Irreducible Complexity on steroids?

For Darwinism, Pregnancy Is the “Mother of all Chicken-and-Egg Problems”

David Klinghoffer 

Here’s a really devilish problem to pose to your favorite friend, teacher, or relative who’s a Darwinist true believer. As Your Designed Body co-author Steve Laufmann observes, the relationship between an embryo and its mother is a relationship between unequals. The embryo’s systems are not yet complete so it depends on its mother for its life. This entails communication between the entities. 

But as Laufmann asks, how could such a thing as pregnancy evolve gradually, without guidance or foresight, “when you have to have it in order to have a next generation. Nobody has ever addressed a problem like that.” No, they haven’t, at least not persuasively, which is why Laufmann calls it the “mother of all chicken-and-egg problems.” Darwinian evolution has many of those, as it takes an engineer like Steve Laufmann, or a physician like his co-author Howard Glicksman, to fully recognize. Evolutionary biologists tend to silently glide over such issues, which clearly point to intelligent design. Either that, or they are satisfied by vague speculations. 

Watch:

 

On OOL science's chirality issues

 Same-Handed Molecules Are an “Overarching Design Principle” in Life, Say Researchers 

David Coppedge 

Homochirality, the same-handedness of building blocks of DNA and proteins, poses a severe challenge for those who deny the intelligent design of life. Design advocates have explained the problem: James Tour, Casey Luskin, Rob Stadler, and many others (see a description of the problem here). The odds of random, blind forces selecting every amino acid in a protein to be left-handed, and every sugar in a DNA chain to be right-handed, are vanishingly small. 

Materialists also recognize this hurdle in their origin-of-life theories, because homochirality would have had to become established before natural selection could be called upon for assistance. But what happens when heterochiral molecules do make it into our cells? Bad things happen. 

Heterochirality Syndrome 

Normally, cells do a good job of keeping our molecules 100 percent homochiral. Stray wrong-handed molecules are either destroyed or turned into the correct hand before a protein or nucleic acid goes into service. A research team in France wondered what would happen if they forced certain genes to go rogue, or heterochiral. (Good thing they tried this on fruit flies and not humans.) They published the dire results in Nature Communications (open access). The Abstract of the paper by Banreti et al., “Biological effects of the loss of homochirality in a multicellular organism,” hints at troubles to come: 

Homochirality is a fundamental feature of all known forms of life, maintaining biomolecules (amino-acids, proteins, sugars, nucleic acids) in one specific chiral form. While this condition is central to biology, the mechanisms by which the adverse accumulation of non-l-α-amino-acids in proteins lead to pathophysiological consequences remain poorly understood. To address how heterochirality build-up impacts organism’s health, we use chiral-selective in vivo assays to detect protein-bound non-l-α-amino acids (focusing on aspartate) and assess their functional significance in Drosophila. We find that altering the in vivo chiral balance creates a ‘heterochirality syndrome’ with impaired caspase activity, increased tumour formation, and premature death. Our work shows that preservation of homochirality is a key component of protein function that is essential to maintain homeostasis across the cell, tissue and organ level.  

The authors call homochirality “an overarching design principle in all living organisms.” They do not delve into the origin of homochirality, and say essentially nothing about evolution (except for noting that a certain amino acid in a specific position of a gene is “evolutionarily conserved,” meaning it has not evolved). 

Surprisingly, the health effects of heterochirality have not been studied in detail before, they say. 

Furthermore, a direct link between the partial loss of homochirality and protein dysfunction has not been shown, and hence the underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms connecting heterochirality to pathophysiological sequelae remains unknown. 

The bulk of the paper documents what happened to hapless flies forced to endure “heterochirality syndrome.” For example, one intervention involved knocking out the Pimt gene. This gene is an enzyme essential for repair of heterochiral proteins. It recognizes wrong-handed aspartame residues after translation and converts them into the correct left-handed form. Here’s what happened to the poor fly: 

Importantly, Pimt knock-out flies showed premature death, dying 14 days earlier than control flies (Fig. 5a). Premature death was due solely to the lack of Pimt activity, as the phenotype could be fully rescued by a Pimt wild type (Pimtwt), but not a Pimt catalytic dead (PimtS60Q) knock-in construct (Fig. 5a), in which the evolutionarily conserved serine60 residue (Supplementary Fig. 5) was replaced by glutamine. Furthermore, we found that loss of Pimt activity led to the formation of protein aggregates and large melanotic tumours inside the body (Fig. 5b, c). 

The loss of the heterochirality repair enzyme also gives mice a miserable, short life. And when the enzyme fails in humans, brain damage and lung cancer can result. 

Importantly, Pimt knock-out mice showed significant growth retardation succumbing to fatal seizures at an average of 42 days after birth, and increased proliferation and granule cell number in the dentate gyrus. Pimtexpression and enzyme activity were significantly decreased in human astrocytic tumours and promoted epithelial mesenchymal transition in lung adenocarcinoma cell lines, indicating that impaired Pimt activity has several pathophysiological consequences. 

The team excised the working part of Pimt using CRISPR-Cas9. Their observations of the aftereffects demonstrated that Pimt is “ubiquitously expressed in tissues throughout the fly life cycle” and in probably most other life forms. This fact adds to the materialist’s challenge, because even if simple cells found a way to start homochiral, they would quickly succumb to what we could dub the “right hook punch” from a wrong-handed amino acid.

What Causes the Trouble? 

The team found that wrong-handed amino acids change the 3-D conformation of proteins. One right-handed aspartate (D-aspartic acid, as opposed to the correct L- form), induces structural changes to the caspase cleavage site where the correction must occur. So altered, the enzyme cannot “fit” the repair site. Caspases are involved in cutting out defective parts of proteins. They also participate in programmed cell death, or apoptosis. 

Our results show that caspases malfunction when the consensus cleavage site of target proteins suffer a stereoinversion, which could potentially affect many important cellular processes. 

In summary, heterochirality syndrome reduces lifespan, increases susceptibility to tumors, inhibits apoptosis, and more. People suffering from even one enzyme with a wrong-handed amino acid “are expected to have massive physiological consequences on cell and tissue homoeostasis,” and the defect “might be implicated in many human diseases.” Due to cascading effects from a heterochiral building block, it’s all downhill when random chance lands a right hook. 

Overall, our results show that accumulation of non-l-α-AAs in proteins, promotes a progressive heterochirality syndrome, through a cascading effect across biological scales spanning from loss of molecular homochirality to increased resistance to caspase activity in cells, increased tumour susceptibility in organs and, consequently, premature death of the chiral-deficient animal (Fig. 6h). We further suggest that heterochirality spreading in living organisms represents a novel causal factor that may be associated with a broad range of defective cellular processes, diseases and ageing. 

What Are the Implications? 

Without foresight to solve heterochiral incidents, a primordial cell would quickly perish even if, against all odds, it began homochiral. These authors have shown one of the enzymes that prevents heterochirality syndrome by recognizing and fixing a single D-amino acid to its L- form. This is fascinating to ponder, since even intelligent chemists have difficulty separating the isoforms of chiral molecules (example 1, example 2). 

Biochemists realize that homochirality is functionally beneficial and would tend to be preserved by natural selection. A paper in the journal Chem explained why but failed to address the origin of homochirality. Occasionally a materialist will attempt to speculate about how a protocell “emerged” from a pool of heterochiral building blocks and evolved toward homochirality via “chance aided by luck,” but those attempts usually end like this example from 2010: 

Whether or not we will ever know how this property developed in the living systems represented on Earth today, studies of how single chirality might have emerged will aid us in understanding the much larger question of how life might have, and might again, emerge as a complex system. 

Statements like this beg the question of emergence. Must it be materialistic? If understanding is the goal, Ockham’s razor would favor the simplest cause that is capable of separating thermodynamically equivalent objects that differ only in geometry. That cause is intelligence. Even a child could easily separate left- and right-handed toy soldiers of equal mass. 

It’s been over 170 years since Louis Pasteur recognized chirality as a fundamental feature of biology (see here). Were it not for the philosophical preferences of some, the strength of intelligence over randomness in achieving perfect homochirality and maintaining it with molecular machines would universally be recognized as the most obvious choice to account for this “overarching design principle in all living organisms.” 

On the tyranny of the expertocracy past and present.

Eugenics Movement Presents Remarkable Historical Parallels with “Gender-Affirming Care”

David Klinghoffer 

Wesley Smith and Jay Richards had a great conversation for the Humanize podcast on “What Every Parent Should Know About Gender Ideology and Gender-Affirming Care.” Identifying a remarkable historical echo, Dr. Richards says something I hadn’t thought about. Today’s strange trans ideology with its cruel medical interventions, including surgical mutilation, to affirm subjective gender identity bears a strong resemblance to the eugenics movement. The latter is now recognized as a malevolent and abusive force; but like evolution-based pseudoscientific racism, it was hailed in its day as the best and most responsible science, cheered on by the mainstream media, public school teachers, and the government. All that is true of our contemporary transgender ideology. 

There’s more. Endorsed by prestige academic opinion, eugenics focused on surgical sterilization for the “unfit.” Similarly endorsed by prestige opinion, transgender ideology welcomes the surgical removal of genitalia, and even provides “eunuch” as a new possible trans identify. In the case of eugenics, sterilization was coerced, not a matter personal preference. But as Richard also observes, pushing trans theory on vulnerable young children, molding their brains before they’ve reached the age of consent, is hardly giving them a free choice in how they think of gender. In a final parallel, it was religious people who were foremost in opposing the eugenicists and the pseudoscientific racists. John West makes this clear in his documentary Human Zoos (see it below). Today as well, many traditional religious perspectives resist the advances of trans activism. 

 

On the measurement problem.

Measurement problem

In quantum mechanics, the measurement problem is the problem of how, or whether, wave function collapse occurs. The inability to observe such a collapse directly has given rise to different interpretations of quantum mechanics and poses a key set of questions that each interpretation must answer.

The wave function in quantum mechanics evolves deterministically according to the Schrödinger equation as a linear superposition of different states. However, actual measurements always find the physical system in a definite state. Any future evolution of the wave function is based on the state the system was discovered to be in when the measurement was made, meaning that the measurement "did something" to the system that is not obviously a consequence of Schrödinger evolution. The measurement problem is describing what that "something" is, how a superposition of many possible values becomes a single measured value.

To express matters differently (paraphrasing Steven Weinberg),[1][2] the Schrödinger wave equation determines the wave function at any later time. If observers and their measuring apparatus are themselves described by a deterministic wave function, why can we not predict precise results for measurements, but only probabilities? As a general question: How can one establish a correspondence  between quantum reality and classical reality?[3] 

Schrödinger's cat 

A thought experiment often used to illustrate the measurement problem is the "paradox" of Schrödinger's cat. A mechanism is arranged to kill a cat if a quantum event, such as the decay of a radioactive atom, occurs. Thus the fate of a large-scale object, the cat, is entangled with the fate of a quantum object, the atom. Prior to observation, according to the Schrödinger equation and numerous particle experiments, the atom is in a quantum superposition, a linear combination of decayed and undecayed states, which evolve with time. Therefore the cat should also be in a superposition, a linear combination of states that can be characterized as an "alive cat" and states that can be characterized as a "dead cat". Each of these possibilities is associated with a specific nonzero probability amplitude. However, a single, particular observation of the cat does not find a superposition: it always finds either a living cat, or a dead cat. After the measurement the cat is definitively alive or dead. The question is: How are the probabilities converted into an actual, well-defined classical outcome? 

Interpretations 

The views often grouped together as the Copenhagen interpretation are the oldest and, collectively, probably still the most widely held attitude about quantum mechanics.[4][5] N. David Mermin coined the phrase "Shut up and calculate!" to summarize Copenhagen-type views, a saying often misattributed to Richard Feynman and which Mermin later found insufficiently nuanced.[6][7]

Generally, views in the Copenhagen tradition posit something in the act of observation which results in the collapse of the wave function. This concept, though often attributed to Niels Bohr, was due to Werner Heisenberg, whose later writings obscured many disagreements he and Bohr had had during their collaboration and that the two never resolved.[8][9] In these schools of thought, wave functions may be regarded as statistical information about a quantum system, and wave function collapse is the updating of that information in response to new data.[10][11] Exactly how to understand this process remains a topic of dispute.[12]

Bohr offered an interpretation that is independent of a subjective observer, or measurement, or collapse; instead, an "irreversible" or effectively irreversible process causes the decay of quantum coherence which imparts the classical behavior of "observation" or "measurement".[13][14][15][16] 

Hugh Everett's many-worlds interpretation attempts to solve the problem by suggesting that there is only one wave function, the superposition of the entire universe, and it never collapses—so there is no measurement problem. Instead, the act of measurement is simply an interaction between quantum entities, e.g. observer, measuring instrument, electron/positron etc., which entangle to form a single larger entity, for instance living cat/happy scientist. Everett also attempted to demonstrate how the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics would appear in measurements, a work later extended by Bryce DeWitt. However, proponents of the Everettian program have not yet reached a consensus regarding the correct way to justify the use of the Born rule to calculate probabilities.[17][18]

De Broglie–Bohm theory tries to solve the measurement problem very differently: the information describing the system contains not only the wave function, but also supplementary data (a trajectory) giving the position of the particle(s). The role of the wave function is to generate the velocity field for the particles. These velocities are such that the probability distribution for the particle remains consistent with the predictions of the orthodox quantum mechanics. According to de Broglie–Bohm theory, interaction with the environment during a measurement procedure separates the wave packets in configuration space, which is where apparent wave function collapse comes from, even though there is no actual collapse.[19] 

A fourth approach is given by objective-collapse models. In such models, the Schrödinger equation is modified and obtains nonlinear terms. These nonlinear modifications are of stochastic nature and lead to a behaviour that for microscopic quantum objects, e.g. electrons or atoms, is unmeasurably close to that given by the usual Schrödinger equation. For macroscopic objects, however, the nonlinear modification becomes important and induces the collapse of the wave function. Objective-collapse models are effective theories. The stochastic modification is thought to stem from some external non-quantum field, but the nature of this field is unknown. One possible candidate is the gravitational interaction as in the models of Diósi and Penrose. The main difference of objective-collapse models compared to the other approaches is that they make falsifiable predictions that differ from standard quantum mechanics. Experiments are already getting close to the parameter regime where these predictions can be tested.[20] The Ghirardi–Rimini–Weber (GRW) theory proposes that wave function collapse happens spontaneously as part of the dynamics. Particles have a non-zero probability of undergoing a "hit", or spontaneous collapse of the wave function, on the order of once every hundred million years.[21] Though collapse is extremely rare, the sheer number of particles in a measurement system means that the probability of a collapse occurring somewhere in the system is high. Since the entire measurement system is entangled (by quantum entanglement), the collapse of a single particle initiates the collapse of the entire measurement apparatus. Because the GRW theory makes different predictions from orthodox quantum mechanics in some conditions, it is not an interpretation of quantum mechanics in a strict sense. 

The role of decoherence 

Erich Joos and Heinz-Dieter Zeh claim that the phenomenon of quantum decoherence, which was put on firm ground in the 1980s, resolves the problem.[22] The idea is that the environment causes the classical appearance of macroscopic objects. Zeh further claims that decoherence makes it possible to identify the fuzzy boundary between the quantum microworld and the world where the classical intuition is applicable.[23][24] Quantum decoherence becomes an important part of some modern updates of the Copenhagen interpretation based on consistent histories.[25][26] Quantum decoherence does not describe the actual collapse of the wave function, but it explains the conversion of the quantum probabilities (that exhibit interference effects) to the ordinary classical probabilities. See, for example, Zurek,[3] Zeh[23] and Schlosshauer.[27]

The present situation is slowly clarifying, described in a 2006 article by Schlosshauer as follows:[28]

Several decoherence-unrelated proposals have been put forward in the past to elucidate the meaning of probabilities and arrive at the Born rule ... It is fair to say that no decisive conclusion appears to have been reached as to the success of these derivations. ... 

As it is well known, [many papers by Bohr insist upon] the fundamental role of classical concepts. The experimental evidence for superpositions of macroscopically distinct states on increasingly large length scales counters such a dictum. Superpositions appear to be novel and individually existing states, often without any classical counterparts. Only the physical interactions between systems then determine a particular decomposition into classical states from the view of each particular system. Thus classical concepts are to be understood as locally emergent in a relative-state sense and should no longer claim a fundamental role in the physical theory. 

Further reading: R. Buniy, S. Hsu and A. Zee On the origin of probability in quantum mechanics (2006)

Apparently monogamy makes dollars as well as sense.

Moving In Together Doesn’t Match the Financial Benefits of Marriage, but Why? 

Married couples are four times as wealthy as unmarried couples who live together 

By Julia Carpenter 

A walk down the aisle can be a route to greater wealth and prosperity for couples in the U.S. Married people have higher net worths and are more likely to be homeowners than their unmarried counterparts their age are.  

The mystery, though, is why cohabitating but unmarried couples struggle to build wealth in the same way. As of 2019, the median net worth for cohabiting couples age 25 to 34 was $17,372, a quarter that of the $68,210 for married couples of that same age range, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. For singles it is $7,341.

“If you build an arch, the cornerstone is the first piece you put in and the capstone is the last,” he said. “What this means is people see an economic bar they need to clear before they get married. Couples wait until they have good jobs, a car that won’t break down, maybe even a house. Then, they get married.”

Melissa Mowery, a 30-year-old communications manager in Asheville, N.C., has been with her boyfriend for five years and living together for nearly four. The two don’t share a joint bank account, but they split the cost of rent and other bills. Even so, Ms. Mowery said she can’t make sense of the financial gap between her relationship and that of married couples. 

“We’re already saving a lot of money and splitting the cost on most things,” she said. “I don’t understand how married couples are accumulating wealth in a way we’re not doing.” 

While there are legal and tax benefits to marriage, research suggests the financial security and long-term mind-set of those who tie the knot may also be a powerful driver of wealth. More married couples pool their money—such as sharing savings accounts and investing together—to achieve certain goals, Ms. Kent said. Cohabiting couples are less likely to combine finances and investments.

Working with two incomes and combining their investments to maximize compound interest can significantly increase a couple’s financial prospects, said Emily Garbinsky, associate professor of marketing at Cornell University, who has studied couples’ financial behavior. Simply put, married people may be more likely to be on the same page financially, she said. 

“Married people may be much more likely to have these conversations around what goals they have for their financial future,” she said. “There seems to be something very special and unique about deciding to share finances.” 

Unmarried couples may be less willing to commingle their money, said Prof. Garbinsky.

“Our money, our income, represents a huge part of who we are,” she said. “[Sharing] that can be scary for people, so they tend to be very protective.”  

Both married and unmarried couples who do pool finances also experience greater relationship satisfaction and may even stay together for longer, Prof. Garbinsky said. 

Housing is one of the biggest factors in establishing a couple’s wealth. Compared with single people and cohabiting couples, married couples hold a larger concentration of housing wealth, according to data from the St. Louis Fed. 

“Most of my married friends have bought a house,” Ms. Mowery said, noting high housing costs in her area. “I just don’t know how they did it. Everyone talks about how when you get married, you accumulate wealth but I don’t know what that means.” 

In the current hypercompetitive housing market, as smaller, more affordable starter homes vanish and housing affordability declines, single people and cohabiting couples are often at a disadvantage. 

Darwinism and the Ghost in the machine.

Evolution of Human Consciousness Solved! — Yet Again 

Evolution News @DiscoveryCSC 

At Psychology Today, we read a bold and simple claim about the evolution of consciousness: “A type of information processing called unlimited associative learning (UAL) may be necessary and sufficient for very basic sentience.”

The article by University of Toronto psychiatrist Ralph Lewis begins on a very self-assured note:

Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.(in as much as Darwinism says nothing about the origin of life or that the fossil record is more heavily populated by ghosts than substance or that we are yet to see a plausible pathway to any irreducibly complex system ,this is all smug braggadocio meant to rally the base and or intimidate the mentally lazy) interpolation mine. ,The gradualism of evolution has explained and dissolved life’s mysteries — life’s seemingly irreducible complexity and the illusion that living things possess some sort of mysterious vitalizing essence. So, too, evolution is likely to be key to demystifying the seemingly inexplicable, ethereal nature of consciousness.

First, what does it even mean to say that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”? If the chosen topic is human consciousness, Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa come quickly to mind. But then what does the term “evolution” contribute to the discussion of the origin of human consciousness? Is it something useful or something theorists are stuck with, come what may?

Science theories should make predictions. Who predicted either King or Mother Teresa? 

Whence Smarter Apes? A theory of evolution could, of course, predict the emergence of smarter apes, just as it might predict the emergence of faster carnivores. But, as everyone knows, that is not what we are talking about.

Consciousness is “ethereal” because that is its very nature. “Constitutional government” is ethereal too. Human consciousness means dealing in abstractions. We can’t “demystify” it and still make any sense.

At any rate, Dr. Lewis has written in defense of a theory proposed by neuroscientist Simona Ginsburg and evolutionary biologist Eva Jablonka, “unlimited associative learning” (UAL): 

UAL “refers to an animal’s ability to ascribe motivational value to a compound stimulus or action pattern and to use it as the basis for future learning.” UAL is a cumulative type of learning involving novel stimuli and actions, building on prior learning. It allows “open-ended behavioral adjustments” and can lead to complex goal-directed behavior(there you go the sheep recalls that munching on that green stuff on the ground gets rid of that gnawing in her stomach and makes the needed adjustment, once that's taken care of she can get around to pondering the meaning of life). It requires the capacity for representing, remembering, and evaluating goals, their predictive cues, and the ways of reaching them… The most primitive forms of learning and memory do not even require a nervous system and are entirely mechanistic at their molecular level. UAL requires a brain with particular types of networks).

RALPH LEWIS, “PSYCHOLOGY TODAY (NOVEMBER 3, 2022) 

RALPH LEWIS, “LEARNING MAY BE THE KEY TO THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS” AT PSYCHOLOGY TODAY (NOVEMBER 3, 2022) 

 Fair enough. Their concept of “minimal consciousness” — as applied to animals — helps us understand why the cat chases the mouse and why the mouse tries to get away.

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

 

Where success is an orphan?

Orphan Proteins Spell Trouble for AlphaFold 2 

Evolution News @DiscoveryCSC 

On a new episode of ID the Future, philosopher of biology Paul Nelson further explores AlphaFold 2, a cutting-edge computer program from Google’s DeepMind designed to rapidly suss out important secrets in the realm of proteins, indispensable molecular biological workhorses that come in thousands of different shapes and sizes. Nelson enthuses about AlphaFold 2 but also explains why he is convinced that its creators have hit a series of immovable obstacles. The watchword here — orphans. Learn what these mischievous orphan proteins are about, and what they suggest for AlphaFold, evolution, and intelligent design. Download the podcast or listen to it here. 

 

Re: the lexicon of life scientists are yet to complete the preamble to the introduction.

Powerful Protein-Folding Algorithm AlphaFold Foiled by Singletons 

Evolution News @DiscoveryCSC 

A new episode of ID the Future spotlights AlphaFold, an artificial intelligence program in the news for its impressive breakthroughs at predicting a protein’s 3D structure from its amino acid sequence. Philosopher of Biology Paul Nelson walks listeners through the importance of this “amazing breakthrough,” as he described it in a recent Evolution News article; but don’t uncork the champagne bottles just yet. The reason, according to Nelson, is that while proteins, protein sequences, and protein folding promise to reveal much that is still mysterious in molecular biology, we now know that biological information involves far more than just an organism’s proteome — that is, far more than the full suite of proteins expressed by an organism. Nelson uses analogies to manmade machines and cognates among closely and distantly related human languages to shed light on just how much more sophisticated the biological information directing life is than any model narrowly fixated on DNA, the amino acids DNA codes for, and the protein formed from those amino acids.

Nelson explains that, as powerful as the AlphaFold algorithm is, it has not solved the protein-folding problem, if we take such a solution to mean “predicting the three-dimensional conformation of a protein strictly from its primary DNA sequence, ab initio.” The clearest evidence of this: the algorithm is utterly stymied by sequence “singletons.” What are these curious sequences, why do they baffle AlphaFold, and why do these singletons trouble some evolutionists? Nelson and host Eric Anderson explore this problem at the leading edge of biological research. Download the podcast or listen to it here

 

 

What is a woman?: Time for the jury to decide?

Unleash the Trial

 Lawyers to End Mutilation of Gender-Dysphoric Children 

Wesley J. Smith 

Many in the medical and political establishments are pushing “gender-affirming care” as the only humane means of treating children who believe they are not the sex they were born. This so-called care includes radical interventions such as puberty blocking, mastectomies, facial surgeries, and even genital removal. One recent study found that the median age for mastectomies in such cases is 16 — meaning that half of the girls whose breasts were cut off were under that age, and indeed, some were as young as twelve.

How do you stop such a destructive juggernaut? Lawyers! It seems to me that eventually suing doctors and others who pushed or cooperated with such drastic actions will become the equivalent for lawyers of the “Camp Lejeune” lawsuits currently proliferating and being advertised ubiquitously on television. 

It’s Already Starting 

This hoped-for remedial has already started in England, where a class-action lawsuit will soon be filed against a now closed youth gender clinic. And now, Americans who were subjected to such interventions while under age — and later “de-transitioned” to the sex they were born — may be thinking about suing.

One such case looks about to be brought by “Chloe,” who had a mastectomy while under age. From the “Notice of Intent to Sue” letter sent to doctors by her attorneys: 

Chloe is a biological female who suffered from a perceived psychological issue “gender dysphoria” beginning at 9 years of age. Under Defendants’ advice and supervision, between 13-17 years old Chloe underwent harmful transgender treatment, specifically, puberty blockers, offlabel cross-sex hormone treatment, and a double mastectomy. This radical, off-label, and inadequately studied course of chemical and surgical “treatment” for Chloe’s mental condition amounted to medical experimentation on Chloe.

As occurs in most gender dysphoria cases, Chloe’s psychological condition resolved on its own when she was close to reaching adulthood, and she no longer desires to identify as a male. Unfortunately, as a result of the so-called transgender “treatment” that Defendants performed on Chloe, she now has deep emotional wounds, severe regrets, and distrust for the medical system. Chloe has suffered physically, socially, neurologically, and psychologically. Among other harms, she has suffered mutilation to her body and lost social development with her peers at milestones that can never be reversed or regained.

Defendants coerced Chloe and her parents to undergo what amounted to a medical experiment by propagating two lies. First, Defendants falsely informed Chloe and her parents that Chloe’s gender dysphoria would not resolve unless Chloe socially and medical transitioned to appear more like a male. Second, Defendants also falsely informed Chloe and her parents that Chloe was at a high risk for suicide, unless she socially and medically transitioned to appear more like a male. Chloe has been informed by her parents that Defendants even gave them the ultimatum: “would you rather have a dead daughter or a live son?” 

But Is It All True? 

Whether that is true remains to be proven, but if credible evidence of such behavior is brought before a jury, it could eventually lead to Alex Jones–level damages being imposed against the entire gender-affirming medical/industrial complex.

Yes, I know many trial lawyers will be reluctant to face accusations of “transphobia.” But in my experience — as a once-practicing trial attorney and one who has written often about such practitioners — when the smell of money is in the water, ideology is generally not the first priority.

Time will tell. But in the meantime, go Chloe! And please, do not accept a confidential settlement. If you strike paydirt, the country needs to know, because that will deter further such “medical” interventions.

 

On O.B.Es

What Really Happens During an Out-of-Body Experience? 

Medically reviewed by Nicole Washington, DO, MPH — By Crystal Raypole — Updated on July 22, 2022 

An out-of-body experience is often described as feeling like you’ve left your physical body. There are many potential causes, including several medical conditions and experiences. 

An out-of-body experience (OBE) is a sensation of your consciousness leaving your body. These episodes are often reported by people who’ve had a near-death experience. Some might also describe an OBE as a dissociative episode.

People typically experience their sense of self inside their physical body. You most likely view the world around you from this vantage point. But during an OBE, you may feel as if you’re outside yourself, looking at your body from another perspective.

What really goes on during an OBE? Does your consciousness actually leave your body? Experts aren’t totally sure, but they have a few hunches, which we’ll get into later.

What does an OBE feel like? 

It’s hard to nail down what an OBE feels like, exactly.

According to accounts from people who’ve experienced them, they generally involve:

a feeling of floating outside your body

an altered perception of the world, such as looking down from a height

the feeling that you’re looking down at yourself from above

a sense that what’s happening is very real

OBEs typically happen without warning and usually don’t last for very long.

If you have a neurological condition, such as epilepsy, you may be more likelyTrusted Source to experience OBEs.They may also happen more frequently. But for many people, an OBE will happen very rarely, maybe only once in a lifetime if at all.

Some estimates suggest around 5 percent of people have experienced the sensations associated with an OBE, though some suggest this number may be higher. 

Does anything happen physically? 

There’s some debate over whether the sensations and perceptions associated with OBEs happen physically or as a sort of hallucinatory experience.

A recent 2022 reviewTrusted Source tried to explore this by evaluating a variety of studies and case reports evaluating consciousness, cognitive awareness, and recall in people who survived cardiac arrest.

They noted that some people report experiencing a separation from their body during resuscitation and some even reported an awareness of events they wouldn’t have seen from their actual perspective.

In addition, one study included in the review noted that two participants reported having both visual and auditory experiences while in cardiac arrest. Only one was well enough to follow up, but he gave an accurate, detailed description of what took place for about three minutes of his resuscitation from cardiac arrest.

Still, there’s no scientific evidence to support the idea that a person’s consciousness can actually travel outside the body. 

Veridical perception 

Veridical perception is a controversial concept. It refers to the idea that you can leave your body during an OBE, allowing you to witness something that you may not have otherwise.

Some anecdotal reports of this phenomena exist, with a few people even providingTrusted Source specific, accurate details about events that have happened during surgical procedures or while clinically dead.

Many people use these stories as evidence to support the existence of life after death.

However, the idea of veridicial perception is still limited to anecdotal claims and there is no research available to support it.

One older 2014 studyTrusted Source investigating the validity of veridical perception in people who had survived cardiac arrest found that neither of the two individuals who reported awareness during resuscitation were able to identify specific items that were only viewable from above. 

What can cause them? 

No one’s sure about the exact causes of OBEs, but experts have identified several possible explanations. 

Stress or trauma 

A frightening, dangerous, or difficult situation can provoke a fear response, which might cause you to dissociate from the situation and feel as if you’re an onlooker. This may make you feel as though you are watching the events from somewhere outside your body.

According to 2017 researchTrusted Source reviewing the experience of women in labor, OBEs during childbirth aren’t unusual.

The study didn’t specifically link OBEs to post-traumatic stress disorder, but the authors did point out that women who had OBEs had either gone through trauma during labor or another situation not related to childbirth.

This suggests that OBEs could occur as a way to cope with trauma, but more research is needed on this potential link. 

Medical conditions 

Experts have linked several medical and mental health conditions to OBEs, including:

epilepsy

migraine

cardiac arrest

brain injuries

depression

anxiety

Guillain-Barré syndrome

Dissociative disorders, particularly depersonalization-derealization disorder, can involve frequent feelings or episodes where you seem to be observing yourself from outside your body.

Sleep paralysis has also been noted as a possible cause of OBEs. It refers to a temporary state of waking paralysis that occurs during REM sleep and often involvesTrusted Source hallucinations.

Research suggestsTrusted Source many people who have OBEs with a near-death experience also often experience sleep paralysis.

In addition, a review of literature from 2020 suggests that sleep-wake disturbances may contributeTrusted Source to dissociative symptoms. This can include a feeling of leaving your body. 

Medication and drugs 

Some people report having an OBE while under the influence of anesthesia.

Other substances, including cannabis, ketamine, or hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD, can causeTrusted Source this sensation. 

Near-death experiences 

OBEs can occur during near-death experiences, often alongside other phenomena like flashbacks of previous memories or seeing a light at the end of a tunnel.

Though it’s not clear exactly why this happens, it’s believed to be caused by disruptions in certain areas of the brain involved with processing sensory information. A 2021 reviewTrusted Source suggests that these experiences may be more likely to occur during life threatening situations, which can include:

cardiac arrest

traumatic injury

brain hemorrhage

drowning

suffocation 

Strong G-forces 

Pilots and astronauts sometimes experience OBEs when strong gravitational forces, or G-forces, are encountered. This is because it causesTrusted Source blood to pool in the lower body, which can lead to loss of conscious and may induce an OBE.

Extreme G-forces can also causeTrusted Source spatial disorientation, peripheral vision loss, and disconnection between cognition and the ability to act. 

Paranormal 

Though not backed by research, some people believe that OBEs can occur when your soul or spirit leaves your body.

One form is known as “traveling clairvoyance,” which some mediums claim allows your soul to visit distant locations in order to gain information.

Others believe that certain meditative practices can help you reach a state of consciousness that transcends the body and mind, leading to an OBE.

Some people also experiment with astral projection, which is a spiritual practice that involves making an intentional effort to send your consciousness from your body toward a spiritual plane or dimension.

However, research as not been able to show that these practices cause OBEs. 

Other experiences 

OBEs might be able to be induced, intentionally or accidentally, by:

brain stimulation

sleep deprivation

sensory deprivation

hypnosis or meditative trance

However, additional research is still needed to support this. 

Do out-of-body experiences pose any risks? 

Existing research hasn’t connected experiencing spontaneous OBEs to any serious health risks. In some cases, you might feel a bit dizzy or disoriented after.

However, OBEs and dissociation in general can cause lingering feelings of emotional distress.

You might feel confused over what happened or wonder if you have a brain issue or mental health condition. You might also not like the sensation of an OBE and worry about it happening again.

Some people also claim that it’s possible for your consciousness to remain trapped outside of your body following an OBE, but there’s no evidence to support this. 

Should I see a doctor? 

Simply having an OBE doesn’t necessarily mean you need to see a healthcare professional. You may have this experience once just before drifting off to sleep, for example, and never again. If you don’t have any other symptoms, you probably don’t have any reason for concern.

If you feel uneasy about what happened, even if you don’t have any physical or psychological conditions, there’s no harm in mentioning the experience to a doctor. They may be able to help by ruling out serious conditions or offering some reassurance.

It’s also a good idea to talk with a healthcare professional if you’re having any sleep issues, including insomnia or symptoms of sleep paralysis, such as hallucinations 

The design filter can spot a dirty game?

Did Chess Ace Hans Niemann Cheat? A Design Detection Poser 

Evolution News @DiscoveryCSC 

On a new episode of ID the Future, mathematician William Dembski and host Eric Anderson explore whether design detection tools shed any light on the recent chess scandal involving world chess champion Magnus Carlsen and American grandmaster Hans Moke Niemann. Did Niemann cheat in a match where he beat Carlson, as some have claimed? There is no smoking gun in the case, so how might one determine if cheating occurred? At first glance the problem might seem far removed from the design detecting rules and tools Dembski laid out in his Cambridge University Press monograph The Design Inference. But actually there is some intriguing overlap. Is there a way to dig into the chess data and determine whether Niemann secretly used a computer chess engine to help him win the match? Tune in as Dembski and Anderson wrestle with the problem. Download the podcast or listen to it here. 

 

1914 : a marked year. II

Legacy of World War I  

BY HISTORY.COM EDITORS 

World War I Begins 

Convinced that Austria-Hungary was readying for war, the Serbian government ordered the Serbian army to mobilize and appealed to Russia for assistance. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe’s great powers quickly collapsed.

Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Serbia had lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and World War I had begun. 

Legacy of World War I 

World War I brought about massive social upheaval, as millions of women entered the workforce to replace men who went to war and those who never came back. The first global war also helped to spread one of the world’s deadliest global pandemics, the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 20 to 50 million people.

World War I has also been referred to as “the first modern war.” Many of the technologies now associated with military conflict—machine guns, tanks, aerial combat and radio communications—were introduced on a massive scale during World War I.

The severe effects that chemical weapons such as mustard gas and phosgene had on soldiers and civilians during World War I galvanized public and military attitudes against their continued use. The Geneva Convention agreements, signed in 1925, restricted the use of chemical and biological agents in warfare and remains in effect today.

Alas for Darwinism: the fossil record's gonna fossil record. II

 Fossil Friday: The Complex Wing Folding of Earwigs 

Günter Bechly 

Today’s featured fossil, an earwig, is the paratype specimen of Cratoborellia gorbi, which I found and photographed at a German trader’s collection in July 2006, where I also discovered the holotype that is deposited in the collection of the Stuttgart Natural History Museum and was described by my fellow student Fabian Haas (Haas 2007). The fossil belongs to the living earwig family Anisolabididae and is three-dimensionally preserved as iron oxide-hydroxide (Goethite) in the Lower Cretaceous (115 million years old) laminated limestone of the Crato Formation from northeast Brazil. It is one of the very few fossil earwig specimens with spread hind wing, and documents a very similar pattern of wing folding to its living relatives.

Lay people may hardly be aware that many earwigs indeed have wings and can fly, as they only rarely do. However, they not only do possess wings, but also have very sophisticated adaptations in their construction. Just like beetles, they have hard forewings that serve as protective flaps (elytrae), while the hind wings fold in a complex way beneath the forewings (they even use their pincers to assist in the folding of the wings). 

Another Example of Convergence 

This is another example of striking convergence in the animal kingdom. These convergent adaptations can be traced back to the earliest known putative stem earwigs (Protelytroptera) from the Permian period about 299-252 million years ago (Haas & Kukalová-Peck 2001, Bethoux et al. 2016). Earwig wings not only fold like a fan in longitudinal direction, but additionally along a row of flexible patches in a transverse direction (Haas et al. 2000). This kind of natural origami is stunning and beautifully illustrated in a YouTube video by the ETH Zurich University (below), where researchers copied this design principle for biomimetic technology that could be used for foldable solar sails in space. 

This highly complex mode of wing folding is one of the many examples of engineering marvels in insects that strongly suggest intelligent design as superior explanation to blind evolution. 

References 

Bethoux O, Llamosi A & Toussaint S 2016. Reinvestigation of Protelytron permianum (Insecta; Early Permian; USA) as an example for applying reflectance transformation imaging to insect imprint fossils. Fossil Record 20, 1–7. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5194/fr-20-1-2016.

Haas F 2007. Dermaptera: earwigs. Chapter 11.6, pp. 222–234 in: Martill DM, Bechly G & Loveridge RF (eds). The Crato Fossil Beds of Brazil. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (UK), xvi+625 pp.

Haas F, Gorb SN & Wootton RJ 2000. Elastic joints in dermapteran hind wings: materials and wing folding. Arthropod Structure and Development 29(2), 137–146. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1467-8039(00)00025-6.

Haas F & Kukalová-Peck J 2001. Dermaptera hindwing structure and folding, new evidence for superordinal relationship within Neoptera (Insecta). European Journal of Entomology98(4), 445–509. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14411/eje.2001.065.

Whither the bright line between artificial and natural causation?

More Unnatural Naturalism, and More Confusion from Naturalists 

David Coppedge 

Yesterday I commented on the conundrums created for evolutionists by engineering. Once you start looking, you’ll frequently see the problem facing naturalists about natural and unnatural causes. Writing in City Journal, for example, science reporter Nicholas Wade assumed that “natural” causes could be distinguished from “manipulated” actions in the case of the origin of SARS-Coronavirus-2: 

Two hypotheses have long been on the table. One is that the virus jumped naturally from some animal host, as many epidemics have done in the past. The other is that it escaped from a lab in Wuhan, where researchers are known to have been genetically manipulating bat viruses in order to predict future epidemics. Both hypotheses are plausible but, so far, no direct evidence exists for either. 

News from CORDIS via Phys.org again illustrates the distinction between natural activities of humans and their intentional, purposeful designs. The article, “When did humans start using roads?”, says this: 

But when did humans actually begin to use roads? “The generic and honest answer is that it’s really hard to know,” says Kalayci. “First, we have to be very clear in our mind what we mean by ‘road’ — are we talking about an engineered road, or a simple dirt track that has naturally formed by people and/or animals constantly walking along the same line?”

In the case of the latter, one can argue, rather philosophically, that as soon as humans learnt to walk and began to traverse the world from their African homelands, roads began to form — in short, a road can be conceived as merely a line that humans continuously wander along.

But Kalayci informs us that it was probably the ancient Egyptians that purposely went out of their way to build the first paved roads, when they were busy building pyramids and other monuments, sometime between 2600 and 2200 BCE, during the Old Kingdom Period. “They essentially wanted a nice, easy, straight route between the monument site and quarry that allowed materials to be transported quickly and efficiently,” he explains. 

Hikers know that animals like bighorn sheep consistently re-use paths in their natural habitats. This quote, though, shows something different about humans. They “purposely” sometimes go “out of their way” to build monuments that are not essential to mere survival, and think about ways to move materials “quickly and efficiently.” They employ mathematics to build geometric objects for purposes that they believe transcend physical existence. 

“Natural” Organisms Are Oblivious to Human Design 

"If the art of ship-building were in the wood,” Aristotle recognized, “ships would exist by nature.” We humans know the intelligent causation, foresight, and intentionality required to build a floating craft able to carry cargo that left to its natural state would sink to the bottom of the sea. Flotsam can drift by nature, but something other than nature is required to design something capable of navigating a chosen course against natural wind and waves, using manufactured sails and oars. 

Ships can, however, sink “by nature” (e.g., due to storms, accidents, entropy). Now “millions of shipwrecks in the world’s oceans, each providing a potentially new habitat for sea life,” states a news item at Frontiers in Science. The bacteria and fish that find habitats in shipwrecks don’t care. They treat them like other “natural” habitats. Only humans know or care. 

Wooden shipwrecks provide microbial habitats similar to naturally occurring geological seabed structures, reports a new study in Frontiers in Marine Science…. Microbes are at the base of ocean food chains, and this is among the first research to show the impact of human activities–like shipwrecks–on these environments.

“Microbial communities are important to be aware of and understand because they provide early and clear evidence of how human activities change life in the ocean,” said corresponding author Dr Leila Hamdan of the University of Southern Mississippi.

“Ocean scientists have known that natural hard habitats, some of which have been present for hundreds to thousands of years shape the biodiversity of life on the seafloor. This work is the first to show that built habitats (places or things made or modified by humans) impact the films of microbes (biofilms) coating these surfaces as well. These biofilms are ultimately what enable hard habitats to transform into islands of biodiversity.” 

Is Animal Engineering the Same as Human Engineering? 

To round out this discussion of natural versus unnatural causes, we need to investigate how reporters treat cases of animal engineering. For example, the journal Nature discussed “how bees achieve an engineering marvel: the honeycomb.” In a similar vein, news from Texas A&M tells about research “Determining how and why cells make decisions.” Isn’t decision-making a mental, purposeful activity? Isn’t engineering a honeycomb an example of intentional work for a purpose?

Well, yes and no. The answers can be elucidated with another question: is there a distinction between a software programmer and the program he or she designed? Honeybees and cells have a limited set of options that are programmed into their genomes. It could be considered “unnatural” for a honeybee to gather ingredients and build hexagons in which the queen’s eggs can be nourished. Rock and soil would never do that. The bee must apply directed work against entropy to pull it off. The cells in an embryo “make decisions” based on pre-programmed responses to signals. These can be considered “natural” activities in the same way a robot on a car assembly line is performing the “natural” function it was designed to do. 

Human beings, by contrast, have free will to think, decide, and design things that may have no survival function at all, such as art and literature. As C. S. Lewis said: 

The Naturalists have been engaged in thinking about Nature. They have not attended to the fact that they were thinking. The moment one attends to this it is obvious that one’s own thinking cannot be merely a natural event, and that therefore something other than Nature exists.  

We can decide to do something, or decide not to do it. We can choose between limitless options. Thoughts are what make human beings unnatural. Thoughts are what make us exceptional. 

 

Science is downstream from the design Inference?

The Relevance of Intelligent Design to Science and Society: A Primer 

Evolution News @DiscoveryCSC

This past summer, the Italian Center for Intelligent Design held its public launch at a conference in Turin, Italy. Following that event, Discovery Institute Vice President John West was interviewed by veteran Italian journalist and human rights activist Marco Respinti. The interview is being published this month in the Italian-language magazine Il Timone. Evolution News is pleased to publish the original English-language version of the interview, which discusses the history, impact, and relevance of the idea of intelligent design.

Dr. West is Managing Director of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture and author of the book Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science. He is also editor of The Magician’s Twin: C.S. Lewis on Science, Society, and Society. 

            

RESPINTI: What is the “intelligent design” (ID) hypothesis? 

    WEST: Intelligent design is the idea that nature manifests clear evidence of purpose, planning, and foresight. In other words, nature reflects the brilliance of a master artist, not the haphazard results of an unguided process. 

RESPINTI: How does Darwinian evolution differ from intelligent design?

    WEST: Darwinian evolution sees nature — including human beings — as accidental byproducts of unintelligent matter and energy. According to Darwinism, “man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind,” to quote the words of evolutionary biologist George Gaylord Simpson. In other words, nature is the result of an unguided process, not the creative activity of a master designer.  

RESPINTI: Why do debates over Darwinism and intelligent design matter to society? 

     WEST: In the Darwinian view, nature was created by blind unguided forces rather than a wise Creator, and humans are merely animals who are the unintended result of a process of “survival of the fittest.” Over the past century, this bleak view of nature and humanity has encouraged many abuses, including the denial of God’s existence, “scientific” justifications of racism, and efforts to breed humans like cattle through the so-called science of eugenics. The Darwinian view has promoted despair in many people, including young people, by portraying human life as an accident with no intrinsic dignity and no higher purpose.

By contrast, the intelligent design view upholds human beings as inherently valuable. Our lives have meaning and worth because we are the intentional result of a supreme artist and Creator. Humans are a masterpiece, not something cobbled together by an unguided process. In the words of former Pope Benedict, “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.” 

RESPINTI: What are the origins of the intelligent design idea? 

   WEST: Intelligent design is one of the foundational ideas in the history of human civilization. It has deep roots in the Jewish and Christian traditions as well as among non-Christian thinkers. In the Jewish tradition, both the Psalms and the Book of Wisdom speak of how nature reveals evidence of its Creator. In the words of Wisdom 13:5, “from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator.” In the Christian tradition, Jesus, St. Paul, and the fathers of the church likewise argued that nature provides evidence of God’s wisdom, foresight, and artistry. For example, Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch in the second century AD, argued that God “is beheld and perceived through His… works,” which for him included the regularities of nature seen in astronomy, the plant world, animals, and ecosystems. 

Among non-Christian thinkers, we find a similar idea that nature displays evidence of purpose and foresight in Greek philosophers such as Plato, Roman thinkers such as Cicero, and medieval Islamic thinkers such as Al-Ghazali.  

RESPINTI: Did intelligent design play any role in the historical development of science? 

    WEST: Definitely. The idea of intelligent design provided a foundation for modern natural science. Because early scientists thought nature was the product of intelligent design, they expected nature to be orderly, purposeful, governed by laws rather than chaos, and understandable through human reason. These scientists’ belief in intelligent design spurred them to research the natural world.  

RESPINTI: That was in the past. What about today? Does intelligent design still play a role in science? 

WEST: Yes! Even today, scientific investigation proceeds because scientists assume for the sake of their research that the natural features they are studying are orderly and exist to fulfill a specific purpose. This is the essence of much scientific investigation — we treat things as designed so we can understand them. The reality is that intelligent design is a guiding assumption for scientific research even for scientists who claim not to believe in it. 

RESPINTI: What light do recent scientific discoveries shed on whether nature was intelligently designed? 

   WEST: The more we investigate nature, the more we see layer after layer of purpose and planning throughout nature. The laws of physics and chemistry are exquisitely fine-tuned to make life possible. Inside each of our cells, there exist sophisticated “molecular machines” that make human technologies appear primitive. At the foundation of life, we find DNA, which functions as a code directing many aspects of an organism’s development, just like computer software. Codes and information systems are hallmarks of mind — of intelligent design. Based on what we now know, it is very hard to conceive of the operations of nature without viewing them as products of intelligent design. It is little wonder that a Nobel Prize-winning physicist from Cambridge University recently declared that “intelligent design is valid science.” 

RESPINTI: What do you say to those who claim that Darwinian evolution has refuted the idea of intelligent design? 

    WEST: The evidence shows otherwise. First, Darwinism assumes that a universe fine-tuned for life already exists. It also assumes that the first self-replicating organisms already exist. So Darwinism can’t refute the evidence of design at the level of the universe or in the origin of the first life. It assumes those very things! Now Darwinism does claim that unguided processes can produce everything else. But we have a lot of data from experiments in bacteria that show just how little change unguided evolution can accomplish. Darwinian processes can produce small variations, but the major changes in the history of life — such as the origin of new body plans in animals — seem beyond the power of unguided evolution. Random mutations in DNA are supposed to drive Darwinian evolution, but we have learned that such mutations are usually either harmful or neutral to organisms. Mutations aren’t capable of producing major new biological features. Biochemist Michael Behe, molecular biologist Douglas Axe, and many other scientists have shown this. 

RESPINTI: Why, then, do so many scientists continue to embrace Darwinian evolution? 

     WEST: I think it is primarily due to culture, not science. The distinguished Italian geneticist Giuseppe Sermonti once called Darwinism “the ‘politically correct’ of science.” I think he was right. Many people continue to embrace Darwinism because it is fashionable. Others support it because they think it provides a scientific justification to reject God. 

    

RESPINTI: Where can you find scientists who support intelligent design? 

   WEST: Scientists and scientific groups that support intelligent design can now be found throughout Europe, in South America, in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. In Italy, there is the Italian Center for Intelligent Design, which just held its public launch in June at a conference in Torino, where I had the privilege to speak.

In the United States, there is Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture. The Institute is a non-profit organization founded in 1991, and its Center for Science & Culture was started in 1996 by historian of science Stephen Meyer and myself. The Center serves as a hub for the growing international network of scientists and scholars who think there is evidence of intelligent design in nature. The Center funds scientific research, sponsors educational programs, and produces books and educational videos related to intelligent design.  

Finally , representation for the most underserved community of all.

TONY DELUCA WINS REELECTION ...

Despite Death Last Month 

Longtime Pennsylvania state representative Anthony "Tony" DeLuca won in an Election Day landslide -- which has to sting for his opponent, because DeLuca's no longer living.

The late state rep. received 85% of the votes in Wednesday's midterm election -- despite dying in October from a battle with lymphoma.

The timing of DeLuca's death reportedly made it too late to pick a different Democrat candidate, or to reprint updated ballots.

The Pennsylvania House Democratic campaign committee addressed the issue online Tuesday evening -- saying a special election will come soon to fix the error -- but also thanked supporters, presumably for voting him in posthumously.

Many online are pointing to a lack of voter awareness as the reason DeLuca beat Green Party candidate Queonia Livingston ... with others speculating voters simply didn't want to vote for Livingston 

Lamarck gets the last laugh?

Epigenetics Directs Genetics — And That’s a Problem for Darwinism 

David Coppedge 

The power of epigenetic processes over genes continues to be a big subject in biology. Epigenetic processes control which genes are translated and which are silenced, which concentrations of transcripts are required, and how molecular machines assemble at the right times and places to steer gene products to their operational destinations. If sheet music is an argument for design, how much more the organization that makes it come alive in a marching band’s halftime show? 

The Guardian of the Epigenome 

The p53 protein has long been called the “guardian of the genome” for its key role in tumor suppression. Now, some German researchers are calling it “the guardian of the (epi)genome.” News from the University of Konstanz tells how a research team led by Ivano Amelio took a painstaking look at how p53 works.  

Cells — and their DNA integrity — are particularly at risk when they divide, as they duplicate their DNA in the process. “Like in any other replication process, such as photocopying a document or copying a digital file, it is disastrous if the template moves or is changed while the copy is being made. For this reason, genes cannot be transcribed – i.e. used as templates for proteins – while the DNA is being copied,” Amelio explains. If they are transcribed anyway, serious disruptions occur, which can lead to cancer-promoting mutations. The results from Amelio and his team, now appearing as the cover story in Cell Reports, show that p53 inactivation favours such copy-related damage. They found that p53 normally acts by changing cell metabolism in a way that prevents activation of genome regions that should remain inactive.  

Their work found that p53 is an epigenetic regulator: it keeps genes silent that should not be translated during mitosis by locking them away in heterochromatin. Without this control, genes become accessible to translation machinery at the wrong time, such as during mitosis. “This causes so much damage,” they found, “that it will drive cells into a state of genomic instability that favours and worsens cancer progression.” 

“By unravelling this mechanism, we could demonstrate that there is a link between metabolism, epigenetic integrity and genomic stability. In addition, we provided evidence that p53 represents the switch controlling the on/off status of this protection system in the response to environmental stress,” Amelio summarizes the finding.

The question of how p53-inactivated tumours develop genomic instability has plagued the scientific community for quite some time. “Now we have certainty that, in these tumours, there is a problem at the metabolic level that is reflected in the integrity of the epigenome. Hence, p53 should actually be called guardian of the (epi-)genome. 

Epigenetics Compacts Genes in Gametes 

The John Innes Centre in the UK announced the solution to an enigma: how plants compact their DNA in sperm cells. Animals, which have swimming sperm cells, do it by replacing their histones with protamines. But plants, which spread their gametes via pollen, maintain their histone-based chromatin through fertilization. Why the difference, and how do plants compact the DNA in the male gametes?

The answer was found by a research team at the Centre led by Professor Xiaoqi Feng. It involves condensates (see my article on the Caltech study) that form by phase separation, intrinsically disordered regions of certain proteins, and epigenetics. “Professor Feng’s research team used super-resolution microscopy, comparative proteomics, single-cell-type epigenomic sequencing and 3D genome mapping to investigate this mystery.” Key to the solution was identification of a histone variant named H2B.8. It is specifically expressed in sperm nuclei. 

H2B.8 has a long intrinsically disordered region (IDR), a feature that frequently allows proteins to undergo phase separation. The research found nearly all flowering plant species have H2B.8 homologs (copies), all of which contain an IDR, suggesting important functions. 

So why do plants need DNA compaction, when the sperm don’t need to swim to the egg? Pollen grains land on a pistil and send long pollen tubes to reach the eggs. Compaction of the sperm cells, therefore, serve a purpose for angiosperms. Interestingly, gymnosperms, which use a different method of pollination, do not compact their sperm genomes, and lack H2B.8. 

Dr Toby Buttress first author of the study said: “We propose that H2B.8 is a flowering plant evolutionary innovation that achieves a moderate level of nuclear condensation compared to protamines, which sacrifice transcription for super compaction. H2B.8-mediated condensation is sufficient for immotile sperm and compatible with gene activity.” 

Epigenetics Runs the Office 

A lively follow-up to Caltech’s findings last year about condensates was published by Nature, “The shape-shifting blobs that shook up cell biology.” Reporter Elie Dolgin calls these membraneless organelles droplets, condensates, and granules. She uses the same office floor plan metaphor that Caltech used: 

For years, if you asked a scientist how they pictured the inner workings of a cell, they might have spoken of a highly organized factory, with different departments each performing specialized tasks in delineated assembly lines.

Ask now, and they might be more inclined to compare the cell to a chaotic open-plan office, with hot-desking zones where different types of cellular matter gather to complete a task and then scatter to other regions. 

The picture is less one of robots anchored to the floor on an assembly line, and more one of intelligent actors gathering on the fly, interacting, sharing materials, and solving problems. Isn’t that just like squishy biology anyway? Cells seem like chaotic blobs at one level, but they somehow give rise to a flying owl, a leaping dolphin, and a mathematician at a chalkboard. Clearly things are working at levels of engineering beyond our current ability to fathom. 

“We have the observations that condensates form,” says Jonathon Ditlev, a cellular biophysicist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada. “Now we need to show why they are important.” 

Dolgin relates how these “blobs” self-organize through phase separation, but many questions remain. How do the right ingredients get into these “molecular crucibles” that speed up interactions by orders of magnitude? How do they separate when the work is done? He doesn’t mention epigenetics in his article, but the implication is clear that genetics alone cannot explain this. 

Epigenetics Challenges Evolution 

Whether plant DNA compaction can be called an “evolutionary innovation” as opposed to a designed solution can be debated. Regarding that controversy, at The Scientist, Katarina Zimmer asks, “Do Epigenetic Changes Influence Evolution?”  

Evidence is mounting that epigenetic marks on DNA can influence future generations in a variety of ways. But how such phenomena might affect large-scale evolutionary processes is hotly debated. 

After telling about a case where nematodes inherited a stress response, Zimmer delves into the current “fierce debate” between believers and doubters about whether epigenetics requires revisions to evolutionary theory. 

No one doubts the examples of epigenetic inheritance, but some in the old guard consign them to minor roles in long-term evolution. Zimmer mentions the buzz generated by the  article by Stephen Buranyi at The Guardian asking, “Do we need a new theory of evolution?” (see David Klinghoffer’s analysis here). One of the revisionists Zimmer quotes is Alyson Ashe at the University of Sydney, who also observed epigenetic inheritance in C. elegans. 

Specifically, the Modern Synthesis developed in the 1940s supposes that evolution is driven solely by random DNA mutations. While many scientists question whether non-DNA-based mechanisms could be meaningful contributors to evolutionary processes, some say that textbooks are due for an update.

“We don’t need to rewrite and throw away the current theories, but they’re incomplete,” says Ashe. “They need adjustment to show how epigenetics can interplay with those theories.” 

Epigenetics Makes the Band Play 

Zimmer leaves the controversy unresolved, but it’s likely that Darwinians will have to face the epigenetic music soon as its drumbeat gets louder. If the instrumentalists are like the genes, other entities must be telling the band members what music to play, when to start, and how to scatter and gather into the next formation on the field, or else there would be cacophony. If neo-Darwinism cannot even get random notes on a page to result in a melody, how can it account for a drum major, manager, librarian, programmer, drill team and all the other entities needed for a coherent performance? Thanks to epigenetics, all the players condense in the right positions, move around while playing, and give a crowd-pleasing performance of “Strike Up the Band.” 

 

Yet another evangelist of the multiverse preaches the word.

 To Avoid a Cosmic Beginning, Physicist Paul Steinhardt Goes to Extraordinary Lengths

Brian Miller 

The YouTube channel Closer to Truth recently interviewed physicist Paul Steinhardt about his cyclical cosmological model. The model has proven very attractive to atheists since it avoids the philosophical implications of the universe having a beginning. I have written previously about why the model actually does not avoid a beginning and how it requires high levels of fine-tuning to generate a life-permitting universe (here,here). What struck me with renewed force in the recent interview is the model’s layer upon layer of assumptions unsupported by any empirical evidence. 

Renouncing Inflationary Cosmology 

Steinhardt is one of the most interesting and influential figures in cosmology. He was one of the original architects of inflationary cosmology. He later rejected the theory for reasons he detailed in his Scientific American article “Pop Goes the Universe.” He argued that all the major predictions of the simplest and most tractable versions of inflationary theory have failed. And current versions are so contrived and flexible that they could fit nearly any data, so they have no real explanatory power: 

A common misconception is that experiments can be used to falsify a theory. In practice, a failing theory gets increasingly immunized against experiment by attempts to patch it. The theory becomes more highly tuned and arcane to fit new observations until it reaches a state where its explanatory power diminishes to the point that it is no longer pursued … A theory like the multimess does not exclude anything and, hence, has zero power.  

The Basic Framework 

Steinhardt proposes that his cyclic model of cosmology better explains the structure of our universe and avoids many of the pitfalls of inflationary cosmology. The basic framework for his theory includes the following components:

Our universe resides in a multidimensional brane that resides in a higher dimensional space containing other parallel branes hosting other universes.

The branes collide periodically due to an interbrane force drawing them together.

The collisions result in big bang events in the branes. The universes in the branes then expand due to the energy of the collision causing a contracting universe to bounce into an expanding one. The branes reset to their original separation. 

The collision transfers energy into a scalar field. That energy then transfers from the scalar field into the production of matter and energy uniformly filling the universe. 

The universe expands as in standard Big Bang cosmology with galaxies, stars, and planets forming as the universe cools. 

The expansion of the universe eventually accelerates. 

The expansion phase ends, and the universe begins to slowly contract. The slow contraction smooths out the universe.  

The contraction ends in a bounce, and the universe again expands starting a new cycle. 

The expansion, contraction, and bounce are directed by the energy of the scalar field whose value corresponds to the distance between the branes. 

Multitude of Assumptions 

The cyclic cosmological model purportedly explains such features of our universe as the near uniformity of the cosmic background radiation and the lack of curvature of space as well as other models, but it can only do so by relying on numerous speculative assumptions. The entire framework is founded on string theory which many physicists are starting to seriously question (here, here). It also assumes the existence of parallel multidimensional branes containing separate universes — a questionable application of string theory, even if true. The collision of the branes must occur in just the right manner to generate universes with just the right amount of inhomogeneity to birth galaxies with stars and planets. 

Even if all of these assumptions were true, the level of fine-tuning required in the bounces would still be immense. Cosmologist Andrei Linde stated about an earlier version of the model the following 

By evaluating the initial amplitude of quantum fluctuations on the scale corresponding to the observable part of the universe one finds that the branes must be parallel to each other with an accuracy better than 10−60 on a scale 1030 times greater than the distance between the branes. 

In addition, even if branes existed and collided properly, justifying the dynamics of such highly orchestrated expansion, contraction, and bounces requires postulating a very particular scalar field. Its value must depend upon the distance between the branes, and its energy must be described by a very specific mathematical form. And the transfer of energy from the field into the production of common matter and energy requires the proper coupling of the scalar field with the fields underlying the matter and energy. 

The irony is that Steinhardt’s criticisms of inflationary cosmology likely apply with equal force to his own theory. No empirical evidence supports any of the theory’s essential components. The numerous ad hoc features of his model are likely flexible enough to explain any observed data with the right choice of fine-tuned parameters and initial conditions. And the only testable predictions of string theory, which forms the bedrock for the entire framework, have failed. Claims that cyclic cosmology offers a compelling explanation for the structure of our universe is considered by most cosmologists dubious at best. 

A Simpler Explanation 

The most obvious conclusion about our universe is that it was created by a transcendent mind who designed it for the purpose of supporting life. This hypothesis is further supported by the evidence for design we see in our planetary system and throughout life. Denying the conclusion of design has forced scientists to propose the most arcane and contrived theories filled with multiverses, mysterious fields, and other wild speculations. Such efforts by many scientists are perfectly reasonable given their materialist framework. But an honest evaluation of the evidence should at some point inspire them to question their philosophical assumptions.  

Planet X: a brief history.

 Hypothetical Planet X 

Overview: 

Caltech researchers have found mathematical evidence suggesting there may be a "Planet X" deep in the solar system. This hypothetical Neptune-sized planet orbits our Sun in a highly elongated orbit far beyond Pluto. The object, which the researchers have nicknamed "Planet Nine," could have a mass about 10 times that of Earth and orbit about 20 times farther from the Sun on average than Neptune. It may take between 10,000 and 20,000 Earth years to make one full orbit around the Sun.

The announcement does not mean there is a new planet in our solar system. The existence of this distant world is only theoretical at this point and no direct observation of the object nicknamed "Planet 9" have been made. The mathematical prediction of a planet could explain the unique orbits of some smaller objects in the Kuiper Belt, a distant region of icy debris that extends far beyond the orbit of Neptune. Astronomers are now searching for the predicted planet. 

In Depth 

In January 2015, Caltech astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown announced new research that provides evidence of a giant planet tracing an unusual, elongated orbit in the outer solar system. The prediction is based on detailed mathematical modeling and computer simulations, not direct observation.

This large object could explain the unique orbits of at least five smaller objects discovered in the distant Kuiper Belt.

"The possibility of a new planet is certainly an exciting one for me as a planetary scientist and for all of us," said Jim Green, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division. "This is not, however, the detection or discovery of a new planet. It's too early to say with certainty there's a so-called Planet X. What we're seeing is an early prediction based on modeling from limited observations. It's the start of a process that could lead to an exciting result."

The Caltech scientists believe Planet X may have has a mass about 10 times that of Earth and be similar in size to Uranus or Neptune. The predicted orbit is about 20 times farther from our Sun on average than Neptune (which orbits the Sun at an average distance of 2.8 billion miles). It would take this new planet between 10,000 and 20,000 years to make just one full orbit around the Sun (where Neptune completes an orbit roughly every 165 years). 

When was it Discovered? 

Planet X has not yet been discovered, and there is debate in the scientific community about whether it exists. The prediction in the Jan. 20 issue of the Astronomical Journal is based on mathematical modeling. 

What is its Name? 

Batygin and Brown nicknamed their predicted object "Planet Nine," but the actual naming rights of an object go to the person who actually discovers it. The name used during previous hunts for the long suspected giant, undiscovered object beyond Neptune is "Planet X."

If the predicted world is found, the name must be approved by the International Astronomical Union. Planets are traditionally named for mythological Roman gods. 

Why Do They Think It's There? 

Astronomers studying the Kuiper Belt have noticed some of the dwarf planets and other small, icy objects tend to follow orbits that cluster together. By analyzing these orbits, the Caltech team predicted the possibility that a large, previously undiscovered planet may be hiding far beyond Pluto.

They estimate the gravity of this potential planet might explain the unusual orbits of those Kuiper objects. 

What’s Next? 

Astronomers, including Batygin and Brown, will begin using the world's most powerful telescopes to search for the object in its predicted orbit. Any object that far away from the Sun will be very faint and hard to detect, but astronomers calculate that it should be possible to see it using existing telescopes.

"I would love to find it," says Brown. "But I'd also be perfectly happy if someone else found it. That is why we're publishing this paper. We hope that other people are going to get inspired and start searching."

"Anytime we have an interesting idea like this, we always apply Carl Sagan's rules for critical thinking, which include independent confirmation of the facts, looking for alternate explanations, and encouraging scientific debate," said Green. "If Planet X is out there, we'll find it together. Or we'll determine an alternate explanation for the data that we've received so far.

"Now let's go explore." 

Sources 

Fesenmaier, Kimm, "Caltech Researchers Find Evidence of a Real Ninth Planet," press release, last modified January 20, 2015

Konstantin Batygin and Michael E. Brown, "Evidence for a Distant Giant Planet in the Solar System," The Astronomical Journal

Green, James, "A New Planet in our Solar System? NASA Takes a Look," video statement, last modified January 20, 2015