I think therefore I am? It depends who you ask.

 Philosopher: I’m Neither Me, Myself, Nor I…Yet I Give Interviews! 

Michael Egnor 

It’s remarkable that given the abysmal logical state of modern neuroscience, modern philosophy of mind seems to be in a heated contest to be even more absurd. Secular meditation teacher Michael W. Taft interviewed leading theoretical philosopher Thomas Metzinger. Here is one set of Taft’s and Metzinger’s questions and answers, and my observations:

Michael W. Taft: You’ve written at great length about the experience of selfhood in human beings. So let’s start off by asking, What is the self?

Thomas Metzinger: The first thing to understand, I believe, is that there is no thing like “the self.” Nobody ever had or was a self. Selves are not part of reality. Selves are not something that endures over time. The first person pronoun “I” doesn’t refer to an object like a football or a bicycle, it just points to the speaker of the current sentence. There is no thing in the brain or outside in the world, which is us. We are processes… the self is not a thing but a process. 

What could Metzinger possibly mean by “there is no thing like ‘the self’”? Myself is the term I use to refer to me. I (and my self) are very much a part of reality, and I most certainly endure over time. I am an object like a football — in a sense — in that I exist in the world, I have mass and shape, and I have come into existence and will someday go out of existence in this world. Obviously, I have many abilities that a football doesn’t have — I have a sum of powers (physiological, sensory, motor, emotional, mnemonic, and rational) that comprise my soul. I am a composite of matter and soul, just as all things in the world are composites of matter and form. 

An Unintelligible Claim 

And Metzinger’s claim that we are not selves (“things”) but processes is unintelligible. A process is a state of change, and change presupposes a being that exists continuously through the process of changing.

This was Aristotle’s seminal insight into the nature of change: Change presupposes the continuity of an underlying substrate. A process requires a real persisting object that undergoes it.

I certainly change over time, but it is I that change. I am a substantial real thing that persists through the change. After all, if I didn’t persist, it would be nonsensical to say I changed. If I didn’t persist, that would mean that I went into and out of existence at every moment. That would be the creation and destruction of an infinite series of human beings, not the change of a human being. 

A Hilarious Irony 

There’s a hilarious irony in Metzinger’s absurd claim that there is no self and that we are merely processes. Here’s what Taft says about him by way of introduction in the article: 

Thomas Metzinger is a German philosopher. As of 2011 he holds the position of director of the theoretical philosophy group at the department of philosophy at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz and is an Adjunct Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies and on the advisory board of the Giordano Bruno Foundation. From 2008 to 2009 he served as a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin; from 2014 to 2019 he is a Fellow at the Gutenberg Research College. 

How could Metzinger “hold” any position (academic or otherwise) if he is an evanescent process without substantial enduring reality? 

Read the rest at Mind Matters News, published by Discovery Institute’s Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence.

The environment as informant.

 Rosenhouse’s Whoppers: The Environment as a Source of Information. 

William A. Dembski 

I am responding again to Jason Rosenhouse about his book The Failures of Mathematical Anti-Evolutionism. See my earlier posts here and here.

In Rosenhouse’s book, he claims that “natural selection serves as a conduit for transmitting environmental information into the genomes of organisms.” (p. 215) I addressed this claim briefly in my review, indicating that conservation of information shows it to be incomplete and inadequate, but essentially I referred him to technical work by me and colleagues on the topic. In his reply, he remains, as always, unpersuaded. So let me here give another go at explaining the role of the environment as a source of information for Darwinian evolution. As throughout this response, I’m addressing the unwashed middle. 

Darwinian evolution depends on selection, variation, and replication working within an environment. How selection, variation, and replication play out, however, depends on the particulars of the environment. Take a simple example, one that Rosenhouse finds deeply convincing and emblematic for biological evolution, namely, Richard Dawkins’s famous METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL simulation (pp. 192–194 of Rosenhouse’s book). Dawkins imagines an environment consisting of sequences of 28 letters and spaces, random variations of those letters, and a fitness function that rewards sequences to the degree that they are close to (i.e., share letters with) the target sequence METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL.  

So What’s the Problem? 

The problem is not with the letter sequences, their randomization, or even the activity of a fitness function in guiding such an evolutionary process, but the very choice of fitness function. Why did the environment happen to fixate on METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL and make evolution drive toward that sequence? Why not a totally random sequence? The whole point of this example is to suggest that evolution can produce something design-like (a meaningful phrase, in this case, from Shakespeare’s Hamlet) without the need for actual design. But most fitness functions would evolve toward random sequences of letters and spaces. So what’s the difference maker in the choice of fitness? If you will, what selects the fitness function that then selects for fitness in the evolutionary process? Well, leaving aside some sort of interventional design (and not all design needs to be interventional), it’s got to be the environment. 

But that’s the problem. What renders one environment an interesting source of evolutionary change given selection, variation, and replication but others uninteresting? Most environments, in fact, don’t lead to any interesting form of evolution. Consider Sol Spiegelman’s work on the evolution of polynucleotides in a replicase environment. One thing that makes real world biological evolution interesting, assuming it actually happens, is that it increases information in the items that are undergoing evolution. Yet Spiegelman demonstrated that even with selection, variation, and replication in play, information steadily decreased over the course of his experiment. Brian Goodwin, in his summary of Spiegelman’s work, highlights this point (How the Leopard Changed Its Spots, pp. 35–36): 

In a classic experiment, Spiegelman in 1967 showed what happens to a molecular replicating system in a test tube, without any cellular organization around it. The replicating molecules (the nucleic acid templates) require an energy source, building blocks (i.e., nucleotide bases), and an enzyme to help the polymerization process that is involved in self-copying of the templates. Then away it goes, making more copies of the specific nucleotide sequences that define the initial templates. But the interesting result was that these initial templates did not stay the same; they were not accurately copied. They got shorter and shorter until they reached the minimal size compatible with the sequence retaining self-copying properties. And as they got shorter, the copying process went faster. So what happened with natural selection in a test tube: the shorter templates that copied themselves faster became more numerous, while the larger ones were gradually eliminated. This looks like Darwinian evolution in a test tube. But the interesting result was that this evolution went one way: toward greater simplicity. 

Simple and Yet Profound 

At issue here is a simple and yet profound point of logic that continually seems to elude Darwinists as they are urged to come to terms with how it can be that the environment is able to bring about the information that leads to any interesting form of evolution. And just to be clear, what makes evolution interesting is that it purports to build all the nifty biological systems that we see around us. But most forms of evolution, whether in a biology lab or on a computer mainframe, build nothing interesting. 

The logical point at issue here is one the philosopher John Stuart Mill described back in the 19th century. He called it the “method of difference” and laid it out in his System of Logic. According to this method, to discover which of a set of circumstances is responsible for an observed difference in outcomes requires identifying a circumstance that is present when the outcome occurs and absent when it doesn’t occur. An immediate corollary of this method is that common circumstances cannot explain a difference in outcomes

So if selection, variation, and replication operating within an environment can produce wildly different types of evolution (information increasing, information decreasing, interesting, uninteresting, engineering like, organismic like, etc.), then something else besides these factors needs to be in play. Conservation of information says that the difference maker is information built into the environment. 

In any case, the method of difference shows that such information cannot be reducible to Darwinian processes, which is to say, to selection, variation, and replication (because these are common to all forms of Darwinian evolution). Darwinists, needless to say, don’t like that conclusion. But they are nonetheless stuck with it. The logic is airtight and it means that their theory is fundamentally incomplete. For more on this, see my article with Bob Marks titled “Life’s Conservation Law” (especially section 8).  

Pope urban II: a brief history.

 Pope Urban II 

Pope Urban II (Latin: Urbanus II; c. 1035 – 29 July 1099), otherwise known as Odo of Châtillon or Otho de Lagery,[2][A] was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 12 March 1088 to his death. He is best known for initiating the Crusades.[3][4] 

Church

Catholic Church

Papacy began

12 March 1088

Papacy ended

29 July 1099

Predecessor

Victor III

Successor

Paschal II

Orders

Ordination

c. 1068

Consecration

20 July 1085

Created cardinal

1073

by Gregory VII

Personal details

Born

Odo

c. 1035[1]

Lagery, County of Champagne, Kingdom of France

Died

29 July 1099 (aged 63–64)

Rome, Papal States, Holy Roman Empire

Previous post(s)

Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia (1078–88)

Cardinal-Bishop of Velletri (1080–88)

Legate in Germany (1084–85)

Sainthood

Feast day

29 July

Venerated in

Catholic Church

Beatified

14 July 1881

Rome

by Pope Leo XII

Attributes

Papal vestments

Papal tiara 

Pope Urban was a native of France, and was a descendant of a noble family from the French commune of Châtillon-sur-Marne.[5][6] Reims was the nearby cathedral school where he began his studies in 1050.[7]

Before his papacy, Urban was the grand prior of Cluny and bishop of Ostia.[8] As pope, he dealt with Antipope Clement III, infighting of various Christian nations, and the Muslim incursions into Europe. In 1095 he started preaching the First Crusade (1096–99). He promised forgiveness and pardon for all of the past sins of those who would fight to reclaim the holy land from Muslims and free the eastern churches.[9] This pardon would also apply to those that would fight the Muslims in Spain. While the First Crusade resulted in the liberation of Jerusalem from the Fatimids, Pope Urban II died before he could receive this news.

He also set up the modern-day Roman Curia in the manner of a royal ecclesiastical court to help run the Church.[10]

He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII on 14 July 1881.

Staff

Other popes named Urban

And still yet more on why the skilled trades remain to the smart choice.

 Trade Schools Vs. Traditional College: What You Should Know 

Robert Farrington

We all know that a college education is usually worth the financial cost, but what about attending trade school instead? Unfortunately, many adults with influence over high schoolers never take the time to ask this important question.  

I'm not only talking about school guidance counselors and other educators, but I'm also talking about parents themselves. For far too many parents with kids in their junior or senior years of school, the stigma surrounding having a child skip four-year college would just be too much to bear. 

But, it's time to change the narrative, and for more reasons than one. Not only does trade school help students land a job faster, it also costs significantly less than traditional college. Plus, jobs in the trades are booming in general, whereas many other industries are oversaturated with new graduates looking for work. 

Have you tried to hire a contractor lately? How about an electrician? If you have, you probably already know these jobs are in high demand.

These are just some of the reasons to consider trade school, but there are others. And if you have your child's best interest in mind, you will at least hear me out. 

How Much Does Trade School Cost? 

The initial cost of attending trade school is one of the biggest benefits this type of education has to offer. Where the average cost of attending a public, four year school worked out to $10,740 for in-state students during the 2021-22 school year per CollegeBoard figures, you can attend trade school for as little as $5,000 per year. Not only that, but you can often learn a trade and enter a related profession in 18 months to 24 months vs. the four years or longer it takes to earn a bachelor's degree. 

As an example, you could attend a public two-year in-district community college for an average of $3,800 per year, finish a vocational degree within two years, then go on to work as a dental hygienist or even a registered nurse in states that only require an associate degree. Conversely, you could attend trade school to learn a skill like carpentry, or to become an electrician, a welder or a boilermaker.

With many trades, you can also take part in a paid apprenticeship that lets you earn money while you learn on the job. According to statistics from the U.S. government, 92% of apprentices who complete their program retain employment and go on to earn an average annual salary of $72,000. 

Trade School Education Pays Off (Literally) 

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Trade Schools Vs. Traditional College: What You Should Know

Robert Farrington

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I write about personal finance, college and student loan debt.

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We all know that a college education is usually worth the financial cost, but what about attending trade school instead? Unfortunately, many adults with influence over high schoolers never take the time to ask this important question. 

I'm not only talking about school guidance counselors and other educators, but I'm also talking about parents themselves. For far too many parents with kids in their junior or senior years of school, the stigma surrounding having a child skip four-year college would just be too much to bear.

But, it's time to change the narrative, and for more reasons than one. Not only does trade school help students land a job faster, it also costs significantly less than traditional college. Plus, jobs in the trades are booming in general, whereas many other industries are oversaturated with new graduates looking for work.

Have you tried to hire a contractor lately? How about an electrician? If you have, you probably already know these jobs are in high demand.

These are just some of the reasons to consider trade school, but there are others. And if you have your child's best interest in mind, you will at least hear me out.

young apprentice in vocational training working on a turning machine in the industry

young apprentice in vocational training working on[+]GETTY

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How Much Does Trade School Cost?

The initial cost of attending trade school is one of the biggest benefits this type of education has to offer. Where the average cost of attending a public, four year school worked out to $10,740 for in-state students during the 2021-22 school year per CollegeBoard figures, you can attend trade school for as little as $5,000 per year. Not only that, but you can often learn a trade and enter a related profession in 18 months to 24 months vs. the four years or longer it takes to earn a bachelor's degree.

As an example, you could attend a public two-year in-district community college for an average of $3,800 per year, finish a vocational degree within two years, then go on to work as a dental hygienist or even a registered nurse in states that only require an associate degree. Conversely, you could attend trade school to learn a skill like carpentry, or to become an electrician, a welder or a boilermaker.

With many trades, you can also take part in a paid apprenticeship that lets you earn money while you learn on the job. According to statistics from the U.S. government, 92% of apprentices who complete their program retain employment and go on to earn an average annual salary of $72,000.

Trade School Education Pays Off (Literally)

While trade school costs less in general, and while trades typically require less than four years of higher education, jobs in various trades also pay more, too. Yes, you read that right. Sending your kid to trade school can result in benefits like lower student debt or no student debt plus higher earnings later on.

A quick look at May 2020 National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates from BLS.gov makes this readily apparent. While there are many different trades and educational paths to consider, here are some of the highest paying trades students could enter plus how many years of higher education they require.

While these trade school and community college jobs definitely pay well, also keep in mind that these salaries apply to employees. If a student is especially business-minded, all kinds of trades work well for all kinds of small business ideas. 

For example, someone who learns the art of plumbing can easily go on to open their own plumbing business, and the same is true for carpenters, electricians, and other skilled tradespeople who are good with their hands. I also know that, all over the country right now, we're facing a dramatic shortage of skilled workers who can remodel kitchens or bathrooms, install flooring, or take on any number of small remodeling jobs. 

The bottom line: The work is there for students who pursue the trades, and the jobs pay handsomely for the most part. If your trade school student is prepared to break out on their own and start their own company, that's even better. 

I.D is not merely mainstream it's indispensable.

 The Silence of the Space Aliens 

David Coppedge 

National Geographic jokes about the silence of the space aliens.

For more than 50 years, we’ve been eavesdropping on the cosmos, searching for transmissions that would reveal the existence of intelligent, extraterrestrial life.

To date, nobody’s bothered to call.

Is it something we said?

As the silence keeps up, the alternatives get narrow. (1) We are alone in the universe as intelligent beings or (2) “the morbid alternative: Intelligent life periodically emerges on other worlds, but has an unfortunate tendency to self-destruct.” (3) A third possibility is that aliens know about us but cloak their presence for some reason.

Possibility #2, that alien civilizations have a tendency to self-destruct, has been seriously considered by some who look at humans’ bad example of creating devastation “during our relatively brief span as the dominant species on this planet.” 

"That’s why a trio of scientists recently published a guide to help astronomers detect alien apocalypses — whether it’s the chemical signature of a world filled with rotting corpses, the radioactive aftermath of nuclear warfare, or the debris left over from a Death Star scenario where an entire planet gets blown to bits. [Emphasis added.]" 

Extinct Aliens and the Design Inference 

We see here the makings of a design inference. It might be called Cosmic Forensics. Since forensics is a type of intelligent design science (e.g., determining whether a death was natural or intentional), why not apply the same principles to alien beings? It is, after all, a search for extinct extraterrestrial intelligence (SEETI). That’s a goal far beyond astrobiology, the search for biomarkers that could indicate life down to the microbial level. SETI and SEETI are looking for beings “at least as clever as we are,” as Seth Shostak likes to say.

The clues for SEETI could be very indirect and faint: 

"SEETI research, however, is not looking for biosignatures — signs of life. Instead, scientists have to hunt down necrosignatures — signs of death — that would indicate destruction on a colossal scale.

Consider a scenario in which biological warfare rapidly wiped out a planet’s population. Microorganisms that cause decomposition would gorge themselves on alien corpses. In doing so, they would excrete chemical compounds, dramatically increasing the levels of methane and ethane in the atmosphere.

If the population size of the alien world were comparable to that of Earth, the methane and ethane gases would dissipate in about a year, so there would be only a short window of opportunity to detect the cataclysm.

However, if the biological arsenal included a genetically modified virus capable of jumping species, then the planet’s casualties might also include its animal life. In that case, the telltale signs of catastrophic biowarfare could be visible for several years." 

The leftover glow of a nuclear holocaust could be another clue. Planets don’t typically nuke themselves. Some intelligent cause would have had to push the button 

Evidence of Intention 

It’s repulsive to think about global destruction, but intelligent design doesn’t distinguish moral purposes from immoral ones. ID merely looks for evidence of something intentional. Like SETI, SEETI depends on the researcher being able to tell the difference between a purposeful act and a natural act.

SEETI thinkers even consider “speculative technologies” of aliens. If advanced civilizations create self-replicating nanobots that run haywire, they could reduce a planet to a “grey goo” of dust where once an intelligent society thrived.  

"But, what sort of evidence would exist for this heinous act? One remote possibility is the detection of artificial compounds in the debris disc, indicating that the planet was once home to a technologically-advanced civilization." 

A “heinous act” is an intentional act, implying moral and intellectual responsiblity. We don’t call a lion taking down a wildebeest “heinous.” Something unnatural has happened. 

More of the Same? 

Perhaps, as evolutionists, the trio of scientists contemplating SEETI as a research program view human planetary destruction on a continuum with animal death — just a particularly egregious advanced form of ecological collapse. Why, then, call it SEETI with emphasis on the “I”? Animals like birds and dolphins have intelligence. Is human intelligence just more of the same? 

Their language betrays something unique about human intelligence that carries over to alien intelligence. They talk about warfare. Animals have predator-prey relationships, but they don’t engage in warfare. Animals don’t “genetically modify” other organisms for the purpose of wiping them out. Animals don’t create “artificial compounds” that can be distinguished from natural compounds. 

The SEETI thinkers are looking for signs of intention. Even in global death, they believe they could separate natural causes from intelligent causes. That’s the design inference. 

And still yet more on mathematics antiDarwinian bias.

 Rosenhouse’s Whoppers: Appealing to the Unwashed Middle 

William A. Dembski 

I am responding again to Jason Rosenhouse about his book The Failures of Mathematical Anti-Evolutionism. See my earlier post here.

Before leaving academia for business, I used to lecture on intelligent design at colleges and universities, and often debate people on the Darwinian side. Michael Shermer and Michael Ruse were my most frequent debate partners. My philosophy at these debates was not to try to convince Darwinists that my views were correct. Nor was I particularly concerned about the intelligent design proponents — if they were proponents of ID, they had presumably put their necks on the chopping block and knew what was at stake, academically and culturally, in taking the side of ID. My challenge, rather, in these debates, was to win the unwashed middle — those who had not made up their minds — those who didn’t reside in the cloud cuckoo land of Darwinism. So this response is mainly directed at them. 

Rosenhouse’s book is objectively bad. It purports to be a critique of mathematics as used by ID proponents and of my mathematical work in particular. Yet it betrays a lack of comprehension throughout. It makes a virtue of misrepresentation. It’s aim is not to understand but to kill. In my review, I called Rosenhouse on his many failures in the book. It’s clear in his reply that he simply ignored the points I was able to score — points he made it easy for me to score because he did such a hack job. Read his book and read my review, and decide for yourself.  

A New Dimension of Bad 

His reply, however, adds a new dimension to the debate. The reply, too, is objectively bad in the same sense as his book. But it adds a level of delusion that in reading it made my jaw drop. I’m not writing this for rhetorical effect. In the reply, he lets loose with two whoppers that make me question what planet he’s been living on. Indeed, I have to seriously wonder about the degree to which Darwinists are in their right minds if they find in Rosenhouse a voice that speaks for them.

But before getting to the two whoppers, buried in his reply are two substantive points worth addressing. They came up in my review, received comment in the reply, and deserve some additional comment here. They concern (1) the connection between irreducible and specified complexity and (2) the role of the environment in supplying information to the Darwinian process 

Irreducible versus Specified Complexity 

I addressed this point in my review, but let’s have another go at it. Consider Sisyphus. As long as you can remember, he’s been rolling a rock up a hill, only to have it roll back down before it gets to the very top, which, let’s assume, is a stable equilibrium, so if he gets it to the very top, it will stay there (though he never does). What is the probability that Sisyphus will get the rock up to the very top? As a historical or inductive probability, it is quite low. All your life, you have been seeing him try to get the rock up there and somehow it never quite gets there That historical probability for Sisyphus is the same type of probability as inherent in Mike Behe’s assessment of Darwinian processes being unable to build irreducibly complex molecular machines. All the attempts by biologists to trace a detailed Darwinian pathway of how an irreducibly complex system might emerge from an evolutionary precursor performing a different function have failed. 

Richard Lenski, for instance, has run tens of thousands of generations of E. coli, and produced no novel irreducibly complex system. The record of failure of evolutionary biologists in their inability to provide detailed Darwinian pathways for irreducibly complex systems is as complete as Sisyphus’s efforts to get the rock to the top of the hill. If you disagree, please provide an irreducibly complex system, its precursor system performing a different primary function, and then the step-by-step path of how to get from one to the other. Silence? Crickets? 

The Nuts and Bolts 

By contrast, specified complexity gets at the nuts and bolts of the probabilistic hurdles that render an evolutionary transition intractable. To continue with the Sisyphus analogy, specified complexity would look not at Sisyphus’s record of failure so much as the types of obstacles he faces in getting to the top and how those might render getting to the top improbable. 

For instance, perhaps in rolling the rock up the hill, most of the path is clear and unproblematic, but at one point there’s a bump so that given his strength he just can’t get over the bump. Or perhaps, there are multiple bumps, where he’s got a positive probability of getting over each bump, but when all these probabilities get combined, he’s bound not to get over all the bumps. Or perhaps he gets tired, running out of steam as he moves up the hill, so that bumps lower on the hill would be no problem, but by the time he gets up the hill, they do become a problem, and his probability of getting over all of them approaches zero.

The point to appreciate is that such a probability analysis of Sisyphus adds to our understanding of his failure. His record of failure is enough to justify assigning a low historical probability to his being able to roll the rock to the very top of the hill. But an empirically based probability of his failure needs to look at the particularities of the probabilistic hurdles that he’s facing. The same holds for irreducible complexity. There’s a long record of failure by biologists to explain how these systems might evolve. Specified complexity attempts to understand the probabilistic particulars that could explain the record of failure. 

But specified complexity is not merely a supplement to irreducible complexity. Not all biological systems are irreducibly complex. In consequence, specified complexity can assess the evolvability of biological systems that are not irreducibly complex. For instance, the beta-lactamase enzymatic system that Doug Axe examined (described at greater length in my review) is not in any clear sense irreducibly complex, but it is analyzable probabilistically and exhibits specified complexity.  

Consider a Bridge 

One more analogy to try to nail all this down. Again, I write for the unwashed middle and have no expectation of assuaging Rosenhouse. Consider a bridge. It’s stood for 100 years, faced all kinds of weather and hardship, and has remained imperturbable. And yet one day it suddenly collapses. Before its collapse, we might think that its probability of continuing to stand was quite high, and so the probability of collapse was quite low. Given its collapse, is it therefore safe to say that a highly improbable event happened? 

Those versed in the use specified complexity as a tool for disentangling the probabilities underlying various systems would say that such historical probabilities are of little interest now that the bridge has collapsed. Rather, we need engineers to examine the wreckage to see if there were any tell-tale signs of weaknesses in the bridge that would increase its probability of collapse. The probabilities in this case would be empirical and structural rather than historical. Specified complexity substitutes actionable empirically and structurally based probabilities for historical probabilities

Some more circles for Christendom's apologists' to square.

 Hebrews2:3,4NIV"3how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. 4(the)God ALSO testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will."  

If ,as Christendom's apologists insist, the Lord Jesus Christ is the most high God ,who is this God who ALSO testified re:the gospel? 

Revelation20:14NIV"14Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. " If the lake of fire is meant to be taken literally how can abstractions like death and hades(KJV says death and hell)  be literally thrown into it? If as some claim this imagery is a figure of the intense mental and physical suffering of lost souls and their resurrected bodies, we still need to ask how can abstractions like death and hades   be thus afflicted? 

Revelation14:14,15NIV"4I looked, and there before me was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one like a son of man b with a crown of gold on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. 15Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, “Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” ,"  

If this heavenly Son of man is  in fact the most high God ,why is he taking orders from his creatures? And why does any creature need to instruct him regarding the proper time for the fulfilling of the divine purpose? 

Daniel2:21KJV"And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding:"

Hebrews6:13NIV"13When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself" 

John14:28NIV"You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. " 

How can the Lord Jesus Christ be the same God as the one who was compelled to swear by himself because there could never be anyone greater?

Physics begot biology?

 Michael Behe: It’s Not a Scientist’s Job to Be Led by Aesthetics 

Evolution News @DiscoveryCSC 

A new episode of ID the Future continues the conversation between Catholic intelligent design biologist Michael Behe and Catholic theologian Matthew Ramage. Both agree that nature points to a cosmic designer, but Ramage says he prefers, on aesthetic grounds, the idea that the biological realm has the capacity, gifted by God, to evolve on its own without the need for intervention by God. Behe notes that people have different aesthetic predilections, but it’s the scientist’s job not to figure out how he would have preferred things to have happened in nature, but to discover how they actually did come about. Behe also says that while the sun, moon, and stars do move according to fixed natural laws, it doesn’t follow from this that the many complex forms we find in biology arose purely through natural laws. The question of how they arose requires scientific investigation. Philosophy for the People podcast host Pat Flynn leads the discussion. Download the podcast or listen to it here. 

The case for design in the OOL is written in stone.

 Rare Earth: How Vital Minerals “Evolve”

David Coppedge 

Something else that is special about planet Earth has been noted: its mineral content, compared to other planets. Robert Hazen, an origin-of-life researcher at the Carnegie Institute, states in an article posted by NASA’s Astrobiology Magazine that Earth’s mineral abundances may be unique in the cosmos. There were only a dozen or so minerals present at the birth of our solar system, he argues, but there are about 5,000 types today. Most of these, he says, can be “linked directly or indirectly to biological activity.” 

That much Hazen and his team already knew. Now, they have taken the concept of “mineral evolution” further, determining the probability of mineral distributions: 

they discovered that the probability that a mineral “species” (defined by its unique combination of chemical composition and crystal structure) exists at only one locality is about 22 percent, whereas the probability that it is found at 10 or fewer locations is about 65 percent. most mineral species are quite rare, in fact, found in 5 or fewer localities.

“minerals follow the same kind of frequency of distribution as words in a book,” hazen explained. “for example, the most-used words in a book are extremely common such as ‘and,’ ‘the,’ and ‘a.’ rare words define the diversity of a book’s vocabulary. the same is true for minerals on earth. rare minerals define our planet’s mineralogical diversity.” [emphasis added. ) 

Unique in the Cosmos. 

This is why Hazen believes Earth’s mineral signature is “unique in the cosmos.” His idea resembles Stephen Jay Gould’s notion that re-playing the tape of life would produce a very different menagerie of creatures. 

What must strike any astrobiologist with amazement, though, is how many elements and minerals vital to life exist near the surface of the earth. The abundant elements — carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen — are not that surprising. But life as we know it requires other elements that are less common: potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, selenium, sulfur, and even chlorine. That’s why the typical astrobiological speculations about life on other planets, such as this evidence-free press release from Washington State University, are misleading. WSU planetary scientist Dirk Schulze-Makuch speculates about “what life could be like elsewhere in the universe” with thoughts about what might exist on Mars or Titan. Has he performed an elemental analysis of the minerals available on those worlds? 

The unique availability of so many elements and minerals at the surface of the Earth could merit a design inference, when considered in addition to all the other factors that make it habitable, as discussed in The Privileged Planet. Astrobiology, despite its confidence in Darwinism, ends up making a pretty good case for intelligent design.

On the atonement.

 How can one man (not God-man) atone for the sins of a world of humans? To understand the mechanics of the atonement we first need to understand the true nature of man. Man is a physical being i.e his life is sustained by a physical form. 

Ecclesiastes3;19,20NIV"19Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath c ; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. 20All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all RETURN."  Of course one cannot RETURN to where one has never been e.g the spirit world. The inspired writer truthfully states that man and beast return to the same state, lifeless as the dust from which they were both formed. This is important to note as the atonement works via substitution, that is to say the victim must suffer the penalty meant for the one being redeemed. 

So let us review what the Bible really teaches re:the penalty for sin. 

Genesis3:19NIV"19By the sweat of your brow

you will eat your food

until you return to the ground,

since from it you were taken;

for dust YOU are

and to dust YOU will RETURN.” 

So the bible does not concur with Christendom's historical revisionism note the person(not merely his body) as indicated by the second person pronoun is said to have been made from dust ,and his penalty was that he would revert to his pre-creation state. JEHOVAH the holy God is not merely the creator of all souls (superhuman,human,subhuman) but their preserver. 

Acts17:28NIV"For in him we live and move and have our being" thus there is no life, existence or motion apart from JEHOVAH. So this reversion to our pre-creation state is what the Bible really teaches is the penalty for sin ,and not the eternal torment of our spirit soul(a mythical fabrication) and our resurrected body in some underground furnace. Spirit creatures do not bleed hence blood would be of no redemptive value for the life of a spirit soul. 

Hebrews2:16,17NIV"16For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. 17For this reason he had to be made like them, k fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. " There is no gospel for rebellious spirit sons of God. Their lives are not sustained by flesh and blood hence cannot be redeemed by those means. Thus in order to redeem lives sustained by flesh and blood Christ needed to take on such a life himself. 

Hebrews2:9NIV"9But we do see Jesus, who was made LOWER than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone." 

Thus our Lord first needed exchange his superhuman soul/life for a human soul/life, because only a soul sustained by flesh and blood could redeem us. 

Mark10:45NIV"For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give(not lend) his life(greek.psyche) as a ransom for many.”"  The only difference with this particular human soul was that he was without sin and hence entitled to perpetual life and the right to Father offspring also entitled to such, hence Jesus is called the second/last Adam, 

1Corinthians15:45KJV"45And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." The same God who made the first Adam a perfect human soul also made the last Adam a perfect superhuman soul by a resurrection, 

Acts13:33KJV"33God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." 

1Peter3:18NASB"18For Christ also [m]suffered for sins once for all time, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh(human), but made alive in the [n]spirit(Superhuman); "  

This permanent surrender of his human life was necessary before he could serve as JEHOVAH'S priest.

Hebrews8:4NASB"4Now if He were on earth (i.e human), He would not be a priest at all, since there are [d]those who offer the gifts according to the Law" ,remember his human life was declared righteous by his perfect adherence to the mosaic law only death would liberate him and those putting faith in him from that law, 

Romans7:1NIV"Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives?" 

Having taken on a superhuman life he is now free to impute his right to  sinless human life to any who put faith in him and his God. 

Romans10:9NIV"If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."  

JEHOVAH over ruled the judgment of the false teachers of that time declaring his loyal son righteous by means of a resurrection from the dead. 

Acts2:36NIV"6“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: (the) God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah." 

Thus to the God and Father of Jesus Christ must go the primary glory as the one through whom our Lord remained holy ,and the one who was able to ensure  justice was done by resurrecting his righteous one and empowering him to serve as priest.

Thus our hope is for a resurrection like his i.e an irreversible one ,one that in effect declares us righteous like our Lord. 

John11:25NIV"25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; "

Colossians Ch.1: New American Bible.

 Colossians 

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,a

2

to the holy ones and faithful brothers in Christ in Colossae: grace to you and peace from God our Father. 

3

We always give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,b

4

for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the holy ones

5

because of the hope reserved for you in heaven. Of this you have already heard through the word of truth, the gospel,c

6

that has come to you. Just as in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing, so also among you, from the day you heard it and came to know the grace of God in truth,

7

d as you learned it from Epaphras* our beloved fellow slave, who is a trustworthy minister of Christ on your behalf

8

and who also told us of your love in the Spirit. 

Therefore, from the day we heard this, we do not cease praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understandinge

10

to live in a manner worthy of the Lord, so as to be fully pleasing, in every good work bearing fruit and growing in the knowledge of God,

11

strengthened with every power, in accord with his glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy

12

* giving thanks to the Father, who has made you fit to share in the inheritance of the holy ones in light.f

13

He delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,

14

in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 

15

* He is the image* of the invisible God,

the firstborn of all creation.h

16

For in him* were created all things in heaven and on earth,

the visible and the invisible,

whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers;

all things were created through him and for him.i

17

He is before all things,

and in him all things hold together.

18

He is the head of the body, the church.*

He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,

that in all things he himself might be preeminent.j

19

For in him all the fullness* was pleased to dwell,

20

and through him to reconcile all things for him,

making peace by the blood of his cross*

[through him], whether those on earth or those in heaven.k

21

* And you who once were alienated and hostile in mind because of evil deedsl

22

he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through his death, to present you holy, without blemish, and irreproachable before him,

23

provided that you persevere in the faith, firmly grounded, stable, and not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, am a minister. 

24

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking* in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church,

25

of which I am a minister in accordance with God’s stewardship given to me to bring to completion for you the word of God,

26

the mystery hidden from ages and from generations past. But now it has been manifested to his holy ones,m

27

to whom God chose to make known the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; it is Christ in you, the hope for glory.n

28

It is he whom we proclaim, admonishing everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.o

29

For this I labor and struggle, in accord with the exercise of his power working within me.

The New American Bible : a brief history.

 New American Bible 

The New American Bible (NAB) is an English translation of the Bible first published in 1970. The 1986 Revised NAB is the basis of the revised Lectionary, and it is the only translation approved for use at Mass in the Latin-rite Catholic dioceses of the United States and the Philippines,[1][2] and the 1970 first edition is also an approved Bible translation by the Episcopal Church in the United States.[3][4] 

Full name

The New American Bible

Abbreviation

NAB

Complete Bible

published

1970

Derived from

Confraternity Bible

Textual basis

NT: Novum Testamentum Graece 25th edition. OT: Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia with Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls influence. Deuterocanonicals: Septuagint, Dead Sea Scrolls, and some Vulgate influence.

Translation type

Formal equivalence (from the Preface), moderate use of dynamic equivalence.

Reading level

High School

Revision

New American Bible Revised Edition

Website

http://www.usccb.org/bible 

Stemming originally from the Confraternity Bible, a translation of the Vulgate by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, the project transitioned to translating the original biblical languages in response to Pope Pius XII's 1943 encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu. The translation was carried out in stages by members of the Catholic Biblical Association of America (CBA) "from the Original Languages with Critical Use of All the Ancient Sources" (as the title pages state). These efforts eventually became the New American Bible under the liturgical principles and reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).

Yet more on how the holy Scriptures proclaim the supremacy of the Father.

 John10:29AKJV "My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." 

According to Christendom's theologians our Lord's God and Father is not the most high God but merely one of three coexisting person's (not Gods of which there is but one) who subsists within the most high God, but note that our Lord and his apostles do not concur. Thus through out the scriptures the Father is equated with the God (Greek ho Theos), and our Lord is distinguished not merely from the Father but from the God. For instance  

1Corinithians8:6AKJV" 6But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him." 

Note the Father is the one God worship by our Lord and his genuine disciples .

John14:23,24AKJV"23But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeks such to worship him. 2(the)God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."  

Again the God and Father of Jesus Christ is portrayed not merely  as divine in some vague way, but as that one God to whom all faithful servants of JEHOVAH owe their highest allegiance, we are not surprised then to find that the scriptures do not merely distinguish between Jesus Christ and the Father, but Jesus Christ and the God. 

John14:1AKJV"1Let not your heart be troubled: you believe in (the)God, believe also in me." 

Yet again the God and Father of Jesus is not merely a hypothesis subsisting within the most high God but he is the most high God, thus in this passage our Lord is represented as distinct not merely from an abstract Father who is his equal but from the most high God who is peerless. 

Psalms83:18AKJV"That men may know that you, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, are the MOST HIGH over all the earth."

Why science must be examined by the real world.

 Paul Nelson: Listen to Nature for Her Answers

Evolution News @DiscoveryCSC 

On a classic ID the Future episode, philosopher of science Paul Nelson concludes his discussion with host Andrew McDiarmid about what it takes to converse effectively with scientists who are trapped in a naturalistic parabola — that is, researchers who draw their conclusions from naturalism’s authority rather than following the evidence wherever it leads. Nelson urges us to keep the third party in the conversation: nature herself. We listen to nature through experimentation, he says, and warns against the message from scientists such as Caltech’s Sean Carroll who have suggested that testing is “overrated.” If we listen and test, nature can keep revealing herself in surprising ways, which is what makes science so fun. Download the podcast or listen to it here.

Strawman bullying :Darwinists default position.

 Calm Down: Yes, the Big Bang Happened 

David Klinghoffer 

Don Lincoln, a Fermilab scientist, addresses claims (reported on here) that infrared images from the James Webb Space Telescope cast doubt on the veracity of the Big Bang. He links to an article at Evolution News and seems confused as to the general view among intelligent design proponents on the subject. He writes:

Current theory suggests that the most ancient galaxies should be very small. Furthermore, they should be irregularly shaped. Over time, these tiny galaxies would slowly merge, eventually becoming much larger, like our own Milky Way. However, these infrared-visible galaxies seem to be far larger and more regularly shaped than what was predicted.

And this fact has resulted in some commentary, especially from people with a long hostility to the idea of the Big Bang. (One article cites a scholarly paper on the topic, whose title begins with the provocative word “Panic!”) One such individual is Eric Lerner, who penned the book The Big Bang Never Happened. Others who endorse either creationism or intelligent design are also using these reports to claim the same thing. [Emphasis added.] 

The Webb images of ancient galaxies “seem to be far larger and more regularly shaped than what was predicted.” And ID proponents are on board with Eric Lerner’s marginal claim that the “Big Bang Never Happened”? If true (and it’s not), that would be quite surprising in light of the fact that, in philosopher of science Stephen Meyer’s most recent book, Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe, the observation that the universe had a beginning (aka the Big Bang) is given as one of three pillars supporting the case for a transcendent mind at work in nature.

Three Reasonable Hypotheses

In any event, Dr. Lincoln offers three reasonable hypotheses himself as to why the Webb images appear to show galaxies having formed too soon after the Big Bang (even at 180 million years): 

Indeed. So, let’s all calm down and stop falsely tarring proponents of intelligent design for things we don’t believe and that would go against our most prominently articulated arguments. 

Hannibal: a brief history.

 Hannibal

Hannibal (/ˈhænɪbəl/; Punic: 𐤇𐤍𐤁𐤏𐤋, Ḥannibaʿl; 247 – between 183 and 181 BC) was a Carthaginian general and statesman who commanded the forces of Carthage in their battle against the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest military commanders in history. 

Native name

𐤇𐤍𐤁𐤏𐤋‎

Born

247 BC

Carthage, Ancient Carthage (modern Tunisia)

Died

183–181 BC (aged 64–66)

Libyssa, Bithynia (modern day Gebze, Turkey)

Allegiance

Carthage (221–202 BC)

Seleucid Empire (198–188 BC)

Bithynia (188–181 BC)

Rank

General Commander-in-Chief of the Carthaginian army

Wars

Barcid conquest of Hispania

Second Punic War

Battle of Ticinus

Battle of the Trebia

Battle of Lake Trasimene

Battle of Cannae

Battle of Zama

Roman–Seleucid War

Battle of the Eurymedon (190 BC)

Pergamene–Bithynian War

Spouse(s)

Imilce

Relations

Hamilcar Barca (father)

Hasdrubal (brother)

Mago (brother)

Hasdrubal the Fair (brother-in-law) 

Hannibal's father, Hamilcar Barca, was a leading Carthaginian general during the First Punic War. His younger brothers were Mago and Hasdrubal; his brother-in-law was Hasdrubal the Fair, who commanded other Carthaginian armies. Hannibal lived during a period of great tension in the Mediterranean Basin, triggered by the emergence of the Roman Republic as a great power with its defeat of Carthage in the First Punic War. Revanchism prevailed in Carthage, symbolized by the pledge that Hannibal made to his father to "never be a friend of Rome".

In 218 BC, Hannibal attacked Saguntum (modern Sagunto, Spain), an ally of Rome, in Hispania, sparking the Second Punic War. Hannibal invaded Italy by crossing the Alps with North African war elephants. In his first few years in Italy, he won a succession of victories at the Battle of the Trebia, Lake Trasimene, and Cannae, inflicting heavy losses on the Romans. Hannibal was distinguished for his ability to determine both his and his opponent's respective strengths and weaknesses, and to plan battles accordingly. His well-planned strategies allowed him to conquer and ally with several Italian cities that were previously allied to Rome. Hannibal occupied most of southern Italy for 15 years. The Romans, led by Fabius Maximus, avoided heavy confrontation with him, instead waging a war of attrition. Carthaginian defeats in Hispania prevented Hannibal from being reinforced, and he was unable to win a decisive victory. A counter-invasion of North Africa, led by Roman General Scipio Africanus, forced him to return to Carthage. Hannibal was eventually defeated at the Battle of Zama, ending the war in Roman victory.

After the war, Hannibal successfully ran for the office of sufet. He enacted political and financial reforms to enable the payment of the war indemnity imposed by Rome; however, those reforms were unpopular with members of the Carthaginian aristocracy and in Rome, and he fled into voluntary exile. During this time, he lived at the Seleucid court, where he acted as military advisor to Antiochus III the Great in his war against Rome. Antiochus met defeat at the Battle of Magnesia and was forced to accept Rome's terms, and Hannibal fled again, making a stop in the Kingdom of Armenia. His flight ended in the court of Bithynia. He was betrayed to the Romans and died by suicide with poison.

Hannibal is considered one of the greatest military tacticians and generals of antiquity, alongside Philip of Macedon, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Scipio Africanus and Pyrrhus. According to Plutarch, Scipio asked Hannibal "who the greatest general was", to which Hannibal replied "either Alexander or Pyrrhus, then himself".[1] 

Name 

Hannibal was a common Semitic Phoenician-Carthaginian personal name. It is recorded in Carthaginian sources as ḥnbʿl[2] (Punic: 𐤇𐤍𐤁𐤏𐤋). It is a combination of the common Phoenician masculine given name Hanno with the Northwest Semitic Canaanite deity Baal (lit, "lord") a major god of the Carthaginians ancestral homeland of Phoenicia in Western Asia. Its precise vocalization remains a matter of debate. Suggested readings include Ḥannobaʿal,[3] Ḥannibaʿl, or Ḥannibaʿal,[4][5] meaning "Baʿal/The lord is gracious", "Baʿal Has Been Gracious",[5][6] or "The Grace of Baʿal".[4] It is equivalent to the fellow Semitic Hebrew name Haniel. Greek historians rendered the name as Anníbas (Ἀννίβας). 

The Phoenicians and Carthaginians, like many West Asian Semitic peoples, did not use hereditary surnames, but were typically distinguished from others bearing the same name using patronymics or epithets. Although he is by far the most famous Hannibal, when further clarification is necessary he is usually referred to as "Hannibal, son of Hamilcar", or "Hannibal the Barcid", the latter term applying to the family of his father, Hamilcar Barca. Barca (Punic: 𐤁𐤓𐤒, brq) is a Semitic cognomen meaning "lightning" or "thunderbolt",[7] a surname acquired by Hamilcar on account of the swiftness and ferocity of his attacks. Barca is cognate with similar names for lightning found among the Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Arameans, Amorites, Moabites, Edomites and other fellow Asiatic Semitic peoples.[8] Although they did not inherit the surname from their father, Hamilcar's progeny are collectively known as the Barcids.[9] Modern historians occasionally refer to Hannibal's brothers as Hasdrubal Barca and Mago Barca to distinguish them from the multitudes of other Carthaginians named Hasdrubal and Mago,[citation needed] but this practice is ahistorical and is rarely applied to Hannibal.

Megalodon eats Darwin's lunch?

Fossil Friday: Megalodon and Intelligent Design in Sharks.

Günter Bechly 

This week’s Fossil Friday features the tooth of a megatooth shark, Otodus megalodon (often you can still find the obsolete genus name Carcharocles). These fossil teeth are 3-7 million years old and were found at Morgan River in South Carolina, which is a famous locality for megalodon teeth. These fierce transoceanic superpredators (Herraiz et al. 2020, Cooper et al. 2022) had a worldwide distribution in the Miocene and Pliocene periods about 2.3-3.6 million years ago and could reach a size of more than 15 meters (Shimada 2019). This makes them three times larger than the biggest specimens of the famous great white shark, which reaches lengths of “only” 5-6 meters.

Megalodon was a specialized apex predator and fed mainly on large baleen whales. It was not closely related to the great white but rather to the mako shark, which means that the common reconstruction as superlarge great white is likely inaccurate (Cooper et al. 2020). New evidence suggests that outcompeting of the juveniles by adults of their smaller cousins may have played a role in their extinction (Boessenecker et al. 2019, Herraiz et al. 2020, McCormack et al. 2022). Nevertheless, tabloid journalists love to speculate that megalodon might still be around (e.g., O’Toole 2022), which of course is total nonsense.

Megalodon was a specialized apex predator and fed mainly on large baleen whales. It was not closely related to the great white but rather to the mako shark, which means that the common reconstruction as superlarge great white is likely inaccurate (Cooper et al. 2020). New evidence suggests that outcompeting of the juveniles by adults of their smaller cousins may have played a role in their extinction (Boessenecker et al. 2019, Herraiz et al. 2020, McCormack et al. 2022). Nevertheless, tabloid journalists love to speculate that megalodon might still be around (e.g., O’Toole 2022), which of course is total nonsense.

Sharks (and/or stem chondrichthyans) appear very early in the history of vertebrate animals about 455 million years ago (Sansom & Smith 1996, Sansom et al. 2012, Davis 2020). Many fossil sharks are only known from their teeth, because these teeth are replaced in their revolver-like jaws and therefore often make it to the sea floor, where they can become embedded in sediments. Unfortunately, our knowledge of megalodon rests mostly on the giant teeth as well, with the exception of a single vertebral column and a chondrocranium (Cooper et al. 2022).

Sharks possess many remarkable biological features, of which some clearly point to intelligent design, such as their complex olfactory and electromagnetic sense organs. The latter are situated on and around their snouts and are called ampullae of Lorenzini (Bellono et al. 2017, Weiler 2017). The discovery of this electromagnetic sense by Adrianus Kalmjin is a fascinating story (Shiffman 2022). A recent study revealed further secrets, such as the fact that sharks only use these organs to find prey, while the related skates and rays also use them for electric communication (Weiler 2018). For more information on evidence for intelligent design in marine organisms like sharks and whales, I highly recommend the Illustra Media documentary Living Waters (Evolution News 2016).

References

Bellono N, Leitch D & Julius D 2017. Molecular basis of ancestral vertebrate electroreception. Nature 543, 391–396. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature21401.

Boessenecker RW, Ehret DJ, Long DJ, Churchill M, Martin E & Boessenecker SJ 2019. The Early Pliocene extinction of the mega-toothed shark Otodus megalodon: a view from the eastern North Pacific. PeerJ 7:e6088, 1–47. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.6088.

Cooper JA, Pimiento C, Ferrón HG & Benton MJ 2020. Body dimensions of the extinct giant shark Otodus megalodon: a 2D reconstruction. Scientific Reports 10:14596, 1–9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-71387-y.

Cooper JA, Hutchinson JR, Bernvi DC, Cliff G, Wilson RP, Dicken ML, Menzel J, Wroe S, Pirlo J & Pimiento C 2022. The extinct shark Otodus megalodon was a transoceanic superpredator: Inferences from 3D modeling. Science Advances 8(33), 1–13. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abm9424.

Davis J 2020. Shark evolution: a 450 million year timeline. NHM Website. https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/shark-evolution-a-450-million-year-timeline.html

Evolution News 2016. Shark Knows with Its Nose Where It Goes in the Dark. Evolution News January 12, 2016. https://evolutionnews.org/2016/01/shark_knows_wit/

Herraiz JL, Ribé J, Botella H, Martínez-Pérez C & Ferrón HG 2020. Use of nursery areas by the extinct megatooth shark Otodus megalodon (Chondrichthyes: Lamniformes). Biology Letters 16(11):20200746, 1–7. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0746.

McCormack J, Griffiths ML, Kim SL et al. 2022. Trophic position of Otodus megalodon and great white sharks through time revealed by zinc isotopes. Nature Communications 13:2980, 1–10. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30528-9.

O’Toole S 2022. Terrifying sighting of huge shark sparks debate about if megalodons still exist. Mirror May 14, 2022. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/terrifying-sighting-huge-shark-sparks-26921012

Sansom IJ & Smith MM & Smith MP 1996. Scales of thelodont and shark-like fishes from the Ordovician of Colorado. Nature 379(6566), 628–630. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/379628a0.

Sansom IJ, Davies NS, Coates MI, Nicoll RS & Ritchie A 2012. Chondrichthyan-like scales from the Middle Ordovician of Australia. Palaeontology 55(2), 243–247.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4983.2012.01127.x.

Shiffman DS 2022. The Discovery of the Shark’s Electric Sense. American Scientist 110(3), 152. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1511/2022.110.3.152.

Shimada K 2019. The size of the megatooth shark, Otodus megalodon (Lamniformes: Otodontidae), revisited. Historical Biology 33(7), 904–911. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/08912963.2019.1666840.

Weiler N 2017. Study Shows How Skates, Rays and Sharks Sense Electrical Fields. UCSF March 6, 2017. https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2017/03/405996/study-shows-how-skates-rays-and-sharks-sense-electrical-fields

Weiler N 2018. Electric ‘Sixth Sense’ Evolved Differently in Sharks and Skates. UCSF May 31, 2018. https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2018/05/410601/electric-sixth-sense-evolved-differently-sharks-and-skates.

Young's literal translation: a brief history.

 Young's Literal Translation 

Young's Literal Translation (YLT) is a translation of the Bible into English, published in 1862. The translation was made by Robert Young, compiler of Young's Analytical Concordance to the Bible and Concise Critical Comments on the New Testament. Young used the Textus Receptus (TR) and the Masoretic Text (MT) as the basis for his translation. He wrote in the preface to the first edition, "It has been no part of the Translator's plan to attempt to form a New Hebrew or Greek Text—he has therefore somewhat rigidly adhered to the received ones."[1] Young produced a "Revised Version" of his translation in 1887, but he stuck with the Received Text. He wrote in the preface to the Revised Edition, "The Greek Text followed is that generally recognized as the 'Received Text,' not because it is thought perfect, but because the department of Translation is quite distinct from that of textual criticism, and few are qualified for both. If the original text be altered by a translator, (except he give his reasons for and against each emendation,) the reader is left in uncertainty whether the translation given is to be considered as that of the old or of the new reading."[1] A new Revised Edition was released ten years after Robert Young's death on October 14, 1888. The 1898 version was based on the TR, easily confirmed by the word "bathe" in Revelation 1:5 and the word "again" in Revelation 20:5. The "Publishers' Note to the Third Edition" explains, "The work has been subjected to a fresh revision, making no alteration on the principles on which the Translation proceeds, but endeavouring to make it as nearly perfect in point of accuracy on its present lines as possible."[1] 

Full name

1st ed.: The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Covenants, Literally and Idiomatically Translated out of the Original Languages 3rd ed.: The Holy Bible, Consisting of the Old and New Covenants, Translated According to the Letter and Idioms of the Original Languages.

Abbreviation

YLT

Complete Bible

published

1862

Translation type

literal

Copyright

Public domain

The New World translation: a brief history.

 New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures 

The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT) is a translation of the Bible published by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. The New Testament portion was released in 1950,[8][9] as The New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures, with the complete Bible released in 1961;[10][11] it is used and distributed by Jehovah's Witnesses.[12][13] Though it is not the first Bible to be published by the group, it is their first original translation of ancient Biblical Hebrew, Koine Greek, and Old Aramaic biblical texts.[14] As of March 2, 2020, the Watch Tower Society has published more than 220 million copies of the New World Translation in whole or in part in 200 languages.[6][1] Though commentators have said a scholarly effort went into the translation, critics have described it as biased.[15]