"He will guard the feet of his faithful servants,
but the wicked will be silenced in the place of darkness.
“It is not by strength that one prevails;"
1Samuel chapter 2 verse 9 New International Version.
Tuesday 31 October 2023
High noon for OOL Science's gatekeepers.
On Origin of Life, Chemist James Tour Has Successfully Called These Researchers’ Bluff
David Klinghoffer and Tova Forman previously wrote about Rice University chemist James Tour’s 60-day challenge to leading origin-of-life researchers to demonstrate that the field had substantively advanced in the past seventy years (here,here). Tour offered to remove all his videos on the topic if three leading experts agreed that any of five fundamental problems had been solved:
Linking of amino acids into chains (aka polypeptides)
Linking of nucleotides into RNA molecules
Linking of simple sugars (aka monosaccharides) into chains known as polysaccharides
Origin of biological information
Assembly of components into a cell
Tour issued this challenge in response to the many false claims made by YouTubers, such as Dave Farina, about how these hurdles to life’s origin had been fully addressed. The deadline has expired, and no one has presented solutions to any of the problems.
The Rules
For the first three problems, Tour allowed origin-of-life researchers to assume a chemical mixture started with amino acids, nucleotides, or sugars with the same handedness (aka enantiomerically pure). For instance, all the amino acids were left-handed as required in modern proteins. For the first problem, participants needed to detail how chains of just two amino acids — aspartic acid and lysine — could have formed with the correct bonds. For the second problem, proposed solutions needed to describe how nucleotides could have linked into chains with less than 2 percent of the wrong linkages. And for the third, proposals needed to explain how molecules of the simple sugar glucose could have properly joined in high yields.
For the fourth problem, researchers could assume that the first three challenges had been solved. They only needed to explain how amino acids, nucleotides, or simple sugars could have linked together in the correct order to contain the required functional information to perform some biologically relevant task. For the fifth problem, researchers could assume that all cellular components were available in abundance. They only needed to explain how the biological building blocks could have assembled into a functional cell. Proposed solutions for all the problems had to rely only on chemistry that could have occurred on the early Earth.
The implications of failure
The failure of any origin-of-life expert to propose a solution to even one of the five problems has dire implications for the field. Tour allowed origins researchers to assume unrealistically favorable starting conditions. The hurdles are collosal for life’s constituent molecules to form in sufficiently high concentrations and purities to allow for even the slightest possibility of their linking into proteins, RNA, or complex polysaccharides (here, here). In addition, any cellular component that formed on the early Earth would have decomposed long before finding its way to the staging ground for an aspiring cell. Consequently, even if every problem were fully solved, life’s genesis would still face the insurmountable hurdle of transporting the components of life to the same microscopic environment.
YouTubers and other defenders of the secular faith of scientific materialism have confidently asserted that scientists are steadily unraveling the mystery of life’s origin. Yet Tour called on leading experts to demonstrate whether they had achieved any real progress in answering any of the most fundamental questions. None could rise to the challenge.
At some point, both the scientific community and the public will need to recognize that the lack of progress cannot be explained by a lack of serious effort by highly competent scientists but by the philosophical assumptions blinding them from seeing the truth staring them in the face. The answer to life’s origin does not reside in the fields of physics and chemistry but in the mind behind our universe.
Monday 30 October 2023
Isaiah ch.58 New International Version
“Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
2For day after day they seek me out;
they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
and seem eager for God to come near them.
3‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?’
“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.
4Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.
5Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD?
6“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness a will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
9Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
11The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
12Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
13“If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath
and from doing as you please on my holy day,
if you call the Sabbath a delight
and the LORD'S holy day honorable,
and if you honor it by not going your own way
and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,
14then you will find your joy in the LORD,
and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land
and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.”
The mouth of the LORD has spoken.
Necessity and chance can't bring us truth,beauty and goodness?
Why Scientific Materialism Is No Match for Truth, Beauty, and Goodness
Is the world a good place? Is truth relative? Can beauty be defined? On a classic episode of ID the Future, host David Klinghoffer speaks with biologist Dr. Ann Gauger, a Senior Fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, about her article “The Transcendental Treasury of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness” for Evolution News.
These abstract concepts don’t derive from the material world, yet we feel impoverished without them; they’re foundations of a life worth living. Truth, says Klinghoffer, has fallen on hard times these days. Gauger calls truth a correspondence with reality and says we must have it to thrive. “Truth is essential for our lives,” says Gauger. “We can’t function in a society that isn’t based on truths. It’s destructive to families, it’s destructive to the culture, it’s destructive to political action.” Materialistic evolutionary explanations for truth, beauty, and goodness are out there, but they fall flat upon closer inspection. Some of them even reduce these qualities to mere illusion. Gauger holds that truth, beauty, and goodness are hallmarks of a designed world. Meditating on them can promote a spirit of gratitude, an important part of a healthy, happy life. Download the podcast or listen to it here.
No one is safe.
BREAKING NEWS | Explosion at Convention in India
On Sunday, October 29, 2023, at least two bombs exploded at the regional convention held in Kerala, India. The incident occurred just after the opening prayer.
According to initial reports, two of our sisters were killed. At least 55 individuals were injured. There were over 2,200 people in attendance. The police are currently investigating the situation. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by this tragedy.—Psalm 9:9.
Ps. Luke ch.9:24NIV"For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it."
It's ID all the way up?
Intelligent Design at High Altitudes
Jay Storz at the University of Nebraska was hiking with colleagues on one of the most godforsaken habitats on the planet: windswept, low-oxygen volcanic peaks in Argentina. It was like exploring Mars. That was until they found carcasses of mummified mice beside a rock pile. How did they get there? It’s freezing. There’s no food. There’s no water. Everywhere one looks there is only bare rock. Phys.org quotes Dr. Storz:
Well-trained mountain climbers can tolerate such extreme elevations during a one-day summit attempt, but the fact that mice are actually living at such elevations demonstrates that we have underestimated the physiological tolerances of small mammals.”
Once they knew what to look for, they found over a dozen other mice remains on 18 summits above 6,000 meters (19,500 feet). Radiocarbon dating showed they had died within the last few hundred years.
The evidence indicated that the mice were not one-day visitors scampering up for the view but were members of populations thriving at that elevation.
“The discovery of the mouse mummies on the summits of these freezing, wind-scoured volcano summits was a huge surprise,” Storz says. “In combination with our live-capture records of mice on the summits and flanks of other high elevation Andean volcanoes, we are amassing more and more evidence that there are long-term resident populations of mice living at extreme elevations.”
A Personal Experience
It reminded me of a personal experience (pictured above) at a lower elevation that was near my limit: the 14,500-foot summit of California’s Mount Whitney, highest peak in the contiguous 48 states. I can only imagine the difficulty hiking up another 5,000 feet in the Andes. Gasping for air every 20 steps or so as I forced myself to the top of my unimpressive peak-bagging record, I was greeted by eager marmots and birds looking for handouts like they were on a picnic.
The finding now raises important questions, including how mammals can live in a barren world of rock, ice, and snow where the temperatures are never above freezing, and there is roughly half the oxygen available at sea level. It’s not clear why the mice would have climbed to such heights.
The paper by Storz and colleagues in Current Biology doesn’t mention evolution or natural selection. Genetic tests on the mice, identified as members of Phyllotis vaccarum, did not indicate any noteworthy differences from the populations that live at lower elevations.
Average genome-wide pairwise nucleotide diversity for the total sample of mice was typical for natural populations of rodents (π = 0.42%). After filtering our dataset to 42 mice, excluding two closely related individuals, we confirmed that the summit mice exhibited close affinities to the Phyllotis vaccarum reference genome and other live-trapped specimens of P. vaccarum from lower elevations on the flanks of the same volcanoes and in the surrounding Altiplano (Figure 1B,C). Results of a model-based clustering analysis revealed very low population structure in the total sample, as proportional assignments of ancestry to genetically defined clusters were similar for mice from all localities (Figure 1B). A principal component analysis of genomic variation also revealed low levels of population structure across the surveyed region, as PC1 and PC2 explained only 6.94% and 2.36% of total variation, respectively, and the patterning of variation did not distinguish the set of summit mice from mice collected at less extreme elevations in the surrounding region
Conclusion: scientists had underestimated the adaptability of small mammals to extreme elevations. “Such extreme elevations were previously assumed to be completely uninhabitable by mammals,” they said. The results “challenge assumptions about the environmental limits of vertebrate life and the physiological tolerances of small mammals.”
High-Altitude Humans
A large team of 22 mostly Italian researchers, publishing by the bioRxiv preprint server, discusses their opinions on how “Convergent evolution of complex adaptive traits enabled human life at high altitudes.” As a side anecdote, one of the authors, a member of the Mount Everest Summiters Club in Nepal, has the listed surname “Sherpa” — the word indicating those noble but underappreciated guides who help flatlanders carry their packs up the highest mountains on Earth. They trot around on those trails like it’s a walk in the park.
This team does invoke evolutionary theory. They looked for genetic clues of adaptation by natural selection for people groups who live at high elevations.
Convergent adaptations represent paradigmatic examples of the capacity of natural selection to influence organisms’ biology. However, the possibility to investigate genetic determinants underpinning convergent complex adaptive traits has been offered only recently by methods for inferring polygenic adaptations from genomic data. Relying on this approach, we demonstrate how high-altitude Andean human groups experienced pervasive selective events at angiogenic pathways, which resemble those previously attested for Himalayan populations despite partial convergence at the single-gene level was observed. This provides unprecedented evidence for the drivers of convergent evolution of enhanced blood perfusion in populations exposed to hypobaric hypoxia for thousands of years.
Note to the Authors
The people groups in the study are all members of Homo sapiens. They are fully human, interfertile members of humankind.
In conclusion, the obtained results highlighted polygenic mechanisms mediated by adaptive evolution of several focal adhesion genes as the possible drivers of enhanced angiogenesis and oxygen transport in Andean human groups similarly to what previously observed in Tibetan/Sherpa populations, thus providing unprecedented evidence for the molecular bases of their convergent adaptation to hypobaric hypoxia.
While it may be interesting to compare genomes between mountaineers and flatlanders, nothing in the data requires a Darwinian interpretation. They could only say that certain genes were “possible drivers” of angiogenesis and oxygen transport in the mountaineers. Note the level of speculation in their previous paragraph:
Interestingly, LAMA1/2/3, COL1A2/2A1/4A2, and ITGA2/4/8/11 have been previously found to participate to gene networks targeted by natural selection in Tibetan and Sherpa populations. Such an incomplete genetic convergence between Andean and Himalayan high-altitude peoples is not unexpected within the framework of an evolutionary scenario largely characterized by polygenic adaptive events, in which single loci play a negligible role with respect to their overall synergic interactions. Nevertheless, we provided evidence for the same biological functions/pathways (i.e., those related to angiogenetic processes) having adaptively evolved in both the considered populations, plausibly in response to the selective pressure imposed by hypobaric hypoxia. The identified genetic signatures might indeed contribute to the increase in the density of blood vessels that results in an improved blood flow and oxygen delivery to tissues despite the hypoxic stress, which is an adaptive trait qualitatively (but not quantitatively) similar between Andean and Himalayan groups (Gnecchi-Ruscone et al., 2018; Sharma et al., 2022; Wu et al., 2022). In fact, such a trait appears to be more enhanced and generalized in Tibetan/Sherpa populations with respect to Andean ones, being especially limited to improved uterine artery blood flow during pregnancy in the latter groups (Beall, 2007; Julian & Moore, 2019). The fact that several of the adaptive loci identified in the present study (e.g., PTK2, VEGFA, PDGFA, and PDGFD) play a pivotal role in the development of vascular tissue specifically in placenta and embryo, and thus in the establishment of efficient maternal-fetal circulation (Shen et al., 2005; Adams & Alitalo, 2007; Khankin & Karumanchi, 2010; Russell et al., 2019), seems to support such an observation. Moreover, it might suggest that natural selection succeeded in optimizing angiogenesis in Andean individuals mainly in early life and/or at the reproductive stage, thus leading to improved fetal development during intrauterine life (e.g., in terms of maturation of the respiratory system), which represents a key aspect to reduce neonatal mortality at high altitudes where efficiency of respiratory functions is crucial to ensure the individual’s survival.
Might” Does Not Make Right
How many babies had to die in the womb before the essential genes to survive hypobaric hypoxia mutated in lucky zygotes to allow them to tolerate the thin air? How many mothers and fathers needed the same mutations? How many adults perished waiting for the beneficial mutations to become fixed in the population? (This is called “the cost of selection” in the literature.)
To follow their example of “possibilities” and “suggestions” in scientific explanation, let’s suggest the possibility that early mountain climbers used their human reason to evaluate all the funerals in the high-altitude camp, concluding, “You know, this was a bad idea. Let’s go back to the coast.”
The engineering model of adaptation being developed by the design community looks at the observable genetic variations differently. Rather than depending on lucky cosmic rays to turn genes into super angiogenesis machines and oxygen transport systems, they identify built-in mechanisms that receive signals from the environment and switch on internal controls that respond to the conditions. Heritable adaptations by epigenetic processes could occur quickly, because they are driven not by random mutations but by foresight and intention in their engineered design.
Moreover, design advocates are not surprised by seeing organisms that are over-engineered for survival, like the mountain mice and the Nepal sherpas. Darwinism has a problem with over-engineered things since it cannot see past the immediate present. We can make this prediction for design theory: fewer human mummies in the Himalayas with desperate expressions on their faces, waiting for the lucky mutations to arrive.
Letting scripture interpret scripture..
John ch.6:44NKJV"No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. "
Some claim to see in this text support for the doctrine of eternal exhaustive predeterminism . But why not let the scriptures speak for themselves though.
Luke ch.11:9,10NIV"“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10For EVERYONE who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened."
Acts ch.17:27NKJV"so that they should seek the Lord, in the HOPE that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;"
Of course if all outcomes are exhaustively predetermined from infinity there is no hope for and God is far away from most of us having doomed us from infinity.
Why do some ask and not receive though?
James ch.4:3NIV"When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."
Are you seeking a knowledge of objective spiritual truth or vindication of pre-conceived biases?
Is God a genie who grants desires? Or a wise instructor from which to receive needed correction and a compassionate Father who provides needed discipline?
Psalms Ch.141NKJV"Let the righteous strike me;
It shall be a kindness.
And let him rebuke me;
It shall be as excellent oil;
Let my head not refuse it.
For still my prayer is against the deeds of the wicked."
Sunday 29 October 2023
Genesis chapter four New International Version.
Adam a made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. b She said, “With the help of the LORD I have brought forth c a man.” 2Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.
Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. 3In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. 4And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
6Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”
8Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” d While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
9Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
10The LORD said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. 11Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”
13Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is more than I can bear. 14Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”
15But the LORD said to him, “Not so e ; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16So Cain went out from the LORD'S presence and lived in the land of Nod, f east of Eden.
17Cain made love to his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch. 18To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad was the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael was the father of Methushael, and Methushael was the father of Lamech.
19Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah. 20Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. 21His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all who play stringed instruments and pipes. 22Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of g bronze and iron. Tubal-Cain’s sister was Naamah.
23Lamech said to his wives,
“Adah and Zillah, listen to me;
wives of Lamech, hear my words.
I have killed a man for wounding me,
a young man for injuring me.
24If Cain is avenged seven times,
then Lamech seventy-seven times.”
25Adam made love to his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, h saying, “GOD has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.” 26Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh.
At that time people began to call on i the name of the LORD.
World atlas on the unChristian cross
The Christian cross is regarded as the primary symbol of the Christian religion. The cross is a symbol of the instrument of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. In Christianity, a crucifix is a cross with a three-dimensional representation of the body of Christ. The two most common forms of crosses present in the Christian religion are the Greek cross and the Latin cross.
The Pre-Christian Cross
A vast body of evidence shows that the cross was used centuries before the birth of Christianity. The cross is thought to have originated from the ancient Babylonians before its spread to other parts of the world such as Syria, Egypt, Greek, Latin, India, and Mexico. The pre-Christian cross was used as a religious symbol and as an ornament among the Egyptians, Syrians, Greeks, Persians, Europeans, and in some parts of Africa. There was, therefore, universal use of the pre-Christian cross. In many cases, its use was usually connected to some form of worship.
The pre-Christian cross existed in two forms; the tau cross and the svastika or fylfot cross. The tau cross resembles the Greek capital letter T. On the other hand, the fylfot cross resembles four Greek capital letter G's placed together. The tau cross was initially used among the pagans. It was later adopted by the Christians in Egypt where its use became common. For this reason, the tau cross is sometimes referred to as the Egyptian cross.
Evidence of the use of the cross centuries before the coming of Christ can be seen in British Museum on the effigy of King Samsi-Vul of Assyria. Besides, goddess Diana of the ancient Greeks is portrayed with a cross in a way that resembles how Virgin Mary is portrayed in statues by artists.
History Of The Christian Cross
The Christian cross as a Christian symbol has its roots in ancient paganism. The use of the Christian cross as a Christian symbol began after the time of the Constantine, which occurred three centuries after the coming of Christ. The crucifixion and death of Jesus on the cross conferred a new significance to the use of the cross in Christianity. Before the death of Jesus on the cross, the cross was used privately among Christians. Its purpose was restricted. After the Constantine, the use of the cross was acknowledged as a symbol of Christianity.
Modern Usage Of The Christian Cross
Today, the use of the cross as a Christian symbol in practiced universally. Churches, both Catholic and Protestant have crosses placed, carved, or drawn on the doors, windows, tops, and walls of their church buildings. Many Christians all over the world wear the cross on their necklaces, bracelets, rings, items of clothing, and key chains. Besides, many Christians, especially Catholics, make the sign of the cross during worship. When making the sign, the people touch their forehead, chest, and then each shoulder. Many believe that the sign of the cross is effective in protecting them from harm and driving away evil spirits.
The throne of the beast.
Luke ch.4:5,6NIV"The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. "
Of course if there was no truth to Satan's claims then this offer would be no test of the our Lord's loyalty to his Lord i.e JEHOVAH God.
This why the sincere truthseeker must make a clean break with politics and nationalism if he is serious about attaining an intimate relationship with the one true God.
Revelation ch.13:2-4NIV"The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. 3One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast. 4People worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it?”"
There is a reason why this visionary beast is an amalgam of the beasts in Daniel's prophecy see Daniel ch.7. It demonstrates that any first century fulfillments of Daniel's prophecy were merely tokens of larger more complete fulfillment to come. And also it alerts JEHOVAH'S People of JEHOVAH'S judgement against the bloodstained global political elite and its enablers and aspirants. Of course JEHOVAH Needs NO human help in dealing with his enemies thus any religiopolitical faction that teaches and behaves as if he does. Whether it claims to be Christian or not makes itself liable to the Judgement upon the "beast".
Revelation ch.13:8-10NKJV"All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
9If anyone has an ear, let him hear. 10He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity; he who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the [e]patience and the faith of the saints."
Saturday 28 October 2023
A robust case for design II.
Understanding the Biochemistry — and Intelligent Design — of Muscle Contraction
In an article yesterday, I gave a short overview of the arrangement and structure of muscles. Here, I will describe the biochemistry of muscle contraction. Readers may find it slightly easier to follow the discussion that follows by first viewing this short animation, which describes the sliding filament model of muscle contraction.
The Structure of a Muscle Fiber
previously noted that muscles contain thousands of cylindrical cells called muscle fibers, or myocytes. The motor neuron terminates at the muscle fiber’s neuromuscular junction. The tip of the motor neuron is known as the axon terminal, and it contains sacs of acetylcholine, an important neurotransmitter involved in muscle contraction. The muscle fiber also has a membrane called the sarcolemma, containing acetylcholine receptor sites, in addition to an inactivator called cholinesterase. The small space between the sarcolemma and axon terminal is called the synapse, or synaptic cleft.
The muscle fiber contains thousands of individual contracting units known as sarcomeres. These are organized end-to-end in cylinders known as myofibrils. In the center of the sarcomere are thick filaments comprised predominantly of the protein myosin, and thin filaments containing actin can be found at the ends, attached to the end boundaries of the sarcomere (known as the Z discs) by the protein titin. The structure of the muscle fiber is shown in the figure below:
Muscle contraction is driven by two contractile proteins — myosin and actin. Each myosin molecule consists of a long tail and a globular head. Myosin heads have ATPase activity, which allows them to hydrolyze ATP to generate energy for muscle contraction. Myosin heads also have binding sites for actin and ATP. Actin has binding sites for myosin heads. However, these binding sites are typically covered by two inhibitory proteins known as tropomyosin and troponin when the muscle is relaxed. These inhibitory proteins prevent the sliding of myosin and actin during relaxation of the muscle fiber.
The sarcomeres are surrounded by the sarcoplasmic reticulum (the muscular equivalent of the endoplasmic reticulum), which serves as a reservoir of calcium ions (Ca2+). As we shall see, Ca2+ ions are required for muscle contraction.
Polarization of the Sarcolemma
When a muscle fiber is in a state of relaxation, the sarcolemma has a resting potential, or is said to be polarized. This refers to the difference in electrical charges between the inside and outside. When the sarcolemma is polarized, there is a positive charge outside relative to the negatively charged inside. There is a greater concentration of sodium ions (Na+) outside the cell and a greater concentration of potassium ions (K+) and negative ions inside the cell.
Because of the concentration gradient, the Na+ ions tend to diffuse into the cell and the K+ ions tend to diffuse outside. These are actively transported back out and in respectively by the sodium and potassium pumps, which depend upon ATP to maintain polarization and muscle relaxation until a change is stimulated by a nerve impulse.
Depolarization of the Sarcolemma
The first step in muscle contraction is the arrival of a nerve impulse at the axon terminal, stimulating the release of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. The acetylcholine diffuses across the synapse and binds to acetylcholine receptors on the sarcolemma. This renders the sarcolemma extremely permeable to Na+ ions, which rapidly enter the cell. This reverses the charges such that there is now a positive charge on the inside of the sarcolemma relative to the outside. This charge reversal is known as depolarization.
Inward folds on the sarcolemma known as transverse tubules (or, T tubules) carry this electrical impulse (referred to as an action potential) to the interior of the muscle cell. Depolarization triggers the release of Ca2+ ions from the sarcoplasmic reticulum. These bind to the troponin-tropomyosin complex, moving it away from the actin filaments.
The Sliding Filament
With the binding sites on actin now available, actin can be bound by the myosin heads, forming cross-bridges. Once the cross-bridges are formed, the myosin heads pivot, pulling the thin filaments towards the center of the sarcomere. This action is called the power stroke and is powered by the energy released when ATP is hydrolyzed. After the power stroke, the myosin heads require ATP to detach from actin. ATP is hydrolyzed into ADP and inorganic phosphate, which energizes the myosin head for the next cycle.
The cycle of cross-bridge formation, power stroke, ATP hydrolysis, and detachment repeats as long as calcium ions are present and ATP is available. This results in the shortening of the sarcomere and, collectively, the entire muscle fiber. This leads to muscle contraction. The force generated by many muscle fibers contracting in unison allows for body movement. The sliding filament model is graphically summarized in the figure below:
Repolarization
Muscle relaxation occurs when the electrical stimulation ceases — resulting in the ionic concentrations inside and outside the cell returning to their resting state. To restore the resting-membrane potential, the Na+ and K+ pumps actively transport sodium ions out of the cell while bringing potassium ions back into the cell. This returns the membrane potential to its polarized, negative resting state, typically around -90mV for muscle cells. Repolarization results in the myosin heads releasing their grip on actin, and calcium ions are actively transported back into the sarcoplasmic reticulum, causing muscle relaxation.
Evidence of Design
As should be apparent from the forgoing discussion, muscle contraction — which we so easily take for granted — is an incredibly complex and elegant process, involving incredible engineering and design. The process of muscle contraction and relaxation requires the coordinated action of actin, myosin, troponin, tropomyosin, acetyl choline, ion channels, and much more. To contend that the phenomenon of muscle contraction arose through a blind and undirected process, one tiny Darwinian step after the other, seems to me to strain credulity.
A robust case for design.
The Incredible Design of Muscles
Muscle is one of the most fundamental of animal tissues. It is muscles that animate our bodies — allowing us to move, stand upright, breathe, and even speak. Muscles are precisely the sort of thing that we might expect a designer of embodied intelligent beings to produce. At the very least, on the supposition of intelligent design, the existence of muscles is not particularly surprising. But how surprising is the existence of muscles under the perspective of naturalism?
The number of muscles in the human body exceeds six hundred. The majority are attached by tendons to the skeleton — their primary purpose being to move the skeleton. When skeletal muscles contract, they shorten and pull the bone. The contraction of muscles also generates heat, which contributes to the maintenance of our core body temperature. The muscular system is unable to perform its job of animating the skeleton without assistance from the nervous, respiratory, and circulatory systems. The electrochemical impulses that drive muscle contraction are transmitted by motor neurons (the nervous system). Muscle cells contain many mitochondria, which perform cellular respiration, generating the ATP needed for contraction. This depends critically on the exchange of the gases oxygen and carbon dioxide between the blood and air by means of the respiratory system. The oxygen is brought to the muscles, and carbon dioxide removed, by means of the circulatory system. Thus, a tremendous amount of functional integration is required for muscle contraction to work.
In a series of two articles, I will summarize the incredible design of muscles that allows them to fulfil their function. In the first part, we shall review the structure and arrangements of muscles, as well as muscle tone and sense. In a second article, I shall explain the fascinating biochemistry of muscle contraction. I hope that the reader will get a sense for how improbable all this is from the vantage of the naturalistic hypothesis. The information that follows is well established and can be found in any decent textbook on anatomy and physiology
The Structure of Muscles
Each skeletal muscle contains many thousands of cells called muscle fibers, or myocytes. The number of muscle fibers that contract depends on the task being performed. For example, picking up a book requires the contraction of more finger-flexing muscle fibers than picking up a pencil, which requires the contraction of only a small number of fibers.
The muscle fibers are organized into bundles called fascicles. These fascicles are given structural support by a connective tissue that surrounds them called the perimysium. The perimysium also protects and distributes the blood vessels and nerves that supply the muscle, in addition to facilitating the transmission of forces generated by muscle contractions. Together with the endomysium (connective tissue that surrounds individual muscle fibers) and the epimysium (connective tissue that surrounds the entire muscle), the perimysium helps to maintain the overall integrity and organization of the skeletal muscle. The structure of skeletal muscles is shown in the figure below
Having a muscular, nervous and respiratory system will do one no good, however, unless the muscles are attached to the skeleton. Muscles are attached to bones by tendons, which are tough, fibrous, connective tissues. When a muscle contracts, it generates force, which is transmitted to the bones by tendons, allowing the limb or body part to move. Tendons also provide stability to joints — acting as stabilizing elements that prevent excessive or unwanted movement, helping to maintain joint integrity during muscular contractions. Generally, a muscle possesses at least two tendons, each of them connected to a different bone. The attachment point where the muscle’s tendon connects to a less movable bone is referred to as the origin, whereas the attachment point where the muscle’s tendon connects to a more movable bone is called the insertion. When the muscle contracts, it pulls the insertion bone towards the origin, resulting in joint movement.
The Arrangement of Muscles
There are two common types of arrangements of muscles across joints and around the skeleton — namely, opposing antagonists and cooperative synergists. Antagonistic muscles are pairs of muscles that have opposite actions at a joint. One muscle in the pair is responsible for producing a specific movement, while the other has an opposing action. For example, the biceps and triceps in the upper arm are a classic example of antagonistic muscles (see the figure below).
When you flex your elbow, the biceps (located on the front of the upper arm) contract to bend the arm, while the triceps relax and lengthen. Muscles are unable to push, exerting no force when they relax. Thus, the elbow can be flexed by the biceps but cannot be extended, and thus we need another muscle called the triceps (located on the back of the upper arm). When you extend your elbow, the triceps contract and the biceps relax.
Synergistic muscles, by contrast, work together to produce the same movement at a joint. They assist the prime mover in performing a specific action, helping to stabilize the joint and provide additional force or control to the movement. For example, when you flex your elbow, the biceps are the prime mover, but other muscles (the brachialis and brachioradialis) act as synergists to assist the biceps in generating the movement. These synergistic muscles provide support and help fine-tune the motion. You might wonder why we need three muscles to carry out the same task. When your hand is positioned palm up, the prime mover (which does most of the work of flexing) is the biceps. When your hand is positioned palm down, the prime mover is the brachialis. When your hand is positioned thumb up, the prime mover is the brachioradialis. Thus, depending on the position of your forearm, different muscles can be more or less effective at generating force.
Synergists can also serve to steady or stabilize a joint, rendering it possible to make more precise movements. For example, when drinking a glass of water, the prime mover for flexing the arm is the biceps. To assist in getting the water to your mouth and not spilling it down your chin or over your shoulder, the joint is stabilized by the shoulder muscles.
Role of the Brain in Muscle Movement
he region of the brain responsible for generating the nerve impulses for movement is the frontal lobes of the cerebrum (the frontal lobes are labelled in the figure given below).
muscle fibers contract when they receive electrochemical impulses generated from the motor areas of the frontal lobes, that travel along motor neurons (grouped into nerves). A single neuron can innervate anywhere between a few to hundreds of muscle fibers, as its axon can branch extensively (this is referred to as a motor unit).
In muscles that carry out small and precise movements (such as those responsible for moving the eyes or fingers), muscles typically have small motor units (2 to 100 muscle fibers per neuron). On the other hand, muscles that have to carry out powerful rather than precise movements (for example, the large muscles of the hips and legs) have hundreds of muscle fibers per neuron.
The cerebellum (also labelled in the figure above) is the part of the brain responsible for regulating coordination and motor control, operating largely below the level of consciousness. This means that many of its functions occur without our awareness. The cerebellum receives input from multiple sensory systems, including the proprioceptive system (information about the body’s position and movements), the vestibular system (balance and spatial orientation), and the visual and auditory systems. These inputs help the cerebellum establish a sense of where the body is in space and how it is moving. The cerebellum also receives information from the motor cortex, which provides “efference copies” of the motor commands sent to muscles. Efference copies are predictions of the intended motor output and are used to compare with the actual sensory feedback. This comparison helps the cerebellum detect any discrepancies between the intended and actual movements. The cerebellum acts as an integration center for sensory and motor information. It constantly compares the efference copies with the incoming sensory feedback, such as proprioceptive signals from stretch receptors and Golgi tendon organs, as well as visual and vestibular input. This comparison occurs at the subconscious level, allowing the cerebellum to detect errors in movement even before they become apparent to the conscious mind.
When the cerebellum detects errors in movement or discrepancies between the intended and actual outcomes, it generates corrective signals. These signals are sent to the motor cortex and other motor control centers in the brain. The cerebellum adjusts the ongoing motor commands to correct the errors and improve the precision and accuracy of movements.
The cerebellum is also involved in motor learning and adaptation. Through repetitive practice and learning, the cerebellum stores information about various motor tasks and their associated sensory feedback. This allows it to refine movements over time, even without conscious awareness. For example, when you learn to ride a bike, the cerebellum helps you automatically adjust your balance and coordination without needing to consciously think about it.
The cerebellum also plays a role in feedforward control, where it predicts the sensory consequences of planned movements. It can make anticipatory adjustments to movements based on the expected sensory feedback. For example, when you reach for an object, the cerebellum can adjust the motor commands to account for the expected weight and resistance of the object, allowing for smoother and more precise movements.
The cerebellum also receives information from inner ear receptors for equilibrium and uses it to balance the contractions of antagonistic muscles such that the contractions of one set do not cause the body to fall over.
Muscle Tone
With the exception of certain stages of sleep, the majority of our muscles exist in a state of slight contraction, called muscle tone. This enables us to keep an upright posture. Only a few muscle fibers in the muscle have to contract in order for the muscle to be in a slightly contracted state. To prevent the muscle from becoming fatigued, alternate fibers take turns at contracting. This is subconsciously regulated by the cerebellum. The heat produced by muscle fibers during cellular respiration (necessary for production of ATP) accounts for roughly 25 percent of the total body heat at rest.
Muscle Sense
Muscle sense (also known as proprioception) is the body’s ability to sense and perceive the position, movement, and tension of one’s muscles and joints. It plays a crucial role in maintaining balance and coordinating movement. It operates in the background of our conscious awareness, enabling us to perform various tasks without having to constantly think about the position of our limbs or the force required for specific actions. Activities that involve fine motor skills (such as typing on a keyboard or playing on a musical instrument) depend heavily on muscle sense for control and accuracy, and these improve with repetition and practice due to what is called muscle memory. As neural pathways that control the necessary movements become strengthened, the experienced pianist or typist need not consciously think about every movement.
Muscles contain receptors known as stretch receptors (otherwise known as muscle spindles or proprioceptors), which detect changes in muscle length when it is stretched. The brain interprets these sensory impulses to generate a mental image of where the muscle is in space. The impulses responsible for muscle sense are received and processed by in the cerebellum (for unconscious muscle sense) and the parietal lobes of the cerebrum (for conscious muscle sense).
Evidence of Design
As we have seen, multiple interdependent systems are required for the muscular system to work — among those needed are the circulatory, respiratory, and nervous systems, in addition to the tendons that attach muscle to bone — not to mention the incredible structure and arrangement of the muscles themselves (containing many mitochondria to meet the energy demand; being comprised of thousands of muscle fibers; being arranged antagonistically and synergistically for coordinated action, etc). The origin of the skeletal muscles, then, depends on many co-dependent changes in order to come about. This is not particularly surprising in light of a design perspective, but becomes wildly surprising if we suppose the falsity of design. Thus, muscles provide powerful evidence of intelligent design.
In a second article, I shall review the process of muscle contraction, which (as we will see) takes the inference to design to an entirely new level.
Friday 27 October 2023
On evolutionary biology's post Darwinian distopia.
Why Evolutionary Biologists Are “Fatigued” by Darwin
Increasingly, evolutionary biologists acknowledge — in the peer-reviewed literature — that there are serious problems with the modern Darwinian synthesis. The decorated Cambrian paleontologist Simon Conway Morris calls this “Darwin fatigue.” According to Conway Morris, the unresolved problems exposed by the Cambrian Explosion have “opened the way to a post-Darwinian world.” Though you wouldn’t hear this from Bill Nye the Science Guy, and you wouldn’t read it in a high-school or college biology textbook, real-life evolutionary biologists now live in the Wild West of evolutionary thinking, where multiple models compete to replace neo-Darwinism.
In his book 𝘋𝘢𝘳𝘸𝘪𝘯’𝘴 𝘋𝘰𝘶𝘣𝘵, Stephen Meyer draws on the research of many others to demonstrate that “the neo-Darwinian math is itself showing that the neo-Darwinian mechanism cannot build complex adaptations — including the new information-rich genes and proteins that would have been necessary to build the Cambrian animals.”
Why is this? Current research shows that the numbers of organisms and generations required for the neo-Darwinian mechanism to produce complex features far exceeds the probabilistic resources realistically available over the history of life on Earth.
This sounds suspiciously, well, scientific. Want to know more? See here for a brief “A Précis of Darwin’s Doubt.” Meyer’s work is thoroughly sourced from the mainstream field of evolutionary biology and peer-reviewed scientific literature. So check it out: Darwin's Doubt is available in print, Kindle, and audiobook formats from all major book retailers and many libraries!
Thursday 26 October 2023
C.S Lewis on the rise of the technocracy
John West: C. S. Lewis and the Prophet in the White Lab Coat Who Declares, “Thus Saith the SCIENCE”
Science needs its critics as much as any field of human endeavor does. Maybe even more so today, since there is a widespread feeling, hardly upset by our experience with the public health tyranny imposed in the context of Covid, that “the Science” is beyond question.
John West edited the book The Magician’s Twin: C. S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and Society and he talked recently with podcaster Joseph Weigel about the model of science criticism that Lewis provides. It’s a theme that threads through many of Lewis’s writings — including That Hideous Strength (a great novel, and Dr. West’s favorite, he says, though the choice is a tough one), the third chapter of The Abolition of Man, and elsewhere.
Lewis’s Prescience on “Technocracy”
For a shorter read, West recommends Lewis’s essay “Willing Slaves of the Welfare State.” He has pointed out the eerie prescience of this passage by Lewis:
We have on the one hand a desperate need; hunger, sickness, and the dread of war. We have, on the other, the conception of something that might meet it: omnicompetent global technocracy. Are not these the ideal opportunity for enslavement? This is how it has entered before; a desperate need (real or apparent) in the one party, a power (real or apparent) to relieve it, in the other. In the ancient world individuals have sold themselves as slaves, in order to eat. So in society. Here is a witch-doctor who can save us from the sorcerers — a war-lord who can save us from the barbarians — a Church that can save us from Hell. Give them what they ask, give ourselves to them bound and blindfold, if only they will! Perhaps the terrible bargain will be made again. We cannot blame men for making it. We can hardly wish them not to. Yet we can hardly bear that they should.
That was in 1958, when it was already evident that many in the West were all too willing to obey the prophet in the white lab coat who declares, “Thus saith the SCIENCE.” The abuses committed under the resulting “scientocracy” are the theme of West’s very interesting conversation with Weigel. Listen to it here.
Why we are free to acknowledge free moral agency.
A Scholarly Riposte to Pop Free Will Denialism
If you’ve heard the latest from pop science, you probably “know” that science disproves free will. Actually, after decades of research on the topic, it doesn’t.
Chapter 14 of Minding the Brain (Discovery Institute Press, 2023) is neuroscientist and educator Cristi L. S. Cooper’s look at the real state of the neuroscience on free will. In “Free Will, Free Won’t, and What the Libet Experiments Don’t Tell Us,” Cooper recounts in some detail the research around readiness potentials in the brain.
“Readiness Potential” or RP
The controversy started with 1983 findings by American neuroscientist Benjamin Libet (1916–2007). Briefly, Libet et al. found that the brain initiates spontaneous movements (“readiness potential” or RP) before subjects recall making a choice to act. Cooper notes, “This finding kicked off the next forty years, up to the present day, of scientists referring to the Libet experiment as being the seminal experiment in the field that showed that there is no free will.” (p. 267) Thus, “Libet’s experiments are so foundational to the ‘neuroscience of free will’ that nearly every review of the subject begins with a description of his work.”
A 2021 review by Aaron Schurger et al. drove this point home: ‘It is difficult to overstate the degree to which the conclusions of Libet’s papers on the RP have permeated the intellectual zeitgeist.’” (p. 266)
An Easy Crowd
It’s not hard to see why that conclusion came to dominate the field. Neuroscientists were an easy crowd. They mostly didn’t (and don’t) believe in free will, not because they are scientists but because they are mostly materialists.
Oddly, Libet himself did not really buy into all that. For one thing, it’s not clear just what the readiness potential actually signifies. The brain is very complex and many findings, then and now, could easily be misinterpreted. At any rate, as Cooper recounts, one certain result was a number of further studies.
One outcome of a great deal more research is that Libet’s caution turned out to be justified. It became much less clear what the readiness potential really signifies. By 2021, Shurger’s team was reporting in Trends in Cognitive Sciences,
If recent models of the RP are on the right track, we cannot infer from the existence of the phenomenon that it reflects an actual signal in the brain that, in individual trials, has the characteristics of the RP, or that has causal efficacy. Because of this, one cannot infer that we lack conscious free will based on the temporal profile of the RP. If these models are correct, they may have implications for our understanding of free will, but none that avoid significant and substantive philosophical commitments. But given all the other reasons that have been raised for rejecting the classical interpretation (e.g. [3,14,16,17]), even if SDMs are mistaken and the RP does reflect a real neural signal, albeit one difficult to detect on individual trials, the RP would still fail to support the classic inference for the inefficacy of conscious will.
In short, RP is not the rabbit; it’s a rabbit-potential hole. As Cooper puts the matter, “After scientific interrogation of the Libet experimental paradigm over the last forty years, scientists know much more about the readiness potential and the moment of conscious will but don’t seem any closer to agreeing as to the significance of many aspects of the original findings.” (p. 271)
An Old Problem in Education
She adds — and this is something we should especially take note of: “… at the popular level, non-neuroscientists use Libet’s studies to support a deterministic view of the mind.” It’s a longstanding problem in higher education today that findings supportive of materialism are often given far more standing in the lecture room than they have in the journals or in reliable sources of history.
Let’s take just one example — Phineas Gage, the American railroad worker who had a tamping rod driven through his head in 1848 but, remarkably, survived. According to hundreds of lectures, his personality changed radically and abruptly in the direction of uncontrollable rage; one could call it “the evolution of a Lecture Room Psychopath.” The historical record presents a much more mundane picture of survival with a disability:
What we can learn from contemporary accounts of Gage’s post-trauma life is this: For a while after the accident, he drifted, and even ended up briefly in P. T. Barnum’s freak show, exhibiting himself and the tamping rod. But he then settled down and worked a year and a half in a stable. Later, he went with a friend to Valparaiso in Chile where he cared for horses and drove a coach and six for eight years … Of course, Gage had been catastrophically injured, and about twelve years later, the effects caught up with him. By February 1860, back from Chile, he continued to try to work on farms while living with or near his mother, who had moved to San Francisco. But he began to have frequent epileptic convulsions. They worsened, and he died on May 21, 1860.
So Gage, who had no access to modern rehab, probably suffered and acted out a lot during the initial recovery phase and that was the origin of the legend. The legend is quite misleading as an account of his post-injury life. However, it provides much more useful materialist talking points. Thus decade after decade, it reappeared.
Myths from Social Psychology
Social psychology features other such myths, depending on who’s teaching. Here are six more,including:
The claim of a widely circulated 2008 study that perceptions of cleanliness affect moral judgements has not been replicated. Efforts by David Johnson, Felix Cheung and Brent Donnellan (two graduate students and their adviser) of Michigan State University to replicate it found no such difference, despite testing about four times more subjects than the original studies, Slate reports. One obvious problem with the study is that people may have radically different ideas about what the standards of cleanliness even require. (Students often discover this when they share quarters with roommates.)
MERCATORNET
ome pop science myths are more harmful than others, of course. As neurosurgeon Michael Egnor points out, denial of free will is a quick route to totalitarianism. If you can’t be guilty because you can’t choose, you can’t be innocent either. In fact, you must be controlled by the powers that be for your own good. So you can’t really have the rights or dignity that a free society accords to human beings.
At any rate, in her chapter, Cooper provides a helpful scholarly riposte to pop science claims that free will has been disproved.
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