time for détente, for glasnost, has arrived. Good things follow.
Evolution News & Views February 23, 2016 3:26 AM
Stephen Meyer's book Darwin's Doubt has been out for almost three years. Paleontologist Mark McMenamin called it a "game changer for the study of evolution..." It has over 700 reviews on Amazon (78 percent five-star, 6 percent four-star). When it came out in 2013, it ranked #7 for hardback nonfiction on the New York Times bestseller list. And last year, a follow-up book, Debating Darwin's Doubt, addressed all the known objections to the original work.
To read most of the scientific journals, though, you would think they know nothing about this. Nature, PNAS, Current Biology, you name it: they avert their eyes from Meyer's 500-page challenge whenever they discuss the Cambrian explosion. (The journal Science is the noble exception.) It is simply not possible that the authors of these papers, and the editors of these journals, are unaware of the controversy. Meyer has raised a significant challenge to the usual Darwinian explanation for the sudden appearance of complex animal life in the fossil record. It's time for the journals to face it and engage the scientific debate.
The leading science journal Nature, sad to say, whitewashed the controversy once again in a recent piece, "What sparked the Cambrian explosion?" Author Douglas Fox gives the usual positivist spin:
An evolutionary burst 540 million years ago filled the seas with an astonishing diversity of animals. The trigger behind that revolution is finally coming into focus. [Emphasis added.]
Such writing has all the comfort of Pravda telling the captives behind the Iron Curtain, deprived of alternative sources of information, that the famine will soon be over. Science should abjure a closed society. Besides, journals cannot afford the luxury of one-sided propaganda in this internet age. You can't wall off information for long. Search on "Cambrian explosion" and critiques pop up for the entire world to see. Not the least of those is Darwin's Doubt. Journals look foolish when they adopt the three-monkey posture, "Hear no controversy; see no controversy; speak no controversy." The smart strategy is to deal with it openly, so that consumers in the marketplace of ideas can decide who has the better product.
What is implied by Nature's line that the trigger for the Cambrian explosion is "finally coming into focus"? It can only mean one thing. It's been out of focus till now. When you consider that the problem of the Cambrian explosion troubled Charles Darwin, it's a sad commentary on the ability of scientists to admit being unable to focus on a solution for 157 years. That's enough time for 31 Five-Year Plans proverbially launched by the dear leader of evolution to find the fossils that would support his theory.
But Nature isn't really looking for support. As doctrinaire believers in Darwin's "mechanism" of natural selection, they don't need support. It's self-evident to them that an "evolutionary burst... filled the seas with an astonishing diversity of animals." Douglas Fox just wants to help by finding the "trigger."
And what is that trigger that is finally coming into focus? Oxygen.
Sperling has looked for insights into Ediacaran oceans by studying oxygen-depleted regions in modern seas around the globe. He suggests that biologists have conventionally taken the wrong approach to thinking about how oxygen shaped animal evolution. By pooling and analysing previously published data with some of his own, he found that tiny worms survive in areas of the sea floor where oxygen levels are incredibly low -- less than 0.5% of average global sea-surface concentrations. Food webs in these oxygen-poor environments are simple, and the animals feed directly on microbes. In places where sea-floor oxygen levels are a bit higher -- about 0.5-3% of concentrations at the sea surface -- animals are more abundant but their food webs remain limited: the animals still feed on microbes rather than on each other. But around somewhere between 3% and 10% oxygen levels, predators emerge and start to consume other animals.
The implications of this finding for evolution are profound, Sperling says.The modest oxygen rise that he thinks may have occurred just before the Cambrian would have been enough to trigger a big change. "If oxygen levels were 3% and they rose past that 10% threshold, that would have had a huge influence on early animal evolution," he says. "There's just so much in animal ecology, lifestyle and body size that seems to change so dramatically through those levels."
This excerpt illustrates why airing of the controversy is so drastically needed. Fox's prose hardly rises to the level of fairy tale. Would anyone outside the iron curtain of Darwinian explanations fall for a "just add oxygen" theory for the emergence of a trilobite or Anomalocaris?
Meyer would grant Fox and Nature all the oxygen they could ever want. He would let them inject copious quantities of oxygen bubbles into the Cambrian oceans right at the start of the explosion. No trilobites would emerge, he would argue, because the Cambrian explosion is not about gases, triggers, or influences. It's about information: the specifications to build animal body plans. That is the central challenge that the journals ignore.
Fox whitewashes the problem by repeating the party line no matter what. He offers pipe dreams that solutions will come someday, as long as everyone holds to the dogma.
Understanding how oxygen influenced the appearance of complex animals will require scientists to tease more-subtle clues out of the rocks. "We've been challenging people working on fossils to tie their fossils more closely to our oxygen proxies," says Lyons. It will mean deciphering what oxygen levels were in different ancient environments, and connecting those values with the kinds of traits exhibited by the animal fossils found in the same locations.
Communist ideologues were masters at interpreting every economic condition, including the failures in Russia and the riches in the West, in terms of class struggle and economic determinism. Yet now we look back at the fruits of that closed system.
Science should abhor iron curtains. Nature's willful neglect of the controversy surrounding the Cambrian explosion subverts the ideals of science. Besides that, it just looks bad. What are they hiding behind that wall? What do they have to lose by engaging scientific challenges? Only the story that oxygen causes trilobites. That's a tale worth losing. The time for détente, for glasnost, has arrived. Good things follow.
Cellular information processing v. Darwin.
Is Messenger RNA Regulation Controlled by an Irreducibly Complex Pathway?.
Jonathan M.
What we know about the complexity of the cellular information storage, processing and retrieval mechanisms continues to increase exponentially, and at an unprecedented rate. Almost on a daily basis, new papers are published revealing the ingenuity of the elaborate mechanisms by which the cell processes information -- processes and mechanisms that bespeak design and continue to elude explanation by Darwinian means. For how exactly could such a system - apparently, an irreducibly complex one - be accounted for in terms of traditional Darwinian selective pressure?
A new paper has just been published in Molecular Cell, in which the researchers, Karginov et al. reported their discovery that messenger RNA (mRNA) can be targeted for destruction by several different molecules.
According to the paper's summary,
The life span of a mammalian mRNA is determined, in part, by the binding of regulatory proteins and small RNA-guided complexes. The conserved endonuclease activity of Argonaute2 requires extensive complementarity between a small RNA and its target and is not used by animal microRNAs, which pair with their targets imperfectly. Here we investigate the endonucleolytic function of Ago2 and other nucleases by transcriptome-wide profiling of mRNA cleavage products retaining 5′ phosphate groups in mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs). We detect a prominent signature of Ago2-dependent cleavage events and validate several such targets. Unexpectedly, a broader class of Ago2-independent cleavage sites is also observed, indicating participation of additional nucleases in site-specific mRNA cleavage. Within this class, we identify a cohort of Drosha-dependent mRNA cleavage events that functionally regulate mRNA levels in mESCs, including one in the Dgcr8 mRNA. Together, these results highlight the underappreciated role of endonucleolytic cleavage in controlling mRNA fates in mammals.
Translated into English, the paper makes the following points:
RNA interference (RNAi) refers to a cellular pathway that helps to regulate the activity of genes within the cell. Fundamental to the process of RNA interference are small interfering RNAs (siRNA) and microRNAs (MiRNA).
Small RNAs can prevent the translation of a target messenger RNA into protein, thereby reducing the activity of the RNAs to which it binds.
MicroRNAs also act as regulators, binding to their complementary sequences on a target messenger RNA to result in gene silencing. MiRNAs also serve as guides to a family of proteins called Artonautes. When a miRNA-Artonaute complex binds to its complementary mRNA target, it triggers its destruction.
The researchers surveyed a population of cleaved mRNAs in mammalian embryonic stem cells, discovering that mRNAs had been sliced or cleaved by the enzyme Ago2 and other enzymes.
It was previously thought that the destruction was due to the destabilization of mRNA by initiation of cellular pathways. In contrast, Karginov et al. have discovered a host of ways that mRNA may be destroyed by enzymatic cleavage.
So, how exactly can these things be explained by traditional Darwinian selective pressure?
Consider, for example, the enzyme Dicer, which is responsible for activating the RNAi pathway. The pathway is initiated when Dicer cleaves long double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) molecules into shorter fragments, consisting of roughly 20 nucleotides each. Each fragment possesses two strands, one of which (called the "guide strand") is subsequently incorporated into the "RISC complex" (RNA-induced silencing complex). Following base pairing between the guide strand and its complementary sequence, a cleavage is brought about by the enzyme Argonaute.
One has to wonder whether there is any significant biological system that, in fact, can be accounted for in a Darwinian step-wise fashion. The adequacy of Darwinian selection to account for the features of biodiversity is never demonstrated. Rather, it is merely assumed that Darwinism can account for these systems, in the almost complete absence of corroborative data.
It might be asked of the Darwinian advocates what kind of system, in principle, could not be explained in Darwinian fashion. In the absence of such testable statements, Darwinism cannot be regarded as good falsifiable science.
Jonathan M.
What we know about the complexity of the cellular information storage, processing and retrieval mechanisms continues to increase exponentially, and at an unprecedented rate. Almost on a daily basis, new papers are published revealing the ingenuity of the elaborate mechanisms by which the cell processes information -- processes and mechanisms that bespeak design and continue to elude explanation by Darwinian means. For how exactly could such a system - apparently, an irreducibly complex one - be accounted for in terms of traditional Darwinian selective pressure?
A new paper has just been published in Molecular Cell, in which the researchers, Karginov et al. reported their discovery that messenger RNA (mRNA) can be targeted for destruction by several different molecules.
According to the paper's summary,
The life span of a mammalian mRNA is determined, in part, by the binding of regulatory proteins and small RNA-guided complexes. The conserved endonuclease activity of Argonaute2 requires extensive complementarity between a small RNA and its target and is not used by animal microRNAs, which pair with their targets imperfectly. Here we investigate the endonucleolytic function of Ago2 and other nucleases by transcriptome-wide profiling of mRNA cleavage products retaining 5′ phosphate groups in mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs). We detect a prominent signature of Ago2-dependent cleavage events and validate several such targets. Unexpectedly, a broader class of Ago2-independent cleavage sites is also observed, indicating participation of additional nucleases in site-specific mRNA cleavage. Within this class, we identify a cohort of Drosha-dependent mRNA cleavage events that functionally regulate mRNA levels in mESCs, including one in the Dgcr8 mRNA. Together, these results highlight the underappreciated role of endonucleolytic cleavage in controlling mRNA fates in mammals.
Translated into English, the paper makes the following points:
RNA interference (RNAi) refers to a cellular pathway that helps to regulate the activity of genes within the cell. Fundamental to the process of RNA interference are small interfering RNAs (siRNA) and microRNAs (MiRNA).
Small RNAs can prevent the translation of a target messenger RNA into protein, thereby reducing the activity of the RNAs to which it binds.
MicroRNAs also act as regulators, binding to their complementary sequences on a target messenger RNA to result in gene silencing. MiRNAs also serve as guides to a family of proteins called Artonautes. When a miRNA-Artonaute complex binds to its complementary mRNA target, it triggers its destruction.
The researchers surveyed a population of cleaved mRNAs in mammalian embryonic stem cells, discovering that mRNAs had been sliced or cleaved by the enzyme Ago2 and other enzymes.
It was previously thought that the destruction was due to the destabilization of mRNA by initiation of cellular pathways. In contrast, Karginov et al. have discovered a host of ways that mRNA may be destroyed by enzymatic cleavage.
So, how exactly can these things be explained by traditional Darwinian selective pressure?
Consider, for example, the enzyme Dicer, which is responsible for activating the RNAi pathway. The pathway is initiated when Dicer cleaves long double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) molecules into shorter fragments, consisting of roughly 20 nucleotides each. Each fragment possesses two strands, one of which (called the "guide strand") is subsequently incorporated into the "RISC complex" (RNA-induced silencing complex). Following base pairing between the guide strand and its complementary sequence, a cleavage is brought about by the enzyme Argonaute.
One has to wonder whether there is any significant biological system that, in fact, can be accounted for in a Darwinian step-wise fashion. The adequacy of Darwinian selection to account for the features of biodiversity is never demonstrated. Rather, it is merely assumed that Darwinism can account for these systems, in the almost complete absence of corroborative data.
It might be asked of the Darwinian advocates what kind of system, in principle, could not be explained in Darwinian fashion. In the absence of such testable statements, Darwinism cannot be regarded as good falsifiable science.
A design filter for E.T?
To Rule Out False Positives in the Search for ET, Astrophysicist Advocates a Design Filter.
Evolution News & Views
Paul Sutter, an astrophysicist at Ohio State, writes occasional articles for lay people. Recently he put out a challenge to his readers. He wants to keep them from falling for media hysteria about space aliens. His reasoning poses an indirect challenge to any kind of explanation positing a hidden designer.
In "Aliens are never the answer" on Live Science, he begins by talking about recent reports of unusually strong signals from a sun-like star. Here's another one: physicist Carole Mundell asks, "Are aliens trying to tell us something? Brightest burst of radio waves detected" (The Conversation). The particular incident doesn't matter, because "mysterious radio signals from outer space are almost always in the news," Sutter says. What he doesn't like is the rush to attribute mysterious signals to the work of aliens. He recounts other incidents over the decades. The point he wants to make is that science demands better explanations. An appeal to aliens is useless, because it can explain anything.
Here's the thing: The hypothesis that aliens are causing a mysterious radio signal is almost always useless, because intelligent creatures can create almost any signal they want. Hear a bleep-bleep-bloop? Maybe aliens did it. Whoops! I meant bloop-bloop-bleep. Well, aliens could have done that, too. There's no predictive power in the "aliens did it" hypothesis. We can't ever disprove it. [Emphasis added.]
Of course, proof that "aliens did it" is the holy grail for SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Sutter mentions SETI a couple of times, but he doesn't make clear whether he feels their quest is justified. He's mainly concerned about the rush to judgment.
When a natural astrophysical explanation is weak or not very convincing, there's often a temptation to wonder if aliens are behind it. After all, we can't rule out aliens! Exactly. We can't ever rule out aliens, because intelligent actors are capable of pretty much anything. We can't rule them out, so it's a scientifically useless position.
He's right, to a certain extent. Intelligent actors are sly. They can throw paint on a canvas, drive over it, and call it art. They can hide messages in noise. They can cough a certain way to signal a friend that the prison guards are coming. We can't rule out intelligent actors. So is the appeal to intelligent design a scientifically useless position?
It's a very, very, very big leap to go from "We don't know what's causing this signal," to "Maybe aliens are causing this signal."
Sutter is onto something. He's basically arguing that we need a design filter. And ID theory provides one. ID advocates agree that you don't infer intelligence until there is sufficient reason to reject chance and natural law. When other astronomers jump to conclusions about space aliens, they haven't done their homework. Proper use of the design filter would prevent invalid design inferences. The best-trained SETI folks will certainly want to rule out natural causes before running to the press.
Sutter cannot, however, rule out all intelligent actors, otherwise he would have to beat his head against a brick wall. Brick walls don't arise by natural causes, once you rule out columnar basalt and other cases of natural self-organization. We know of a cause that can build brick walls firm and straight, with right-angle corners, as part of buildings reaching tens of meters high. The walls don't even have to be straight. Consider Stonehenge. If Sutter were to rule out all intelligent causes as useless, he would have to beat his head against that wall for a lifetime trying to explain it by natural causes. That would be the "scientifically useless position."
Intelligent actors are indeed "capable of pretty much anything." That's why we can be fooled by false negatives, claiming something isn't designed when it really is (as in the modern art case and the hidden message case). But ID theory can protect us against false positives (calling something designed when there is a natural explanation) by using the design filter properly. Once you set up the "rejection region" appropriately (see Dembski, No Free Lunch, Chapter 1), the Design-Specification Criterion becomes so robust, there comes a point when refusing to acknowledge design is absurd.
If Paul Sutter detected a series of bloops and bleeps from space tapping out the first 100 prime numbers in a row, he would likely concede the point.
Evolution News & Views
Paul Sutter, an astrophysicist at Ohio State, writes occasional articles for lay people. Recently he put out a challenge to his readers. He wants to keep them from falling for media hysteria about space aliens. His reasoning poses an indirect challenge to any kind of explanation positing a hidden designer.
In "Aliens are never the answer" on Live Science, he begins by talking about recent reports of unusually strong signals from a sun-like star. Here's another one: physicist Carole Mundell asks, "Are aliens trying to tell us something? Brightest burst of radio waves detected" (The Conversation). The particular incident doesn't matter, because "mysterious radio signals from outer space are almost always in the news," Sutter says. What he doesn't like is the rush to attribute mysterious signals to the work of aliens. He recounts other incidents over the decades. The point he wants to make is that science demands better explanations. An appeal to aliens is useless, because it can explain anything.
Here's the thing: The hypothesis that aliens are causing a mysterious radio signal is almost always useless, because intelligent creatures can create almost any signal they want. Hear a bleep-bleep-bloop? Maybe aliens did it. Whoops! I meant bloop-bloop-bleep. Well, aliens could have done that, too. There's no predictive power in the "aliens did it" hypothesis. We can't ever disprove it. [Emphasis added.]
Of course, proof that "aliens did it" is the holy grail for SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Sutter mentions SETI a couple of times, but he doesn't make clear whether he feels their quest is justified. He's mainly concerned about the rush to judgment.
When a natural astrophysical explanation is weak or not very convincing, there's often a temptation to wonder if aliens are behind it. After all, we can't rule out aliens! Exactly. We can't ever rule out aliens, because intelligent actors are capable of pretty much anything. We can't rule them out, so it's a scientifically useless position.
He's right, to a certain extent. Intelligent actors are sly. They can throw paint on a canvas, drive over it, and call it art. They can hide messages in noise. They can cough a certain way to signal a friend that the prison guards are coming. We can't rule out intelligent actors. So is the appeal to intelligent design a scientifically useless position?
It's a very, very, very big leap to go from "We don't know what's causing this signal," to "Maybe aliens are causing this signal."
Sutter is onto something. He's basically arguing that we need a design filter. And ID theory provides one. ID advocates agree that you don't infer intelligence until there is sufficient reason to reject chance and natural law. When other astronomers jump to conclusions about space aliens, they haven't done their homework. Proper use of the design filter would prevent invalid design inferences. The best-trained SETI folks will certainly want to rule out natural causes before running to the press.
Sutter cannot, however, rule out all intelligent actors, otherwise he would have to beat his head against a brick wall. Brick walls don't arise by natural causes, once you rule out columnar basalt and other cases of natural self-organization. We know of a cause that can build brick walls firm and straight, with right-angle corners, as part of buildings reaching tens of meters high. The walls don't even have to be straight. Consider Stonehenge. If Sutter were to rule out all intelligent causes as useless, he would have to beat his head against that wall for a lifetime trying to explain it by natural causes. That would be the "scientifically useless position."
Intelligent actors are indeed "capable of pretty much anything." That's why we can be fooled by false negatives, claiming something isn't designed when it really is (as in the modern art case and the hidden message case). But ID theory can protect us against false positives (calling something designed when there is a natural explanation) by using the design filter properly. Once you set up the "rejection region" appropriately (see Dembski, No Free Lunch, Chapter 1), the Design-Specification Criterion becomes so robust, there comes a point when refusing to acknowledge design is absurd.
If Paul Sutter detected a series of bloops and bleeps from space tapping out the first 100 prime numbers in a row, he would likely concede the point.
Sea turtles V. Darwin.
Sea Turtles from Pre-Turtles? No Evidence of It
Evolution News & Views
We recently shared news about humpback whales. Here are some new findings about another group of stars of Illustra's film Living Waters: sea turtles. There are seven species of sea turtles in the world today, all beautifully designed and, sadly, all endangered. Consider first, appropriately, the enigma of origins.
Fossils
Do we see progression in the fossil record of sea turtles? No; according to the University of Alabama at Birmingham , the oldest ancestor of modern sea turtles was -- a sea turtle. Apparently they profited from global warming.
"Climatic warming during the mid-Cretaceous resulted in elevated sea levels and temperatures that, in turn, provided an abundance of new niches for marine turtles to invade," said Drew Gentry, a UAB biology doctoral student and the lead researcher on the project. "Represented today by only seven living species, sea turtles were once one of the most diverse lineages of marine reptiles. Before the cataclysm that claimed the dinosaurs, there may have been dozens of specialized species of sea turtle living in different oceanic habitats around the world."
This won't likely switch turtle conservationists in favor of anthropogenic climate change. It does seem a little bit dubious, though, to make evolutionary diversity a function of temperature.
"There is strong evidence which indicates freshwater turtles may have evolved to occupy marine environments at several points in the past," Gentry said. "But most of those lineages went extinct, making the exact origins of living or 'true' sea turtles somewhat of a mystery."
Evolutionists can always concoct a just-so story to explain any observation. Not wanting to leave a mystery unsolved, UAB's Gentry offers one:
"Data from C. acris tell us not only that marine turtles are capable of occupying specialized oceanic niches, but also that many of the sea turtles we know today may have gotten their evolutionary start as something similar to an oversized snapping turtle in what eventually became the southeastern United States."
Phys.org tells about volunteers who found turtles on Cape Cod suffering from hypothermia and released them in warmer waters. That's 54 "cold-stunned turtles" rescued this year, and 600 last year. If sea turtles are "capable of occupying specialized oceanic niches," should humans be interfering with their evolution?
Turtles and tortoises occupy the wettest and driest habitats on earth, yet we humans feel a need to help them out. Phys.org also tells about citizen scientists helping save Australian land turtles from extinction, despite the fact that "A single female freshwater turtle may live more than 100 years and produce more than 2000 eggs in her lifetime." Apparently they aren't evolving fast enough to outfox the red fox, introduced in the 1800s by humans. But evolution is clever. It evolved humans to do the job:
"Our computer models show that one harvest population may provide enough hatchling turtles to restore 25 other similar sized populations to pre-European turtle densities."
"Creating low cost 'turtle nurseries' throughout the country will provide a way to out-fox the fox without a single poison bait or bullet."
Presumably evolution is capable of creating beings that can use intelligent design to solve problems of their own making.
The Tragedy of the Commons
Human beings seem to be the only creatures on earth that willfully fall into the tragedy of the commons -- or that can use their minds to recognize the tragedy and try to avert it. Sea turtles would probably be thriving without bad human actors, who capture them for their eggs and meat and destroy their habitats. Consider the case in Indonesia. Still another article at Phys.org shows volunteers releasing sea turtle hatchlings onto a beach:
A group of turtles scurried down a beach and glided into the sea, enjoying their newfound freedom after being cared for at an Indonesian conservation centre.
The sea turtles were released by local tourists in Pariaman city, on western Sumatra island, in front of the Turtle Conservation Technical Operating Unit. [Emphasis added.]
It's a curious case of humans protecting non-humans from other humans.
Six of the world's seven turtle species can be found in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands that is home to a dizzying array of exotic wildlife.
Almost all turtle species are endangered. Their eggs are considered a delicacy and they are also slaughtered for their meat, skin and shells.
We see here another indication of human uniqueness: moral responsibility for the living world. Without it, nobody could claim the slaughter of turtles is wrong. It would just be survival of the fittest, and the turtles would lose the race.
Hawksbills
On the other side of the globe, Belize has good news: the hawksbill sea turtle, classed as "critically endangered," is doing "swimmingly well" thanks to conservation efforts, reports Fox News. Once again, it was humans killing them off for their shells, meat, and eggs, but protection efforts at a reef offshore have borne fruit: "The Wildlife Conservation Society says that the sea turtle's rebound is an indication of the success of protection efforts in this large reef system." After snorkeling, catching, tagging, and releasing turtles for years, marine biologists estimate a thousand juveniles in the area, a model for other conservation programs. Phys.org has a picture of one marine scientist handling a hawksbill, and another photo of a turtle being hoisted onboard a ship for tagging. Stephen Dunbar, who appears in Living Waters, has been involved for years in conservation efforts of hawksbill sea turtles in nearby Honduras.
Leatherbacks
Leatherback sea turtles are the largest reptiles alive today. Take it from the Cornell Chronicle:
Leatherbacks, the world's largest reptiles, do not have hard shells like other turtles. Instead, they have a softer, leather-like shell. The turtles can weigh up to 1,500 pounds and are eating machines, as one can nosh daily on hundreds of pounds of its favorite meal -- jellyfish. Leatherback sea turtles and jellyfish are found throughout the world's oceans, but the authors of this study think that these leatherbacks are likely enjoying a bountiful jellyfish supply in the Mozambique Channel.
They hint at a further evolutionary conundrum: why would long-distance migration evolve?
Endangered leatherback sea turtles are known for their open-ocean migratory nature and nomadic foraging habits -- traveling thousands of miles. But a Cornell naturalist and his colleagues have discovered an area along the Mozambique coast that the turtles have made their permanent home, according to a study published in Nature's Scientific Reports.
All that magnetic-field navigation equipment for nothing? One would think neo-Darwinism, stingy as it is, would stop here where life is good. Instead, some of the turtles ventured out 10,000 km toward the south Atlantic Ocean or into the Indian Ocean. The research news says nothing about evolution.
Evolution News & Views
We recently shared news about humpback whales. Here are some new findings about another group of stars of Illustra's film Living Waters: sea turtles. There are seven species of sea turtles in the world today, all beautifully designed and, sadly, all endangered. Consider first, appropriately, the enigma of origins.
Fossils
Do we see progression in the fossil record of sea turtles? No; according to the University of Alabama at Birmingham , the oldest ancestor of modern sea turtles was -- a sea turtle. Apparently they profited from global warming.
"Climatic warming during the mid-Cretaceous resulted in elevated sea levels and temperatures that, in turn, provided an abundance of new niches for marine turtles to invade," said Drew Gentry, a UAB biology doctoral student and the lead researcher on the project. "Represented today by only seven living species, sea turtles were once one of the most diverse lineages of marine reptiles. Before the cataclysm that claimed the dinosaurs, there may have been dozens of specialized species of sea turtle living in different oceanic habitats around the world."
This won't likely switch turtle conservationists in favor of anthropogenic climate change. It does seem a little bit dubious, though, to make evolutionary diversity a function of temperature.
"There is strong evidence which indicates freshwater turtles may have evolved to occupy marine environments at several points in the past," Gentry said. "But most of those lineages went extinct, making the exact origins of living or 'true' sea turtles somewhat of a mystery."
Evolutionists can always concoct a just-so story to explain any observation. Not wanting to leave a mystery unsolved, UAB's Gentry offers one:
"Data from C. acris tell us not only that marine turtles are capable of occupying specialized oceanic niches, but also that many of the sea turtles we know today may have gotten their evolutionary start as something similar to an oversized snapping turtle in what eventually became the southeastern United States."
Phys.org tells about volunteers who found turtles on Cape Cod suffering from hypothermia and released them in warmer waters. That's 54 "cold-stunned turtles" rescued this year, and 600 last year. If sea turtles are "capable of occupying specialized oceanic niches," should humans be interfering with their evolution?
Turtles and tortoises occupy the wettest and driest habitats on earth, yet we humans feel a need to help them out. Phys.org also tells about citizen scientists helping save Australian land turtles from extinction, despite the fact that "A single female freshwater turtle may live more than 100 years and produce more than 2000 eggs in her lifetime." Apparently they aren't evolving fast enough to outfox the red fox, introduced in the 1800s by humans. But evolution is clever. It evolved humans to do the job:
"Our computer models show that one harvest population may provide enough hatchling turtles to restore 25 other similar sized populations to pre-European turtle densities."
"Creating low cost 'turtle nurseries' throughout the country will provide a way to out-fox the fox without a single poison bait or bullet."
Presumably evolution is capable of creating beings that can use intelligent design to solve problems of their own making.
The Tragedy of the Commons
Human beings seem to be the only creatures on earth that willfully fall into the tragedy of the commons -- or that can use their minds to recognize the tragedy and try to avert it. Sea turtles would probably be thriving without bad human actors, who capture them for their eggs and meat and destroy their habitats. Consider the case in Indonesia. Still another article at Phys.org shows volunteers releasing sea turtle hatchlings onto a beach:
A group of turtles scurried down a beach and glided into the sea, enjoying their newfound freedom after being cared for at an Indonesian conservation centre.
The sea turtles were released by local tourists in Pariaman city, on western Sumatra island, in front of the Turtle Conservation Technical Operating Unit. [Emphasis added.]
It's a curious case of humans protecting non-humans from other humans.
Six of the world's seven turtle species can be found in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands that is home to a dizzying array of exotic wildlife.
Almost all turtle species are endangered. Their eggs are considered a delicacy and they are also slaughtered for their meat, skin and shells.
We see here another indication of human uniqueness: moral responsibility for the living world. Without it, nobody could claim the slaughter of turtles is wrong. It would just be survival of the fittest, and the turtles would lose the race.
Hawksbills
On the other side of the globe, Belize has good news: the hawksbill sea turtle, classed as "critically endangered," is doing "swimmingly well" thanks to conservation efforts, reports Fox News. Once again, it was humans killing them off for their shells, meat, and eggs, but protection efforts at a reef offshore have borne fruit: "The Wildlife Conservation Society says that the sea turtle's rebound is an indication of the success of protection efforts in this large reef system." After snorkeling, catching, tagging, and releasing turtles for years, marine biologists estimate a thousand juveniles in the area, a model for other conservation programs. Phys.org has a picture of one marine scientist handling a hawksbill, and another photo of a turtle being hoisted onboard a ship for tagging. Stephen Dunbar, who appears in Living Waters, has been involved for years in conservation efforts of hawksbill sea turtles in nearby Honduras.
Leatherbacks
Leatherback sea turtles are the largest reptiles alive today. Take it from the Cornell Chronicle:
Leatherbacks, the world's largest reptiles, do not have hard shells like other turtles. Instead, they have a softer, leather-like shell. The turtles can weigh up to 1,500 pounds and are eating machines, as one can nosh daily on hundreds of pounds of its favorite meal -- jellyfish. Leatherback sea turtles and jellyfish are found throughout the world's oceans, but the authors of this study think that these leatherbacks are likely enjoying a bountiful jellyfish supply in the Mozambique Channel.
They hint at a further evolutionary conundrum: why would long-distance migration evolve?
Endangered leatherback sea turtles are known for their open-ocean migratory nature and nomadic foraging habits -- traveling thousands of miles. But a Cornell naturalist and his colleagues have discovered an area along the Mozambique coast that the turtles have made their permanent home, according to a study published in Nature's Scientific Reports.
All that magnetic-field navigation equipment for nothing? One would think neo-Darwinism, stingy as it is, would stop here where life is good. Instead, some of the turtles ventured out 10,000 km toward the south Atlantic Ocean or into the Indian Ocean. The research news says nothing about evolution.
Unhyping big science.
Let's Tell the Truth about Science Funding
Evolution News & Views
A false and sentimental glow surrounds science in the minds of many outside the science world. A reverent belief in the purity of scientists, so tender and mild (except for those intelligent-design scoundrels), is a badge of membership for the enlightened. The cult of science all but denies that professionals in the field are human beings, subject to the familiar corruptions that go with money, power, and prestige.
But then occasionally a scientist or other insider will come along and dash a pitcher of cold water on all that. letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal by Professor Daniel Metz is thus refreshing. He replies to an op-ed by MIT president L. Rafael Reif, who laments what Reif sees as the underfunding of basic science.
Interesting guy -- Metz retired as a professor of General Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and now races cars among other pursuits. Writes Dr. Metz:
Mr. Reif ignores some facts associated with government funding of research, much of which is funded at universities. Nearly all government-sponsored projects are funded in response to a request for proposals (RFPs). The directions of funded research are thus established not by scientists, but by bureaucrats in the funding agencies. The bureaucrats are graduates of an old-boy network that rewards alumni, contacts, trendism and longevity, with proposal quality coming dead last. It is positively guaranteed that any big, new, government research initiative will send money to Palo Alto, Berkeley, Austin, Ann Arbor, Madison, Champaign and Cambridge.
Government funding of university research has bastardized the definition of a "professor." New assistant professors are quick to realize that actually teaching classes has nothing whatsoever to do with their desire for long-term success and tenure, and in fact teaching is a disincentive. Only bringing in outside research money counts. Universities have become addicted to the mother's milk of government funding. Any major research university could reduce its budget by 50% or more simply by requiring the faculty to actually teach a few classes now and then.
Em. Prof. L. Daniel Metz
Champaign, Ill.
Indeed, the incestuous world of science grants is one of the best-kept secrets of the Federal Government. Billions of dollars are involved and Congressional oversight is unimpressive. Moreover, the system is so big that it effectively shapes research priorities of universities, rather than responding to them. The Federal Government controls and monopolizes science research, and the whole business is in the service of something quite other than the legendary disinterested search for truth.
Addicted and engorged, Big Science isn't what most of the public pictures it to be. Professors don't so much profess -- they suck money as through a straw, thanks to a system that epitomizes the kinds of corruption we associate with government. Now give them more funding? Come to think of it, Rafael Reif is not exactly disinterested on the subject.
Among all the reasons to doubt the authority of a scientific consensus on all matters, this would be one.
Evolution News & Views
A false and sentimental glow surrounds science in the minds of many outside the science world. A reverent belief in the purity of scientists, so tender and mild (except for those intelligent-design scoundrels), is a badge of membership for the enlightened. The cult of science all but denies that professionals in the field are human beings, subject to the familiar corruptions that go with money, power, and prestige.
But then occasionally a scientist or other insider will come along and dash a pitcher of cold water on all that. letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal by Professor Daniel Metz is thus refreshing. He replies to an op-ed by MIT president L. Rafael Reif, who laments what Reif sees as the underfunding of basic science.
Interesting guy -- Metz retired as a professor of General Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and now races cars among other pursuits. Writes Dr. Metz:
Mr. Reif ignores some facts associated with government funding of research, much of which is funded at universities. Nearly all government-sponsored projects are funded in response to a request for proposals (RFPs). The directions of funded research are thus established not by scientists, but by bureaucrats in the funding agencies. The bureaucrats are graduates of an old-boy network that rewards alumni, contacts, trendism and longevity, with proposal quality coming dead last. It is positively guaranteed that any big, new, government research initiative will send money to Palo Alto, Berkeley, Austin, Ann Arbor, Madison, Champaign and Cambridge.
Government funding of university research has bastardized the definition of a "professor." New assistant professors are quick to realize that actually teaching classes has nothing whatsoever to do with their desire for long-term success and tenure, and in fact teaching is a disincentive. Only bringing in outside research money counts. Universities have become addicted to the mother's milk of government funding. Any major research university could reduce its budget by 50% or more simply by requiring the faculty to actually teach a few classes now and then.
Em. Prof. L. Daniel Metz
Champaign, Ill.
Indeed, the incestuous world of science grants is one of the best-kept secrets of the Federal Government. Billions of dollars are involved and Congressional oversight is unimpressive. Moreover, the system is so big that it effectively shapes research priorities of universities, rather than responding to them. The Federal Government controls and monopolizes science research, and the whole business is in the service of something quite other than the legendary disinterested search for truth.
Addicted and engorged, Big Science isn't what most of the public pictures it to be. Professors don't so much profess -- they suck money as through a straw, thanks to a system that epitomizes the kinds of corruption we associate with government. Now give them more funding? Come to think of it, Rafael Reif is not exactly disinterested on the subject.
Among all the reasons to doubt the authority of a scientific consensus on all matters, this would be one.
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