It still looks like engineering because it still is II

Steve Laufmann: Is Biology Engineering? 

Evolution News 

On a classic ID the Future episode, systems engineer Steve Laufmann joins host Tod Butterfield to discuss an article he wrote for Evolution News in which he spotlights how biology is becoming increasingly engineering-centric. Laufmann describes how his work as a systems engineer relates to the red hot field of systems biology, the significance of the fact that “the value of the system as a whole is derived largely from the relationship of the parts,” and the extreme improbability of a well-engineered biological system of systems assembling by way of purely blind processes. Laufmann is author, with physician Howard Glicksman, of the groundbreaking new book, Your designed body 

DOWNLOAD THE PODCAST OR LISTEN TO IT HERE

 

The Catholic reformatíon :a brief history.

 The Catholic reformatíon.

Wikipedia

The Counter-Reformation (Latin: Contrareformatio), also called the Catholic Reformation (Latin: Reformatio Catholica) or the Catholic Revival,[1] was the period of Catholic resurgence that was initiated in response to the Protestant Reformation. It began with the Council of Trent (1545–1563) and largely ended with the conclusion of the European wars of religion in 1648.[citation needed] Initiated to address the effects of the Protestant Reformation,[citation needed] the Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort composed of apologetic and polemical documents and ecclesiastical configuration as decreed by the Council of Trent. The last of these included the efforts of Imperial Diets of the Holy Roman Empire, heresy trials and the Inquisition, anti-corruption efforts, spiritual movements, and the founding of new religious orders. Such policies had long-lasting effects in European history with exiles of Protestants continuing until the 1781 Patent of Toleration, although smaller expulsions took place in the 19th century.[2] 

Such reforms included the foundation of seminaries for the proper training of priests in the spiritual life and the theological traditions of the Church, the reform of religious life by returning orders to their spiritual foundations, and new spiritual movements focusing on the devotional life and a personal relationship with Christ, including the Spanish mystics and the French school of spirituality.[1] It also involved political activities that included the Spanish Inquisition and the Portuguese Inquisition in Goa and Bombay-Bassein etc. A primary emphasis of the Counter-Reformation was a mission to reach parts of the world that had been colonized as predominantly Catholic and also try to reconvert nations such as Sweden and England that once were Catholic from the time of the Christianisation of Europe, but had been lost to the Reformation.[1] Various Counter-Reformation theologians focused only on defending doctrinal positions such as the sacraments and pious practices that were attacked by the Protestant reformers,[1] up to the Second Vatican Council in 1962–1965.[3]

Key events of the period include: the Council of Trent (1545–63); the excommunication of Elizabeth I (1570), the codification of the uniform Roman Rite Mass (1570), and the Battle of Lepanto (1571), occurring during the pontificate of Pius V; the construction of the Gregorian observatory in Rome, the founding of the Gregorian University, the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, and the Jesuit China mission of Matteo Ricci, all under Pope Gregory XIII (r. 1572–1585); the French Wars of Religion; the Long Turkish War and the execution of Giordano Bruno in 1600, under Pope Clement VIII; the birth of the Lyncean Academy of the Papal States, of which the main figure was Galileo Galilei (later put on trial); the final phases of the Thirty Years' War (1618–48) during the pontificates of Urban VIII and Innocent X; and the formation of the last Holy League by Innocent XI during the Great Turkish War (1683–1699).[

The protestant reformation: a brief history.

Reformation 

Wikipedia 

The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation)[1] was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in particular to papal authority, arising from what were perceived to be errors, abuses, and discrepancies by the Catholic Church. The Reformation was the start of Protestantism and the split of the Western Church into Protestantism and what is now the Roman Catholic Church. It is also considered to be one of the events that signified the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the early modern period in Europe.[2] 

Prior to Martin Luther, there were many earlier reform movements. Although the Reformation is usually considered to have started with the publication of the Ninety-five Theses by Martin Luther in 1517, he was not excommunicated by Pope Leo X until January 1521. The Diet of Worms of May 1521 condemned Luther and officially banned citizens of the Holy Roman Empire from defending or propagating his ideas.[3] The spread of Gutenberg's printing press provided the means for the rapid dissemination of religious materials in the vernacular. Luther survived after being declared an outlaw due to the protection of Elector Frederick the Wise. The initial movement in Germany diversified, and other reformers such as Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin arose. In general, the Reformers argued that salvation in Christianity was a completed status based on faith in Jesus alone and not a process that requires good works, as in the Catholic view. Key events of the period include: Diet of Worms (1521), formation of the Lutheran Duchy of Prussia (1525), English Reformation (1529 onwards), the Council of Trent (1545–63), the Peace of Augsburg (1555), the excommunication of Elizabeth I (1570), Edict of Nantes (1598) and Peace of Westphalia (1648). The Counter-Reformation, also called the Catholic Reformation or the Catholic Revival, was the period of Catholic reforms initiated in response to the Protestant Reformation.[4] The end of the Reformation era is disputed among modern scholars. 

Darwinism's failure as a predictive model X

 Darwinism's predictions 

In the 1960s molecular biologists learned how to analyze protein molecules and determine the sequence of amino acids that comprise a protein. It was then discovered that a given protein molecule varies somewhat from species to species. For example, hemoglobin, a blood protein, has similar function, overall size and structure in different species. But its amino acid sequence varies from species to species. Emile Zuckerkandl and Linus Pauling reasoned that if such sequence differences were the result of evolutionary change occurring over the history of life, then they could be used to estimate past speciation events—a notion that became known as the molecular clock. (Zuckerkandl and Pauling)

In later decades this concept of a molecular clock, relying on the assumption of a roughly constant rate of molecular evolution, became fundamental in evolutionary biology. (Thomas, et. al.) As the National Academy of Sciences explained, the molecular clock “determines evolutionary relationships among organisms, and it indicates the time in the past when species started to diverge from one another.” (Science and Creationism, 3) Indeed the molecular clock has been extolled as strong evidence for evolution and, in fact, a common sentiment has been that evolution was required to explain these evidences. As a leading molecular evolutionist wrote, the molecular clock is “only comprehensible within an evolutionary framework.” (Jukes, 119, emphasis in original)

The claim that the molecular clock can only be explained by evolution is, however, now a moot point as the mounting evidence shows that molecular differences often do not fit the expected pattern. The molecular clock which evolutionists had envisioned does not exist. The literature is full of instances where the molecular clock concept fails. For example, it was found early on that different types of proteins must evolve at very different rates if there is a molecular clock. For example the fibrinopeptide proteins in various species must have evolved more than five hundred times faster than the histone IV protein. Furthermore, it was found that the evolutionary rate of certain proteins must vary significantly over time, between different species, and between different lineages. (Thomas, et. al.; Andrews, 28)

The proteins relaxin, superoxide dismutase (SOD) and the glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GPDH), for example, all contradict the molecular clock prediction. On the one hand, SOD unexpectedly shows much greater variation between similar types of fruit flies than it does between very different organisms such as animals and plants. On the other hand GPDH shows roughly the reverse trend for the same species. As one scientist concluded, GPDH and SOD taken together leave us “with no predictive power and no clock proper.” (Ayala)

Evolutionists are finding growing evidence that the purported rates of molecular evolution must vary considerably between species for a wide range of taxa, including mammals, arthropods, vascular plants, and even between closely related lineages. As one study concluded, “The false assumption of a molecular clock when reconstructing molecular phylogenies can result in incorrect topology and biased date estimation. … This study shows that there is significant rate variation in all phyla and most genes examined …” (Thomas, et. al.)

Evolutionists continue to use the molecular clock concept, but the many correction factors highlight the fact that the sequence data are being fit to the theory rather than the other way around. As one evolutionist warned, “It seems disconcerting that many exceptions exist to the orderly progression of species as determined by molecular homologies; so many in fact that I think the exception, the quirks, may carry the more important message.” (Schwabe) 

References 

Andrews, Peter. 1987. “Aspects of hominoid phylogeny” in Molecules and Morphology in Evolution, ed. Colin Patterson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ayala, F. 1999. “Molecular clock mirages.” BioEssays 21:71-75.

Jukes, Thomas. 1983. “Molecular evidence for evolution” in: Scientists Confront Creationism, ed. Laurie Godfrey. New York: W. W. Norton.

Schwabe, C. 1986. “On the validity of molecular evolution.” Trends in Biochemical Sciences 11:280-282.

Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences. 2d ed. 1999. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Thomas, J. A., J. J. Welch, M. Woolfit, L. Bromham. 2006. “There is no universal molecular clock for invertebrates, but rate variation does not scale with body size.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103:7366-7371.

Zuckerkandl, E., L. Pauling. 1965. “Molecules as documents of evolutionary history.” J Theoretical Biology 8:357-366.